Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Dunk rode away.

Look back, Lyonel thought, watching that wide, beautiful form leave him, trotting away on his silly old horse. His heart broke to watch him go.

Whatever the past week had been, a week of luxuriating in bed, a week of sweet kisses and whispered promises, a week of the kind of love Lyonel had never imagined would ever come for him— whatever that had been, Dunk was still leaving. Yes, he’d said he was sorry to go but he’d still gotten on that damned horse and taken his boy and was riding away.

He might never come back. Over and over, he’d said he would, promised he would but… But that doubt, that horrible doubt, had made a home under Lyonel’s ribs like a mole dug into the soil of his heart. He’d never admit it, certainly not to Dunk, but gods how it ate at him. It had eaten at him after Ashford, it ate at him while Dunk had bandaged and re-bandaged and re-bandaged him, it ate at him while they were in bed together, and it ate at him now. There was no stopping the gnaw of it.

As much as Dunk said he loved him, and Lyonel did believe him, he really did, he’d thought Dunk loved him at Ashford too. Thought they’d had something special, immediate, remarkable, miraculous. A gift from the gods. And still Dunk had left him. Chosen that dragon brat and the ghost of a damned dead prince over everything Lyonel felt and had promised him. Such a thing could happen again. Easily.

Or he could fall into a ditch and break his neck and die on the road.

Look back.

If he looked back, he loved him. If he looked back, the gods would favor them and he would come back.

Onward Dunk rode, rode, rode…

Look back.

The feeling in his chest got tighter, tighter, his nerves squeezing like a sea serpent, crushing him to death, absolutely to death…

Look back at me.

And like he had heard, heard the calling of Lyonel’s soul, Dunk turned in his saddle, glancing over his shoulder. Even with the distance, Lyonel could see the sweet swell of his cheek, the glimmer of his blue eyes.

He looked back.

It wasn’t a promise. But it was a promising sign. 

Lyonel lifted his hand to wave. Dunk weakly waved back.

Then he rode on, glancing back a few more times before he was gone, over a hill and out of sight.

Lyonel lingered for another hour, just in case Dunk gave up his mad duty and turned around and came home to him.

But he didn’t.

The first time Dunk returned to Storm’s End, Lyonel wasn’t there.

He’d been called out to a village on the edge of the Stormlands where some kind of ridiculous land dispute had erupted into an issue that apparently only the Lord Paramount could resolve. It was a frustrating, pointless waste of two weeks of his life, camping out in the mud and dirt and pretending to be deeply interested in which fence went where and whose marriages were to the wrong people.

So the smallfolk were unhappy in love, just as the greater part of all the highborns in all the kingdoms. Too bad for them.

Worst of all was returning to Storm’s End, muddy and exhausted and bored to tears, only to learn from his master-at-arms that Dunk had come, stayed, and left.

“What?”

“Aye ser,” the man shrugged as he sharpened a knife on a whetstone. “Stayed about three days.”

“And you didn’t make him stay longer?”

“No keeping him, ser. And no knowing when you’d be back.”

“Where did he go?”

“Didn’t say.”

Lyonel grimaced and stormed off, whipping back only to bark, “What fucking good are you?”

What a cunting miserable turn of events. A fortnight spent damp and bored and during that horrid time he’d missed the only person who might have made it worthwhile. If Dunk had been there at his side, it would have felt like a beautiful country holiday. He would have happily listened to all the smallfolk complaints for as long as they cared to speak, if only he’d had Dunk to confer with.

Instead, Dunk had been here, in his home. Without him.

In his chambers, he slammed the door behind him, rattling a pair of ancient antlers hanging on the wall above.

Fucking fuck, but this was frustrating. He could’ve had his beloved hedge knight at his back, been naked in bed for three days straight, warm and satiated and limp-limbed, instead of cold in the mud in the middle of nowhere.

It was just so— fucking— unfair.

He could just about tear the room apart, he was so annoyed, so frustrated, so, so— hurt, actually, that Dunk came and didn’t wait for him. Came and went like his great lordly castle was nothing more than an inn, a place to stop over for a day to two, and then to leave behind. That he, nearly lord of the Stormlands, was nothing to wait around for.

For fuck’s sake—

It could be months before Dunk passed this way again. Or longer! Fuck, it could be half a year, or after the winter— Tears stung at his eyes at the thought. Why had he ever let Dunk go at all? Why hadn’t he gone along with him? Or made some kind of plan to find him on the road? Some schedule so they might see each other regularly, some promise to meet at Fawnton or Blackhaven or fucking Summerhall even—

Instead Lyonel had promised to wait about like some simpering maid, and the one fucking time he’d left Storm’s End, his knight had come. And then left. Left without leaving even a—

In his furious pacing of the room, he whipped towards his bed and suddenly saw it. A token resting on the pillows. From Dunk. So obviously from Dunk, his anger bled from him like the emptying of a canal lock.

“Oh.”

A gift. An apology. A dried bouquet of Highgarden flowers, a carved wooden deer— clearly whittled by hand, Dunk’s hand, he imagined, made for him by the light of campfires— and a little box. His heart nearly stopped at the sight of it, this little presentation laid out for him. It was easy to imagine Dunk’s kind, careful attention to it. Adjusting the flowers just so— and how carefully he must have ridden to have brought them intact, with what care he must have carried them— placing the small stag so it appeared to be resting among the reeds…

And that box. Curious little thing. Rough-hewn but sweet in its way.

He nearly floated to the head of the bed, where this lovely tableau was laid out for him. Gently he lifted the flowers, moving them to the bedstand nearby. The stag followed, but the small box he took up in his hands.

Now he could see an indent in the feather cushioning of his pillows, the pressed shape of a dear head. Another gift. Dunk had slept in his bed. He placed his hand in the indent, as if he could still feel Dunk’s warmth… No such luck, of course. Only the cool silk of the bedding met his palm.

With a sigh, he sprawled himself out on the bed, laying his head next to where Dunk’s had rested, turning his face into the pillow in the distant, silly hope that it may yet smell of him. Was there still the lingering scent of grass and earth that followed where Dunk went? He carried the very land with him, Lyonel thought vaguely. Like he himself carried the sea. They were a matched set, the world encompassed in their pairing.

A bit of poetry, that.

If only there were a note… but Dunk couldn’t write, or read, as far as Lyonel knew. They’d lightly discussed it before Dunk had departed, as part of a gooey half-fantasy of how they might keep in touch while Dunk traveled.

“I’ll write you,” Lyonel had promised. “All my doings and all my dreams of you.”

Dunk had blushed beautifully. “I couldn’t read it,” he’d said, so shy. “Nor reply.” At Lyonel’s blank look, he’d explained, “Don’t exactly know how.”

“Ah. Too bad.” And too bad it was.

Now he was left with these sweet tokens, and no indication of the thought behind them. And this little box… He turned it around in his hands, imagining the long journey it made in Dunk’s satchel. Had he laid under trees at night, stretched out as Lyonel was now, turning the box this way and that just as Lyonel was turning it, examining it? Thinking about how it would be received.

Well, he thought. Let’s find out.

It came open with a snap; inside was a minuscule cushion of woven grass, and nestled thereupon was— oh, how darling, how breathtaking— an earring. A glittering gem at the end of a short, sparkling chain, hanging from a small hoop. Lyonel tilted it, watching it shine. Like a shooting star cutting through the night sky.

It was simple, yes, but quite lovely. How did Dunk come across it? In a marketplace in some small village to the West? Or traded from a whore in a larger town? Or plucked off a maiden’s ear in the heat of a passion that Lyonel had not asked him to refrain from? No, he thought, dismissing the very concept with a firm shake of his head. Not that. Dunk was, if nothing else, a creature of loyalty. He wouldn’t…

No. Not his Dunk. Not his Dunk who loved him.

Rolling smoothly off the bed, Lyonel cut across the room to a mirror, where he wriggled his current earring out of his head. He’d had it in for, oh who knows how long, since before Dunk had left. It had come out when he’d been injured, he remembered that. Or before, actually. He’d taken it out to joust. It hadn’t gone back in until after his battered head had been mostly healed. That’s right. The night that Dunk had carried him to bed and promised to love him. The night Lyonel had first thought he could possibly, really, have everything his heart had ever hungered for.

The earring came out easily enough, and he placed it carefully down. It wouldn’t do to lose it, not when it carried so many memories. He thought, though he didn’t remember exactly, that it was the same he’d been wearing at Ashford when he’d met Dunk that very first time.

With careful fingers, he threaded the new hoop through his skin. It hung well, the little gem in it catching the light very nicely indeed, peeking out from the dark tangle of his hair, glancing against the column of his throat.

How lovely. Thoughtful.

Dunk was thinking of him.

It was enough to carry him through another few months of patient loneliness. It would have to be.

After another dreadfully boring half season, a raven came. The note attached to its leg was of rough paper, hardly more than a scrap.

It came at just the right moment, just when the autumn storms were rolling in and Lyonel was beginning to feel a dangerous black mood building in him. It happened sometimes, and being home too long, walled up in Storm’s End like a princess in a tower, didn’t help matters. He’d just started thinking, how long can I go away for? Would a three day hunting trip be too risky? Would it tempt fate to sail to Tarth for half a week?

The letter was written in small, sharp, clear lettering, with a few looping swirls that spoke to the kind of learning afforded only to highborn children. Lyonel’s handwriting had similar flourishes. The boy then had written it, and the content bore that out.

Lyonel took it to his chambers and sprawled by a window to read it.

Ser Lyonel, it said in its charmingly boyish handwriting, All is well with us! Recently we rescued a cow from a ditch and were well rewarded. It afforded us this raven. I insisted on sending it to you as Ser Duncan was very sorry to have missed you at Storm’s End. (Me too) We hope to be back for winter. He thinks of you often and is very moody. Egg

It made him laugh to read it. That saucy little boy… He can only imagine how Dunk may have protested the wording, or how the boy had lied about exactly what he’d said.

Beneath the boy's twirling signature was a less sophisticated piece of writing, crammed in at the bottom of the paper. Seeing it wrapped a fist around his heart and squeezed.

All love, it said, the letters big and blocky and unsure. Dunk.

So he was learning his letters. The boy must be teaching him. How marvelous, Lyonel thought.

He dashed off a letter back, nothing serious, nothing beyond exuberant support and well wishes and thanks for the news, and the little gifts. Perhaps his entreaties to absolutely return to Storm's End for winter read a bit strongly but… it couldn’t be helped. It was how he felt.

He sent the raven off with prayers it knew it’s way back.

Then suddenly one chill day, as he stood in the courtyard and fought with his Maester regarding the best way to treat a bit of rope burn on a stablehand’s palm from a spooked horse— and damn the man, but he was as like to cut off the lad’s hand as anything else— for fuck’s sake he needed a different Maester— the gates clattered open and two horses were shown in.

Lyonel glanced over his shoulder at the newcomers, thoughtless and fast, and only when he’d turned back around to continue barking at the old fool in front of him did his mind catch up to what his eyes had seen.

A large man and a little boy, on two brown horses, each muddied and bundled in layers of cloaks and shawls against the cold winds blowing in off the sea.

Dunk. Come back at last.

His heart exploded with feeling in his chest, too big and bright to contain, lighting him up from the depth of his very core and pouring out of him by way of his eyes, his smile, the pull in his chest that led him to Dunk, Dunk, Dunk.

Dunk.

To his Maester, he offered a very peaceable, “Fuck off, would you?” and turned away from him entirely, abandoning the conversation without a second thought. It didn’t matter anymore. He’d made his opinion clear on how to handle rope burn, and Dunk was here.

Running across the courtyard, his velveteen cloak fluttering behind him, he skidded to a stop at Thunder’s feet.

“My love,” he gasped, reaching hands to land on Thunder’s broad neck and Dunks’ near equally broad thigh. Thunder snuffled, and Lyonel moved both hands to pat his mane, abruptly embarrassed by his own enthusiasm. Through his blush and with his face buried into Thunder’s cheek, he said, “So you’re here.”

“Aye. For winter.” His voice sounded... just the same. Befuddled and unawares, honest and sweet.

“Aye, the winter,” Lyonel echoed, daring to look up at Dunk’s face far above him. He was pink and glowing from the cold, smiling easily. Strands of strawberry blond hair, kissed by the sun, whipped around his cheeks in the breeze. “My, but your hair has grown.”

“Oh.” Dunk blushed, turning pinker. “Yes. Do you mind it?”

“I like it in fact.”

“Hello, Ser Lyonel,” Egg said to him, loudly. The interruption broke the spell of staring into Dunk’s eyes, which was probably for the best. It wouldn’t do to pull Dunk down off his horse and ravish him in the middle of the courtyard. Though it was tempting.

Putting on an expression he hoped was both controlled and smug— lordly, really— Lyonel sauntered over to the other horse and the little fellow atop it. “Yes, hello Egg. I see we’ll need to get you a hat before your little head freezes off.”

Egg grimaced at him, but when Lyonel reached up to help him off his horse, Egg went into his arms with a grin. He hardly seemed bigger at all, despite the time they’d been away. Perhaps he would always be slight. But then Lyonel himself had been a scrawny child once, and he’d sprouted up well enough eventually.

“It has been very cold,” Egg said. “I suppose I’ll have to get used to it.”

“Eventually, you will,” Dunk added, swinging down off his horse. “But this year we’ll take advantage of Ser Lyonel’s hospitality during the worst of it.”

“We’ve plenty of roaring fires all ready for you. You’ll be warm and snug as you like, and I will keep you so until spring.”

He caught Dunk’s eye then, hoping to see that he agreed, that he planned to stay not just for three days this time, but three months. Or was he asking too much? As usual?

But Dunk smiled, smiled soft and warm and full of allowance. A sweet little smile. A beautiful promising smile.

“Off you go now,” Lyonel said with a barely contained grin, “get inside and cleaned up. There’s something hot for you in the kitchens, I’m sure.” He dropped Egg to the ground and swatted lightly at his back to get him moving. The boy trotted off eagerly, heading towards the warm interior of the castle.

Dunk eased up to Lyonel’s side and watched his squire scarper indoors.

“You’re a terrible influence,” he sighed. “He’s meant to attend the horses.”

Lyonel waved it away. “Yes, yes, but you are guests in the seat of the Stormlands, and I have stableboys for that.” The snapped his fingers, gesturing around at the various men and servants who had come to a halt in their work at the arrival of Dunk and Egg. “Come on, now! These horses can’t care for themselves! What in the world do I keep you for? Get to it!”

Finally they snapped to, hurrying forward to take up Thunder and Chestnut’s reins and guide them off into the warmth of the stable.

“You’ll spoil him,” Dunk grumbled.

“The horse or the boy?” At Dunk's annoyed frown, Lyonel laughed and hooked his arm around Dunk’s elbow. “He’s been spoiled plenty in his life. A little extra for one night won’t ruin all your hard work dragging him through the mud and making him sleep in ditches. I promise to knock some sense into him too, if it will make you feel better.”

“Don’t tease.”

“Never, my love.” Dunk blushed. Was he being too free with his affection? Too public? Oh well. He gripped Dunk’s arm tighter. “What does he know of the sword and shield? While you’re here, I’ll aid in his teaching. Put the little prince ass first in the mud once or twice.”

Thankfully, Dunk laughed at that.

Pleased, Lyonel dragged him inside, into the warmth and comforts of Storm’s End.

Up the keep they went, spiraling up staircases and along corridors. Lyonel heard himself chattering— asking questions he gave Dunk no time to answer, recounting his useless trip to the countryside, talking talking talking about nothing important at all, just to be speaking, just to be filling the air between them.

“Where are you taking me?” Dunk finally managed to interject, looking about with wide eyes. “This isn’t the way to your chambers, is it?”

“No,” Lyonel agreed. He was feeling mischievous, giddy with delight at the surprise appearance of his man. It bubbled in him like a geyser breaking through soil. “Wait and see.”

Storm’s End was a remarkable place in many ways, built on the edge of the sea and triumphing over it. He had shown Dunk many of its wonders during his first stay, but not all of them, and the one he had in mind now was sure to amaze his companion.

Finding the door he had in mind— not so far from his own chambers, really, but Dunk was right that the path they’d taken obscured the fact— Lyonel pushed it open. With an excited grin, he waved Dunk into the room. The man went, ducking his head under the lintel.

“What… is this?”

A washroom, and certainly one unlike Dunk had ever seen. Across a black-tiled floor covered with thick, plush carpets, a large tub was built into the far wall, long and deep enough to seat even a man like Dunk. Lyonel beamed with pride at seeing Dunk’s jaw drop.

“We’ve a rather magnificent water system here,” he said, explaining. Swanning to sit on the edge of the tub, he turned open the spigot in the wall and watched the water begin to pour. Immediately, steam and mist began to rise. “Hot water available at the simplest touch. It heats down below and runs through the walls—” he placed a palm on the stone beside him, feeling the radiant heat. “Helps keep the air warm in winter too. Remarkable, really. Storm’s End is a wonder… but we’re sea people, water people, as much as stags of the forest. I suppose it makes sense the great ancestors built this ingenious system.”

He turned— and there was Dunk. Broad as an oak and strong as one too, watching him with open awe and admiration glowing on his face. In the damp warmth of the room, he looked so utterly bright, completely breathtaking. And that hair, that longer hair was sweeping over his ears and starting to stick to his temples. Here Lyonel had been blathering on stupidly while Dunk waited for him to be done, listening like all the nonsense Lyonel had to say was the sweetest poetry.

“You’ve been riding,” Lyonel croaked, needing to fill the quiet between them, to say something. It was odd to find himself nervous like a boy. “You’re filthy and tired and cold and I… I thought…”

“Thank you.”

Then he was stripping off his dirty clothes, leaving them in a careful pile. His bare chest quickly started to glisten in the rising steam. Lyonel stared, watching with open interest. There on his abdomen was the scar from that damned lance at Ashford, marring the otherwise smooth expanse of his soft belly. There were his pert pink nipples. There was the light trail of hair that led below his trousers. Nothing Lyonel hadn’t seen before, but it had been so long that the memories of this magnificent body had become like a far off dream. The reality now facing him, he felt his throat go dry.

Nearly punched out of him, he breathed, “Gods above, you big beautiful thing.”

“Lyonel…”

The roar of the water filling the tub echoed the roaring in his ears.

“Lyonel, I’ve missed you.”

“Yes?”

“Very much.” He crossed the room in two long strides, coming to stand beside Lyonel’s knees. Carefully, he reached to take Lyonel’s face between his big hands. The nerves rippling under Lyonel’s skin settled— he felt small, looking up at Dunk’s big form, but safe. Held. Exactly where he ought to be. When Dunk bent to kiss him, his whole body burst into shimmering gooseflesh.

Home at last. Together again.

With nothing beyond the slightest tug of encouragement, Dunk pulled him to his feet and Lyonel went, wrapping his arms around Dunk’s shoulders. He wound his fingers into Dunk’s newly longer hair, feeling the grit on his scalp, the oil on every strand. It was terribly easy to stand that way and kiss for a long while, doing nothing more than recollecting each other, reminding themselves and the other of how it was between them. The long and eager kiss took much of the ache out of Lyonel’s soul.

The steam and heat of the room circled them, and Lyonel felt sweat break out under his clothes and along his hairline. It was the room, yes, the hot water, and Dunk, having Dunk clinging to him, holding him. The smell of him, slightly sour and very earthy. It set him quite on fire.

Finally Dunk pulled away, his lips peeling from Lyonel’s slowly. He ran his palm across Lyonel’s scruffy cheek, then with a sweet softening of his expression, tugged lightly at his earring. The beautiful gift of an earring.

“You like it?”

“I certainly do. You’ve good taste for a hedge knight.”

“Oh no, ser.”

“Oh yes, ser,” Lyonel echoed, laughing, fingering at a strand of Dunk’s hair. “It’s a lovely gift. As is your presence here. You will stay the whole winter with me, won’t you?”

“I’d like to…” In the moment of hesitation, Dunk glanced towards the still filling tub and gasped, his eyes going wide. He dragged Lyonel away. “The water—”

Lyonel looked— it was near to overfilling. He lurched forward to close the spigot, watching the water slow to a dribble, then a stop. His heart was pounding in his chest, wound up from kissing, exacerbated by the risk of overflow, and heavy with the lingering weight of Dunk’s non-answer.

Forcing lightness, he turned with a big smile on his face. He only hoped Dunk couldn’t tell how false it was.

“Well, you’ll stay until this water goes cold, at least,” he said. Dunk made a face which Lyonel chose to ignore. “There you are, my dear. In you get.”

Dunk didn't move right away. Instead he pawed at Lyonel’s hip, pulling him close, tugging his shirt out of his waistband. “You too. If you please.”

Lyonel’s smile turned sly and pleased. It was awfully nice to be wanted, if not for a whole winter then at least for now. “Who am I to deny you anything?”

With hands as gentle as a summer breeze, Dunk loosened the buttons of Lyonel’s shirt, then his trousers, sliding the silken fabric off him with careful touches.

Lyonel took his hand as Dunk stepped into the tub, and allowed Dunk to take both of his to help him in too.

Then the water was hot and Lyonel had his hands in Dunk’s hair, running his fingers through the long locks, scrubbing until Dunk had had enough and took the soap from him. Once they were both thoroughly scrubbed, they fell once again to kissing. Lyonel hung off Dunk’s shoulders, nearly floating in the deep, warm water, and savored every swipe of tongue, every nip of teeth. There was no real heat to it, but it was perfect all the same. Companionship and affection passed between their mouths, more clearly than words.

After a time they lay together in the water, Lyonel’s back against Dunk’s chest, merely soaking. It was peaceful, restful. Dunk draped his arm around Lyonel’s shoulders, ran his fingers lightly over Lyonel’s chest, easy as could be. After only a little prodding, he told long, simple stories of his travels.

If only it could always be like this, Lyonel thought as he listened to Dunk’s rumbling voice. But that was asking too much.

For now, it was wonderful. It was pleasing and perfect. The soft press of Dunk’s body against him, his soft prick pressing into his lower back, the easy feeling of togetherness, of understanding. Not just their bodies reunited— that almost seemed unimportant, now— but their hearts, their souls.

“… And when the air turned too bitter, I thought it time to come here.”

“To my cold and wind tossed keep?”

“Not so cold,” Dunk said, pressing his lips into Lyonel’s hair. “I do intend for us to stay the winter. There’s much Egg can learn here.”

“I dare say.” The promise to stay warmed Lyonel better than any fire, or hot bath. He would have to do something about his horrible doubts. There was no reason for them, he thought as he turned his cheek against Dunk’s collarbone. Dunk was here. He had come, and he would stay awhile.

When the water turned cool, Lyonel limply eased his way out to find large bathsheets to wrap them in, dry and warm. He scruffed Dunk’s hair with the towel for him, getting a laugh for his trouble. It was so easy to tease, to play. How easy everything was with Dunk— this was the wonder of him. He made Lyonel feel like nothing more than a simple man. Not a lord, hardly a knight. Merely someone Dunk enjoyed, for himself, for his jokes and levity and heart.

“You’ll tangle it,” Dunk protested, halfheartedly pushing Lyonel’s hands away from his head. When Lyonel tried for him again, Dunk caught his wrists and wrassled him, wrangled him, pulled him tight against him to contain him. “You’re trouble.”

Suddenly Dunk scooped him up— with one arm under his knees and the other around his back he lifted him up like a bride to carry him. Lyonel gasped in surprised delight. It was always a wonder to be reminded of Dunk's strength, his ability.

“Right trouble, you are,” Dunk mumbled through a crushed smile. “Someone ought to do something about that.”

“Oh, you’ve grown bold, hedge knight,” Lyonel laughed, throwing his head back. He clung tightly to Dunk’s shoulders. Dunk wouldn’t drop him, surely, but better safe than sorry and bruised on the hard floor.

“I suppose,” Dunk allowed. He brushed his nose against the corner of Lyonel’s jaw, and kissed the top of his throat. “It’s just that I missed you. I thought of you… oh, all the time.”

“Take me to bed, my dearest Dunk,” Lyonel hummed, “and tell me all the ways you’ve thought of me.”

There was no lovemaking that night, only talk and talk and talk, and laughter, so much laughter, until Dunk’s long journey caught up with him and he drifted off. He slept with one hand about Lyonel’s waist, and Lyonel played with his hair, that lovely hair, until nearly sunrise.

There was plenty of time for lovemaking in the morning.

The winter was short, far too short. It never snowed, though an icy slush formed at the coastline and was pushed onto shore by the waves. A fascinating phenomena, but nothing more than that. Not enough to keep Dunk abed for the entire span of the winter, or even within the thick walls of the keep. No, Dunk was called to assist with frozen wells and lost bulls and damaged fences near constantly. Word of a knight who would do a good deed for no coin had made it to the smallfolk, and while Lyonel’s guard would do any of these tasks if he told them to, Dunk jumped at the chance to ride out and be of help.

He was an itchy thing who grew restless easily. Lyonel was much the same, at his core, but had more experience being kept at home.

So for the entire winter, more often than not Dunk was out in the near country, never more than a days ride or two away, doing his knightly duty to aid the innocent and underprivileged. It was very noble, and very, very annoying.

He would return, stay for a few precious days, eat and laugh and lay in Lyonel’s arms and smile at him, and then some new call would come and off he would go.

Egg mainly stayed at Storm’s End during these times. It was a cold winter, very cold, and though Dunk’s large form could brave the bitter winds, the slight little lad struggled and shivered. It was for that reason Dunk allowed him to stay behind. One of the housemaids eventually made him a little felt hat which covered his ears, and that was a good start.

He ought to grow his hair, Lyonel thought. That would add some warmth. Though it would also give up the game that he was a normal little squire, and not a prince of the realm.

While Dunk was away, Lyonel took it upon himself to do the bit of teaching he’d said he could do. He took the lad out into the courtyard and tried to teach him the way of sword, and mace, and spear. Egg struggled under the weight of each, but he was eager to learn and put his best effort into it. Lyonel, for his part, knocked him into the mud only a few times. Just enough to teach him how to get back up.

The lad took to long talks in the library better, parsing through the Baratheon histories and troubling Lyonel with questions to which he did not know the answer. Book learning had never been the area of greatest pleasure for him. Much of whatever history had been taught to him when he was the boy’s age had by now slipped out of his mind, replaced with bawdy songs and sailors knots.

“What of this?” Egg asked, pointing at a short branch of an old family tree. Lyonel leaned to look. The name was unfamiliar. Some long forgotten son who had no children, but, by the dates, lived into old age.

“Who can say?” Lyonel sighed, disinterested and unknowing. “Someone like me, I suppose.”

A little furrow appeared in Egg’s forehead. “How do you mean?” 

Lyonel twisted a hand vaguely in the air, slightly bored by the whole question. Plenty of people in the world remained unmarried and childless. Was it really so interesting? What was the point in caring about men who had died so long ago? If not recorded as heroes or villains, it seemed a waste of time to worry over them. Lives came and went in Westeros. It was the way of things.

“You may have noticed, little prince, that I am unmarried. As such, I am unlikely to have heirs. And so, my line will end with me. Viola.” He waved his hand over the parchment Egg was so interested in, sure that explained everything. “The Baratheons will continue down some other path, as they did back then.”

“You don’t intend to marry?”

Flatly, as sure a statement as that the sky was blue, “No.”

No, he would not marry. Not unless things changed in the realm quite drastically, and taking a man to legal wife became an accepted practice of the land. Besides, he thought simply, for it was plain to him, In my heart, I am married already. A foolhardy enough thought, but true.

“Not ever? Surely it’s not too late.”

Lyonel steadied his gaze and stared the boy down. He allowed a harsh smile to form on his lips. “No. It's not too late. But I am content as I am.”

Egg frowned, obviously confused. “Ser… won’t you be lonely?”

There was the rub. He wouldn’t be lonely if Dunk kept his word and came to live at Storm’s End after Egg was knighted. He would pine in the meantime, yes, but then… he’d have the rest of his life to not be lonely. Once Dunk was his, really his, and not the dead prince's, or this little prince's, or the realm's, he would never be lonely. 

“There are many who are lonely in marriage, Egg. A marriage is no guarantee. Meanwhile I have many friends to keep me company. No, I shan’t be lonely.”

Egg nodded slowly, taking this in in his serious way and turning it about in his thoughts.

“I shall marry,” he declared, with all the pompous surety of a child who has no idea what adulthood is like. “I’d like a wife, and children.”

Lyonel huffed a laugh, the best he could muster, and slumped into his chair. “Good for you.”

Dunk could not come back soon enough.

The man himself returned two days later with a nasty cut on his arm, that same arm held in a shoddily fashioned sling.

Lyonel met him at the stables, tutting and fretting long before Dunk had even dismounted his horse.

“What has been done to you? I’ll have anyone’s head who hurt you.” He didn’t fully mean it, if some low farmer had caught him with a scythe accidentally, but depending on circumstances… well, the fury of the Baratheons was well known. He made to lift Dunk’s poor bandages to see the wound better, but Dunk swatted at him, brushing his hand away.

“It’s nothing, ser, really.”

“It is not.”

“It was a mishap. No one hurt me.”

“Yet you are hurt.” Hurt and bleeding, which soured Lyonel’s stomach. Who knew what had caused that wound? What dirty knife or mud covered spear had cut that flesh? “We must clean it out. Make sure you are properly set.”

“Your Maester…?” Dunk looked about nervously, and rightly so. He’d heard plenty about the daft old man, and had seen his handiwork first hand more than enough. Lyonel had been trying to replace him for almost a year now, to no avail. It wasn't that he was utterly incompetent, but he tended toward catastrophizing. Between declaring wounds mortal that weren't and prescribing amputations for minor cuts, he scared people. It was no good.

“No, heavens no. I will do it.” Gently, he took Dunk’s uninjured arm to lead him indoors. “Let me aid you, Ser Dunk,” he purred, “as you have in the past aided me.”

Dunk blinked at him with his wide blue eyes, and allowed himself to be led.

Inside the keep, Lyonel called for the Maester’s medical chest, and set to untying Dunk’s ratty bandage. Beneath was a bloodied shirt, and a bloodied arm.

“Well,” Lyonel said, poking at the edges of the fabric. “That will have to go.”

Shyly, Dunk peeled off his tunic, then held it in his hands in front of him. Lyonel eyed it with disgust— nasty old thing it was. Torn and repaired a hundred times over, more patch than cloth. Lyonel plucked at it, meaning to dispose of it, but Dunk held firm.

“I’ll wash it and mend it.”

“Nonsense,” Lyonel said, thinking nothing of it. “You’ll have a new shirt.”

“No, I…” He fumbled, finding it difficult to explain. “I’m fond of it. I’ve had it a long time.”

It was simply not something Lyonel could easily understand. So be it. Let his love stubbornly keep a rag. It was his prerogative.

The more pressing question was that damned wound on his arm. He could see why Dunk had fashioned himself a sling. The wound was such that straightening his arm pulled at it, reopening weakly formed clots with each movement.

Lyonel tsked, unhappy with the look of it.

“Well, love, I say this ought to be stitched up.”

“Stitched?” Dunk gulped.

“Have you never been stitched before? That can’t be true.” He slapped at Dunk’s side, where he knew the scar from Ashford sat.

“No, it’s more…”

“You don’t trust me?”

Dunk huffed in response, exasperated. “That’s not it at all. You know it’s not.”

“Then what?” Lyonel asked, turning to the medicine chest to pull out clear liquor, sharp needles, and spools of catgut thread. It was stitch him up or leave him impaired— this wound would not heal well on it’s own, of that Lyonel was quite sure. It would fester, or pinch, or tug. His sword arm would never be quite the same again, if the wound wasn’t properly treated. He started to soak a cloth in alcohol, and watched Dunk blanch.

“I suppose… I don’t like to see it done. And the feeling…”

Yes, the feeling. The strange drag of thread through skin was not a pleasant one. A rather sickly reminder of the frailty of the flesh.

“Then don’t look, my love.” Lyonel swiped through the blood, revealing a patch of clean skin, which he pressed his lips to. “And I shall distract you from the rest.”

“Lyonel!”

“Oh hush.”

Dunk’s bashful worries were for naught, for Lyonel took his duties very seriously. He scrubbed Dunk’s arm free of blood, washed out the interior of the slice, and took to sewing as diligently as a maid working on a sampler. Small, even stitches jabbed through Dunk’s skin. Lyonel paired each press of the needle and tug of the knot with a stinging wash of liquor and then a sweet kiss to Dunk’s bicep. A small scrape of beard, a wet drag of tongue. Just a little something to make the hurt more tolerable.

Finally he was finished. The stitching was decent, he thought. It would hold. Nervously, Dunk glanced down at it as well.

“Oh,” he breathed out a sigh of relief. “That’s fine work.”

“I told you I could do it.” His brow furrowed, he set to work wrapping Dunk’s arm in a clean bandage. “Just because I’ve never camped in a hedge…”

“You ought,” Dunk teased, his mood improved now that the sewing was done. “Be good for you.”

“You are the only person in the world who could ever tempt me to the hedge, dear Dunk. But you forget I’ve slept in many a hammock and on a ship’s deck in my day. I wager sleeping propped against piles of rope is near as uncomfortable as tree roots. Now, at my age, I dare think I’ve earned a bit of comfort.” He tied off the bandage and leaned back with flourish. A job well done.

Dunk tested it out, stretching his arm gingerly, feeling the tug of the stitches.

“You’re not so old,” he said after a moment. His hand came to rest on Lyonel’s knee. “There’s a hedge waiting for you yet.”

Lyonel snapped his eyes up— only to find Dunk’s twinkling at him. A joke.

Still joking, or perhaps not, Dunk continued: “It can be quite freeing, in the hedges.”

Lyonel thought about it. A warm summer evening, laying under a tree with Dunk at his side, the stars glittering above them. It might even be nice. There was a certain romance to it. Surely his back could handle such a thing for one night.

“Perhaps when you aren’t full of holes,” he granted, “and it’s not so damned cold out… perhaps you could lay me out under a tree.”

Dunk smiled and leaned in close to whisper, “I’ll lay you quite well.”

“Ooh,” he hissed back, a hungry smile tugging at his lips. “Bold.”

The boldness— the slight naughtiness, even— disappeared under a sweetly shy blush. It was so lovely to see Dunk try and match him for innuendo, but lovelier still to see Dunk’s beautiful true nature come through every time.

That night Dunk lay in Lyonel’s bed, and the next night he did the same, save that he worked at his ragged scrap of a shirt with needle and thread, making the formerly bloody thing whole again. And so he stayed the following night, and on and on.

The wound in his arm took more than a week to heal, and all that while Dunk stayed cozily in Storm’s End. He slept late in Lyonel’s bed, ate heartily and drank heartily and laughed heartily. For a week and a week beyond, all was love and warmth and Dunk nuzzling against the back of Lyonel’s neck during the night.

When finally it was time to remove the stitches, Lyonel was tempted to beg a few more days. It had all been so perfect while Dunk had been recovering. The ideal dream of what his life could be, in its best form. Dunk about always and Egg often nagging the both of them to teach him something, amuse him somehow, and both of them sighing but always heaving up out of a comfortable chair by a warm fire to go with him to the library or the rookery or the armory.

For all the bitterness Lyonel carried towards the Targaryens— for their tyranny, their haughtiness, their pomposity— and beyond that, the bitterness he personally felt towards dead old Baelor Breakspear in particular, for he was sure that if the damned bastard hadn’t dropped dead in Dunk’s arms at Ashford, Dunk would have come to Storm’s End then and there would be none of these painful goodbyes and soul-crushing waits (though no Egg either, and that stung something in Lyonel’s chest)— despite all that, he did like the boy. Enjoyed his company, even.

It scratched an itch Lyonel was sure had long ago passed— to parent. To guide a little boy into manhood and see him turn out decent. At every turn, Egg proved himself an apt and eager pupil, though stubborn and too smart for his own good. But he was a good lad, as Dunk was always saying. Clever and kind-hearted and funny, Lyonel found. He and the boy laughed together quite a bit, when they weren’t competing for Dunk’s attention. Which Dunk seemed to find amusing to no end.

“He gets you all the year,” Lyonel pouted one night as he undid the buttons of his doublet. “Shouldn’t I be allowed to have you when you’re here?”

“You do have me,” Dunk said from the bed. “Here I am.”

“Yes, until the air warms and the flowers bloom and you ride off again with him for who knows how long.”

It had been past two years since Ashford Meadows, and this was the only extended time they’d been together. It wasn’t fair.

Dunk huffed. “He’s just a boy, Lyonel. He needs me. Don’t be jealous.”

But he was jealous. Unfairly. Stupidly, maybe. But he was.

Lying, he proudly grumbled, “I’m not jealous. Only you’ll be very sorry when I die of old age waiting for you.”

Dunk laughed, taking it for a joke. Lyonel crawled onto the bed and up Dunk’s long, waiting body. Straddling his hips, he hovered. Waiting. Waiting to be wanted.

“I would be sorry,” Dunk sighed, smiling like Lyonel’s petulant jealousy was charming instead of inane, and pulled at Lyonel’s hips, his big hands coming to settle into the soft dip at Lyonel’s waist. “But it won’t happen. You have me. No matter where I go, I’m yours. You have my heart.” He pulled Lyonel forward and kissed him, gently at first, then more fiercely. “You always will. I love you. I'll come back to you.”

“You love him too,” Lyonel protested weakly.

“Not like this.” He tugged Lyonel down among the silken sheets, and proved what he meant. Lyonel laughed, laughed all through it, had to laugh so Dunk didn’t think his sadness or jealousy or annoyance was too genuine. Dunk had to think all was well always, that Lyonel carried no real bitterness, or everything would fall apart, he was quite sure. And he couldn’t allow that.

The next day, Lyonel snipped the threads in Dunk’s arm and set him free to wander, and two weeks after that he was gone back to the hedges, with his boy, leaving Lyonel alone in his cold and wind tossed keep again. Again, he waved them off with a smile on his face, feigning high spirits and suffering agony. Again, his heart came near to breaking.

And then, as abruptly as a ship crashing against an unseen reef, his father died. The news came by raven— his father had been unwell for years, and had long ago gone south to live along the coast of the Dornish sea, where he claimed the weather was kinder on his disposition and old bones. It was in this way that Lyonel had lived as lord of Storm’s End, long before it was official. It was official now.

How was he meant to feel? There was no grief, no pain. His father had been a distant man at best, both physically and emotionally. They had not been close. Lyonel was merely the eldest son, an accomplishment achieved, and then a disappointment as he caroused and bandied rather than studied, as he took to sea rather than to the countryside to learn his lands and people. The late Lord Baratheon had put his interest into later sons, who had pleased him more, expecting Lyonel to be struck down by storm or sword at any time.

Ha. No such luck.

And now a late spring sickness had finally felled the man, leaving Lyonel to stand in his stead.

The letter announcing the news was from his second youngest brother, a simpering fellow Lyonel barely knew. His father’s body would be returned to Storm’s End to be properly honored and placed in the crypts. Lyonel was expected to handle the details, prepare the ceremonies, and host the neighboring families who would come to pay their respects.

Horrid, he thought. Burdensome.

If it were up to him, he’d drop the old man down the chute and be done with it. A corpse was a corpse was a corpse. Funerals were silly things.

Be decent, the letter said. No need to disappoint Father a final time.

What a shitheel. If that pathetic excuse for a brother accompanied the noble slab of meat, Lyonel would knock his head right off his shoulders for that jab. He was lord now, and had the right to do it.

Fuck him, he thought. Fuck this whole cunting business.

It would serve him right, and his dead father too, to do a shoddy job of the funereal rites. Rat fucks, the both of them. Cowards and fools and—

He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. It annoyed him to no end to know this about himself, but despite it all he would do his father honor. He would host the best damn funeral these lands had ever seen, and he’d do it with a smile on his damned fucking face.

Immediately there was so much to do— guest rooms to be readied, fields to be flattened for visiting pavilions, length after length of black silk to be cleaned and ironed and hung, replacing Lyonel’s favored golds.

It was dour, it was miserable. It was not the Storm’s End that Lyonel had spent years adjusting to his taste. He’d worked hard to warm up the dark old keep. And now, of course, the return of his father had turned it dark again. The old cunt still had some power, even in death.

Within a day, the fields were beginning to fill with pavilions, tents erected and tables laid. All very respectful and calm, all uninvited but unavoidable. Lyonel leaned out a window of the keep, watching it happen, too drained to go out among them quite yet. There would be plenty of time for accepting respects and tokens of honor from his vassal lords. For now he couldn’t be bothered.

He wondered if the dragons would make an appearance. It would do well for them to show their faces and pay respects to the fallen head of a great house. Perhaps Prince Valarr would show his face... But if Maekar— or gods forbid it, his horrible brats— appeared on his doorstep, he would not be a welcome sight. And he’d have to put the royal ass in a room, a nice room, too. Couldn’t even exile the horrid prince to the fields with the other unwanted visitors vying for his favor.

It would be miserable. A miserable week of funeral feasts and ceremony, of sitting around listening to lesser lords say how wonderful his father was, how noble, how excellent a man, when Lyonel knew better.

He would be gracious, he decided firmly. He would be the perfect lord of the keep. There would be no reason for anyone to doubt his familial loyalty, his decency, that he was the right man to rule the Stormlands. Not his brothers, not the vassal lords, not the damned dragons.

The people, at least, already loved him. More than his father. Since his father had left, Lyonel had been present to them, visible and available. He had laughed in their inns and thrown sigils plucked from golden helms into their crowds. He had been their Baratheon in situ for more than a decade now and he was well liked.

For the first time, he felt a pang that someday all this would go to relatives he barely knew, that he would have no hand in how his house continued. The feeling was not regret, exactly, for he knew himself and didn’t regret a single thing that brought him here. He certainly didn’t regret Dunk.

He’d meant it when he’d said he’d rather have Dunk than heirs. A thousand times over. He only hoped that his reputation might outlive him and guide some future little Baratheon to bravery and adventure. And perhaps even to a bit of fun— or more, something richer and deeper and more wonderful— with a tall, magnificent knight.

He regretted it even less when Dunk arrived in a flurry just under a week later, arriving miraculously in advance of the rest of the Baratheons.

“My lord,” he said, flinging himself to his knees at Lyonel’s feet right in the mud of the courtyard. It was shocking— never had Dunk treated him this way, like some magnificent thing to be so honored. It was one of many things that Lyonel liked so much about him. “Lord of Storm’s End.”

“What? Up, up with you.” His face burning, he pulled desperately at Dunk’s shoulders, begging him off his knees.

“I heard of your fathers death,” Dunk stumbled over the words, clearly confused. “I’m sorry, ser, for your— I mean, I never had a father myself, exactly, but I know the grief I felt at Ser Arlan’s passing and—”

“You came to comfort me?”

Dunk blinked at him with big, wide eyes, like it was obvious. “Yes.”

“Oh.”

“I never met your father, but I’m sure he was a noble lord. To sire a man such as yourself.”

It was odd. This formality. This chivalrous attention to saying the right thing.

“My father was a bastard. Let’s leave it at that.” Dunk blinked at him again, his blue eyes terribly round. “But I’m very glad you’re here all the same. Very, very glad. You will make the rest of this so much more tolerable.”

“The… rest of it, m’lord?”

“The funeral, my lad,” Lyonel explained with exhaustion. “My family.”

“But surely… Surely, ser…” It was a noble attempt, but no good. Sighing heavily, Lyonel tucked his arm into Dunk’s.

“No, it will be awful. You’ll see, my love, you’ll see.”

And see he did.

The Baratheon procession appeared over the hill hardly five hours later, all pomp and pretension. How Lyonel had emerged from them was a mystery even to himself. Something different in his blood. Something that ran older, that spoke to the fierceness and fury that had once conquered the wild coast of the Stormlands and raised their impossible castle. That was the Baratheon Lyonel was. Not the studious, bent-knee weaklings his brothers had become, nor the imperious cold wall of his father. Maybe he'd gotten it from his mother. There was no knowing. 

Lyonel hurried to dress in his best blacks, and bid Dunk do the same.

Sheepishly, Dunk ducked his head, retreating into a slouch. “I, I have no blacks.”

“Fuck.” How this had passed his attention embarrassed him. Why hadn’t he commissioned an entire wardrobe for Dunk in his absence? That was an oversight he would not again allow. But it was too late now. “Your armor then?”

“It is not with me. To ride faster to you, I left it with Egg—” Egg, who understood the risk of a Targaryen appearance and had requested to wait out the funeral in a local township inn.

“Seven hells— I want you with me to face my damned brothers. But you must— you must look— See, this is what I mean. Their damned expectations, their fucking judgements— They won’t be kind if… if...”

Dunk placed heavy hands on Lyonel’s shoulders, stopping his anxious pacing and grounding him in one.

“A cloak, perhaps, if you think that would be more presentable. I won’t make a scene of myself, but I’ll be with you. If you desire it.”

He sagged, dropping his forehead against Dunk’s chest. “This is going to be the worst fucking week of my fucking life.”

Dunk’s arms wrapped around him and embraced him tightly. “I’m here. I won’t care what they think of me. I’m here for you.”

Despite it all, Lyonel was standing at the gate as his father’s corpse arrived. Flanked by brothers on horseback, the black draped wagon charged forward like a bull, ready to skewer. A step behind, Dunk, draped in a Baratheon black and gold cloak, placed his hand on Lyonel’s shoulder. A meek comfort, deeply appreciated.

“Brother!” The youngest of them shouted, once reasonably in hearing. What was his name? Eliduc, Lyonel thought. Yes. He’d last seen the boy when he was hardly more than a sprout, when his father had left for the south and taken the family with him. Now the lad was tall and grown, and sporting long dark sideburns. He leapt from his horse as soon as he could, and ran the remaining distance to throw himself into Lyonel’s arms, nearly tackling him. “It’s so good to see you! How long it’s been— I want to talk to you about going to sea. Lucan is being dreadful about it, but I know you’ll understand. Oh, hello there, who’s this?”

It took Lyonel a moment to catch up before he realized the young man was asking after Dunk. He glanced behind, where Dunk was staring in utter surprise at the scattered fellow before him.

“This is my most dear friend, Ser Duncan the Tall.”

“Ser Duncan the Tall?” Eliduc gasped, his eyes tracking up and down Dunk’s big figure. “I’ve heard of you. The Trial of Seven at Ashford— Lyonel, did you witness it?”

He felt his face fall and his temper rise. “Did I witness it? I was part of it! I was the first to stand at Duncan’s side.”

“My,” he gasped, looking between his eldest brother and the knight standing behind him. “Is that so?”

“It is so,” Dunk confirmed, the hand on Lyonel’s shoulder tightening.

“Enough of that,” came the sharp tongue of Lucan. The second youngest. Nothing like Lyonel at all, he was thin, scholarly, sharp and pale. “We’ve come to bury our father. Not tell tall tales.”

Lyonel bristled. There was nothing tall about Dunk’s tale of honor on the fields of Ashford, save for the stature of the man himself. He was about to snap something rather nasty when his final brother, Lanval, well timed dope that he was, stepped in, sweeping off his horse and crossing to say his hellos. Lanval was broad and pleasant, simple and sturdy; he had always been a somewhat stocky lad and had grown into a solidly built knight of absolutely zero reputation. He looked handsome enough in his golden armor draped with black silks, but, in Lyonel’s mind and memory, he was lazy. louche, and unenergetic. No wonder nasty little Lucan had become father’s favorite. He’d been interested in the title, and easily swanned in to claim it.

Behind the hearse were wagons and carriages of wives and children— even little Eliduc had a wife and babe already. Couldn’t be more than twenty, by Lyonel’s estimation. He really was the odd man out among them, wasn’t he? Forty years of age and no child yet, not even a bastard running about. Oh well.

Introductions were made, Dunk to Lanval, Lucan, Eliduc, the wives, the children. It took forever. Finally it was time for the procession to make its way inside, for the families to be set up in rooms and allowed to rest before the funeral began on the morrow.

“Ran out of L’s, did he?” Dunk leaned close to whisper in Lyonel’s ear, as they brought up the tail of the larger party.

“Who?”

“Your father. Lyonel, Lucan, Lanval—”

“I had a sister too. Laurie. Died of fever as a child.”

“— and Eliduc.”

“Ah yes,” Lyonel chuckled. He appreciated Dunk’s attempt to cheer him, especially at the expense of his family. This was what he loved best about Dunk— yes there was the passion between them, the sex, Dunk’s mouth-watering shoulders and blue eyes to drown in… but more important, more dear, was his warm consideration, his steady constancy, his attention to Lyonel’s stormy moods. His little joke now only made Lyonel love him all the more. “Poor Ellie. Though he turned out rather decently, didn’t he?”

Dunk looked ahead to where the young man was walking with his arm about his lady bride's shoulders, pointing out something or other about Storm’s End to her. He was a cheery lad at least.

“He seems to have done. Haven’t you missed them even a little?”

Lyonel looked at him. Dunk had never had family, certainly not one like his. For all they were aligned on, Dunk would likely never understand how very, very little Lyonel had missed his family. Even the decent ones. They had left long ago, and Lyonel had felt only relief to be free of them. His cold and cruel father, his annoying and uninteresting younger brothers. By now, all they shared were similar looks and a name. There were distant cousins whom he knew better, and better cared for.

“You’re too good, Ser Dunk.” He patted Dunk’s arm, all that he would allow himself in sight of his fathers coffin. “Too, too good.”

The evening was a flurry, and one where Dunk disappeared into the crowds and made himself scarce.

At the high table, Lyonel scanned the room for him. Perhaps he’d gone out to the pavilion fields to see the little apple Fossoway (Lyonel had seen his banners out on the field the day before), or even further to check in on his squire, hiding out half a day away. There was no sign of the black Targaryen flags yet, but it didn’t mean they wouldn’t appear. Dunk was deeply aware of Egg’s nerves regarding that matter and may have felt it his duty to go and assuage him, while he figured Lyonel busy.

He has not abandoned you, Lyonel thought, chiding himself. Relax.

But his nerves were shredding. Under every word his brothers said to him, every grating complaint, every thoughtless comment. The years at Stonehelm had spoiled them; Lucan especially was the least gracious of guests, having something snide to say about the mourning silks that blanketed the hall, the food, Lyonel’s hair, the company.

“That earring, Lyonel, really. You represent us as if we were pirates, or marauders.”

“Lucan—”

“And that big fellow? Where’s he stalked off to? Why do you insist on associating with the lowest sorts?”

Lyonel ground his teeth, hard enough to crack bone. Would it really be so bad to strike his brother at his fathers funeral? Would it be so scandalous to throw him out of the keep and disown him? “He is a knight, Lucan. You forget yourself.”

“A hedge knight! Hardly a knight at all.”

Lanval had the decency to lean forward and cluck his tongue in disapproval, and Eliduc, who was proving himself more and more decent by the moment (though overeager and foolish too), gasped in hurt surprise.

“Ser Duncan is the champion of a Trial of Seven,” he said in hushed awe. “You oughtn't speak that way of him.”

“What even is his place here?” Lucan continued, his nose wrinkling at the thought of Dunk sharing the same hallowed roof as himself. “What right has he—”

Without a thought, Lyonel stood, knocking the chair beneath him skittering backwards across the floor, causing a racket which silenced the rest of the hall. Snarling, he bullied into Lucan’s face.

“His place is by my side, if he chooses. He is a true knight, and my— my good friend. Now watch your fucking tongue before I cut it out of your head.”

Lucan’s jaw dropped, but he did shut up. Thank the seven and all the gods who had ever been worshiped. Another word out of him and Lyonel really would have thrown him ass over elbows out the front door.

Ruffled like a bird after a windstorm, he tried to settle down. He righted his chair and sat, looking around the room at the collected, shocked, parties. They would forget it had happened with another few goblets of wine. A passing fit from the Laughing Storm.

But Dunk…

Dunk stood at the back of the hall, his head towering over a small crowd standing by the door. He stared up at the high table, eyes visibly wide even at a distance. They caught gazes, held. Had Dunk heard his words? Was he shocked by them? Or gratified?

Then the crowd moved and Dunk went with them, and was quickly eaten up by the mass of bodies around him. Extraordinary how he could hide that large body, when he really wanted to. In an instant, Lyonel had lost sight of him.

He came, he went. He appeared, he disappeared. It was Dunk’s way.

Lyonel slumped in his chair and turned his attention to Lanval. His nearest brother was throwing a dirty look in Lucan’s direction, and pouring himself another glass of wine. There was something they could agree on, at least. Lyonel gestured for his own glass to be filled, and Lanval complied.

“Don’t mind him,” Lanval grunted. “Been complaining father didn’t name him heir for months. He'd been petitioning. Sour grapes is all.”

Lyonel snorted and decided not to care about that little bit of back-stabbing. “Tell me how it’s been at Stonehelm, brother. Distract me, please.”

Lanval did his best, with Eliduc’s help. Lanval had been in and out of the Rainwood for years, which explained his roughened, weather beaten face. He’d been surveying, mapping the wild, wet forest. Respectable work for a hearty knight like himself. There was something of Hardying about him, Lyonel thought. And something of Beesbury to Eliduc’s bright smiles and boisterous excitement. Perhaps he had missed his brothers after all. But no, that wasn’t it, he decided with a heavy feeling in his heart. It was much more that he missed his friends.

“I want to go to sea,” Eliduc said in a half whisper, leaning across the arm of Lanval’s seat to speak to Lyonel. “Like you did. Lucan is against it—”

“Lucan is a prig.”

“Father took Lucan’s side. But now that you’re lord…” His eyes looked to Lyonel with bright pleading. “He couldn’t say no to you.”

“You’re a grown man, Ellie,” he sighed. “Who fucking cares what Lucan thinks? If you wish to go to sea, go to sea. It’s honorable to follow your own heart. No one else can do it for you.”

That clearly pleased the lad, who grinned and sat back, satisfied. It would be good to get him out from under Lucan’s thumb. If there was one thing Lyonel could do for him, it would be that. Set the boy free, let him fly and see where he landed.

The night grew long, the fires burnt down. Most of the guests left to retire back to their tents in the fields. Dunk did not reappear, much to Lyonel’s disappointment.

He didn’t appear in Lyonel’s chambers that night either, and Lyonel stared at the ceiling for lonely hours, feeling exhausted and poorly, but unable to drift off.

Likely Dunk thought he was doing right— leaving Lyonel to his family, allowing space for a free reunion, perhaps a reconciliation. A kind thought, but not a true one. Everything would have been better with Dunk at his side. Every story would have been more interesting, every touch of familial gossip more scintillating, every glass of wine sweeter. Lanval’s stodgy attempts at storytelling would have been more compelling if Dunk were listening eagerly at his side. Eliduc’s naive enthusiasm would be charming, paired with Dunk’s. Perhaps Lucan would have even seemed less sour, if Dunk had been there to warm Lyonel’s ice cold judgement of him.

But Dunk had not been there, so the evening had been, at best, a bore. A dull duty sprinkled with great frustrations.

On the morrow, there would be the funeral. A whole day of ritual and respect for a man Lyonel felt nothing but tired contempt for. He would train his face into the appropriate approximation of sadness, he supposed, and he would get through it.

Hopefully, Dunk would still be there when it was over. Surely he wouldn’t slip out in the night without even saying goodbye. No, surely not.

He has not abandoned you, he reminded himself firmly, though he felt the cool emptiness of his bed like a blade. Relax.

He briefly glanced Dunk at breakfast, indeed tucked in with the little green Fossoway clan, but then the Targaryens finally arrived in all their horrid glory and amid the chaos Dunk disappeared again. Fair enough, Lyonel thought as he made a show of welcoming Prince Maekar (and blessedly only Prince Maekar). If Maekar saw Dunk about, he’d wonder about his boy, and then who knew what trouble might arise. Better to avoid it entirely.

“The Crown expresses their deepest condolences to the House of Baratheon,” Maekar drawled with clear boredom.

“And House Baratheon is grateful for the consideration of the royal family. Storm’s End welcomes you with open arms,” Lyonel said back, matching Maekar’s tone. They made glancing eye contact, a shared moment of understanding at the annoyances of required duty, and then the prince excused himself and Lyonel gratefully let him go.

The funeral began in the early afternoon, a long ceremony of septon’s speeches and incense and chanting.

What a dreadful bore, Lyonel thought, watching his father’s coffin being paraded through the halls of a castle he’d not been bothered to live in for nearly twenty years. I’d rather be tossed into the sea and be done with it.

Down they went into the dark and damp crypts, where generations of Baratheon bones rested and turned to dust. It was a snug fit at best, the coffin, the corpses, the living bodies pressed in to watch. The low ceilings forced Lyonel to take off his antlered circlet, and hold it uncomfortably in his hands in front of him. It would be assumed to be a sign of respect for his departed father, which annoyed him.

As the coffin was slid into its slot in the wall, a bright something caught Lyonel’s eye and he turned, barely, to follow it.

Dunk. Behind the crowd, crammed in under the low stone ceiling, his face lit by the torchlight. He had one hand up on the ceiling, bracing, and what had caught Lyonel’s eye was a streak of gold on his littlest finger, reflecting in the dim light.

At catching Lyonel’s eye, Dunk offered him a small, weak smile. A comfort.

Lyonel nearly melted right there. Tears sprung to his eyes and he gripped hard at the circlet in his hands, hard enough to bruise his palms, to stop from crying. He could not be seen to be weeping, lest someone mistake that the tears were for his father.

The septon completed his chanting, and then the funeral was done and it was time to return back to the world of the living, for another feast, another round of talking with guests.

But Lyonel tarried at the entrance to the crypt, watching the crowds of mourners troop past. Somewhere among them was Dunk, and if he could just catch him for a moment…

There were his brothers, walking out in a line like ducklings, one after the other. Prince Maekar and his attendants, the Baratheon cousins, the various lords and ladies of the surrounding lands. The little Fossoway, who stopped to bow low before Lyonel and say, “An honor to be present, your lordship.” Good fellow. Lyonel shook his hand, more than he had done for anyone before, and waved him along. He watched what felt like hundreds of people stride by him, all turning to him one by one to pay respects, to express their appropriate grief, to tell him how nobly he was behaving. His grace began to wear thin.

And then at last Dunk appeared, coming up the stairs from the crypt, nearly bent in half to save himself from the low ceiling.

“There you are,” Lyonel hissed at him desperately, reaching for his arm.

“Ser, I…”

“Linger with me for a moment, would you? Here—” He pulled Dunk to stand behind him, allowing for no more contest.

Dunk was one of the last, thankfully, and soon they were as good as alone. Just being in Dunk’s presence brought a comforting calm to Lyonel’s nerves. What was it about family and ridiculous ritual that wound him up so?

Dunk stood with his hands folded in front of him, all respect. Rather like he needed to hold himself back from reaching to touch. There was something satisfying to that.

“What’s this?” Lyonel made the first move, taking up Dunk’s hand to see the thing that had shone at him down below.

“Your ring, ser.”

Lyonel turned the big hand.

“Oh. So it is.”

There upon his finger, sitting rather snugly against the second knuckle, was the ring Lyonel had given him upon their first parting. Gold and shining, a Baratheon stag impressed on its flat head.

“I don’t wear it often,” Dunk murmured. “It doesn’t fit so well, so I mainly keep it about my neck, on a string.”

“On a string,” Lyonel echoed with a weak laugh. “You wear my sigil on a string.”

“Near my heart.” He smiled. “And you wear mine here.”

He tugged at Lyonel’s dangling earring. The shooting star.

It was too much, really. Dunk’s earnestness. On top of everything else, the rawness of the day, the exhaustion that was clawing at his boot heels, Dunk’s sweetness was enough to undo him. And it did— he bent, pressing his forehead into Dunk’s chest, needing to be held. After a moment’s surprise, Dunk wrapped his big arms about Lyonel’s shoulders and squeezed. With that, all the frayed nerves finally snapped. He started to cry. Not for his father, heavens no. Not for his brothers, who had grown up without him. Not for his household or his name or his line. He started to cry for the simple reason that life was occasionally too hard, and Dunk made it so, so easy. Everything felt easy when wrapped in Dunk’s arms, surrounded by love. When Dunk left, as he always did and always would, it was hard again. It was boring and wretched and intolerable. It had never been more clear than in this fatigued moment of weakness. And it grieved him.

“Are you alright, ser? What can I do?”

“Just don’t— don’t leave.” His body shuddered, the tears ripping through him. It was horrid, shameful. “Stay,” he begged, his voice wobbling and creaking like a seapoor ship. He whimpered, whined, and clung desperately to Dunk’s shoulders, digging in his fingers as if he could hold him, as if he had the strength to force Dunk still, to keep him exactly where he was for all time. “It’s so dreadful here without you. I can’t bear it. I— I— I miss you too much. Don’t leave again. Please, Dunk— My Dunk—”

He was rambling, talking nonsense. He knew it. But he couldn’t stop. Not when his heart hurt so. He’d barely known how deeply he’d missed Dunk, while he’d been away. How much he needed him, how much his life was improved by his mere presence. How much he’d worried that Dunk would realize his mistake while traveling, or fall in proper love with some country girl and never return, or, or— How much it drained him to carry all that in the back of his heart and feel it gnawing on his spirits.

“I can’t,” Dunk groaned against the top of his head. “You know I can’t.”

“You could,” he cried. “If you chose.”

But he wouldn’t choose, Lyonel knew. That was the grief of it. Dunk wouldn’t choose Lyonel. He would choose Egg, the Targaryens, the throne, the dead prince, the realm.

It would always be the realm over Lyonel. Every single time.

He was jealous, he knew. Sickly jealous. It was nothing new. But more than just jealous of Egg, and how much time and attention he got from Dunk, he was jealous of the world, the whole world that got Dunk more than he did, and fuck it all, he was tired of it. He was exhausted. For all he had, there was one thing he didn’t, and the wanting of it was killing him.

“I will,” Dunk promised him softly, speaking to him like a wounded creature. “Once Egg is knighted, then I’ll stay. I’ll stay with you then.”

He didn’t believe it. But seven above, he wanted to.

“Just say, just this once… just fucking lie to me this once, would you?” Lyonel felt the tears slowing. The realization of the cause had stoppered them up— it was a heartbreak he would learn to live with, and had in truth already learned to live with. The fact of his life was that Dunk would leave him. He had accepted it long before Dunk had ever loved him.

“Lyonel…” Lyonel lifted his eyes and watched Dunk’s expression twist. He didn’t lie. He never did. He was a true and honest knight. “I’m here now. I’ll be with you tonight, if you’ll have me. I swear it.”

It would have to be good enough. With a pathetic, shaking sniffle, Lyonel nodded. Dunk gave him a comforting squeeze.

“I love you, don’t forget,” Dunk said, deadly serious. “You were so handsome today. The way you glowed, even down below… I couldn’t take my eyes off you, really.”

It was all Lyonel could do not to fall to weeping again. He knew he’d looked handsome— he’d worked quite hard at it, and as much for his own pride as for the hope that Dunk would see him and say exactly that. Gods, the amount of time he’d spent fussing with buttons and belts, adjusting his collar and rings, making sure he glittered just so… How he’d twisted his curls around his fingers so they would fall exactly how he wanted. How carefully he'd shaved, scraping clean his cheeks but leaving his sideburns long, shaping his goatee into something pointedly piratical, waxing his mustache into curled twists. That he had done partially to annoy Lucan, but... not only. It was vanity. Horrible vanity. To be handsome, to be striking. But it had worked, and Dunk had noticed.

If only he could live in the warm glow of Dunk’s compliment… but it was time to move. He would be missed soon, as the evening's somber festivities began. He would be expected to give a eulogy. His duties as a good host were not done yet.

He tucked their elbows together, wanting the close press of him as long as possible, and started them walking towards the great hall, following the low rumble of a hundred voices. The better to hide his pleased flush, too.

“You’re a bastard, you know,” Lyonel grumbled, trying to smooth the tremble out of his voice. “Saying such things. Too good for me and too noble and too kind and too beautiful. It’s not fair. What were the gods thinking when they made you? A punishment for the rest of us, certainly.”

“Ser, come now. Imagine how it is for me,” Dunk said, his voice teasing. “Here I am, a lowly hedge knight, and there’s you, a great lord so far above me, who is handsome and brave, and he’s offering me his heart and his home and—”

And it’s not enough, Lyonel thought. For all you are, and all you deserve. Nothing would be enough.

But Dunk was still light hearted and playful. “— and more beyond. Now what can I, low as I am, offer this great lord in return? Think on that, Lyonel. It’s difficult.”

You could stay, he wanted to say, but he’d already been rebuffed on that point once today. No need to embarrass himself further. No, he must be light. He must be the Laughing Storm again. No matter that his entire body was still shaking, no matter that he felt eviscerated and raw, stripped to the bone and left exposed.

“You can keep me company against my boring brothers, and all the sniveling lords, for a start. Save me from an evening of horrors.”

“Aye,” Dunk chuckled. “That I can do.”

The evening was exactly as Lyonel had feared— long, boring, full of his brothers at his elbows and a seemingly eternal parade of landed lords paying respects while simultaneously begging favors. A horrible bore. Prince Maekar sat at the head table and looked exactly how Lyonel felt— that it would be more exciting to leap off the battlements and into the sea than to spend another second with these people.

Lyonel gave his eulogy (a pack of lies, all of it) and then, with decisive pleasure, fell deep into his cups. He’d earned it, he thought. Why the fuck not?

Why not get terribly drunk? What was one dead father and three brothers he barely knew and a love who kept leaving him and a big, stupid, empty castle when he had a never ending wine cellar at his disposal? Let that wine settle his strangely unsettled nerves. Let it drown his sorrows in a deluge. Let him sink and die in it.

Now, really quite drunk indeed, he was wobbling down the corridors, tumbling from one wall to the other, on his way back to his chambers. Dunk had been with him most of the night, or politely within sight, then… He remembered Dunk talking with Eliduc, avoiding Prince Maekar… then he was nowhere. Slipped away yet again. Lyonel had blinked and lost him in an instant.

Where was he now? Gone again. Probably in a hedge.

It would serve him right. Serve Lyonel right. Probably drove the man off by weeping all over him earlier. What a fool he’d made of himself. Why did Dunk put up with him? Jealous and petty and selfish and absurd… A joke of a man, really.

Somehow he made it to his rooms. His body had apparently known the way while the rest of him was elsewhere. His forehead hit the door and he stayed there, waiting for the rest of the world to stop spinning.

Where had his antlered crown gone? He must’ve left it down in the great hall, or… he didn’t know. Fuck. Foolish, silly Lyonel who couldn’t keep track or hold of his crown or his man.

Well. Time to fall into his horrible empty bed again and hopefully have a dreamless sleep. It would be better than the bad dreams or even the good ones. The good dreams would only sour when he woke up alone—

He didn’t remember opening the door but suddenly he was inside, wavering on his feet.

The room was his familiar own. Warmly lit by candles and lanterns, his things as he’d left them, his bed crisply made by the servants during the day… and Dunk, waiting for him on that same bed, sitting on the edge of it, looking nervous like a boy.

“Lyonel!” He leapt to his feet, crossing the room quicker than Lyonel’s eyes could follow. “There you are.”

“Here I am.” He tried for a grin, but fell short. There was wine on the side table, and he gratefully swanned over to pour himself a large glass and down it. Dunk eyed him, following his movements like a hunting dog.

“I lost you, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you.” He spoke with a slow carefulness, watching as Lyonel caught his balance against a table.

“You are your own man,” Lyonel mumbled, feeling the words like filthy winter slush in his mouth. “You come and go as you please.”

Dunk frowned, crumpling up his lovely face. “Lyonel…”

“You needn’t stay if you don’t want to. I won’t…” He waved a hand, looking for the right word. “I won’t insist.”

“Don’t be like this. I didn’t mean to lose you. I’m here now, aren’t I?”

Charging forward with bluster, Lyonel laughed, forcing it, and said, “I do hope you’ll forgive my earlier histrionics.” He weakly spun an limp hand, hoping to wave it all away and never speak of it again. “It was awfully silly. It’s all fine. I’m fine. Don’t know what came over me, really.”

“It’s your father’s funeral. I can’t imagine it’s easy.”

“No, it’s—” he sighed, feeling it all rush out. It was over, besides. He was lord of Storm’s End and his father was in his stony grave. His head spun. “It’s been fucking hard.”

Running his hands over his face, he tried desperately to control his feelings, his face. It would do no good to start weeping again.

“Lyonel—” Dunk was at his back suddenly, his hands hot on Lyonel’s shoulders. “You ought to rest.”

“No, no, I’m too, too—” He couldn’t quite find the word for it. He was drunk, yes, and tired and dizzy, but there was a buzzing energy under his skin too. A certain wild feeling that would not let him sleep, he knew.

“You’ve had too much to drink. Come now, come here…”

With gentler fingers than Lyonel felt he deserved, Dunk undid the clasps of his doublet, his shirt, knelt to pull off his boots, took him apart from top to bottom, leaving him exposed and vulnerable and trembling in only his smallclothes. He was talking too, though Lyonel couldn’t make sense of it. Soft sounds came from him, kind words and murmured sweetnesses, all in as good as a foreign tongue.

Dunk picked him up like a child and carried him to the bed, pulled back the bedding and laid him down. He pulled the rings from his fingers and lined them up on the nightstand.

“You feel things very strongly, don’t you m’lord?” Dunk whispered to him, brushing hair off his forehead with a hot palm. This Lyonel heard and could understand. “You act as if it’s all fun and games, and no matter, but… you’ve quite the heart in there.”

Lyonel grunted, embarrassed mostly. He’d made a fool of himself and Dunk had seen right through him. He’d spent most of his life training himself not to agonize, not to take anything personally, not to fret or fuss, only to enjoy life and make the most of it. But since meeting Dunk, it felt like all he did was agonize. He had something to lose now that he hadn’t had before. Something to miss and agonize over. And yes, he felt that very strongly indeed.

Dunk’s big hand trailed along his cheek, followed the line of his dangling earring down his neck, brushed over collarbone and came to settle heavily over his chest.

“You’ll stay, won’t you?” Lyonel asked, feeling small as a boy wanting for his mother. He hadn't had a mother for a long time. It didn't stop him wanting. “Tonight? With me?”

“Yes.”

“You love me, don’t you?”

“Yes. Very much.”

Dunk leaned forward to kiss him, firm like a promise.

Then he was gone again, but only for a moment. When he returned he was undressed and settling into bed at Lyonel’s side. The warmth of him was divinity itself.

Lyonel watched him. Watched him nearly glow in the candle light. Watched stray streaks of hair curl around the back of his ears. They laid side by side, looking at each other, tucked in together like gossiping boys up past their bedtime.

“Will you tell me about him? Your father?”

Lyonel grimaced, feeling his nose scrunch just like Lucan’s did when he was disgusted. Just like their father’s had. “Why?”

“Because I’ve hardly seen you laugh these two days,” Dunk whispered, just between the two of them. “All storm, no laughter.”

“I’ve laughed,” Lyonel replied without conviction. He’d tried to laugh. He’d forced a few chuckles at least. Hadn’t he?

Dunk ran a finger along Lyonel’s hairline. “You’ve not been yourself, and… this is your father's funeral. Ser Arlan was not my father, nor a perfect man, but he raised me best he could and it hurt me to lose him. I think you’re hurting. Even if you hated him.”

Glowering, “I did hate him.”

“I’d like to hear about him even so.”

From the bright, eager look in Dunk’s eyes, there would be no deterring him.

“My father… my father…”

He considered— He thought about the childhood years of being ignored, the adolescence of being slapped, smacked, belittled, thwacked with practice swords. His father had thought he was foolish, unserious, and had tried to bully dignity into him. When he had wanted to play, his father wanted him to be studious. When he wanted to fight, his father wanted him to be gracious. He had been placed with masters at arms who pushed him hard and with tutors who had no patience for mistakes. He’d taken all this, ridden it out as best he could, tried to meet his father’s expectations. Unsurprisingly, it hadn’t worked. Then in his teenage years he’d run off to sea and proven himself there, coming into his own as a sailor and a fighter. When he’d returned to Storm’s End at twenty, sun burnished and grinning, with a pointed pirate's goatee and his ear pierced… that was when his father had decided to take his brothers— Eliduc had been no more than a toddler of two— and go south. Lyonel was a lost cause, and had been thus abandoned.

And see how well that had gone? Lyonel had become a darling of the tourney circuit, well loved by the smallfolk, popular among the lords. The Stormlands flourished under his attention. Sea trading brought prosperity. He became, no thanks to his father at all, as good as a proper storm king.

For all his father’s attempts to squash his spirit and bring him into line, Lyonel had proven himself a better lord of Storm’s End than his father had ever been. And his father hated it and kept his distance until the day he died. Though he hadn't ever disinherited him. That was something. There had been no love between them, but perhaps, in the end, there had been respect. 

He could say all this, he supposed, and Dunk would patiently be told it. But it seemed so unimportant, really. The man was dead, and Lyonel was lord, and the rest of it was in the past. It was best not to agonize.

To Dunk’s waiting ears, he sighed in summary, “He was not a kind man. Everything I did was shameful to him. He was furious I went to sea, furious I spent all my time at tourneys, furious I never married, when all my brothers wed and had children as soon as they were able. If only he could see who I’ve taken to bride now.”

Dunk’s breath stuttered. “Bride?”

Sweet man. Dear, sweet man. Smiling softly, Lyonel made a circlet of his fingers around his forehead, then made to lift it and place it upon Dunk’s head in an artful gesture of nobility. As he’d done in Ashford with his antlered crown. He’d known then, though he’d been drunk and dizzy from dancing, what he knew now, clear as Dunk’s bright eyes. “Do you not know you are as a wife to me? That I would have no other for the rest of my days?”

Dunk blushed, but laughed, relief sweeping over him like the wave of a rising tide. “I see. As you are like a wife to me.”

He mirrored Lyonel’s gesture of the circlet, and placed the imagined thing back upon Lyonel’s brow. There. Now a marriage had been completed, made true under the eyes of the old gods and in their paired hearts. Which was all that mattered. His father's disappointments were forgotten and brushed aside, made utterly irrelevant in the comparative light of Dunk's glittering bright eyes.

Lyonel craned his neck to be kissed. Dunk obliged him. “A couple of wives, are we then?”

“A pair of husbands too.”

“Yes,” Lyonel purred and preened. “I like that.”

“You’re very drunk.”

“And I love you. My husband.” A beat. “Will you fuck me?”

Dunk’s face went red, his eyes wide. Then the words caught up to him properly and he laughed. “What? No.”

“No? But it’s my wedding night.” That laugh again— a low rumble of half confusion and half amusement. Lyonel blinked, and found it hard to drag the lids open again. Dunk had become a blur, a beautiful vague shape just out of reach.

“You can barely keep your eyes open.”

That may have been true, but— “I can keep my legs open.”

“No. Not tonight.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Fine. Yes. Tomorrow, love. If you still wish.”

“I will. I love how you say that…” Lyonel hummed happily, drifting away already. “Love.” He tried for an approximation of Dunk’s accent. It came out like slush. “Luuhve.”

Dunk laughed and kissed him, once gently on the mouth, then on the forehead. His strong arms came to encircle Lyonel and pull him close, pressing him safely against his chest.

“Sleep now, and when you dream, dream of me.”

Lyonel sighed, humming in easy agreement, and adjusted his head to rest his ear to Dunk’s heart. The steady beat of it carried him to sleep as surely as a horse hoof would take Dunk away from him someday sooner rather than later.

In the morning, he woke to Dunk curled against his back warmly, holding him tightly in his big arms, nearly tight enough to suffocate.

His heart was light, his grief washed away by pleasant dreams he could not remember— though his head was aching something awful.

Dunk rustled awake moments later, groaning and grunting in his usual way, wriggling and stretching.

“Oh hush,” Lyonel moaned, throwing his hands up over his face. “Heavens you’re loud.”

“No, I’m not,” Dunk breathed, as quiet as a breeze. Well, today a breeze could knock over an oak. He brushed his nose hotly up the back of Lyonel’s neck, making him shiver. “Do you still want what you wanted last night? We’ve time.”

“What was that?”

“For me to make love to you.”

“Oh.” He remembered now and his face went hot. His embarrassing drunkenness, his blather about his father, their informal but heartfelt promises… and his forward request. He didn’t remember asking quite how Dunk had just said. “Oh, yes. But I may need some water first.”

“Yes, love.” Dunk kissed the knob at the top of his spine, dragging soft lips and leaving a hint of wetness. “As you wish.”

Lyonel wriggled, turning in Dunk’s arms to face him and weasel his hands up to hold Dunk’s cheeks between his palms.

“As my husband, yes?”

“Yes,” Dunk blushed. “For my wife.”

Lyonel sighed, pleased beyond words. The headache didn’t matter; it was already passing under the press of Dunk’s body, hot against him, and his mouth against his throat. Up, up the mouth went, idle and wandering, tasting the sweat pricking to life behind his ears.

He caught Lyonel’s mouth and kissed him, all fervor, nearly plundering. Then, long before Lyonel was ready to relinquish him, he pulled away.

“You’re sour. I’ll get you that water.”

“How dare you? You’re horrid,” Lyonel complained, dragging the pillows over his face, burying himself in the darkness there, while Dunk rolled away to find a pitcher on a side table a mile away across the room. “A tease.”

“I’m not going far,” came Dunk’s voice. “Just wait.”

Lyonel moaned. The headache returned with a punishing throb.

Thankfully as quickly as he’d gone, Dunk was back, his weight on the bed, his warmth reaching out across the air to tickle Lyonel’s skin.

“Come now,” he sighed, and Lyonel felt a spatter of something cool on his bare chest, a trickle that ran up into the hollow of his throat. He moaned again, a moan of a different tenor. The pillows were brushed off his face. Dunk dragged wet fingers through the water, up his fluttering throat… and against his mouth. He pressed and Lyonel opened, his woolly tongue reaching for the liquid clinging to Dunk’s fingertips. He sucked and lapped, and Dunk dribbled more water between his waiting lips. “There we are… like you’ve been lost in a desert.”

“For wanting you.”

“You always say things like that.”

“Because it’s true.”

Dunk blushed in his sweet, lovely way, where his eyes fluttered down, then up, and his smile broke like the dawn— it was the smile that made Lyonel’s heart clench tightly in his chest, the smile that haunted his dreams when Dunk was away.

And then, like the bastard he could be, Dunk pulled a face— dangerous, dangerous— and poured the entire pitcher of water over Lyonel’s face.

It hit him like an icy slap. Drenched and dripping, he sat up fast to try and get out of the puddle sinking into his mattress. “Oh fuck you, you cunt— you—”

But Dunk only laughed, amused to all hell at Lyonel’s sputtering. He reached and ruffled Lyonel’s wet curls, tousling him, running hot fingers over Lyonel’s scalp, then pushing him this way and that. He laughed and laughed and the more Lyonel tried to escape him the more Dunk pressed after him. Before long Dunk had him pinned to the wet bed, holding him down with his hips, where he toyed and tickled and bullied until, despite his headache and his annoyance, Lyonel was laughing too. He wrestled back, bucking his hips, tugging at Dunk’s arms to pull him down on top of him, putting up a heated fight that mostly excited him, mostly enjoying the excuse to get a leg around Dunk’s hip, to growl at him, to grin and laugh and feel Dunk laughing too.

“There he is,” Dunk grinned. “My Laughing Storm.”

Their laughter ebbed into something sweeter, the play into something warmer.

Dunk kissed him again, and didn’t complain about his still sour tongue.

And when he fucked him— finally— in that beautiful way of his, shy and tentative, sweet and gentle, but powerful and sure all the time, Lyonel clung to him and felt no grief, no sadness, nothing but pleasure and love and the cool drip of water off his wet hair. The grief would return, surely, whenever Dunk left again. But that wasn’t now, wasn’t soon. Now was only Dunk’s arm hooked under his knee, Dunk’s hands holding his side and his jaw, Dunk’s fingers digging into him, Dunk’s cock inside him, Dunk’s lips stuttering against his temple, his cheek, his mouth.

When Dunk licked a droplet of water off the tip of Lyonel’s nose, he thought he just might die for the wonder of it.

There would be worse ways to go.

He stayed for two weeks.

Long after Lyonel’s brothers had left and all the visitors had departed, Dunk stayed. He rode off for two days to collect Egg, brought the boy back, and they stayed.

Egg came chattering, giddy. “Daeron was there! It was perfect, just perfect! He didn’t want to come to the funeral so father let him stay behind and, and it was just at the inn I was at, and—” At last Egg spotted Lyonel leaning against the stable doors. He went stiff as a board. “Oh. Hullo, Lord Lyonel.”

Dunk knocked the boy’s shoulder. “Daeron won’t say anything, will he? About having seen you?” Egg shook his head. “Well, you know Lyonel won’t neither. Don’t fret.”

“I’m not fretting! I just… I really was sorry to miss the funeral,” Egg offered to Lyonel, appropriately shamed by his prior excitement. The proper little royal, he said, “The realm has suffered a loss, though you will be a magnificent lord, I know it.” Then the little boy in him reemerged. “But I do wish I could have seen it, the procession and all. I’ve heard the crypts at Storm’s End are miles long.”

“You’ll hear all about it,” Dunk said, scooping the boy up into his arms and against his hip. It was sweet to see, though the boy must be nearly thirteen by now. Too old and too big to be lifted like a child. Or was that the late Lord Baratheon talking, an insidious whisper in the back of his mind?

“I’ll take you to see the crypts, if you really want.” Lyonel waved them inside, shrugging off any lingering thought of his father. He liked the lad, very much in fact. He wanted him to be happy, to enjoy his time here. To feel cared for and free. Let him be a squire on the road, but a child at Storm’s End. “They’re not anything to me, but if they would interest a boy like you…”

“I’d like that, Ser,” Egg replied, pleased. He looked happily to Dunk, then back to Lyonel. “Very much. Thank you.”

So for two weeks it was just like winter again, except the sun was bright and the air was warm, and in the mornings Lyonel took Dunk riding out into the forest, to lay under trees and watch the clouds amble by, and in the afternoons when the storms rolled in they retreated to the library or the rookery or even the crypts, to teach Egg something or let him teach them.

A perfect fortnight.

Under a tree, on one of those idyllic, perfect days, Dunk laid shoulder to shoulder with Lyonel and patted a heavy hand over his heart.

“It could be like this, if you came with us.” It was a plea, a dream. A request he’d made before, same as Lyonel’s pleas for Dunk to stay at Storm’s End. Impossible but wanted nevertheless.

“Oh, my love.” Lyonel took Dunk’s hand, intertwining their fingers. He stretched, waiting for the pop of his back, and getting it. “If I were twenty years younger, I would come with you in a heartbeat, and sleep under your trees and love you on every inch of earth in all the kingdoms. But I have responsibilities here, now more than before, and my back aches. I love you. You know how dearly I love you. Wherever you go, I’m with you. You have my heart and you carry it with you.”

He reached across to pluck the string out from under Dunk’s shirt, drawing out the ring he wore there.

“Here. Here I am.”

Dunk, in turn, plucked at Lyonel’s earring, and they exchanged bittersweet smiles, and that was the end of that. They wouldn’t have that same conversation again. The matter was settled.

It was not easy to wave Dunk and Egg off when they left at the end of that cozy domestic period. But it was less difficult than it had been the first time, or even the second. His heart still ached, but the ache was less sharp, less pressing. A dull ache, now. 

“Come back soon, will you?” Lyonel asked.

“Sooner,” Dunk promised, as he had before.

There were the dreams, and there were the letters.

The dreams were torturous. Either divinely wonderful or sickly horrible. Sometimes both. The good dreams were of Dunk at his side, Dunk’s clear blue eyes watching him, his big hands touching him, his shy smile, his laugh. Lyonel dreamt of finding Dunk by coincidence on the road, at a tourney, turning a corner in a small country village and coming face to face with his long away love. He dreamt of embracing him, kissing him, laughing together in pure delight. He dreamt of Dunk at his elbow, a golden crown on his brow and an easy smile on his face. He dreamt of Dunk crowded over him, pressing him into feather mattresses, into soft dirt at the base of a tree, into hard table tops. Dreamt of Dunk loving him, in all the ways Dunk loved him. These warm, glowy dreams lingered after he woke like a heavy morning fog, settling into a damp sadness. To dream in glancing images and not have the man himself was painful. To wake up to an empty bed and a half hard cock and an aching heart, and nothing to be done about it.

Worse were the bad dreams. Dreams where Dunk was felled, by accident, by Aerion, by the cruel hands of fate that determined to keep them apart. Dunk muddied and bloodied, his insides falling outside, his life dribbling away. The dreams where Lyonel’s hands were covered in blood and Dunk was miles off, and he couldn’t reach him. Worse still, much worse, were the dreams where Dunk told him he had changed his mind. That he didn’t want him anymore, didn’t love him anymore. Had been called to serve the crown, and so would go. No, he said in those horrible dreams, his promises didn’t mean anything. How foolish Lyonel was to have taken those seriously. Not when the crown was calling. Not when he had somewhere better to be and someone better to be with. In those dreams, the crown was usually Baelor, alive and smiling that curling condescending smile of his, but sometimes the crown was worn by a vague amorphous figure Lyonel could never quite pin down. He knew the face, he was sure, but could never exactly know who it was upon waking. Waking soaked with sweat and frightened, mostly, his heart fit to leap out of his mouth.

Occasionally he woke with only a cool surety that these things would come to pass.

But then there were the letters. Lots of letters. Letters from every town in the seven kingdoms, by Lyonel’s count, one coming every month, sometimes every week. Mostly they were written in Egg’s sharp little handwriting, but occasionally there was one just from Dunk.

He was slowly learning his letters, and putting them to use. It warmed Lyonel’s heart to see his effort, to watch his advancement even from afar.

Where Egg’s notes told of the adventures they’d been on, rescuing maidens and meeting odd characters, Dunk’s were always terribly personal. His writing was large and blocky, the messages short and succinct, but the words… Oh, the words.

I ache for you, he wrote in a post-script after a long ramble from Egg. We find ourselves too far out to come for winter and it kills me. I’ve planned poorly. If you hate me for it, know that I hate me too. I would rather be with you this winter than anywhere else in the world.

How could he hate a man who wrote such simple beauties as that? How could he begrudge him, or distrust him?

He wrote his replies and put all his love into them. Dunk would never be tempted away, if he could do anything about it. If he could only continually remind him how loved he was, how dearly wanted. Keep Dunk thinking of him. So he could not come back this winter, so be it. Lyonel would love him from a distance and dream of him, and they would be together again in no time at all. As long as he didn't mope and agonize, if he could only keep himself busy, and cheery, spring would arrive in a flash. 

Well. It was a long winter.