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Ormund is in the sept. He’s been seeking shelter here every day. More often than he normally would. By the altar. Succumbing to prayers. Into the hands of the Seven. For penance. For absolution.
Or pretending to.
The thoughts he’s been plagued with remain so persistent they steal him away from the secrecy of faith. From the steel will of his devotion.
His devotion shaken in its pillars. Lies elsewhere. Or maybe always has.
Since Daeron’s been betrothed to Rhaena Targaryen, since the lords of the Reach visit with congratulations, to participate in welcoming balls, to offer presents and discuss political alliances. It’s been a constant celebration in Oldtown. The victory of the Lord Paramount in creating a conciliatory bridge with the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. By his own design. Ormund simply bowed and paid his tribute. To first independent decisions of the boy king slowly becoming the king daring he’s styled him into.
Ormund’s fingers dig into the stony surface of the altar now, as he feigns the posture of a praying, humble servant of the faith. Hands clasped but, in truth, clenched into fists.
Daeron’s been growing, filling up the role of the monarch with a stunning grace and natural instinct. The way he addresses the court, guides the visitors, maintains conversations on all matters and finally thrives in the company of Lady Rhaena. All smiles, cordial gestures, charm and adoration.
This was Ormund’s desire all along, wasn’t it. This was what his upbringing was to shape Daeron into. A true man of the kingdom, formidable piece on board but also the one who they all will flock to as their shepherd of the light.
Ormund understands this. Ormund accepts this. Should be proud of this. And cheer for this. And yet, he’s here, in the sept, again. Like he is every day. Clinging to faith that’s been eluding him and acting like he can be forgiven in his own head for straying so far and so sinfully.
He can smell Daeron before the young king settles by him. Cursed with this sensitivity it was never any bother with Daeron. On the contrary. The boy’s smell could be bottled to bring him soothing sensation of familiar and anchoring. Something fresh, citrus-y. Quenching thirst in the hot afternoon day. Mouthwatering and juicy. Something that pushes Ormund into seeking confessional. If only his thoughts weren’t so stained. So impure. So restless and greedy.
“May I pray with you, uncle?”
Daeron can’t see the way his entire posture stiffens. The way his fists tremble to break through the stone. “The sept is open for all believers, Your Grace.”
“You’ve been a regular visitor, I’ve noticed. Something troubles you, my lord sire?” Daeron does notice things. Of course he does. Ormund has taught him enough perceptiveness to recognise the weaknesses, to be able to conquer the opponents or sway them into his side. A skill Daeron is now using effectively against his teacher. And Gwayne sow enough empathy in him for Daeron to be able to tap on the raw emotions, embrace them and reciprocate them with delicacy and kindness unlike few men of the kingdom can express.
“I am merely praying for the success of the preparations and positive outcome of the negotations Your Grace leads with King’s Landing,” Ormund clears his throat, because the lies feel slimy and moist in his mouth.
“I haven’t been seeing you much throughout the whole process. What happened to our cyvasse games and our reading sessions and us training with swords, uncle?” Ormund thinks he can detect resignation. Can observe it in a way Daeron leans against the altar. Like he’s asking the gods for answers to his doubts and his insecurities aimed atOrmund.
“My king has been mastering all the skills and shines with them at all fronts for all the lords and ladies of the court to see. I do not find myself needed in those areas anymore. And there are matters of protection I am assigned with that cannot be ignored or discarded.”
Daeron’s hand is on his. And Ormund tenses. He’s sure there will be marks of his nails now breaking skin as he digs them into his own skin to refrain himself from responding. In an almost beastly manner his mind has been whispering to him in. And then the words follow. Worse than the slashes of a knife, making him choke on the whimper expanding in his chest. “You are always needed, uncle.”
Ormund moves. Away from this charade. From the pretend. His faith is soiled. His body broken. And his mind encompassed in fever. “You are no longer a boy, Daeron. And I am the knight of your guard and your hand, first and foremost. And as such I serve you to the best of my capabilities. Forgive me, my king. I must retire now, for said duties await.”
And he might as well be running. The way he rushes out of the building. Even if the pull to go back, to give in, to surrender to that fever makes him want to stay bound to Daeron, on his knees, pleading for the slashes of the knife.
Something, anything to bring relief to the chaos in him boiling.
Ormund dreams. It’s no longer the glory of power. Ruling the whole kingdom. Covering the lands with the green banners and green beacons. Being blessed by the Seven and the smallfolk adoring.
In his dreams, there’s pale skin. Freckles. He kisses like he would eat sweetest berries. Hungry and without limitations. His fingers leave marks on the ivory texture of trembling muscles and arching back. He cages the wild, moving hips with his palms. And there are prints there, too. Of him. On this pliant, owned body. The sweet, plump mouth speaks his name. Parting, opening under his own. Drinking his orders and confessions like honey.
You’re mine.
I’m yours.
Made for me.
Yes.
Shaped by me.
Yes.
Me inside you is all the faith I can ever wish for.
Yes, uncle.
He wakes up, sweaty, filthy and hard. Looks for purge and solace in the cold bath. Refuses to touch himself, beating the edge of the basin with his fists and choking on a scream of a wounded animal he’s terrified to discover lives inside him. Or rather has been dormant inside him all along.
With Daeron holding the leash.
Daeron is dancing with Lady Rhaena. He’s regal and graceful. Cuts such majestic figure. And yet there’s elegance and lightness to him that’s almost ethereal. Like a creature of fantastical stories from Asshai. With wings, dust made of falling stars and flowery aroma.
Ormund would laugh out loud, if he wasn’t attending his duties of a royal guard. If he wasn’t clinging to already pathetically weak pretenses. Crumbling inside him like made of paper thin resolve. That he is able to remain the figure of decorum, pride and will made of steel. Around Daeron.
Daeron’s wearing the house colours. Like an armour of glory and victory. Peace and harmony. His hair’s grown longer, spills down his back like rivulets of pomegranate juice Ormund wants to drink like a man perched on the desert lands of Dorne. No composure. No pretend. Slurp on it like a filthy sinner he is. The surcoat fits his frame so well. He’s broad enough to wield the sword with efficiency of a seasoned swordsman but lean and tall, like a likeness carved on the emblems of the just, kind, good ruler he is. The way he moves with his betrothed, there’s shyness, asking permission. There’s curiosity of young infatuation. Chasing the cues and responding to ones.
Ormund’s hand clasps on the head of his sword. He thinks of wielding it. Of running onto the battlefield somewhere far into the North where they chase the wild folk from beyond the wall. To sink it into the bodies. To spill rivers of blood. To tear the night into pieces with violence and war. Then he feels sick. A simple barbarian. Ruthless simpleton. Cursed by the gods.
He’s become a creature of raw instincts. Worse than the dragon lords in the times of the old Valyria. Worse than the Dothraki. There is no absolution for him. His faith is a small, nasty thing made of nothing but falsehood. A pile of lies. The stink of which surely reaches the heaven itself. And sets the Gods against him. Clings to him like second skin. Filthy, ugly, disgusting. For everyone to see. And to point their fingers to condemn him. Burn him on a stake.
“Do you dance, uncle?” Daeron is by him, caught Ormund off guard. Even if he always knows that the boy (no, the man) approaches. He can read his steps and recognise the aroma from afar.
But perhaps this is the crux of it.
That in the end Daeron did catch him off guard.
“I guard, my king,” Ormund responds, a gruff to his voice. Of annoyance. Because of being exposed. He doesn’t manage to hide it. Beneath the pleasantries and the composure. Daeron rattles him. Like he’s really turned into that beast inside the cage. Whining for freedom. (Whining to sink his teeth into Daeron).
“Ever?”
“Is this a proposition, then?” Ormund sees the button on Daeron’s neck has opened. Or maybe Daeron unclasped it on purpose. The sweat breaking on his skin, Ormund can smell. Can easily get drunk on. Into the feverish madness of a stray dog. Ormund can’t stop staring. The patches of white, milky skin of his chest sneaking through. Ormund needs to know if Daeron’s freckles there have a taste of their own.
“The king does not propose, my lord. The king demands,” Daeron states, hands clasped behind his back, posture tall, taller than Ormund is. And it’s started to feel like he’s been towering over Ormund anyway some time ago. It almost pulls on his bones. Forces him to his knees. No. Not forces. He would go gladly. To pay his tribute. His everlasting tribute. That leash already held mercilessly tight in Daeron’s hands.
“I do not think the court would suffer such display, Your Grace.”
Daeron gets himself closer. Leans. The smell has Ormund dizzy. Needy. Pathetic. He is a crawling insect at the boots of King Daeron the Daring. And the way Daeron peers into his eyes makes Ormund wonder if he knows. If he realises. Maybe he’s always known.
“The court does what I ordain, my lord Hightower. And it feels like if I don’t trap you in a waltz with me I will not have another chance to have you close. To keep you close,” it’s whispered, against Ormund’s face. With the mouth shaped into berries Ormund wishes to devour without shame and limitations.
“I believe your lady wife is expecting you, my king,” Ormund says, sharp and definite. Like he would give orders back in the day of being Daeron’s guardian and disciplining him.
“She is not my lady wife, yet,” Daeron remains standing. A wall to break through. A tower to conquer. An unmovable challenge.
“But she shall be. Very soon. Thus you have duties to attend to and I am not to be a distraction in that,” Ormund spills the round words of propriety. Righteous sermons from before. When Daeron was a child. An easily impressionable boy. Soaking up his entire presence like a flower unfurling for the sun. Ormund desired to feed him this nectar until he would overflow.
But Daeron is not a child anymore. He is a man grown. Of his own mindset. Morals. And stubbornness. Now it is Ormund who feels trapped in the honey of this flower like a fly to be devoured whole.
Daeron confirms it. Still standing too close. Still speaking with his mouth taking up the entire vision of Ormund. “You are in my court. My hand and my royal guard. And I decide what’s appropriate, uncle.”
Ormund has an experience of facing challenges, of partaking in the war campaigns, of looking into the coldest heart of fear and enduring. So he does stand the ground. Reciprocates Daeron’s demanding gaze (even if the whirpool of his bluest eyes pulls him into so that he drowns, all logic, morals and restraint dissolving into heat and awe). “Order me, then, my king. Whatever you wish.” And yet barely endures this one unscathed.
Flashes of his dreams, skin bending, red marks of claiming, mouth open and gasping and hair spilling like pomegranate spring of sin around them moving around each other sinuously chasing release.
He thinks of grabbing Daeron, biting into his lips. Drinking his moans, embracing the arch of his body and having him, here, on the table, for all the lords and ladies to see.
For Daeron to remember this, too.
Who he belongs to.
Daeron then bites on his lip. Sways closer within the pull of Ormund’s gravity and hums. Like a prey responding to the predator call. His eyes on Ormund’s mouth. Something melting, dizzy in his expression.
Capitulation.
Acceptance.
As if he knows Ormund’s thoughts. As if he gives permission to them.
It does feel like dancing already. The waltz of pulls and responses. Their chests touching, Ormund clenches his hands into fists. They shake. He’s defenseless against this boy.
No.
A man.
The king.
Lady Rhaena interrupts them. A relief and an irritation have Ormund stifle on the grunt.
“Daeron, the Fossoways wish to discuss the matter of the tourney,”
Rhaena has recovered from the wounds the initial stage of civil war left on her. Ormund knew very little of her journey to becoming the bride of the Reach. She carried scars, her hair never entirely grew back, either. Looked like a veteran of the battles that never came. Yet, she still had her own war to win. While being a motherless child. With Daemon Targaryen as the only guardian she knew. Driven by bloodlust. Striving to power. What guardianship he could offer? (Ormund fails to see the lesson here.) This is what Daeron shared with Gwayne. Before the arrangement was made. By the two of them. Ormund excluded. He went on a long day of the hunt that day. Killed a boar and a buck and hacked them into pieces. Unbothered by the blood or the gore. Consumed by a rage inside him that awakened unlike that of the dragons. No amount of praying afterwords brought comfort or reassurance. Something ugly and greedy in him came to life and has clung to him from within ever since. Threatening to break free for everyone to see and condemn him.
Even if he tried to justify it. Daeron, his precious Daeron with his empathy and his good heart. Taking in strays. This is what this arrangement was about. Unworthy of the King of the Reach. That is all. He knew, deep down. The beast in him still remains unfed for a whole different reasons. That always came in the dreams. Where he feasted on the shudders, licked on sighs and moulded Daeron’s body till they both reach rupture.
“At once, Rhaena,” Daeron’s hand goes to the small of lady Rhaena’s back as he tears himself away from the gravitational pull and leaves Ormund starved and, what feels like, entirely exposed.
His king sends an invitation to his chambers. Ormund’s been discussing taxes with the Lannisters but the matter is urgent and must be attended to immediately.
He finds Daeron by the table with the cyvasse board set in front of him and a gesture of invitation to take the place in front of him.
“Please, my lord Hightower, join me.”
“This was the urgency you required, my king?” Ormund scoffs but the warmth of pride blossoms in his heart. For Daeron’s insolence that doesn’t feel like arrogance. It’s a confidence of a ruler coined over years of growing in patience, strategy and wisdom. Through Ormund’s upbringing but his own character, too.
“Do you not find it urgent, uncle? To revisit our little tradition in the days of intricate politicking within the fragile land division of the kingdom?”
“If my king insists, how can I refuse.”
Ormund sits opposite Daeron. And this does take him back. Except it’s nothing like in those days. When he taught that shuddering in focus and adoration boy everything. Faith, history, politics. When those bluest eyes trailed after him with utmost intent. And he crumbled in shame whenever he dared to win against Ormund.
This withering flower desperate for attention. Care. And tending to.
Now Daeron sits in the armchair with nonchalance. His posture regal. His expression no longer carrying a fierce enthrallment of a child. There is a mild interest to the corner of his lips lifted. His eyes peer and pin and examine Ormund like he’s a speciman to be dismantled. Unwrapped from the layers and bitten into the core of his.
He shifts in his position. His body tight. Hot. His belly hungry.
No. There is not much left of that boy here in this room. And Ormund chokes on the laughter. Bitter if genuine. Because it’s Ormund that made sure of it and now he tries to endure the fruits of his own scheme.
Endure Daeron’s overwhelming presence.
“For each won game I get to ask you a question and I require only honest answers. If I lose, you get to do the same, uncle.”
There is only one thing that sips through from the past. Daeron calling him uncle. It carries a different weight to it now, though. Heavy, hot and dirty. No more familial awe within the name. But possessiveness instead. Provocation, too.
They begin. Daeron’s strategies mimic those Ormund would use against him. He’s defensive and patient. Stretches the moves into complex patterns and makes it difficult to predict the results. Doesn’t go for the dragon, like he used to do (young, impulsive, Targaryen traits taking over and having him act with blinding passion). Now he’s a negotiator, rather. Balances the pieces, places them in the areas that push Ormund into the same impulsive decisions Daeron would commit to lose in the past. (It’s Ormund who finds himself blinded by impulses and emotions now.)
So, he does lose the first game to Daeron’s small, sated smile shaping his mouth into so very red and tempting.
“Question. Was me becoming king not always your design, uncle?”
Ormund plays with a wooden piece of his tower. Feels caught by Daeron’s eyes regardless. “Yes, it was,” he declares his absolute credo.
“Then what has changed? For I do not feel like you share this vision with me anymore, lord Ormund?”
The indecent words come rushing through. Brimming in his chest. Burning. Bearing him open. But he doesn’t give them a voice. The wooden piece in his hand almost breaking skin. He grips it so tight.
I don’t wish to share you with anyone. I want to have you for myself. I want to have you at all. Never allow you to leave my bed. I want you, the whole of you, as mine, all mine. Gods be damned and the whole kingdom.
When he speaks, it’s with carefulness of a politician. To weave the web of enough of a distraction. Something he’s been always most effective at.
“You are the king on board, Your Grace. Front and center. I am merely a crossbowman. In the background. Protecting your flanks, not drawing attention. I have fulfilled my role of a guardian and removed myself accordingly with you arriving to your own.”
Ormund has stopped addressing Daeron with his name. To create a safe distance. To be able to embrace this new power division between them. And to find himself in this new place of an inferior. Detached and pragmatic.
No matter how much it stirs the rage inside him. Plagues him with thoughts of locking Daeron in the tower, chained to him forever. His. Only his.
Daeron nods, his face unreadable but he starts setting out new pieces on his part of the board, indicating that he accepts the answer, allows Ormund to hide behind his lies.
The game continues. With evened out opportunities for the both of them. Daeron sometimes rushes his moves too much and falls into Ormund’s traps. Then he knows how to withdraw at the right moment to force Ormund’s hand into a stalemate and win. Each stage is followed by the question and the answer and Ormund doesn’t remember the last time they got to sit like that and talk. (This is what’s prompted this at all, he supposes) Even if more often than not he wields his shield of half truths and avoidance.
“Why lady Rhaena?” Ormund asks. It’s impulsive and ridiculous. Makes him sound like a whiny child.
“Why not lady Rhaena. It’s a political arrangement, sealing our good graces with Driftmark. An ally that in times of the hoards of corsairs raiding our trade ships from the Free Cities on the Sunset Sea is most valuable asset, ” Daeron says very matter-of-factly. Like he’s discussing the finances of the castle. Even though Ormund remembers the warmth he has around his future lady wife. The charm he beams with. Care and attentiveness he shows to her fitful, neurotic disposition.
“Is there a room for affection, then?” Ormund follows and again chastises himself for betraying infantile neediness.
“That is a question out of terms, my lord. If you wish to ask it, you have to win it,” the corner of Daeron’s lips (those lips) lifts and Ormund thinks of scattering the pieces, crawling across the table and drink from this mouth, the endless, sweetest, headiest sin.
Maybe that’s why Daeron wins another one.
“Why have you never married, uncle?” Daeron’s eyes are dark and stormy. Hypnotising as if he has the power to lure the entire truth into the outside. Ormund struggles not to permit it. Again.
Because there was only ever you, Daeron.
But manages to cling to a safety of restraint.
“Duty and sacrifice. That’s the way of our family. My duty has always been to you, as my ward, then, as my prince and so I shaped my entire life around this without nurturing desires for anything else.”
Daeron stares at him. Trails his gaze along Ormund’s face. Stops at his mouth. And lingers. The storminess of the blue of his eyes doesn’t pass and the room grows smaller. Tighter. Stifling.
“Does this mean, uncle, that all your desires have always been for me, then?”
Ormund is exposed. The shield of lies has been stripped off him. And he’s sitting there defenseless and for the taking. And Daeron takes. With his eyes. Every layer remaining. He rips off him. Almost there, digging into the core where he would find only Daeron filling up the entire space.
“That is a question out of terms, my king. If you wish to ask it, you have to win it,” he mirrors the tease back, though his voice lacks the bite. He feels unwrapped.
Unfurled.
Naked for Daeron
“Hmm. Maybe another time, my lord. I have things to attend to and this has been most illuminating, regardless,” Daeron purrs and a smile stretching his lips has a sharp glint, an edge. Of predatorish focus. Hunger. Alertness. Like Ormund is that central piece on board of the game Daeron wants to wield at the proper moment to become victorious. To become undefeated.
When Ormund bows and starts leaving he feels these eyes on his every move until the door shuts behind him.
A pull of a leash. He wouldn’t know how to be without anyway.
“His Grace requests you for a ride, my lord. You are to dress lightly. It’s to a nearby wood for a picnic, I’ve been told. An anniversary of sorts,” Roxton informs him on their way back from breakfast.
Ormund isn’t aware of any royal anniversary, even if he’s fiercely committed to schedule, to dates and to organisation in general. He should feel mocked at. Played with. A doll to parade. Daeron telling him what to wear, where to be, when to assist him.
He doesn’t.
He puts on an earthly brown soft, woven wool tunic. The colour Daeron often chooses for him for the royals welcoming ceremonies. (“It matches my Hightower green, uncle.” And yes, it does. They match, into a whole. When Ormund guards him by the table. Standing loyally behind, A shield. A pillar of safety and protection. It stirs pride in him. And the possessiveness that never goes away around Daeron.) His riding trousers and sturdy leather boots complete the set.
It does feel liberating to rid himself of the armour. Once in a while. He wears it with pride and with purpose. It constitutes of the safety of the layers, too. Something he’s not so certain he could be able to maintain without the breastplate, pauldrons and gauntlets around Daeron anymore.
Around the assault of his confidence. And his dare. (As if he took the knighthood name that he was given and every day threw it at Ormund’s face, taunting).
But once he leaves his chambers, feeling light and comfortable, he thinks to himself, he’s been stripped bare a long time ago and the armour no longer serves its purpose anyway.
Daeron waits for him by the stables. With horses ready. Expression elusive.
He’s wearing rich, deep green gambeson and his long, auburn hair, reaching his back, with braids woven in like the horselords do for riding convenience and their battle seasoning (Daeron never had to participate in one but the road to him ruling the plains of the Reach was long and perilous and so he is deserving of the badges of courage and honour regardless). The rest of it spills against the green of the garment like a river of that sweetsour juice Ormund dreams of getting drunk on every night.
He swallows and asks.
“What’s the occasion, Your Grace?”
“An important one,” Daeron hands him the reins of Ormund’s chestnut mare Daeron likes to call Whimsy, because according to him she is the only one attuned to his sire’s kaleidoscope of moods. And only Ormund knows how to soothe her.
Their hands touch. Ormund prolongs it. The softness of Daeron’s skin has him gasp out loud. Daeron notices. Allows the moment to settle. And then withdraws to his black stallion. Also a temperamental one but Daeron is a dragon rider. Taming the beasts is in his blood. (Something that used to terrify Ormund. Because it was such a disturbance of the order and the control he’s always known. Until he saw Daeron’s command of Tessarion over Honeywine. When he arrived like a saviour. Their unison. His trust. Her devotion. His strength and her willingness to obey. It left him stumble into awe. Speechless and stunted.) The way he is with his horse resembles that memory. Daeron seeks a replacement, too, since Tessarion stays in Dragonstone, with other dragons, occasionally visited by the prince. They no longer fly their dragons, though. The creatures slowly merge with the wildness. With others of their kind. Free and no longer used as instruments of power. Because it goes against their nature and the Valyrian religion. The doom of the Targaryen house was because of the disrespect towards these god-like beings. One does not exploit the Old Gods glory for their petty purposes.
(“I miss it. The flight, the sense of endless. Freedom absolute. But I can find it with the horses, too. And here, in the Reach,” Daeron once told him, melancholy in his eyes but resolve in his voice. And yes, seeing him horse riding, often without a saddle, with the strength of his body able to command this creature without the reins is indeed a sight to behold).
And so it is also now. When Daeron gracefully swings himself on the back of his mount. His whole body settles against it instinctively and the way he’s able to stir the animal just with his thighs has Ormund look, throat perched, palms sweaty.
He asks, after a beat of gathering composure. “And where’s the feast for the picnic?”
“Awaits us, my lord,” and Daeron clucks at his ride and with a firm nudge of his heels he sets off into the horizon not waiting for Ormund to follow.
Knowing he will. (Like he did his entire life).
The ride is quiet. Daeron doesn’t speak. The nature is sufficiently loud around them. The chirping of the birds, the mewls of the livestock, gentle morning breeze creaking in the trunks and the branches of the trees. Daeron looks like he’s been cut out from the landscape. He belongs here completely. Might be the young god of the myths from the East riding the wind itself. Being the wind. Zephyrus. Untamed and restless.
Gods. Ormund used to write ballads. He loved reading poetry. Savoured it like fine wine.
Now, Daeron is it. Ormund drinks this sight and feels sated. Overflowing with the appetite for it.
No more need for the tunes of the lute or the words on the parchment to capture it all.
It is in front of him in all its glory.
The way the horse’s muscles rippled under the iron embrace of Daeron’s thighs. The way Daeron seems to be flying, movement fluid and smooth and the harmony with his ride unparalleled. His hair now reflects the rays of the sun burns crimson, flowing behind him like a trail guiding Ormund home.
Daeron giddies up with a shout and sprints into a gallop. As if he does transform himself into the young woodland entity. But he throws a look behind his shoulder at Ormund. An urging look. Piercing him with heat and a tug.
Come and chase me.
Come and dare to catch me.
It says.
And Ormund does. Of course he does. He spures his mare to follow. Tries to keep up the pace. Daeron disappears into the grove on the horizon, merged with the landscape of it like a guardian ghost of this place.
“My king?” Ormund steadies the horse down, entering the area and calls for Daeron.
“Use my name,” he hears somewhere nearby. An echo of a wind. A nymph of the woods. And he’s just a wanderer seduced by the creature of the myths and old magic.
Ormund unsaddles and starts walking, stalking the source slowly, like hunting for a white deer.
“Where are you, Your Grace?”
“Use my name, Ormund.”
The voice seems closer and the use of his own name, a command calling for the obedience of a hound, has him willing to go to his knees and crawl to the music of it.
He still whispers, defeated. Or owned. “I cannot.”
“Why? Why have you stopped calling me by name, uncle?” the voice is a caress against his nape, now. A breeze of seduction pulling him, straight to the core of it. Damnation and liberation. As he continues stepping between the trees and search. For that red thread of destiny.
“Your name is a curse. That plagues me every night. When I speak it instead of the Father. When I moan it instead of the Warrior. I call for it like saving grace. And I scream it like it’s my biggest fear. Your name keeps me hostage. Every part of me. Enslaved to you. It holds the power over my life. And the power over my death. I cannot speak it for I will curse us both. Damn us to seven hells for the eternity of torment. For when I do, you will know of the entire depth of my feelings for you.”
The confession spills from him unrestrained. He’s been keeping it inside for so long, maybe the entire time when Daeron came into his life. He’s a wicked, broken man. Sinful and filthy. And he finally wishes to give himself away into the hands of destiny.
Wielded by Daeron. How fitting.
Daeron emerges from the depth of the grove, like a mirage woven from the morning dew and the sun glow. He beckons Ormund to come closer. To deliver the sentence. To bring release.
Ormund does. Moves within the pull of Daeron with an instinct that has been rooted into the very marrow of his bones. Daeron’s hands go to his face. Cradling it like a holy figure would tend to a sinner. Gentle acceptance but anchoring, too. Ormund leans towards the touch, gladly, absolutely. And awaits the justice that comes with the words. Whispered in a voice loaded with desire for shared abandon.
“Use my name, Ormund.”
Ormund’s mouth speaks it against the palm of Daeron’s hands. “Daeron.”
A curse. A prayer. And everything in between.
And then Daeron’s lips speak against Ormund’s. “Let us be cursed together, then.”
And the dam breaks and the hunger floods them both. Daeron kisses him violently, searching for sustenance. He tastes of desperation and greed. And Ormund moans into this mouth, crumbling under the sensation of mutuality. Of something so powerful and restless shared.
Daeron’s hands are pulling on his clothes, his teeth graze the line of his neck and his jaw. Ormund pushes him towards the trunk of the tree and has them clash with chests and with hips, a dance from before now something wild and barbaric.
“Daeron.”
He whimpers it to the hollow of Daeron’s neck, opening his tunic and marking the skin with the prayer of his insatiable mouth.
“Daeron.”
His palm travels to Daeron’s trousers, to find him hard and ready, through the leather. To stroke and to grip and to guide him into rocking motion, chasing the closeness, the abandon, the heat growing between them.
“Daeron.”
Ormund sucks the imprint of the name on the skin behind Daeron’s ear. Yanks his hair, to have it spills between his fingers like blood. Mouths the sweat from his neck and drinks it like the sweet sap of the tree.
“Daeron.”
His hand is wrapped around Daeron’s hard, warm flesh. Ormund has him move in desperate thrusts, with mouths open against each other, breaths tangling, in cries and wails and begging and more, more, more.
“Daeron.”
Ormund stops the rush to release and goes to his knees to accept the punishment fully. To embrace the liberation, too. He looks up, with adoration. Fingers caressing Daeron’s bare chest, mapping his face, reaching his lips to be swallowed, to be suckled on. And Ormund takes him into his mouth. To drink from the very source of damnation. Swallow it all. The penance and the sin. His fingers in Daeron’s mouth, sense Daeron’s throat contract around his name, shouted and cried. Like he’s condemned and sought out, too.
When Daeron comes, Ormund takes it all in. Drinks from his cock, accepts the communion of their ruptuorous torment and then shares it in a kiss. Long, filthy, sinful kiss, devouring Daeron’s whimpers that taste rich and hot on his tongue.
There is a moment of stillness then. With Daeron draped with his leg against Ormund’s thigh and hands clutching his shoulder, catching his breath, as they both try to arise from this whirlpool of sensations. And then Daeron moves. Sways his hips against Ormund. Feeling how hard he still is. Pushing him slowly over the edge. Drawing sighs and hums from his mouth opened against Daeron’s. Shaped around his name as they breathe together.
“I want to taste you, too, uncle. I have wanted it since I can remember. I want to ruin you.”
Daeron shoves him to his knees (Ormund goes gladly), climbs on top of him and has him lain out on the summer heated soil.
“I am already ruined. By you. Forever. Daeron.”
Ormund’s voice pleads. Raspy and agonising. As Daeron unwraps him of layers, with mouth, teeth and tongue following slow motions of his hands. Marking him. To have him served like a meal. Because he’s already been naked for Daeron with all his rawest intentions. “Not enough. I want you to beg me for mercy.”
“Will you offer it, my king?” Ormund chuckles and it cascades into a cry, when Daeron descends on his straining cock, licking on it obscenely like it’s the feast’s delicacy. Torturous, unforgiving. Delivers his relentless pleasures with lips and hands.
“If I’m feeling gracious, my lord Hightower.”
Mercy does come. But only after Daeron eats up the last drop of him. With Ormund’s fingers clutching the hair like he’s caught the rays of sunshine, pleading for deliverance. Knowing it shall never come. Outside Daeron’s mouth on him. And his body on him. Daeron shares their sinful taste with him and Ormund swallows it like a breath sustaining him under water.
They lie by that tree, disheveled, garments half sliding off their sweated bodies. Daeron cages Ormund’s thighs in his arms, head on his belly and Ormund strokes the crimson strands like a pool of sacrificial blood they have just been bathed in.
“So what’s the anniversary that we are celebrating with such debauchery,” Ormund murmurs to the top of Daeron’s head. Smelling wind, pine sap and sweat and stirring under Daeron’s arms for more of it. More of him. Gods. He’s mad with want. He’s an evil, monstrous man starving like a barbarian. And still not sated.
“20 years ago I arrived at your doorstep as your ward, uncle,” Daeron confesses to his collarbone. Mouth warm and teasing. The use of the uncle on purpose. With his tongue licking on the shudders on Ormund’s skin. “It’s been 20 years since I am yours and you are mine, uncle,” and he’s offering Ormund his red, delicious mouth (sweet, sharp and as damning as the pomegranate juice). Ormund caves in. Licks the familial name from that tongue and swells between his legs for another course.
“You wicked, wicked boy,” the defeated sigh is stolen by Daeron’s greedy jaws. As he mounts Ormund with the same confidence and grace he always does his stallion, his strong thighs confining him in absolute possessiveness.
“But you haven’t even fucked me, yet. Uncle,” the tease of his hips against Ormund’s fully erect cock brings tears to Ormund’s eyes. He’s on the cusp of delirium, gasping for salvation with the chant of this name on his lips. A new prayer.
Daeron. Daeron. Daeron.
Ormund’s hands map that ivory chest. Sculptured into the knighthood but regal of the Reach protector, too. Daeron is a work of art. And Ormund wishes to write his ballads with teeth and tongue on this unblemished parchment. His fingers tease Daeron’s rosy buds, having him buck against Ormund helplessly and in surrender as Ormund musters his rebuking tone. “And I am to assume that in your wicked insolence you offer yourself as that promised picnic, my boy?”
Daeron sways his hips sinfully in response, arching towards Ormund’s touch, grazing Ormund’s chest with his nails like an impatient, untamed, restless little dragon. “Aren’t I, uncle?”
Ormund growls, turns them over and speaks to the shape of Daeron’s pleading mouth. “You are all the sustenance I need to exist, Daeron.”
And proceeds to feasting like a man starved all his life (because he is). Flips Daeron’s on his belly, pulls him on all fours and soon has him flutter, bend and clench around his tongue inside Daeron.
They don’t return to the castle till late afternoon. Not until Daeron is wearing all the marks of Ormund’s hungry mouth on his skin.. Not until Daeron is crying with too much, overflowing with ecstasy he cannot contain with Ormund still managing to pluck more nectar out of him with his fingers stretching him. He almost sinks into that heat then, Daeron is so loose and so ready. But he doesn’t. Not yet. Not there. Daeron deserves to be taken like a king. In his bed. With the whole kingdom outside hearing the vows of their cries and their bodies. Or maybe it is a little bit about Ormund’s vanity. And he wants to claim what’s his when they are in Oldtown. In the keep. In their home. To send the message to everyone there. To the people of their kingdom.
He’s mine. Mine. Mine. Mine alone.
They are in the Citadel. Daeron ordered a weekly visit. To browse through the archives. To learn histories. Dig up on the legends and myths and sometimes to simply read through boring passages of monetary reports.
Daeron sits by the table, with the pile of volumes collected from the shelves for today’s study and Ormund in his full guard attire stands behind him. A pillar of protection. His shadow. His loyal hound (with the leash held forever tightly in Daeron’s palm).
Ormund used to spend days here, conducting his own research. But doing his writing as well. Essays, poetry, collection of chronicles of his own making. And he managed to plant this passion in Daeron. Daeron has always been studious and committed to his lessons. And the discussions they had were most inspirational. Enriching. Enlightening. Thus he is certain what a smart and empathetic monarch Daeron will be (already is). And how the entire Westeros should mourn him not ruling the lands from the far North till the deep South.
Alas.
The Targaryen family needed to be placated and they have established the midway to avoid civil war. With Daeron’s siblings paying their price for the greed for power and only Daeron remained (and to Ormund it has always been the case) as the natural bridge to bring peace between the houses.
There is pride in Ormund that never goes away. And it goes in hand with lust and yearning for this boy these days. (It probably always did. But Ormund has kept it wrapped in the steely rules of the faith and the appropriateness before). He feels it now, too. He never not feels it. Looking at the man by the table, with his royal, majestic demanour.
Knowing how this skin tastes now. (Like most delicious damnation).
How those hands feel on his own body. (Like sustenance).
How those lips move against his own lips. (Like they were made for each other).
And how this body fits inside his arms. (Carved pieces of a whole.)
“Let me show you something, sire,” Daeron calls for him to approach. And Ormund does.
Leaning against the armchair, over Daeron’s shoulder to look and to see.
Pages and pages of illustrations. Male bodies moving in different positions. Naked bodies tangled in passion of love making. Or mere fucking. Some are gentle and sensual. Others look desperate and violent. Bent backwards. Forward. On their knees. Against the surfaces. Seeking that sinful rupture. Mocking the gods with their hedonistic liberation.
Daeron is slowly going through the pages. His hand touching the contours with interest but hunger, too. The way he digs his fingers in the parchment around the particularly fervid act. (A man is riding another man, backwards. A man on his knees with his face buried in the other man’s arse. A man on the table, with legs on the other’s shoulders being taken there for the guests gathered around to cheer or to look away with impropriety. A man is mounted from behind, his face an image of elation.)
“I have never known there are so many ways to take a man, uncle,” he doesn’t look up from the parchment but leans back, closer, so that he can surely sense Ormund’s heavy breaths as his shoulders now brush Ormund’s arms. “I wish to try every one of these. I want you to fuck me like that, uncle.” (he points to the man taken against the wall, this time turning a bit so that his mouth blows hot air when he speaks against Ormund’s cheek.) “And I want to be fucked like that, too. Uncle,” (a man on all fours has his hair yanked like a mare with the other moving behind him, to tame and to conquer. Ormund swallows to Daeron’s mouth touching the point on his neck where his pulse beats wildly. ) “And I want to fuck you like that, Uncle,” (a man is sitting on another’s man face, riding it with indecent overindulgence).
“Daeron. Gods be good,” Ormund sounds wrecked. His hands grip the edges of the table as he hovers over Daeron. Knuckles going white, as he inhales heat and smoke from Daeron’s hair.
“Is something amiss, uncle?” Daeron sounds gleeful. His palm goes to Ormund’s and he settles it there. Warm, smooth and expecting. Nudging him to act. To take. To fuck. To keep.
“It’s the Citadel. Maesters gain sacred knowledge here. Behave,” his voice breaks, mouth lost in the pomegranate temptation.
Daeron stands. Turns around to face Ormund. Close. Too close. Too inviting. A forbidden fruit for the taking. And looking at Ormund’s parted lips, books gathered, posture proud, he says.
“I would have you take me in the throne room. In the council’s chambers. Here and in the Starry Sept. If I could order such law, Ormund. So that they all would know that you are mine and I am yours and no Gods or maesters or septons or smallfolk can stand against it.”
And he leaves for the shelves to put the volumes back on their place, keeping his composure, untouched, pristine and proud, only the hair sway behind him, the aroma of hot summer soil hitting Ormund’s nostrils.
Ormund feels the yanking of the leash before Daeron even gets to the aisles.
He follows, like a rabid dog. All the shame abandoned. Only the howl of the beast needing to feast on the food to live.
He has Daeron pushed against the shelves in no time. Books knocked out of his hand fall to the floor with a thud.
“That’s sacred knowledge, uncle,” Daeron manages to taunt, before Ormund plunges his mouth into his, to lick into Daeron’s chuckle and drink it like a thick meat of the summer fruits.
The armour stalls the closeness between them. Prevents Ormund from feeling the heat of Daeron’s chest, the beat of his feverish heart. He bites into Daeron’s throat all the same. “And I would take you here, in the keep, in front of the great septon. But this cannot be. We are doomed, Daeron. Our family, religion, the kingdom would shun us. Burn us for this.”
He speaks of morals and yet his body surrenders, gripping Daeron by his hips, lifting him up, to have him wrapped around his thighs, rocking himself against Ormund, seeking friction, release.
Daeron’s hands claw on Ormund’s nape, cling to the hair there, guide his biting mouth along his jaw into his own. To kiss the commandments off his lips.
“I am a dragon lord. Tis me who will burn them,” Daeron hisses, biting into Ormund’s chin, into the corners of his mouth and finally into his tongue.
Ormund reaches inside Daeron’s breeches, takes him out and strokes. Almost viciously. To punish him for the insolence of them, for daring at all. Daeron whines and Ormund has his other hand on his mouth, stifling the sounds, hot and wet against Ormund’s fingers. “I want to hear you scream for me, Daeron. Damn the whole kingdom. Damn the maesters. Damn everyone but us. But I will not blemish what we have been working on for so long. The image of the king, good, kind, just. Fit for all Seven Kingdoms. Be quiet. Just feel.”
And he brings Daeron to his peak, with his hand on his cock, as Daeron bites on the palm on his mouth, leaving marks of a beastling tamed. Ormund brings his fingers coated with Daeron’s release to his lips then, to lap on the taste with shameless hunger clean.
Daeron whimpers upon the sight. Eyes dim, hooded. With a feverish glint. “Let me, uncle,” his fingers fumble for Ormund’s trousers but he stops Daeron. Clasping his hands together and leaning his forehead against Daeron’s he confesses.
“No, my king. I live to serve you.”
They manage to keep it (this fire burning so bright between them) concealed from the court, from the family, from anyone who doesn’t deserve to privy to it.
Ormund serves as the King’s hand. Present at the council, with his thorough reports on the comforts of the life inside town. He guards his king, too. During feasts, the petitioners’ hearings and political convoys. There are lingering gazes, touches of the hand prolonged. Fingers trailing palms when being handed the letters or the reins.
But there are times when Daeron allows his wicked side to roam. When he corners Ormund in the stables, after the hunting day, after the stable boys leave for the evening. Drops to his knees in front of him, opens his breeches and takes him into his hot, greedy mouth without any preamble.
“No. My king. This is not proper,” Ormund is not sure what he means. Daeron sucking his cock with hungry desperation because he’s Daeron whom he raised or because he’s the king and his superior. His body capitulates, though. Hands pull on Daeron’s auburn strands and hips stutter, as Ormund struggles not to choke him.
“I am not your king, here. I want to hear you moan my name, Ormund. And don’t refrain yourself, either. I want to feel you on the morrow. Deep in my throat.”
Ormund does moan his name, (he’s so loud, unapologetic) along the names of the Gods (shame gets swallowed by an overwhelming desire) and releases embarrassingly quick with Daeron drinking him dry like he’s a man perched. Lifting himself up to wipe his mouth obscenely as if he wants to savour the aftertaste. As he fixes his tunic, licks on his thumb and Ormund sees that he too found his release untouched it makes him want to go again, kiss, bite and suck on every bit of Daeron’s skin. Mark him whole for the world to see.
There are stolen kisses in the nooks of the halls. Daeron pushing him against the stony walls, growling into his mouth, “I have been thinking about your mouth around me the entire meeting of the council today,” Daeron unbuttons his doublet and leaves kisses on his neck and his collarbone having Ormund arch for more while struggling to keep decorum. They are in the keep, gambling with the king’s reputation. “I have been imagining how you lay me on that table,” his teeth and his tongue leave an angry, red mark on Ormund’s skin. “Undress me, layer from layer,” Daeron opens up his clothes to his naked chest and continues to tattoo his desire with his insatiable mouth. Grazing Ormund’s nipples, sucking on them like a babe, filthy and obscene.
“Gods, Daeron.”
His faith crumbled down a long time ago and got replaced by the worship for this boy. There is no room for anything else inside him. Just him. Just Daeron.
“Gods, uncle? Or demons?” Daeron chuckles against Ormund’s mouth and Ormund can’t help himself and bites on his lip and pulls on it with his teeth.
“Whatever overwhelms,” he whispers, offering himself entirely.
Daeron growls, a creature on a hunt, his eyes almost black with hungry focus and then they hear steps approaching. Before Ormund manages to compose himself, Daeron smears the blood on his lip to lick on it from his fingers and then he breathes into the shell of his ear. “You have me in all the ways on that table, uncle. Like you have me in all the ways when I think about us all the time.”
Alicent visits him in his chambers one day.
Brings his favourite brand of tea and a fresh milk. And settles by the fireplace like she belongs there.
She’s chosen to stay in the keep, because it’s home. Because finally she can be close to Daeron.
Something that has Ormund brim with unspoken fury. Yes, there is possessiveness to it. But mostly it’s wrapped in a righteous anger.
Too little, too late, he thinks whenever he sees her fussing over Daeron, basking in his charm in front of the visiting guests, grabbing his arm to flaunt him at the ladies of the court and whisper something familiar and assuming to his ear when they observe the room from behind the table during feasts.
“I’ve never properly thanked you for what you did for my son, Ormund,” she speaks now, in his room. A buzzing presence with her heavy perfumes assaulting his senses.
Ormund stays by the desk. Doesn’t drink the tea, doesn’t stop sorting the reports after the council meeting either. Pays her as little attention as he can not to feed this ego. “He’s so easy to love it came naturally. To nurture him. To care for him. No need to thank me.”
He hopes he sounds cordial enough. Even if his heart beats wildly, overflowing with his feelings for Daeron. Love, attentiveness, loyalty, devotion, desire. His hand trembles as he pours the family seal over the parchment.
“Indeed he is,” Alicent sips on her tea. Nonchalant and ignorant and Ormund wants to shout to her face. And how would you know that?
“I was thinking, maybe you wish to return to your castle. Think about starting a family. Your own life, now that you are no longer obligated to raise my son,” her voice cuts through him with a shrill. He breathes hard, struggling to suppress growing rage. Fingers now grazing the surface of the desk.
When he speaks, he still manages to sound composed. “I understand that in your opportunism you forgot about what has been driving our family for centuries. Daeron remains my duty. Until he himself sends me away. Only he has that power, Alicent.”
If she’s offended, she feigns indifference. Focused on her tea, sill settled in his armchair with an air of confidence. “Tis merely my concern for him relying too much on you, Ormund. He needs to learn independence. In order to grow into a wholesome monarch.”
“And your overbearing presence is to remedy that?” Ormund barks with contempt. And this stills her in her casual comfort. In her egotistic blindness.
Her eyes shine with vulnerability. There’s shame and regret in her expression when she looks at him, imploring, as if he’s her confessor. “He does not even call me mother anymore.”
Ormund is silent. Assesses her from afar. The victim of the games or a seasoned player? This was always her camouflage. Otto taught her well. Blending in however the circumstances demand. Utilising means around her with detached efficiency. All her children carved into such means. Aegon and Aemond rotting on the wall, doing penance for all the crimes they committed at her silent permission. Helaena dead, on her own terms. Still hounded into this choice. Made a holy figure in the Reach. The words of the house echoing in her deeds like the Maiden ascension. And Alicent, emerging from the ashes of the family into the position of the Queen Mother. Baptised in the sacrifice of them all.
He walks to her. Could be a confessor with deliverance. Or a judge with a sentence. But remains her cousin, when he stands by her, touches her cheek with an almost paternal gesture of acquiescence. And says. “The answer to that, my dear cousin, you will have to find within your own conscience.”
She flinches away from the caress of his hand, lifts herself up. A haughty statue. Gone are any traces of weakness in her. Humanity even. And when she speaks, it’s the monarch ordering pestering peasants. (The haunting of Otto in her). “Daeron is to be married in week’s time. It shall leave very little to no room for any other distractions for him. A husband and a king will surpass any other roles. Of a protege seeking guidance for example. But he is my son. And this roles never ceases. There is no replacement for it. You will do well to remember that, cousin.”
And when she leaves, Ormund tries to feign composure. Pretend not to be affected. His hand shakes when he starts collecting the tea set from the table, though.
The invitation to the King’s chambers comes late in the evening. Ormund expects Daeron to have the cyvasse game set for them. Needing distraction before the big day on the morrow.
Ormund’s dressed casually. For the meeting of studies and illumination rather than the guard’s duties. There are no men by Daeron’s door, which stirs worry and confusion in Ormund. He rushes in, with rattled, “Why have you dismissed the guards?” on his lips and pauses. By the doorstep.
Gulping very ungainly like. Upon the sight that greets him.
Daeron is in the bed. Wrapped in the green velvet drape Ormund favours as the house garment sigil.
And nothing else.
His pale, lithe body posed into an open invitation. Hair let loose, falls into the river of stunning auburn matching the deep, forest green like he’s been made for the Hightower colour palette. Ormund feels weak. He’s fought many battles, faced many knights, valiant and violent. He led them through the war path into peace so that they remain in the house seat of the Hightowers victorious. And nothing before has had him want to capitulate quite as much as the image Daeron makes now.
“I did not wish for anyone to disturb us, uncle.”
He purrs. His body a graceful arch of a greeting with one leg extended the other bent at the knee. Daeron’s hand is draped above his head, a languish display. His eyes half-lidded, deepest blue, smouldering with offering. An expression full of triumph, like he’s already won the game they didn’t even play. The shawl spills down his chest, covering parts of him and leaving the rest a landscape to conquer.
Ormund swallows. Voice rough, like there’s a cry stuck in his throat already. “How did you get it?”
“This?” Daeron asks, feigning innocence. Tracing a finger along the velvety texture of the clothing, as it slips off his shoulder, exposing the collarbone and the neck, milky white delicacies. “I took it from your chambers, uncle. I like to sleep wrapped in it. Naked. It brings me semblance of release when I want you so much I feel restless and feverish. Alone and dripping for you. Still denied, uncle.”
There is a demand in his voice. A Targaryen in him. A dragon rider. When he talks like that. Brims with entitlement. Refers to his possessions. Ormund, the primary one.
“I haven’t raised you to be this wicked, my boy.” words of a rebuke fall flat, because Ormund still walks towards the bed, towards the source of temptation. A man on his leash. He thinks he could be crawling on his knees. Gods be damned, he is ready to succumb to this creature of raw sensuality awakened.
“Maybe you should apply more discipline, then, uncle?” Daeron’s trailing his finger down his chest. Taunting but inviting. He stops by the rosy nub and circles it into hardness, eyes dripping allure. It’s more than an open embrace would be.
“Daeron, you are to be married tomorrow,” Ormund stills settles at the foot of the bed, leans (bows for this boy, for this man that has him entirely, has him whole), caresses Daeron’s leg from his foot along his calf and starts kissing his way upward.
“A political arrangement. Nothing else. None about it, uncle. Unless you want me to find release by myself?” Daeron’s hands weave into Ormund’s hair. Brushing the locks, clutching and guiding him closer, towards himself. Legs opening to have Ormund settle between, the green drape slipping away, to reveal more and more skin for taking and marking.
“Has anyone ever had you, Daeron?” Ormund hums to his hipbone, mouth busy on the inside of his thigh as his hands travel under Daeron’s knees to lift his legs and still peppering the length of them with kisses, lay them on Ormund’s shoulders.
“No. I would never allow it. No one, but you, Ormund,” Daeron sighs and bends himself into a bow, gripping the back of Ormund’s head for a support but in need to bring him even closer.
Ormund blows a hot, warm breath into his entrance, lips leaving butterfly touches around it, to drink the cascade of whimpers Daeron releases in response. “Has anyone ever touched you here, Daeron?”
“Not even myself, uncle,” Daeron moans the familial name and it goes straight to Ormund’s cock.
“Fuck,” his voice shudders. Something so overwhelming about this. Having Daeron entirely. With his heart, with his mind and now with his body. For the first time. Having to consume the core of his innocence.
Gods be damned. The whole fucking kingdom too. If it makes him a wicked, evil, greedy man. If it makes him damn himself to seven hells. If it makes him burn for the rest of his life for the sins.
He dives with his mouth for Daeron’s fluttering virginity. Kisses it tenderly, to slip his tongue in, fingers spreading him open, digging into skin, leaving marks. Reaching for his cock to stroke him alongside the preparation. There’s ringing in his ears but he still hears his own name in Daeron’s mouth. As he fumbles for balance, grabbing his shoulders, scratching his nape. His name that sounds like capitulation. Worship. And utter submission.
“Fuck, Daeron,” Ormund growls, mouthing on the obscene length of his legs wrapped around his torso and going back to sucking on his sweet, rosy heat. His hand glides upward Daeron’s arching chest, catching on his perking buds, stroking them and then finding his open around his name mouth to feed him his fingers. Daeron eagerly accepts. Mewls around them with greedy tongue. Coating them with saliva and hot, trembling breaths.
Ormund’s insatiable mouth soon gets replaced by the fingers. As he’s stretching Daeron, opening him up, preparing him, Ormund glides himself towards Daeron’s throat, to graze it with his teeth. His chin to mouth on it with passion and to his lips to claim them in a fierce kiss. Leaving them both breathless. And feverish with need.
“You are wearing too many clothes, Ormund,” Daeron moves under the conduct of Ormund’s fingers, rocks himself shamelessly against the ministrations, all the while he starts to unbutton Ormund’s jacket, mouth tracing every bit of skin revealed.
His hands are busy. Hungry for it. As he lifts himself, half straddling Ormund, to start unwrapping him from the garment, mapping his body with fingers and lips. Through pecks and bites.
Daeron is a storm soon sweeping Ormund off his feet, as the green shawls slips off his shoulder entirely and he’s fumbling with his breeches to release his cock and to fondle it with heated desperation. Mouths meeting in clumsy, messy kisses, Daeron’s hole clutching around Ormund’s fingers possessively. Daeron’s swift and nimble, and demanding. Unwraps himself from Ormund’s waist to glide on his belly towards his cock, with curious hands and salivating mouth.
“Gods, Daeron,” Ormund cries and it’s his credo, a complete defeat, when Daeron starts sucking and chuckles richly around his length, in a triumph and heavy satisfaction. Understanding the weight of these words. Knowing perfectly well how Ormund traded his faith for devotion to him. And how he’s declaring his doctrine of it with his pliant body now.
Daeron’s mouth is relentlessd. He’s sucking Ormund like he wants to devour his soul. (As if it’s not his already). His hands grip his buttocks, too and his fingers wander further to slip inside. Ormund’s gasps at the sensation and yanks Daeron by his hair. Away from his cock. He’s too close to coming. Without even being inside his boy. He pulls Daeron up and whispers to his sinful mouth.
“Next time, my king,” a promise. A vow. A declaration.
They kiss with abandon. The taste of their intimacy rich, vivid on their tongues tangled. And Ormund moves away, to Daeron’s disappointed whine and his hands possessively trying to keep him close. Ormund stands by the edge of the bed, even this small distance, away from that heat, hunger and smell has him impatient. The image of Daeron sitting on his hinges, unwrapped from the velvet coat, hair disheveled, pale skin blushing and already marked almost does him in. He manages to reach for his mused up clothes and starts disrobing. Daeron has his eyes on him the entire time. A furnace of desire making them black. He’s biting on his lip coyly and hands trail down his stomach to settle on his cock as he pleasures himself.
“Hands off. This is mine,” Ormund grunts, controlling.
“Then come and claim it, uncle,” Daeron smirks.
Ormund does. Naked, he crawls on top of Daeron, wrapping his legs around himself, mouth breathing into mouth (Daeron seeks it with a whine). Ormund whispers.
“It will hurt,” caressing the sides of his body, whenever he can reach, to feel the shudders of that smooth, precious skin.
“Good. I want to feel you always inside.”
Slipping inside Daeron’s trembling heat is an inferno. Ormund feels as if his bones melt and his muscles burn. His heart hammers in his chest wild, delirious. Daeron bows for him in the utter offering and Ormund could weep at trust and pliancy he gives him with his body. He moves and it stirs more fire. More hunger. To eat him whole and to keep him inside forever.
Skin slaps against skin (obscene, bearing). Hands clutch on the shuddering muscles and arching chest. Mouths shape around silent screams of the names of the gods they become for each other. Sloppy kisses, licks of a tongue to taste sweat from the wrist, the crook of the neck. Fingerpprints left on the hips and scratch marks tattooing backs. It’s an overwhelming wave of sensations and Ormund finds his gods there. In Daeron’s thrusts meeting his own. In his thighs closing in on him to trap him in between forever. In his voice pleading for more, deeper, yes, fuck.
When they peak, Daeron’s on his lap, riding him with fervor and biting his neck like he wants to draw blood (a creature seeking to be sated). Ormund spills inside him with a whimper of surrender and Daeron takes every last drop, still moving on top of him for more, drawing another orgasm from them both.
“Your shawl is ruined, uncle,” Daeron’s draped on Ormund’s chest, laughing against the hollow of his neck. Ormund cages him against himself possessively, stroking the curtain of his hair now covering them like a pool of blood of the old valyrian wedding ceremonies. He’s still twitching inside Daeron’s all-consuming heat.
“I will buy you another one,” Ormund makes a promise, with a kiss to the top of Daeron’s head.
“So that we can ruin it, too?” Daeron leaves a trail of open-mouthed kisses on Ormund’s chest, his neck, the corners of his mouth and swallows Ormund’s. “Probably,” with his tongue, wicked and demanding.
Ormund has him again and again that night. Against the window, from behind. Violent and rough, hands clutching on hips, as they rut like in rush after climax. (“Let them see. Who I belong to.”) Daeron mounts him on the armchair, after the dinner is delivered and they fail to eat much of it. Daeron says he has an appetite for something else and as he guides Ormund inside himself with an obscene arch of his body and starts moving Ormund chuckles against his chest, grazing it with teeth, kissing, with a light confession. “I am not sure if I have stamina for your new appetites, my king,”to which Daeron bites on his lip until he spills blood and smiles, red, claiming smile. “We shall work on it, my lord.” As the dawn approaches, Daeron is all on fours, fucking himself on Ormund’s cock with still unquenchable fervor. “Look at you, Daeron. You were made for me,” Ormund rasps, watching as he sinks inside that enveloping, greedy body that welcomes him with ease and familiarity.
And then, before the morning raises and they rested a moment, Daeron has his hand on the small of Ormund’s back, playful and asking. Drawing patterns, massaging his ass cheeks, to Ormund on his belly, trying to regain strength. “You are truly a beast that came to torment me, Daeron,” he murmurs against the pillow smelling of Daeron’s hair, intoxicating.
Gloriously addictive.
He should come up with a solution how to bottle Daeron’s smell. He would not need any more of his compositions to soothe and ground himself anymore then.
Daeron chuckles, with mouth now on his shoulder blades, grazing the bumps and the rippling muscles there, while he palms the globes of his ass, fingers more daring, teasing his opening.
“Do you feel tormented, uncle?”
Ormund lets him in, with a gasp of his name and feels himself stir and swell over the attention, over Daeron’s unsatisfied hunger. “I feel anointed, Daeron. With your every touch, the Gods rush back in and absolve me,” he grips the sheet as Daeron stretches him from within. First with his fingers. Then his mouth joins in, biting the flesh of the globes and slipping in, filthy wet and needy inside him. Ormund’s hips move, he’s thrusting for more of it, shameless and bare for this boy to have him completely.
To be had completely.
It’s a delirium of lust, love and surrender.
“Good, then feel me inside as I deliver you,” Daeron mouths onto his arching nape as he claims him with his cock. Ormund feels like he’s being cleansed. In the heat overwhelming. In the power anchoring. Daeron fucks into him like he’s wanted this his whole life, pulls on his hips, drags them upwards, with Ormund’s face in the pillows. And he covers him like a stallion would a mare to Ormund moaning into the sheets at the thought. Lets him. Thinks he won’t have to touch himself to be coming on Daeron’s cock filling him up to the brink.
He does. With Daeron’s palm on his neck, shoving him down into the mattress. A claiming dragon rider. Ormund succumbs gladly. Bent into complete submission under Daeron. Face wet with tears, as Daeron bites and kisses his rippling back, humming praises and confessions.
“Looks like we both have been made for each other, uncle, after all. ”
The morning has them spent and entangled. Naked and still cooling off. On the crumbled sheets, limbs wrapped around each other like there is no beginning and no end to each of them.
They are whole.
And as the rising sun peeks into king Daeron’s chambers on the day of his wedding to Rhaena Targaryen, Ormund is carrying Daeron in his arms to the bath filled with oils and aromas of his composition. Daeron’s spent and sated. His body carrying markings of everything they did last night. A pattern of bite marks, imprints, scratches. His a kaleidoscope of their vows. Ormund bristles in pride as he starts bathing the king, with tenderness and adoration, sitting naked by the basin like a follower of the faith paying tribute to his idol.
It is he who Daeron married last night, in truth. Their skins bear testimony of this. Ormund kisses his forehead, now washing his hair and for a moment he gives in to this naive notion. Of having Daeron. As betrothed. No politics, no kingdom, no lords of the great houses are allowed into this.
It’s theirs. And theirs alone.
“What are you thinking about?” Daeron asks, giving himself in to Ormund’s tending. Leaning towards his hands, cleaning his face, his arms and his chest.
“A wish. A pipe dream. Of us, married,” Ormund confesses. All his ambitions have always been about this boy. This beautiful, good, kind, sharp boy he desperately wanted to grace the kingdom with. It never came to him, along the way, how difficult it will be to share him. To have him be the people’s now. The court’s. His lady wife’s. And finally, his children’s.
Daeron turns in the tub to face him, now. Fierce and focused. Ormund his entire world. As if he senses the doubts, the worry. As if he sees Ormund ever undermine the absolute truth about them.
“You are married to me in everything but the law. You stand by me, protect me, care for me, assist me. You are devoted to me. In soul and in flesh. You are mine and I am yours. In everything but the name. Will this not satisfy you, my lord Hightower?”
Ormund rests his head on his chin over the edge of the bath. He’s naked. Not only in skin. Bare for Daeron with the way he peers into his eyes. Pleading but apologetic, too.
“I wish to scream at the whole kingdom that you are mine. Show them. Have you in front of their faces. It is childish, perhaps. But it feels like having to remain in secrecy takes away from what we have. We will be sinful creatures, scattering rats, living under ground. With you and your family out in the open, in the sun.”
Daeron’s fingers weave their way into Ormund’s hair. Stroking but clutching. As he reciprocates his gaze with all-encompassing attention.
“Can you see yourself stop, then? Leave my side? Go and live your own life? Away?”
“That would not be a life at all, Daeron,” Ormund shakes his head, to Daeron’s hands now palming his face. Having his mouth kiss the inside of his palms, his wrists. Yearning, desperate. As if already shattered under the weight of the prospect of parting.
Daeron starts kissing his face. With every kiss on each eyelids, on the tip of the nose, corners of his mouth, his chin and his jaw he declares his feelings.
“Then stay with me. Never stray. Never leave me. For it is you I will always choose. I will always return to. I shall await at the end of the day. And greet at the beginning of it. One flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever.”
Spoken to Ormund’s lips. The vow for the Seven. Of spouses. Even if they will never be blessed in the sept, have the people of the kingdom bear witnesses. Even if it will be wrapped in secrecy, thus sinfulness. They are married in all the ways that matter. And no one and nothing can stand against it. Speak against it. Be against it.
Ormund claims Daeron’s mouth in a deep, bruising kiss, repeating in hot, heavy breaths. “Now and forever.”
The vow defining his life. At the very core of it.
They are lost in the kiss, Daeron’s renewing the markings on the line of his jaw and his neck, hands gripping his shoulders, grazing down that broad back with muscles contracting and he whispers to his ear. After the promise comes provocation. Of course it does.
“Good. Because I am not done with you, uncle. Not even a bit. I want to take you again and again and again,” and he pulls Ormund inside the bath, to already climb on top of him with his swift, belonging body.
In every corner, they fit. Like pieces of a whole. Like Daeron was always meant to be here. In his arms. Almost merged.
Ormund promises, embracing Daeron tightly.
“Your wishes are my commands, Daeron.”