Chapter Text
Truly, Dunk never meant for it to go this far.
He was raised well by his foster father, a man who cared for him and made sure he grew up right. He was taught to treat others with respect, to understand what it meant to be a good man, and when he presented, a true alpha.
His father would always say that men like them must have restraint, must have the sense to be more than their nature. Dunk believes him, he tries to live by it. Be a man his father could be proud of.
At seventeen, five years too late for an alpha to present, he was working a part-time job in a thrift shop, sorting through boxes of donated clothes and keeping his head down. He scrunches his nose at the mix of scents. Some are rotten, some sharp and unpleasant from passing alphas. Muted and plain-obvious from betas like his own. Sometimes there are softer notes of omegas that are milk-sweet, burnt brown sugar on a pan, or sometimes the light, floral tea-calming scents.
He doesn’t expect anything out of the ordinary from the pile.
But then several scents reach his nostrils, and he finds himself panting, tongue lolling out, chasing a taste on the fabric as he buried his nose on a scarf from the open box.
Honeyed lavender, warm candle wax, with faint ashes of burning cedarwoods in a hearth— an omega— no, it’s— his— his omega, his mate—
The box slips from his hold as his grip tightens around the scarf, suffocating himself with each lungful of his mate’s essence. The change comes on too quickly for him to think it through. His body reacting before his mind can catch up, eyes closing to savor— drawn towards something his soul has never known but somehow recognises, the pull too strong—
But then he is grabbed and forced back, calloused fingers tight at the back of his neck. Scents of elk trees, wet fur and cheap bitter-sour booze— clashing alpha scents that never angers him before, putrid inside the thrift store, vomit-inducing and traumatizingly disgusting.
The scarf is ripped apart from his hold, saliva foaming around his mouth. His lips are bleeding from his elongated fangs as they took half of his soul away from him.
He loses himself as Arlan subdues him, sends three good men to the ER restraining him and commanding him down, bedridden for weeks. The love and trust he holds for his father is buried under by an unknown muscle-memory of animalistic violence. Muscles and bones pushing past limits, the mind working twice as hard to keep hold of itself against a horror long hidden by morals and laws—
A true alpha has honour, Dunk. Arlan was never surprised by what Dunk was afterwards, but he made one thing clear from the start. Strength and instinct are not excuses to lose yourself.
They respect others. They are kind. They provide and protect. And most of all, they have patience and self-control.
It’s inevitable, Dunk knows. Being an alpha comes with predatory instincts. There will always be a primal rage to hunt down his omega-mate all while tearing down threats with his bare teeth. Time and time again, he has learned to keep that part of himself in check.
He knows the horror stories. He knows what happens to those with weaker designations, and even to alphas themselves, when one of them loses control. In the histories he has read, whether in Westeros or across the Narrow Sea, it’s always the same. Wars begin with men who give in to greed and power, men who care more for conquest than restraint, who would rather see others bow than stand beside them.
Dunk has always despised men like that. Men who choose themselves over everyone else.
Be kind, Dunk. Be more than what you are.
So he keeps himself in hand, even after Arlan passes. It has been six years since his first presentation, and he truly understands now how difficult it is to give in. But he has learned when to ease back and when to step away before things go too far. Holding to the belief that he is human first, a man before anything else, and an alpha second.
Even so, he knows what he is. He has never pretended otherwise, never set himself above the rest. He feels the hypocrisy of it, hauling an alpha off some omega stranger while knowing full well his own body reacts the same way during a rut, cock raging hard, knot swelling as he jerks off. Desire rising whether he wills it or not. At times, he gives in to it in private, opening an incognito tab to search for omega porn videos out of curiosity at first, and later out of need. But still aches, dissatisfied if he’s not breathing in the barely-there scents on what’s left of the scarf. And his thoughts wander...
He thinks of his omega somewhere out there, waiting without knowing, fingers not enough to quell their heat, longing for his knot. A tight cunt only for him, all warm and sweetly soft. A womb only for him to dump his cum and breed.
But they remain only that, thoughts. Separate from his actions. Separate from the man he chooses, every day, to be. Arlan was right to be hard on him early on.
He was just born larger than most, stronger than most, and from a young age he was made to understand what that could mean. He has seen how men react to that kind of strength, how fear can make them do hasty things. Before Arlan took him in, he saw what alphas like that could do when they let themselves be ruled by rage and lost a childhood friend to them.
A true alpha never loses himself. Remember that.
He vowed to the deathbed of his father that he will be a good man, a good alpha. And he was, is, for years afterwards.
But that was before Aerion Targaryen.
(At twenty-three, Dunk has come to understand that no matter how honourable a man tries to be, no matter how steady his patience or how genuine his kindness, there is no erasing what runs beneath his flesh, set deep in his ligaments and bone marrow, what type of blood that runs deep within his arteries, pumping his heart—
And long by now, he no longer feels ashamed of watching his omega always at a distance. From fields of grass, through the thick of trees, behind posters and the corners of buildings. Through the gaps between books and shelves. Across rows of tables and the press of the crowd.
Like now through the third pointed-arch window of St. Daenys the Dreamer’s Building, looking warm and soft, gold-touched by the setting hues of the February sun, feeling the love in the air.
Aerion sits by the window, chewing at the end of his Rotring fountain pen. The edge is pressed against the cupid’s bow of his plump lips before he toys with it using pink-knuckled fingers, circling the pen with ease and then writing across the page of what Dunk knows in elegant cursive.
He rests his head on another hand, Dunk bites his lips with restless aggression of seeing a cute spill of chubby cheek pressing onto the palm. Circular glasses slip low on the bridge of his nose, and Aerion pushes them back up without looking away from his work, already turning to the next page.
It has long been observed what Aerion studies—the books he carries and their contents, the ever-present, frayed paperback copy of How to Train Your Dragon tucked into whatever luxury bag he brings, despite owning clothbound and leather-bound editions of the entire series. His courses are known too, both majors accounted for, along with his clubs and extracurriculars, the hours he keeps, even the small, telling habits—the obsessive way he washes his hands for an exact full twenty seconds, every time.
His preferences have not gone unnoticed either as Dunk recalls his memories seeing Aerion’s fondness for a clear sunny-sky blue, though he dresses almost exclusively in either brown and beiges or in formal events, black and red. Over time, all of it has been committed to memory, learned all by heart.
Dunk’s grip tightens on the strap of his duffel bag. Rugby training still waits for him, yet it’s more important that Dunk is aware that in ten minutes, Aerion will leave the building and take his usual seat on the veranda near the field. From there, he remains within sight, always at the edge of Dunk’s vision. There is an hour before Aerion’s last class at half past six. And it’s quite enough to settle the restless part of him, enough to watch and make sure his omega is safe— no, to make sure others are safe from his omega.
Then after the lecture, and once Dunk is done with a quick shower after training, the distance will be kept as always, all the way back to the dormitories—)
Truly, he hadn’t meant to get it this far. But Dunk never regretted his actions, not even for a moment. What Aerion doesn’t know will not hurt him.
Dunk has never seen a Targaryen before.
He knows little of them beyond what others say. His friends talk often about them... a prodigy sent to the Citadel, a wedding between a Targaryen and someone from Essos, the scandals of the drunk first son of the Anvil. Now they talk about another son of the Anvil, whom they call— no, who insists on being called, as Rowan says— the Omega Brightflame, now studying at King’s Landing University at the age of his sweet sixteen, only a few weeks shy of seventeen.
Dunk has never paid much attention though, and he has enough on his plate to care for the concerns of the elite. What he does hear comes in passing as is often Rowan.
“Seriously?” Rowan huffs from the couch, glancing up from the nails she is painting on her boyfriend’s hand to Dunk, who is sitting on the carpeted floor, typing an email on what is, at this point, all three of theirs’ laptop. “You don’t know the Omega Brightflame? The Aerion Targaryen? What kind of alpha are you?”
“Uh, the normal kind?” Dunk replies flatly, his eyes not leaving the screen.
“So an idiot, then?” Rowan deadpans that made Raymun snort his coffee. True to that, all alphas are idiots.
“Aren’t you at least a little bit interested in omegas?”
Nope.
“Leave him be, babe. The man got a true mate from a scarf,” Raymun teases which Dunk flips a finger off.
His roommate pulls his girlfriend in close, and soon enough the two of them fall into mindless gossip about elite social circles, while painting nails and flipping through magazines that feature page after page of Aerion Targaryen.
Dunk listens with only half an ear, and by morning, he doesn’t remember much of what they talked about., especially not the magazines left piled under the circular coffee table.
Beyond that, there is little Dunk truly knows about the Targaryens.
Most of what reaches him comes from daily events on the radio set placed on the porch of an old woman a block away from campus, the same woman who sometimes asks for his help fixing things around her home during his morning runs. And when he returns during semester breaks, he reads the headlines from newspapers piled by the gates of Arlan’s old property on the outskirts of King’s Landing. Even then, most of it concerns Mayor Baelor, an honourable alpha Arlan once worked with, and the troubles he handles across the city.
Back in Flea Bottom, the Targaryens are well regarded. Mayor Baelor has done much to keep order in the entirety of the Crownlands. The rest of what he knows, Dunk learned from history books. He’s aware they were kings and queens centuries ago, ruling over the whole of Westeros. And that Aegon the Conqueror is a shit alpha and is one of those alphas and men that Dunk loathes.
That’s pretty much the extent of his knowledge.
He doesn’t follow the rumor mill or gossip, and so the excitement around a Targaryen omega on campus means little to him. It’s not something that concerns him, and he never expects it to. He doesn’t think he will ever meet who they call the Omega Brightflame.
But gods, Seven above, it almost feels as if the universe itself is playing tricks on him, as if all the gods, New and Old, keep placing him in these moments to test what sort of man he will be, what sort of alpha he will become.
Because he meets Aerion Targaryen when Dunk is running late from class, all sweaty from running, he hasn’t even showered, and it takes only one glimpse of him, of the boy, to change the course of his life.
The meeting lasts no more than two minutes, yet in that span, everything settles into place, into the present and the past and the future.
He remembers at once, the scent of honeyed lavender, even through whatever blockers the omega wears. There’s still that faint trace of ash beneath it as he parts his lips for another deep exhale, of cedarwood left to smoulder in a hearth, rich and sweet as it reaches down his throat, circulating inside his lungs, as Aerion Targaryen fully steps out of the driver’s seat of a red vintage car.
He sees the silhouette of Arlan in his periphery. Feels the pain on his own neck as he was scruffed before, feels the manacles around his limbs as phantom hands hold him back to claim what is his—
A true alpha never loses himself.
“Stop gaping and see to my car.” He tosses the keys at Dunk without a second thought.
Dunk catches them out of reflex, and he tries not to breathe too much or take more of an eyeful. Adamantly, he looks down at his palm, at the logo of the luxury car on the keys, the leather keychain, and the three-headed crimson dragon wrought in platinum. He digs his fingers into it, the pads pressing into the soft leather. Alpha hindbrain latches onto the thought that his omega held these same keys not a moment ago, and now they rest in Dunk’s hand.
His abdominal muscles clenches, heartbeat pounding against his ribcage. A dry heat slowly cracks down his throat, to his stomach that is hollow and empty. The hunger rises in bubbling acids, the need to devour and wet his mouth with blood, with this omega’s slick—
“I’m… I’m not a parking valet, sh-sir.” He shakily gulps down a breath, still staring at the keys, and he feels his own fangs press against his dehydrated lips.
Then he glances up, only then does he become aware of the difference in their width, their height, of the man— no, not a man, just a boy of sixteen, tilting his lovely chin all the way up. Long-lashes shadowing prettily over aristocratic cheeks tinting soft pink, hair looking like a full silver moon, big eyes a set of amethyst glinting bright, his lips—
Mother above, have mercy on me. Please have mercy on me—
Dunk tosses the keys back, and then he clenches one hand tight around the lanyard of his ID, the other gripping the strap of his duffel to adjust the bag against his front. His glasses slide slowly down his nose as he keeps his own gaze down at Aerion, but he doesn’t dare lift a hand to fix them because he knows, he fucking knows, his instnct despite it being dormant for years. The truth of how he will undeniably reach instead for the warm-blooded flesh of this privileged omega brat and pull him closer until their bodies merge as one—
“Not clever enough?” Aerion looks him up and down, a sinful tongue tracing the edge of his lips.
Dunk murmurs something about being a student like him, casting his eyes downward once again. His shoulders hunch as he tries to make himself smaller, feeling a bit pathetic when his cock aches hot, already half-hard against his trousers. He gives all his strength to root his own feet on the pavement, staring at the scattered bits of dirt between the stones.
A true alpha never loses himself, he thinks over and over and over—
He’s just a boy. A sixteen— almost seventeen— still sixteen, a fucking sixteen year-old boy—
You're nothing more than a disgusting man lusting over a—
“Oh,” Aerion says one last time, voice still airy-soft, “academia has fallen on sad days.”
— brat, the alpha almost growls out loud.
Then the keys clatter against the pavement, dainty footsteps quietening into the distance. Dunk refuses to move, not even to pick the keys up. His instincts to chase overpowering all reasons. But he’s an idiot, and so he dares another glance, just in time to catch the damp heat of the boy, beads of sweat along the red-flushed porcelain of the boy’s bare nape, peeking from beneath a black oversized hoodie as he disappears into the division of dormitories.
Dunk moves a full minute afterwards. He calls out to a security guard and hastily gives instructions to have the car parked somewhere safe. He hears his seniors calling after him, but he doesn’t stop even as he bumps several students to the ground, keeps sprinting to another building, through the hallways towards the nearest comfort room.
He locks himself inside a cubicle and smothers his palm over his mouth. The same hand that held the keys that Aerion owns. He envisions how big the keychain is on Aerion’s hand but it barely is a half of the size on his own palm— Seven, help him.
Even now, he can still smell the honeyed lavender and warm candle wax clinging to the callousness of his palm despite the overpowering metallic scent left of the keys.
Dunk runs his tongue on his palm, trying to catch a taste of the scents. Pulls down his pants, ripping the zipper of his trousers with his haste, boxers around his knees, palming his cock.
Perhaps he’s still there somewhere in the fog of his brain, still with a human conscience, because he remembers working himself slowly. He grips his cock hard, imagining a much smaller hand barely able to hold him— then a sweet hole fluttering open, kissing the tip of his cock— and Dunk has to be gentle, has to be slow because his omega is small, no doubt that Aerion’s hot little pussy will be a tight fit— and he closes his eyes to savor the scents, the barely-there taste tainting his tongue as teeth dig through his own flesh, nearly to the bones, but it’s not enough—
It’s never enough.
It’s a disappointing peak when he paints the toilet water white. Pissing loads of wasted cum that the alpha knows should have been bloating the omega’s flat tummy.
He leaves after cleaning himself as best he can with tissues, splashing his face with cold water.
At first, he doesn’t understand— refuses to understand— why his body is acting this way, the instincts he fights so hard to control resurfacing.
He files a leave of absence immediately through his flip phone, then texts Raymun to stay at Rowan’s for a while, knowing he’s starting his rut early, and that it will not be long before it begins to consume him.
Then he bars the door of his bedroom, grateful for his past self’s preparation of cheap frozen red meat and gallons of water in the kitchenette he shares with Raymun.
He takes a quick, ice-cold shower to steady himself, both hands braced against the tiled wall as the water runs over his head and down his nape, easing the heat little by little. He tries not to touch himself again, tries to keep what’s left of his control—
—but the moment he closes his eyes, he sees silver hair and a black hoodie. Plush lips opening for a sweet-pinked tongue poking through the corners, the scent of lavender, dripping honey, thick and sweet in memory— fuck, fuck, fuck— he cries, gripping the swell of his knot.
By the time he’s done, the room smells only of himself, of damp air and something earthy and heavy, with no trace left of the omega that had clung to his skin before.
He stares hard at the mirror, gripping the counter, rut-warmed breath fogging the glass.
This isn’t him.
He has been trusted by omegas, friends and neighbors, even at the worst of their heat. Scents all thick and heady and mesmerizing. When they needed someone steady, Dunk was there because all of them knew he’s safe, who would not take advantage. He has stood guard, provided what they needed, and all of those times, he has kept an iron grip on himself.
So he doesn’t understand, perhaps refuses to understand, why his rut starts early— who and what Aerion Targaryen is to him.
His body temperature rises again, pupils dilating wide. Grunts at the blunt ache swarming at the base of his cock. He swallows three pills of his rut suppressants, knows enough of the compounds inside that he bites another half pill, to shorten the cycle.
Then with a temporary sound mind, he follows his routines as usual, thawing the red meat slowly at room temperature, then refrigerating them besides meal prep containers. Then a few more precautions of locking the doors windows. Securing his own needs, for a body he yearns to have writhing his bed. Trying his best to keep himself together before biology works against him, the suffering begins. Because inside flooding his head, inside his very blood, are the primitive urges to hunt him, his mate, his omega.
(The unruly omega growls like an alpha as he slides his cock along the shape of the omega’s cunt, sinking through the folds. The alpha teases the omega by drawing his hips back, smearing his own virile seed against the omega’s cock. But Mate keens, no, alpha, inside— please, please— then he pressures the tip again into a warm, tight hole— fucking into a loose gap of a pillow folded into half. He growls and rips all the cotton with his hands and teeth. Omega, omega—)
It’s violent and destructive that he has to use what little he earns to buy a replacement futon. He ruins the scarf he has of the omega. Back then, he was gentle of what’s left with it, but his instincts told him that his omega is here, he's near, and the scarf no longer matters—
(Mate whimpers, crying in sweet ah, ah, ah’s, slobbering saliva and tears down his rosy-tinted cheeks. And the alpha growls at the sight— at the intense dream— of black-blue bruises and possessive indents of teeth marring what once was smooth porcelain of skin. He thrusts his hips, gripping the petite waist beneath him, impaling the girthy length of his cock in deep and slow, pushing and pushing through the tight, velvety walls. Not even caring how he molds the shape of his mate’s cunt into his monstrous size, stretched too wide to even spasm, feels all hot and pliant and tight as he pulls back, then plunging back in— into his fist— no, no— inside Mate, inside his omega—
Bliss wracks his whole body as he grinds his pelvis against the tiny decoration of a cock, practically a girl’s clit, that leaks pitiful beads of useless semen against the coarse sandy-brown hair. He rams the head of his cock into another opening, tearing the omega’s womb anew— such a good pussy, my good omega— and watches the omega’s part his lips for a silent scream as he milks thick ropes of his seed— my bright little flame—)
It takes a full week for the rut to pass, another two days for him to clear the fog of fantasy, of lust and rage, overpassing the usual three days he has with the suppressants.
Just like the first time.
Dunk doesn’t even like Aerion. Not then, and not after.
He is too sharp-tongued, careless with anyone who is not himself. He has already built a reputation across the campus, from students in other departments to faculty, even the maintenance staff and security. He is cruel to his fellow freshmen too. He’s even dismissive of his seniors, and bold enough to challenge his professors.
A peculiar thing. An omega that’s far too proud for his own good.
Aerion looks harmless, Dunk admits. Quite adorable with his silver curls and soft angular features. He’s beautiful, always otherworldly no matter the lighting and angles, but it doesn’t take long to see past that.
And yet, none of that changes what the alpha in him keeps insisting that Aerion is.
Mine. As Aerion pours his strawberry matcha latte over a man’s blond hair, ice clattering against his scalp, soaking through an expensive white shirt. He blinks down at him, all doe and wide-eyed innocence, before setting the empty plastic cup on the man’s head like a party hat.
Mine. As Aerion sweeps a stack of paperwork and a hardbound thesis straight out the library window, dismissing it as wasted space on the shelves. The man beside him breaks into tears, scrambling outside to salvage what remains from the mud.
Mine. As Aerion does terrible, terrible things, and not once is he punished.
My omega. Mine, mine, mine.
His alpha hindbrain growls it all low and grating his nerves, annoyingly insistent, as Dunk refuses to admit that Aerion torments mostly alphas and occasionally, some betas who dare reach above their place.
They deserve it from touching what is mine—
It honestly makes Dunk’s teeth grind at how ridiculously cringey it is, because it makes him feel like one of those dark, possessive men from the smutty fantasy books Rowan likes to read out loud just to fluster Raymun, and by extension Dunk, then Rowan laughs at how adorably innocent they are.
Sometimes he thinks he sounds just like them. A neuron-reducing idiot of an alpha who ought to wear furskin around his hips like a caveman hunting half-naked because he cannot, for the life of him, control himself even with suppressants.
But the alpha in him never shuts the hell up. It keeps telling Dunk that Aerion is his. His, and no one else’s.
Claim omega.
Breed omega.
Gods above, why? Just… just why?
Dunk doesn’t even like Aerion Targaryen.
Across the way, Aerion sneers at a group of betas who ask if they might share his table. Whatever he says sends them off at once, frightened and quick on their feet. But… he’s adorable with his little pouty mouth pressed tight, obviously irritated, probably spouting real death threats that Dunk never doubts Aerion will do.
“The pretty ones are always temperamental,” Crakehall suddenly says, jogging up alongside Duskendale to the resting bench where Dunk is wiping sweat from his face with the hem of his shirt.
Dunk pretends not to hear him. He pops open his water bottle and gulps down mouthfuls, trying to ease the dryness in his throat. Though it does little for the other type of hunger that he can only satiate by sending both Crakehall and Duskendale permanently to the hospital and not the campus clinic.
He keeps enough wits about him to know that Coach Rhysling will not give him the time of day when they face Winterfell State University next week. So he pours cold water over his head, letting it trickle down to cool the red-hot rage rising in his head.
“Nose still buried in those damn thick books, huh?” Duskendale says, peeling off his own shirt as he sits down on the bench beside him.
“You both know him?” Dunk asks, the words slipping out of his mouth before he can stop them. He licks his lips out of habit not to snarl, runs a hand through his hair, shaking off the droplets of water.
“Unfortunately,” Duskendale mutters. “We used to be his playmates.”
His what now?
“We’re not even playmates,” Crakehall cuts in, rolling his eyes. “More like dogs to fetch him things. Seven help us, he acts like a princeling. A spoiled little brat.”
Dunk’s body tenses, and he breathes in and out, forcing himself to remember the soft timbre of Arlan’s voice. Lessons of true alphas— they respect others, they are kind—
He glances at Aerion again, and he feels calm somewhat. At ease that he’s there safe, and alone. Not that Dunk thinks him lonely. After all, there’s always an air about him that seems to tell everyone that no one is worthy of his attention. Dunk is almost glad of it, because thinking of the two alphas beside him trying to approach Aerion now, despite their history, makes him want to lose all his morals.
For a moment, Dunk thinks he can let the conversation slide. He knows Crakehall’s reputation with women and omegas, and he is not blind to Duskendale either. They are just talking shit, nothing more, and Aerion is cruel enough that most would say he brings the backstabbing on himself.
People talk, Dunk. It’s normal.
Truly, the conversation should have ended there, but—
“I knew he’d be an omega,” Crakehall adds as they walk back into position, Coach Rhysling’s shouts carrying across the field.
Dunk stops short. “W… what?”
“Well,” Crakehall continues, glancing back at him, “Look at him. He’s always been that pretty. It’s only a matter of time before it showed.”
Dunk’s jaw tightens. “Showed what? That supposed to mean something?”
“It means,” he says slow, drawing out the words, “someone like that… ends up where he belongs. On his back. Getting put in place by a real alpha.” Crakehall smirks like he’s explaining it to a child.
Duskendale snorts beside him. “Ain’t that the truth. Walking around like he owns the place, someone ought to remind him what he is.”
Dunk exhales slowly through his nose, fingers curling at his sides. “You all talk like you’ve got the right.”
Crakehall laughs under his breath, shaking his head at Dunk as if he’s joking. “But I do, all alphas do.. It’s just the law that stops us, but you know what really happens behind closed doors, no? Nature sorts that out for us.” He tilts his head, eyes flicking toward where Aerion has his back turn around at them in the distance.
“Bet he’ll learn quick enough once I get my hands on him.”
Duskendale nudges him. “Reckon he’ll cry?”
“Oh, he will,” Crakehall says easily, that same smirk pulling at his mouth. “His heats will make him beg for an alpha’s knot. It wouldn’t be easy knowing him. But he’s asking for it,” He huffs. “That pride of his needs breaking…”
Dunk doesn’t hear the rest of it as Crakehall jogs off to the opposite side, taking his place for the drill like nothing had been said. Duskendale lingers just long enough to clap him on the back, casual as ever, before following after the younger alpha.
Every fiber of Dunk’s being strains toward the urge to bring them both down, driving the two alphas to heel with teeth and fists. He craves to feel blood spraying, ligaments tearing from bones and muscles ripped apart under his hands. His vision narrows around their knees, their clavicles, their neck. Vision focusing on the skin covering the jugular vein, the carotid artery.
But Arlan is right, Dunk is more than his nature. He forces himself to breathe slowly, to think past the rush of blood, past Duskendale’s laughter and Crakehall’s intentions, echoing sharply in his ears.
He’ll get suspended— fucking expelled— if he acts without thought now. He has to be smart. He has to think. He has to protect his omega.
Kill him.
No, Dunk answers him, himself, jaw tightening as his nails bite into his palms. Too easy. Too quick. And far too merciful.
And so, his gaze zeroes in on the smug face of Roland Crakehall, blue eyes unblinking, feeling unhinged at the plans he makes in his head. This man is a threat to Aerion— to his omega, to his mate.
Dunk didn’t hesitate, never even second-guessed himself as Dunk brought him down to the dirt, face bruising into the grass. Makes sure his perfect white teeth bite through the soil just enough for Crakehall to feel the helplessness of being pinned, struggling, powerless—
— and he repeats it again, and again— the others following his lead, that animal instinct of following the top predator to take down another. Captain Rhysling seems more than happy to see Dunk playing stronger than before and he lets Dunk slide with no warnings.
Crakehall isn’t able to play against Winterfell State University, nor any of the matches that follow. They call it a mishap, his neck set in a brace a few weeks later. Says he’s too soft now for rugby anyway, no harm done as Dunk replaced him. Raymun stays by his side though, giving Dunk a sidelong look when it all plays out. He doesn’t say a word in the end. Eh, Crakehall’s an ass anyway, Raymun shrugs.
Duskendale ends up with a knee, knees injury after slipping near the lockers. Hardying and Beesbury were with Dunk at the time, they saw nothing. Good riddance.
In the end, Dunk is made captain of the team. Nothing else lost.
After that, Dunk never questions why it’s so easy to accept that Aerion is his omega. His one true mate. There’s nothing he can do about it anyway but accept.
He’ll not fight because he refuses to become a feral alpha who threads over the hold of his own control. The alpha inside him is somewhat pleased, still not satiated, but he finds that he can settle himself with something as simple as watching from a distance. The need to protect outweighs the hunger to claim, and that he can manage at least.
It’s enough for him to know that Aerion is safe, all while knowing the fact that Aerion is difficult and keeps others at arm’s length so no one dares touch him. Even then, there’s a part of him he refuses to acknowledge, something monstrous and primitive that wouldn’t hesitate to kill any man who so much as catches a trace of Aerion’s scent and lets his mind wander where it should not because this isn’t him, this is just instincts talking.
He feels a little mad, actually insane, maybe he really is, for running through all these made-up scenarios in his head.
Though he understands that Aerion is still young, younger than him and any of his friends. But that doesn’t mean Dunk tolerates Aerion’s cruelty, especially when Tanselle complains about him being insufferable over something as small as a coffee order.
At times, Dunk wants to discipline him, to cuff him lightly on the ear or set him straight by painting the globes of his perky ass red with his palm. The thought of it makes his cock twitch, teaching Aerion what respect even means if he’s even aware that the word also applies to other people.
But he understands where the omega comes from. Aerion has to protect himself somehow, and this is the way he knows how. Or maybe Dunk only tells himself that, to make it easier to bear. There’s no denying the omega can look after himself well enough. But when he pushes too far, biting more than he can chew when he provokes the wrong sort, no— simply just alphas being alphas, Dunk finds himself there before he’s properly thought it through—
(He was asking for it— Dunk clocks the other alpha in the jaw, grip tightening as he hauls him up, feet barely touching the ground.)
(An omega should know his place— He slams another man’s head back against the alleyway wall.)
(Why are you so concerned with that whore? He doesn’t even know you— And the man, rich enough to ruin Dunk, finds himself ruined in other ways instead. They all have a reputation after all, and it’s not that difficult to dig things up and let it spread with an innocent question to Rowan.)
—Aerion doesn’t care enough to question why those men end up beaten and bruised anyway, or suspended from classes with a bad reputation.
Throughout all four years Dunk spends at KLU, there is no doubt in his mind that Aerion Targaryen is completely unaware of someone like him, someone who spent only a few months on campus. It doesn’t matter anymore that Dunk believes Aerion is his omega; there is a safe distance between them that he refuses to cross, because again, he doesn’t like Aerion and he will not allow himself to be anywhere near him— he’s young, and you’re an adult, Dunk.
And probably to Aerion Targaryen, one Duncan Pennytree is no one at all — no, not probably, definitely a no one at all. If anything, Aerion can take one look at him and Dunk knows what Aerion thinks of sort of man he is…
Another alpha built for the savagery of violent sports. Big, loud-mouthed, and stupidly knot-minded jock, minus the popularity and the crowds of women. Not much else to him other than his strength and one-minded goal to win as per his contract.
Or the other sort of stereotype— him being a quiet, awkward hunchback wearing large glasses slipping down his nose, stammering over words when he has to speak. Dunk cannot quite argue with that one. He knows he’s not easy to talk to, socially-inept as he is. He lets his friends lead, loses his mind halfway through a sentence, thinking what to say next. An omega-frightened, knight-enthusiast introverted virgin geek.
Dunk knows he sort of fits both stereotypes. Mostly leaning to the latter, especially when majority of his time is off the field, nose buried in books rather than what his teammates often believed, nose buried in wet-slicked omega cunts. And he did meet Aerion wearing his glasses, although he’s wearing the official collared polo of the team with his number and last name.
But it’s not like Aerion will notice that. And hopefully, he doesn’t have to.
Dunk is in his final year as a student athlete on a Crownsland-DOST undergraduate scholarship, playing a sport Aerion has no interest in and has never once watched. He is working towards a degree in Sports Science, far from the double majors in Political Science and Business Management that Aerion takes.
So it makes sense really, that one such as Aerion Targaryen— who the gods have gifted with covetous beauty and the riches and cushioned by enough wealth and privilege to excuse his sadistic side and temper— doesn’t know him at all.
Dunk doesn’t move in the same circles. He’s not part of Aerion’s extracurriculars, not the Theatre and Visual Arts Guild, nor the Varsity Debate Team. He doesn’t play tennis that well, or have the money to fence either, and he has never sat in on their board games of strategy like chess or GoG.
He’s also not part of any elite group that would give him a reason to speak to Aerion. Even in academics, they are far apart, despite Dunk’s good marks and his standing for latin honours. Although there was a time they were in the same hall for an annual research exposition, each recognised in different fields. But even then, Aerion is a prodigy who stood on a level of his own. And Dunk, for all his height, still found himself looking up.
And in all his time working, as a barista, a cook, a librarian, and whatever else he could take on between classes and training to earn a bit more on top of his monthly grant, Dunk adamantly refuses to speak to him.
But he’s done pretending that Aerion is not his.
This will be easy, Dunk tells himself. He can keep the alpha in him quiet for a while with something as small as watching. It is enough, for now. More than enough, even— because he still finds himself grateful for the simple privilege of seeing Aerion Targaryen in the flesh. He takes what chances he can get, careful not to overstep, only adjusting where he can— lingering for a little bit longer, choosing certain routes, aligning his own schedule where it happens to match Aerion’s.
It’s not even a difficult task to do so. As part of the student committee volunteers, Dunk helps sort through schedules. There are rules, of course. Agreements he is not meant to break. But he tells himself this is not the same. He’s not leaking anything, not telling anyone and he will never tell anyone lest they do what he does. He only notes where Aerion tends to be, and makes himself useful in those same places.
And yet after all that, the stalking sits uneasily in him. He knows it’s not right. It reminds him too much of the way Arlan once found him, watching from a distance, before Arlan decided to adopt him.
And yet, Dunk does it anyway.
Just a glimpse, he tells himself. Just enough to see something he has no right to want.
Just a quick glimpse—
Aerion is studying for a long test for Political Analysis. He can see him in between the space of F to H Westerosi history books and the wooden shelf, a leather-bound book on the table, Aerion reading with his eyes, before he reads it silently with his plush lips opening to whisper arguments that Dunk can’t hear.
He has a two-hour shift rearranging books, and for one of those hours, Aerion usually has a free period— most often spent on the upper floors, occasionally at the ground level of the library, or out on the veranda near the campus gardens— (an info Dunk also makes use of by volunteering to maintain the off-limits grass field just to keep him within sight. From there, he watches Aerion idly bite at the straw of his iced, sour-sweet drinks, catches the faint flash of small fangs against plush, bow-shaped lips, and notes the way he only seems to finish books ranging from mystery thrillers or political fantasies, still with the same detached expression of reading academic books.)
Aerion heaves a sigh, running a hand through his silver curls, and Dunk can’t help but wonder what’s bothering him. Is it the test he has coming up too difficult? Is someone bothering him? Is the professor being impossibly strict? Is it a family matter?
When he accepted his fate of being Aerion’s alpha, Dunk started tuning both his ears to Rowan and Raymun whenever they started gossiping. There’s also that time where he pretends to work on the library computer, secretly searching for facts about the Targaryen family, knowing full well that Aerion is just shelves away from him. He doesn’t fully believe the gossip written in any of the articles, of course. But he reads them still, to get even scraps of what it’s like being part of Aerion’s life.
The chair scrapes against the stile as Aerion stands up, stretching his arms above his head — gods above, he yearns to hold that waist. Dunk hears a faint gasp, pants tightening at the sound, when a shoulder blade creaks, probably the tension along his trapezius and latissimus dorsi relaxing under the stretch. Then Aerion settles back into his chair, focusing on the book again.
He watches nimble fingers line the edges of the paper, trace the serif-font printed words, circling the loops of his own writing. Pink-blushing knuckles and delicate bones in between the pages, lining the slit of the book— no— Dunk opens his mouth for a heavy breath as he imagines the pads of Aerion’s sweet-looking fingers dip inside his omega pussy.
Tracing the shape of his slit, pinching the chubby outer labia like a page on that book. His middle ringed finger slides in between, dipping inside slowly—
Then Dunk unconsciously leans over a pile of books on the cart he’s supposed to be organizing and—fuck, fuck— he knocks a few over. He crouches quickly to stack them back, heart hammering in his chest, butterfingers fumbling over the spines that keep falling from his hold.
When he straightens, he peers past the edge of the shelf, squinting, but Aerion is gone. The book lies closed on the table, untouched.
(And later that night, the book is not on the table, nor is it back on the shelf.
The faux-leather cover is damp with sweat where it lies on his stomach. The book is wide open, the same page where Aerion has stopped reading. Beneath its cover, inside the pocket where the checkout card sits, Dunk has written his own name. All capital letters and a touch too large, just beneath the elegant cursive of Aerion Targaryen’s.
Dunk bites down on the hem of his undershirt as he jerks his cock off, grip too tight at the base. Where the other hand is molesting the book, thinking of softer folds, all syrupy-sweet and thick with slick. Blunt nails pressing in rough, carelessly digging between the deep crevices of the dry pages— of his omega’s wet pussy. Prying at the glue and stitches until its tightness begin to give, the binding loosening from his fingers— imagines Aerion spasming over the feeling of his callouses with a faint needy gasp, at the width of each digits, back arching as his palm and wrists get sprayed over a honeyed-sweet seed.
The omega whimpers his name, falling apart by mere fingers alone, but alpha can’t get enough, he needs more— he needs—)
He’s sick. He’s fucking sick.
Dunk is disgusted with himself, with how desperate he is to claim even the smallest things Aerion has touched. But he can’t seem to stop, the alpha within him is never satiated— he, himself, is not satiated—
As long as he doesn’t hurt Aerion, he reasons with himself. As long as he keeps the safe distance. Aerion doesn’t need to know. He doesn’t need to know…
Aerion is seventeen now. Dunk realises it when the clock strikes twelve. He’s still awake, taking a break from studying for a long test. Seventeen. He ignores the tightening in his chest at the number, at the age, thumping his head against the pages before burying himself back into studying.
The day comes and goes. Dunk has a full schedule, and Aerion is absent from all his classes.
When the day ends, he got his fill by watching reels and stories from Aerion’s mutuals of a gala, an after-party, using Raymun’s laptop. Then he finds himself stalking accounts of other family members, their official page, chuckling at the cute dragon-themed decorations in their hotel chains, for Aerion’s birthday and Halloween.
Daeron posted a picture of him. A toddler grinning wide, probably eight to nine. Aerion is missing a tooth, hugging a stuffed-toy fish. A happy little thing.
Dunk takes a screenshot before it’s deleted two minutes after it was posted, then he saves it to a hard-drive and prints it. Just a small four-inch picture he slips behind his cards and a few old memento-receipts in his wallet.
It’s been a month and a half since Dunk met him, though it feels like years. He learned a lot about him.
Aerion is an October Scorpio, he read from a page he tore out of one of Rowan’s magazines. Dunk acts like he doesn’t know when Rowan mentions the date to Raymun yesterday in the living room and how extravagant the celebration would be.
He thinks about giving him something for his birthday. Leave it on the parcel lockers, but decide against it. A booknook with dragons from famous Old Valyrian stories. Dunk isn’t really thinking when he’s making it all by hand. Aerion would probably throw it away, maybe even insult him for daring to carve them inaccurately. Dunk won’t give it to him anyway since it wouldn’t be right. Creepy of him to even make a gift from someone Aerion barely knows.
Gods. He’s seventeen now.
Seventeen. Seventeen.
A six-year gap, Dunk mulls over.
“So,” Rowan says, drawing the word out as she drops down beside him on the carpet and tosses a stack of magazines onto the table. “Anything you want to say about these coming back with pages missing?”
Dunk keeps his eyes fixed ahead, refusing to look at her because he can already hear the smirk in her voice. “You said you didn’t need them,” he mutters, fidgeting with a loose thread on his sock, winding it tight around his finger.
“I did,” Rowan agrees easily, leaning backward against the couch. “Did I say you could butcher them?”
Dunk shakes his head.
“You’re lucky I get these for free at work. They cost a lot, you know.”
He mumbles an apology and tries to stand, but Rowan catches his arm and yanks him back down.
“Ah, ah—sit,” she says, nudging his shoulder. “I’m not done yet.” She tilts her head, watching him a little too closely with her eyes squinting suspiciously.
“You got something to tell us?”
Dunk glances across the table where Raymun also sits on the floor, a book open in his hands, nodding along like he’s deeply invested. Faker. His damn friend has no intention whatsoever of saving his so-called best bud, his words, from the interrogation of his own girlfriend.
“Look at me, Dunk,” Rowan says sweetly. “Rayray’s not gonna rescue you.”
Dunk sighs and finally meets her grin with a wary look, shifting on the carpeted floor and tugging at his pajama pants, at his socks.
“I thought you’re not interested in him?” she asks.
“About who?” Dunk replies too quickly, and his voice cracks just slightly.
Rowan hums, exaggeratedly rolling her eyes. “Oh, don’t be thick. You know exactly who I mean.”
Damn it, Dunk, he thinks, cursing himself for giving it away.
“Where did you put them, hm?” Rowan leans forward, wagging a finger. “Did you cut them up? Do some First Men voodoo shit with it? A little love spell, maybe?”
Dunk groans, flopping a hand over his face. “Rowan, really—”
“No, no, I know exactly what you did,” she interrupts, shaking her head dramatically.
“Let the alpha have a crush, Rowan,” Raymun finally chimes in, rubbing the back of his neck like he’s doing his friend a favor. Bit too late for that— wait, Dunk swishes his head at him, eyes narrowing. How did you know that?
“You hear that?” Rowan snaps her fingers at Raymun, grinning. “Even my love-bun knows what I’m talking about.”
Raymun snorts, finally looking up from his book. “Please, he’s been admitting it. Just not out loud. Seven, Dunk, of all people— you fall for a twink who’s basically evil reincarnate.”
Dunk frowns, cheeks heating. “I… I don’t! I have not!”
“You literally growled his name in your sleep,” Raymun says, grinning now. “Loud enough I thought you were dying. Turns out you were just—” He motions his hand up and down vulgarly, jerking the air off.
Dunk stares at him, incredulous. “You’re one to talk. I’ve heard everything through the walls. My ears are violated, Raymun. Violated.”
Dunk vaguely remembers Raymun screaming from whatever Rowan is doing to him, inside their room. He scrunches his face, recalling the blunt punching ache of the bruise on his own thigh from bumping into something, he wants the bruise but he doesn’t want to stay further, pivoting too quickly and bumping himself again at the edge of the kitchenette counter.
“Don’t try to change the subject, Dunk.”
“I’m not.” Rowan clicks her tongue, crossing her arms over her chest.
“I’ll not let you leave until you tell us,” she warns and Dunk does nothing but heave a long, tired sigh.
He leans back against the foot of the couch, glancing at Raymun who’s smirking over the rim of his book, shaking his head in mock pity.
You’re not going to like this, Dunk thinks.
“Alright… let’s start from the beginning,” Dunk mutters finally, bracing himself. “Back when I was seventeen…”
They’ve got drinks set on the table, mostly the cheap teas and black coffees Rowan gets for free from her internship. Dunk watches Raymun’s expression shift, from grinning to horrified disgust, while Rowan simply nods at him, urging him to go on. She shoots her boyfriend a sharp look when he starts to fake a gag when Dunk mentions how he’s losing himself over every little thing Aerion touches.
But Dunk knows his friend enough that his teasing stops and Raymun gives him a look of genuine disbelief.
“So… Crakehall and Duskendale wasn’t about justice, it was about… your own possessiveness?” he says more as a statement.
“Yeah,” Dunk admits.
He does care about anyone speaking vilely about an omega, but it just happens to be Aerion that he’s gone to the extreme with. He knows he could have handled it better, thought things through like he usually does. He wants to explain, but the words won’t come.
“I have nothing to say—” Raymun cuts himself off, shaking his head. “It’s just… it’s fucked up, man. I mean, wow— just wow. Jerking off is private, but Seven, Dunk, you… you’ve hurt people.”
Dunk feels too ashamed to answer.
“I think it’s sweet. Aerion has a protector he doesn’t even know.” Rowan comforts Dunk, patting him on the shoulder. “But Rayray is right, Dunk, it’s really fucked up.”
Don’t I know that?
“You need to get laid, man,” Raymun says. “Like really laid. You have to expel some of those alpha instincts in another way. Not just lurking over an omega like some creep and beating people up just because they have the same thoughts as you.”
“I can’t,” Dunk says, voice all too low, almost whiny at the thought of touching another. “It feels like I’d be betraying him.” He flinches at how small that sounds even to his own ears. “Gods, he’s just seventeen and I’m…” Dunk buries his face in his hands, groaning loudly.
“So you’re saying that you’re still a virgin?” Rowan asks. Dunk doesn’t answer, but the silence already speaks volumes.
“That kinda makes sense,” she continues. “Virgin alphas tend to be more possessive, you know? The lack of experience amplifies the need to control, to protect, even when it’s not rational. It’s like the brain thinks, if I can’t have them yet, I’ll guard them obsessively because no one can touch what’s mine grrrrrr, and all that alpha growling stuff. It’s more biological, you know better than me when it comes to that, more psychological though. But completely natural.”
Natural. Dunk looks at his healed knuckles. He recalls the untethered violence. His fascination with weak points, of arteries and veins flowing with blood, muscles attached to bones. The hunger afterward, the peak of lust, his possessiveness. There’s even a push to better himself, to study harder, the spike of inspiration… a never-ending ego that all alphas have, beating every part of his head that he truly tries to humble—
Is he still himself?
Is this natural?
Is it natural to want a mate over someone so young?
Why does it have to be Aerion? Why? Why? Why?
“Are you waiting for Aerion to at least be twenty?” Rowan adds.
“Well, that’s a bit predatory, no? Waiting for him—”
“I’m not waiting for him!” Dunk cuts Raymun off, growling. But then he backs off just as quick. “I just… I just want to ease the alpha within me.” Though every fiber of him screams the opposite. He presses his palms to his thighs, digging his fingers into the fabric, trying to ground himself. “It’s not like I’ll pursue him.”
“We,” Rowan glares at Raymun, “know you have good intentions, Dunk,” she says.
“Psh, good intentions. He literally jerks himself off at a seventeen-year old.”
“Raymun!”
Dunk is looking down at his hands, jaw tightening. He honestly doesn’t really know what to say, he’d already done what he did and he already said what he said.
“I… I don’t regret it.” Truly, he doesn’t. “I know you probably think I’m a creep— a big, dumb alpha obsessing over an omega. Fine. Call me that. But he’s mine. And I’ll do what I have to… to keep him protected, and safe… even from myself.”
Then silence.
Thoughts are just thoughts. He’s not doing anything untoward to Aerion, he wills himself not to every day. He can control himself. He’s not a—
“You don’t have to explain yourself, Dunk,” Rowan says gently, prying his fists open like she’s trying to open a bear trap.
“Look, Dunk, I’m sorry. You know how I get with… you know,” Raymun adds, rubbing the back of his neck, sheepish.
“I know you’re a good person,” Raymun says. Dunk glances up, catches his friend’s eyes, and wonders if he’s really trying to convince him or himself. “It’s just… I’ll have a hard time digesting this, but yeah… we’re good.”
Dunk exhales, running a hand over his face.
Raymun excuses himself, heading straight for his room, leaving Dunk alone with Rowan. She stays for a moment, chatting about how her tea has gone cold, mostly talking at him about anything. She tries to lighten the mood, teases him. Dunk appreciates but he honestly still feel shit. Rowan smiles, pats his arm reassuringly, then follows Raymun to their room afterwards.
Dunk lingers a little longer, methodically cleaning the mugs left on the table. He lathers the dish soap carefully, scrubbing each one before setting them aside to dry.
A glance at the wall clock tells him it’s ten-thirty. He retreats to his room, changes his pajama pants for running ones, slips on his hoodie, and takes his keys and phone. He closes the door softly behind him and locks it, then takes the stairs instead of the elevator.
The October night air bites at his cheeks as he runs, tracing the perimeter of the dormitory complex then leaving to run around the sports division. The campus is quiet, almost empty, save for a few other students jogging along their routes. Dunk keeps to the pavements leading towards the gardens, mind numbingly empty and alert, pacing himself.
He did a few laps around the gardens, tracing the oval path around the pitch, then circles back toward the dormitory complex. Dunk doesn’t bother counting kilometers or measuring how often he takes the longer routes. Eventually, his run eases into a jog, then slows further until he comes to a stop beneath a familiar oak tree.
He tilts his head back, eyes fixed on the top floor, the heavy black curtains of the fifth window drawn close.
Don’t think too much about what Raymun says, he’s not an alpha, so he doesn’t understand that it’s different for you.
Aerion must be studying, Dunk thinks. He doesn’t really know what goes on behind those closed quarters— he never ventures inside the building where students pay extra for a bit more comfort and privacy. Even though he’s technically allowed in as a student committee volunteer, able to make excuses about checking for repairs or sorting papers—
You’re genuine to what you want, Dunk. Do what your heart tells you to.
— but he doesn’t, doesn’t need to see; just knowing Aerion is there, safely tucked away in that little private world Dunk refuses to abuse, is enough. He turns away, knowing he can get his fill tomorrow, when Aerion takes his usual hour on the veranda near the pitch, likely with another new book—he just finished The Woman in White earlier, after all…
Because he’s a good man. A true alpha.