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He knew when Aerion was about to spend. He shouldn't, but he did.
His brows would start to twitch and his teeth would catch at his lips, sucking and biting them until he released with a gasping sigh, tendons jumping in his delicate neck and pulse visibly thrumming if Baelor looked close enough.
He shouldn't be familiar enough with it to be able to describe it to himself. He watched it unfold before him now, Aerion's bitten lips slipped from the pinch of his teeth as he rolled his hips and spent in hot bursts up over Baelor's stomach, skin flushing in bright pinks and reds as he rode it out. If Baelor hadn't climaxed before Aerion, he does immediately after, his cock squeezed into that pulsing, wet tightness until it gave. It mattered not how exhausted Aerion seemed or for how long he'd drawn out their coupling to see if the boy could stand it, he always found some hidden reserve of energy once he felt Baelor release, and would fuck himself anew against his cock until it near hurt.
His thighs squeezed at Baelor's hips, back arched into a bend over and over as he milked him of every drop of seed until he'd nothing left to offer the younger man. Aerion sighed from deep within his chest as his efforts slowed, true exhaustion finally settling in and bringing the frenzy of their tryst to a close, his hand braced against Baelor's chest, seed oozing out around the older man's softening cock where they'd yet to part from one another.
Aerion stared down at him droopy-eyed and open-mouthed as he sucked in breath after breath, his muscles rippling under his skin with each inhale and subsequent exhale. Baelor glanced down, looking over the shine of the other's seed against his skin- more golden and alive than Aerion's own, who'd taken after his father. It was a pretty contrast, one he took no small amount of pleasure in observing if he gave himself the privilege too.
That's what this all was- privilege. He was privileged that he could have this beautiful young man atop him, he was privileged that he could keep it as much a secret as anyone could hope, he was privileged that he could afford not to remarry to some other poor woman and be expected to carry out all the duties with it with none of the passion or love that one would expect between a man and his wife.
He had his sons and heirs, he couldn't thank Jena enough for them. He missed her, though not as Maekar would miss Dyanna. That was no privilege, that was selfishness; Baelor was a selfish man, then and now.
He balanced them as best he could. He let himself have Aerion in small enough doses, but never let himself overindulge or feed his desires too heartily. Aerion knew their routine well enough by now, and though it wasn't what he wanted, he honoured it near impressively considering his typical degree of unruliness.
Baelor looked up at him now, watched as Aerion seemed to come back to himself and blinked back to the present. He sniffed with a weary hum and straightened up, reaching back as if to disconnect them. Let it be, Baelor thought as his hand twitched against where he'd rested it at Aerion's knee, fingertips drawing vague shapes over his skin. He felt Aerion's fingers brush his sack and reached out quick to grasp at his hip, squeezing to draw the other's attention.
"What?" Aerion asked sullenly, though his knuckles rested against Baelor's inner thigh, a hand temporarily stayed.
Baelor's mouth opened and closed, though his hold on Aerion's hip remained firm, his other hand stretched out and sliding up the other's thigh. "Stay a moment… you have nowhere to be, I'd wager?"
Aerion frowned, lip curling like he had the taste of a nasty little retort on his tongue. "Suppose I don't. You just seem awful eager to be rid of me most other times."
He knew what Aerion looked like when he was fishing for pity, and it stung to know he wasn't doing so when he said such a thing. It was an inarguable fact, and he'd long given up testing that.
There was something soft and small and exposed in his chest that gave a reassuring kick when Aerion pressed his lips together tight and brought his hand back around to rest against Baelor's stomach. He watched the younger man avoid his gaze, playing at recovering his breath so he could pick a spot on Baelor's chest to stare at without being expected to lift his eye to meet Baelor's.
"I know I… you know it's inappropriate for us to—"
"Who decides such a thing, uncle?" Aerion asked, though his tone suggested more exasperation than intent to cause an argument. It was likely that such a query had been waiting a long, long time to be expressed.
"Decency and restraint," Baelor answered quickly- too quickly. Aerion scoffed, shaking his head and repeating Baelor's answer under his breath. "You know what will be expected of you, I don't wish to… indulge you and make any of it difficult."
Aerion swallowed, brow heavy and lashes thick and dark, "if it works for you."
Baelor ignored the clench around his heart and nodded, smoothing a hand up Aerion's stomach before he offered him a soft pat against his ribs. He could feel their spend begin to dry tacky and unpleasant where it was exposed to the air of the room, and he begrudgingly squeezed at Aerion's thigh to let him ease off Baelor's cock. He flopped heavily onto his back as Baelor rose, approaching a shallow basin tucked into the corner of the room, a cloth folded neatly over the lip. He took it in hand and wrung it out slow, blinking into the darkness of the water in the little light afforded by candles and hearth.
He felt cold, though the night wasn't exceptionally so even with his nakedness. He felt chills run in a line up his back and spread outwards until he had to stifle a shiver, squeezing the cloth and clenching his jaw as he dabbed down over the mess Aerion had made of his stomach. He heard the soft whisper of Aerion shuffling around on the bed, and glanced up to take in the impressive lounge the boy had settled into: an arm draped over his face and a leg dangled off the edge of the mattress, kicking softly in a subtle show of impatience.
He'd smelled nice: spicy and herbal like the oils and perfumes from the baths in the Keep; there was no doubt Baelor smelled of him too where Aerion's sweat had dripped against his skin and dried. He scrubbed harder at his flesh before he caught himself and stayed his hand, forcing it back into the basin to wet and wring it anew.
Baelor approached Aerion on inexplicably shaky legs, reaching out a hand to beckon the man closer to the edge of the bed to be wiped down. Aerion knew this routine well, too, and wordlessly spread his knees to let Baelor dip the cloth between his thighs and against the sticky wetness of his hole, not wanting to leave the young man with the humiliation of wandering back to his quarters with seed oozing down the inside of his thigh.
He always became avoidant and awkward when Baelor wiped him down. Baelor suspected he didn't often get touched so intimately and so softly, whether it be in such a vulnerable place or not. He let Baelor move him and bend his leg and wipe up over his soft prick and the small, soft crease of flesh low on his stomach where he'd half sat himself up. By the time Baelor pulled the cloth away and moved to toss it back over the basin, he looked half-ready for bed.
"Do you want me to go now?" Aerion asked in a quiet, reserved tone, having already sat himself up fully by the time Baelor turned to face him again.
Baelor approached him slowly, sliding a hand over his jaw once he was close enough to touch. Aerion's brow was lined with mistrust and Baelor watched his cheeks twitch as he gnawed the inside of his lip. "If it's what you wish, you may go."
Confusion became immediately apparent at the lack of definite dismissal. Aerion frowned and hardly moved a muscle as Baelor dropped his hand from the other's face and pressed a knee into the bed, letting himself down against the mattress with a heavy sigh. He shifted until he could brace his head back against a cushion, eyeing off the notches in Aerion's spine and the small, pretty scars littering his back.
He acknowledged that this broke new ground for the both of them, and as much as he wished to reach out and pull the younger man against him, he loathed the thought of pressing him into spending any more time than he'd like in Baelor's chambers. The voice deep in the back of his head begged for the boy to stay; the large, immovable mass of reason and decency snapped at it, hoping Aerion could hold the better judgement that Baelor found himself incapable of on this evening.
But of course, he didn't. Aerion pressed his palms into the bed and pushed himself around, timidly moving to lay himself down beside Baelor, knees together and arms withdrawn against himself as if he were unwilling to take up more room than he was bid.
He was a curious little creature. If Baelor raised his voice and began dragging him about, he was sure Aerion's eyes would flash and he'd return to that snapping, nasty beast that shoved the serving girls when his father left the room and put that tormented look into Aegon's eyes through Gods know what means. But if he was met with a soft hand he seemed utterly lost- sex he knew, violence he knew, but the rest of it? As wide-eyed and clueless as a lamb.
Summerhall wasn't known for its warmth, he supposed.
Aerion was looking at him expectantly, and Baelor let a curl reach the corners of his mouth as he reached out, brushing the backs of his fingers over the sharp outline of his collarbone. "You look uncomfortable, boy."
"I've not a clue what you want from me. I feel like you're about to give me foul news."
He chuckled, though the genuine distress that underlaid Aerion's tone gnawed at him. "Nothing of the sort, I…" he debated dropping what he was about to say in favour of letting it settle back in the recesses of his mind to never be disturbed again, but then he cleared his throat and tried again. "I would enjoy the company if you'd allow me to have it."
More suspicion from Aerion, though part of him must believe Baelor, as the rigid tightness to his body relaxed somewhat. "Why now? You've only just stopped lecturing me on the matter of decency and restraint."
"I know, I know… call it selfish of me, but for whatever reason I find myself incapable of abiding by my own words on this night."
Aerion blinked at him, thoroughly unsatisfied with the answer.
"Have you ever spent the night with someone, Aerion?" he asked hesitantly, working through this tangled mess of questions they'd made themselves.
Aerion scoffed, "whores shouldn't wake beside you, it's unseemly."
He laughed and it shocked him as much as it shocked Aerion, who near jolted like he'd been struck, cheeks flushed as he defended himself. "What are you laughing about? You finish in them or on them and you send them off. I'll not wake in the night to some wench rifling through my belongings for a copper."
Baelor took Aerion's moment of outrage to shift closer, hooking a hand over the dip in his waist to pull him in, his nerves abating somewhat as he watched Aerion settle more into the contact. His skin was soft and indeed still held that biting spice from the baths as Baelor pulled them together, thumbing over a freckle on Aerion's throat. "So no, then?"
Aerion wedged an arm under himself and braced against his elbow, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth, "no. I haven't."
Baelor nodded and watched as the skin of Aerion's lip grew increasingly red and raw. "You get used to it, you become dependent on the warmth and the presence. When it's gone it can be… difficult to go without. It's not an easily replaced feeling, even if you find a warm body." He thumbed at that freckle over and over as if the repetitive action would help him get the words out, though it seemed to serve only to bother Aerion, who swatted at his hand until Baelor settled it against his hip instead. "I suppose having you in King's Landing is a temptation that's made that loss worse."
That tempted a curl to Aerion's lip, his neck curving as he tilted his head almost alluringly, "you miss your wife? You'll not slip me into an old dress of hers, will you?"
The jape stung, but Baelor didn't let it show on his face. "I miss her presence, yes. And no, I'll not put you in any gowns or bodices."
Aerion's eyes hardened, the delicate skin of his throat flushing and Baelor knew it to be jealousy before the boy even opened his mouth. "Is that why you never kiss me, why you never let me stay or hold me or… any of that? You're worried you'll disrespect the memory of a woman you never loved?"
It was hard to stay schooled into neutrality in the face of such sudden, flaring anger, but Baelor weathered it besides; it wasn't Aerion that was the guiltiest of parties among them. He had pulled this young man into his closeness, he had let this relation spread between them like a noxious weed and it was all his responsibility to tend to it, thorns and all.
"I loved her, and it is no affront to you that I loved her and I'll not let you besmirch her, but I'm afraid the reason you're here now, with me…" he slid his hand up Aerion's side, steeling himself with a short breath, "is because I care for you. More than I should, and perhaps more than is decent for either of us, or even safe."
He'd loved Jena, but not as a husband should. He'd spent so many years wishing he could even before her passing. She was stoic and proud and strong and he had loved her for it though not enough to ever be in love with her. He knew Aerion would not understand such a thing at his age with his experiences or lack thereof, but he could try to lay it out for him- for his sake.
Aerion kept that disagreeable twist to his face, but Baelor could see him turn each word over in his head threefold. He hoped the boy could see what he was so delicately trying to lay down, and that he would not jump to the harshest, coldest assumption and paint himself as Baelor's whore or hopeful bedwarmer or plaything.
Is he not your whore? A voice hissed at him from some shadowy corner of his conscience. He ignored it- he could not stomach a reality in which he'd reduce such a vulnerable, tormented young man to such a role. He hoped Aerion benefited from their closeness as much as he did, even if Baelor could not in good conscience treat him as a companion or spouse.
"Aerion, we cannot be much more to one another than this… I will not let myself complicate you anymore than I have. I cannot take you as my wife or my partner, but I also cannot take back what I've let pass between us, do you understand?"
His eyes looked glassy, and it was unlike him to be so quiet.
"I would ask you stay the night though it's a selfish, selfish thing for me to do. I care for you too much to let you be disillusioned with what can and cannot be. You will need to leave in the morning, and if you find yourself in my bed again I cannot let you stay, no matter how much I may want to."
Aerion swallowed and Baelor heard the click in his throat, he watched Aerion squeeze his eyes shut and make the choice between acceptance and defiance. When the boy worked his eyes open again and pressed himself forward to rest his head against Baelor's chest he knew he'd sided with acceptance.
"I'll stay," he murmured into Baelor's skin.
"Thank you," he answered back softly, rolling Aerion onto his back with as much gentleness as he spoke to him with, resting his ear against the young man's chest until he could hear the unsteady beat of his heart; it had been so, so long since he could do such a thing. He listened to it thump and felt the reverberation of it against his cheek. "You're a good boy when you mean to be, Aerion."
"You're only saying such a thing because I said yes."
Baelor squeezed at Aerion's side, "trust that I only tell you truths, especially after what has been said tonight."
Aerion placed his hands hesitantly against Baelor's shoulders and back, feeling over the muscle and scar tissue there like it was the first time. He heard the other's breaths come shallower, heart skipping in its rhythm and he knew that finally he had broken through to him, their agreement settling soft like fresh snow over them, but Baelor could no longer feel the cold.
The boy was warm and alive and here, and would be until morning.