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Word crossed Westeros like a wildfire that Lyonel Baratheon had been injured. The chatter around the inn was that he’d been badly injured in some tourney or duel or silly show of arrogant heroism, and had been hurried home to Storm’s End to be treated and to recover. The whispers were that he might not recover at all.

The whispers said that the heir of the Stormlands was going to die with no heir of his own, and his kingdom would end up in the hands of an unprepared brother. Too bad, said the whispers, but ain’t these highborns been dropping like flies lately.

These whispers found Dunk’s ear, as he sat with a pint of cider and Egg chattering on his other side, and cut through him like an icy blade, stabbing from heart to guts, and deeper still.

He had no claim on Lyonel, of course not. He hadn’t even any promise of favor, or friendship. He had refused his invitation to join him— or at least ignored it and left it unanswered, which was as good as rejection in Dunk’s mind— and they had not seen each other since. For why would they? Dunk had avoided tourneys since. And besides, what was four days at a tourney to a man like Lyonel Baratheon? Surely nothing more than an offer made passingly and never taken, and a few sour memories of mud and pain. Four days to shrug off and forget. But to Dunk… those had been the most important days of his life. Perhaps not mainly because of Lyonel, but… but long after his wounds had healed and his path determined, it was Lyonel who had lingered in his thoughts, his dreams. On dark nights the remembrance of Lyonel in his arms as they swung and danced together, of Lyonel’s honey warm eyes watching him, glittering as he laughed, locking onto Dunk from across a tent and never letting him go. Lyonel placing his antlered coronet upon Dunk’s unworthy brow and sighing warmly, Now you are my man.

He had regrets. He had yearned and dreamed. He had agonized. But he had not yet put aside his pride and shame and gone to face Lyonel. He had not done it because he had not known what he’d do once he found himself once more in Lyonel’s presence. Would he beg forgiveness and pledge loyalty? Throw himself at Lyonel’s feet and weep to be danced with again? To be held and heard and loved? Or would he be too proud in the face of the Laughing Storm? Too high in his own morals and promised duty to ask for what he deeply, selfishly wanted?

He hadn’t known, so he hadn’t gone. He couldn’t go until he knew, he’d thought. So he hadn’t gone.

Until now. Until word of Lyonel’s injuries from some tourney or duel or foolish deed, no one was entirely sure, could’ve been anything really, came to him as idle gossip, the plain folk whispering about the highborns as if they weren’t people at all really, but fairy tale characters. As fake and unimportant as that. Just stories. Not men.

But not to Dunk, who had seen Lyonel flush with drink and joy. Seen him bruised and with shining, proudly pleading eyes.

If Lyonel’s wounds, whatever they were, were in fact fatal… Dunk couldn’t stand the idea of never seeing him again. A man who had stood for him, fought for him, laughed with him. He could not let that man pass from the world without their paths crossing one more time.

What would he do when he arrived? He didn’t know, still didn’t know. But there was no choice anymore. He would go.

So he went.

To Storm’s End, where he arrived after two days of very hard riding, sweaty and filthy and with wild eyes. He had to beg his way in. Had to explain and explain and beg and plead, and only after making a right nuisance of himself did a clerk or steward or someone who had been at Ashford come to the gate, and recognize him, and allow him in to see the injured knight.

“I warn you,” the man had whispered as he led the way down a darkened corridor. “It is not a pretty sight.”

The door was shown and Dunk was left to pass through it at his own leisure.

Here it was at last, the moment of truth. It occurred to him now that there was more than a slight chance that Lyonel would throw him out. Or throw a bottle at his head. Or both. Perhaps— likely, Dunk thought with a sinking feeling in his guts— Lyonel held a grudge at being shunned. Somehow, in all his agonizing over what he might do when faced with Lyonel again, Dunk had never quite imagined what Lyonel would do when faced with him. Well, he was imagining it now.

He hesitated, briefly, but he had taken risks before and when the reward was great enough, the risk was worth it. The reward of the chance of seeing Lyonel Baratheon smile at him once more…

Dunk opened the door and stepped through, ducking his head under the lintel.

The room was unsurprisingly luxurious. Draped in silks and furs, a cozy, luscious mess of fabric and pillows with a bed sat in the center of the room, and atop the bed lay Lyonel. Dunk saw his bare feet first, each whole and intact. Then the long, fit expanse of leg. A blanket was arranged over most of his body, but imperfectly. It covered him, hiding his manhood, but left a sliver of pale skin visible from thigh to rib, showing smooth muscle and the jut of a hard hip bone.

Dunk swallowed around a suddenly dry throat— he would not have expected Lyonel to be so undressed, not at all, rather he had expected comfortable robes to envelop him in softness and warmth— and forced his eyes to continue upward.

The strong chest, steadily moving up and down. A few purple smudges painting the ribs. The flutter of pulse at his throat. His beard was whiter than when last Dunk had seen it, and scruffier on his cheeks. His curly mop of hair was striped with more silver than it had been. His face—

Half hidden by a wrap of bandages that covered his eyes.

A bloody contusion visibly stained his left temple, creeping out from the dressings, and beneath the wrapping on that side was a thick pad of gauze, held over the eye.

At the sound of the door closing with a click, Lyonel shifted. Waited. Dunk found himself quite dumbstruck.

What had happened? A mace to the helm? There was nothing worse that Dunk could imagine. The very thought of it, and the unwelcome memory of the pulpy horror that had been the back of Prince Baelor’s head, brought a rise of bile up Dunk’s throat. But Lyonel was alive, he reminded himself. Still alive and undressed and in bed at home. Alive. Blinded? Perhaps. But alive. Better than Baelor.

“Well?” Lyonel said softly, not without bite but the bite was weak. “Who’s there? Who is it? Another damned healer?”

“No, no, ser, it’s…”

Lyonel jolted at the sound of his voice. The thick lilt of his unsophisticated accent. Recognition. Tension. With effort, he wrangled himself up onto his elbows. His forehead furrowed and his head tilted as if to hear him better.

“Say.”

“It’s, it’s me, ser. Dunk. The tall. I’m sorry if— I only heard that you had been hurt and…”

He lost his way. He could barely imagine explaining how he’d heard the horrible news and dropped everything to run to him. Left Egg at an inn with the horses and pounded on the doors of Storm’s End until he was admitted. He would have torn the doors down if he’d had to. Easily. Without complaint. To be here now, seeing with his own eyes that Lyonel was alive and not so very poorly off at all. The rumors had been exaggerated, and what a blessing it was to discover.

But still the tight burning pressure of worry in his chest remained.

“And?”

“I came to you, ser.”

“You came.” It was hardly more than a breathless whisper.

“To aid you, if I could.”

A long moment of silence fell. Lyonel sitting half up in his bed, his breath gone sharp and shallow. Dunk standing still with his back against the cold door, frozen in anticipation and concern.

“Well.” One hand lifted from the bed and reached, reached, out into the empty air. The fingers were shaking. “Come then.”

The trembling fingers curled, loosened, curled again. And Dunk went, drawn inexorably by an invisible thread.

He floated to the bed, sat on the edge of it, sinking into the plush mattress. Lyonel’s hand hung in the air still, and Dunk lifted his own hand, placing it lightly beneath Lyonel’s, allowing the lord to rest upon him. Hand on hand, then shortly, with nothing more than a shift in placement, hand in hand.

Lyonel sunk back into his pillows at this touch, allowing Dunk to hold his hand, take his weight. Stiffly, Dunk folded Lyonel’s hand between both of his own and rested them against the bed. He didn’t know what else to do. Lyonel’s fingers between his palms flexed and dug, pressing the ridges of his fingertips against the callused, meaty heel of Dunk’s hand.

Light as the waves that lapped against the shore of gentler coasts than this, Lyonel sighed, “Where have you been, my hedge knight?”

“I’m not, uh…” Not really a knight. Not your knight. He couldn’t manage to say it though. He meant to but… he couldn’t.

It was such a quiet question.

In the face of such delicacy, he couldn’t manage to say anything. How could he say that he’d been wandering the kingdoms avoiding major towns and staying among the smallfolk, all very purposefully, because he’d been avoiding his reputation as the man who killed the future king, avoiding his feelings of dread and regret? Avoiding being caught out as a fake. Avoiding Lyonel. It was shameful. He and Egg had circled the realms, over the mountains and along the wall. They had been everywhere. Everywhere but here. Because of Dunk’s cowardice.

“Uhm,” he attempted, quite poorly. “Dorne, most recently.”

Lyonel laughed, a huff that punched out of him and made him cringe. Bruised and tender ribs, Dunk guessed.

“Dorne? Why? You should have come here. Let me host and toast you.”

He was glad Lyonel couldn’t see him. It was bad enough to feel such hot embarrassment, such terrible shame, but for Lyonel to see it on his face? That would have been too awful. “You would have wanted me? Even after I…?”

After I abandoned and shunned you and didn’t even say anything to explain myself? Didn’t even say goodbye?

“Ser Duncan. Please.” The hand in Dunk’s tightened to grip him. A comforting, assuring squeeze. “Of course.”

“You’d have me as a guest?”

“As my guest.” Light as a feather. No admonishment, not even the slightest hint of a chide. But then, Dunk reminded himself, Lyonel had recently been clobbered about the head. He was not rightly himself. “Now—” His spare hand rose to pick at the bandages wound ‘round his head. He scratched at them, and when he was unable to find the end he let out a frustrated grunt followed by a disappointed whine. “Help me, dammit. I want to see you.”

Dunk’s heart sank. He wasn’t keen on the prospect of whatever horror awaited him under those bandages. “M’lord, I don’t think… I mean, your hurts…”

Lyonel dismissed that with a loose wave of his hand. “Pah.” He shifted, adjusting himself against the lush pillows behind him. His blankets fell to pool in his lap. His body looked well, Dunk noticed. Hearty and heavy, barely a scratch upon him. His lip curled in annoyance. “Let me see you.”

So with shaking hands Dunk gently released his hold on Lyonel’s, softly placing the hand onto the sheets, and reached for the wrap of white cotton bound about Lyonel’s dear head.

He was about to be confronted with what he was now almost sickly sure was an eye gouged out, or a dented skull, or both. A horrible wound that had only occurred because Dunk had not been at Lyonel’s side to prevent it, this hurt that had marred him, marred him worse than his leg being smashed at Ashford, which was Dunk’s fault too— Well, whatever it was, whatever grisly sight waited for him behind that screen of clean white cloth, he was about to see it. Because his lord had asked to see him.

There was no denying him.

So, as carefully as his oafish big fingers allowed, Dunk removed the bandages from around Lyonel’s skull, threading it out through his hair, trying not to crush a single errant curl. With each turn, a further sliver of bruising was revealed. Finally, the bandage fell away.

A thick pad of folded bandage still sat over Lyonel’s left eye, but the rest of him was revealed now.

He was bruised, yes, with a smear of dark purple coating the thin skin below his brow and bleeding up over his forehead and as far as his temple on the right side. A particularly nasty black eye that left him looking like he was wearing a mask, but nothing more, nothing worse. Lyonel blinked slowly, prying open his eye, adjusting to the low light of the room, finding his focus only with effort.

At last, their gazes met and held.

He was not utterly blinded then, for he had at least this one clear eye, bright as shining, glittering amber. A dreadful relief washed over Dunk, and he found himself smiling for the first time in more than a week. Men had lived with one eye before, and would do it again. Even great lords.

Lyonel lifted a hand to touch Dunk’s cheek. “There you are.” A smile, weak but true, bloomed across his face. “You’ve not changed a speck, have you?”

“What happened, Lyonel?”

The smile turned bitter, rueful, but stuck. “Lance to the face. Came right at me. I was lucky not to be killed, I gather… Well, see for yourself.”

He lifted the thick pad of fabric from over his eye, peeling it away with a tense cringe.

It was a nasty sight. There was swelling, and blood, and for a moment, Dunk thought the eye was well and gone. But upon a closer inspection— and Dunk leaned forward to look, to really look, putting himself close to Lyonel’s face, close enough to see his pores, the stray hairs of his eyebrows, the scratches and inflamed cuts that sprinkled his skin— the eye itself was intact. Some splinter or shard had gouged a deep gash just under his brow bone, and even now, long after the injury, it oozed a sluggish pulse of blood when the bandage was removed. If the lance had hit him an inch lower…

“Shit.”

“Tell me true, hedge knight,” Lyonel sighed, still smiling, always smiling. His clear eye glittering, his hurt one shrouded with a veil of blood. “Am I made terribly ugly?”

It surprised him. “No, ser,” he said, almost choking on the words, stumbling to get them out in a hurry. “No, never.”

He would never be ugly, never, because he was beautiful. The most beautiful thing Dunk had ever seen. No matter if his body had grown heavier since Ashford, his hair grayer and his face more lined. No matter this ugly smattering of wounds. He would never be ugly. He would always be the golden laughing diamond of Dunk’s dreams.

The ugliest parts of him would heal. His eye would recover, the swelling would go down, the cuts would fade to nothing. His Maester had over bandaged him, that was all. The truth of his injuries had grown and twisted as they transformed into rumor and crossed the lands, and that was all.

But Dunk could understand how they would— it must have been frightening to see. Lyonel charging forward, the lance slamming against his helm, Lyonel going down, thrown off his horse, his antlers crashing to the muddied ground. Dunk imagined it, the images flashing through his mind as a series of dread horrors, violent and brutal. Lyonel in the mud, woozily dragging off his dented helm only to reveal a splash of blood, red smeared across the entire top of his face.

It must have been disorienting, dizzying. Dunk has felt that same feeling, smashed in the face and left to try and find his wobbly feet. Lyonel likely couldn’t find his feet, after that. He was only a man, after all. No more. He’d collapsed, Dunk figured, and the gossip that he was half dead had grown from there.

Dunk carefully reached to brush a stray curl from Lyonel’s forehead, keeping it out of the mess of half-dried and newly fresh blood. His fingers glanced over skin, and with only that mere light touch, he felt an unnatural warmth.

Dunk’s face pinched.

“Ser… if I may, why are you undressed?”

Lyonel snorted. His eyes rolled towards the ceiling in annoyance.

“‘s hot.” Like it was obvious.

But it wasn’t. The air in the room was cool, pleasantly so. Not hot at all. Looking now, Dunk saw a line of sweat along Lyonel’s hairline and a gleam at the base of his throat. Softly, he pressed his palm to Lyonel’s brow. Now that was heat. Dunk had been in the dirty and dismal world long enough to know a fever when he felt one, and in a case like this, fever meant infection. Infection could mean rot and decay and death if not properly handled.

This explained his wobbly thoughts and vague tone when speaking too. Clobbered about the head and fever brained. No wonder he was hardly the loud and boisterous Lyonel who Dunk had met at Ashford.

Worry turned to concentration. Something must be done. Lyonel’s dreadful useless Maester had over bandaged him but under doctored him. So it would be up to Dunk to heal the damaged lord.

“Let me care for you, ser.”

“Aid me?” He asked with a mild chuckle.

“Yes, ser,” Dunk promised, palming hair off Lyonel’s forehead.

“Then come.” Lyonel’s hands tumbled against Dunk’s chest, then up his throat, before landing at the sides of his face to toy with his ears. “Come lay with me.”

Through a tight throat and flushed face, Dunk deflected. “We ought to bandage you again.”

But Lyonel insisted, batting his eyelashes (or the set of eyelashes that could successfully open and close) and dangling his fingers off Dunk’s shoulder. “It would aid me.”

“No, ser.” Another lock of dark hair found itself tucked behind Lyonel’s ear. There was something terribly boyish and sweet about Lyonel in this state— slightly woozy, awfully wanting, looking at Dunk like he not only hung the moon, but was the moon… It wouldn’t last once he was in his right mind, Dunk thought, but it was nice for now. “First I’m going to bind you up.”

“Oh.” Lyonel’s unswollen eye went wide, then narrowed playfully. “Well then. By all means, proceed.”

Dunk laughed. Beautiful Lyonel and his dirty sense of humor. His giddy charm was not entirely lost then. Thank the maiden.

Scattered around the room, Dunk found fresh bandages, a case of oils and balms which he recognized thanks to Egg’s obsessive recounting of the work of the Maesters at King’s Landing, and… ah yes, a bottle of clear liquid that burnt his nose to smell.

For five minutes he dabbed at Lyonel’s face with liquor that stung and pulled open the worst of the wounds to extract previously missed flakes of wood. Thankfully there weren’t many of those, and only one surrounded by badly inflamed flesh and the beginnings of pus, and while Dunk worked, Lyonel held the front of his tunic with white knuckles and ground his teeth. The pain seemed to clear his head a little, at least.

“Cunting fuck,” he hissed as Dunk dribbled more alcohol over an open wound. He dug into the fleshy inside of Lyonel’s face, scraping out a tiny white glob of infection with a finger wrapped in soaking cloth. Lyonel gasped when the finger retreated. Pale pink liquid tracked down his face like tears.

It was not a pleasure to do this, but it had to be done, else Lyonel wouldn’t live as long as he ought. Dunk had seen too many wounds fester and sour in his day. Not this one, he thought as he concentrated on washing out an ugly puncture on Lyonel’s cheekbone. Not if he had anything to say about it.

“Almost done, ser.”

Through gritted jaw, Lyonel managed, “This is meant to aid me, hedge knight?”

“Yes.” To prove himself, he dipped forward to press a kiss to Lyonel’s damp forehead. Not quick enough to be playful, far too lingering to be anything but achingly serious. At the dragging remove of his lips, Lyonel as good as purred.

"Oh."

Dunk jerked away, blushing, hardly believing his own boldness, his thoughtless presumption, and busied himself with folding a fresh packet of cloth to cover Lyonel’s bleeding eye.

When he had applied a gooey salve to the worst of the open hurts and packed the bleeding one, he carefully wound a long strip of bandage back around Lyonel’s waiting head. Lyonel, for his part, closed his eyes and tilted up his chin, basking in Dunk’s care. The sting was over; only tenderness remained.

Dunk wrapped him up in a more thoughtful way than Lyonel’s maester had— leaving his good eye exposed. No reason to force him to blindness unnecessarily. Not when he so beautifully blinked that eye open to stare dreamily at Dunk.

“My dear knight. Thank you.”

So earnest, so open. It was all Dunk could do not to cry. Lyonel was fine, would be fine. He would heal. He would live.

“I’m sorry,” Dunk heard himself say. What the apology was for was unclear, muddled. Sorry for shunning you, sorry for hurting you, sorry for hurting you in trying to aid you. Sorry it took so long to come. Something like that. All of that. It needed saying, for he was sorry, sorry in the deepest recesses of his guts and heart, and so it was said, and he hoped Lyonel would understand all the rest.

A hand landed heavily onto the top of his head. A grace.

“You are forgiven.” A long, heavy moment passed. The weight of guilt and agony didn’t quite lift off Dunk’s heart, but it began to slip, its heavy folds opening and sliding away. Someday it would fall away completely, if he was lucky enough to stay in Lyonel’s favor and house and heart. Then Lyonel’s hand slid from Dunk’s crown and traced his ear, then jaw, then cupped his face. “Now please, please, lay with me while I rest. I’m tired and my face hurts, no thanks to you. I want you by me, and I want you here when I wake. Indulge me.”

When said so plainly, and with such open warmth, how could Dunk refuse? He offed his cloak and boots, and eased himself onto Lyonel’s luxurious bed.

Then he didn’t know what to do with himself. Would they lay side by side, or—?

Lyonel answered for him, pulling at Dunk’s arms to guide him closer. He shifted onto his side, exposing his long flank and rear as the blanket fell off him. The sight of him stole Dunk’s breath away and brought a rise to his blood. The smoothness of his skin. The supple curve of his bottom and thigh. The few freckles dotted along his spine like stars.

But Lyonel was pulling at him again, urging him forward until Dunk was nestled snuggly against his back, until they were folded together like two blades of grass.

All for the best, Dunk thought. Nothing good could come from staring too long at the lord’s lovely backside.

Dunk wrapped his arms best he could about Lyonel’s warm body and with a deep contented sigh, Lyonel relaxed back against Dunk’s chest. Melted into him, like. Held his arms about him and kept him close.

“Where’s that boy of yours?” He murmured.

“At an inn,” Dunk answered, distracted by the tickle of Lyonel’s hair against his nose. “With the horses.”

“Tomorrow you’ll bring him here. And the horses too.” It was neither a request nor a command. More a statement of plainly understood fact. He would bring Egg here, to Storm’s End, and here they would stay. For how long was not a question to be considered. Dunk figured forever was in Lyonel’s disoriented mind.

It stung at his heart. It wouldn’t be forever. It couldn’t be. He knew he wouldn’t stay, no matter how strongly he desired to remain exactly where he was, right now, for the rest of his life. Egg had much more to learn and the only place to teach him was on the road. Dunk had a duty to teach him.

It wouldn’t be forever because Lyonel would send him away. It was impossible to believe that Lyonel had welcomed him and embraced him so easily, and would truly want to keep him once he’d regained full use of his senses. After all Dunk had done to hurt him. Hurt his feelings, hurt his leg. Fuck, he hadn’t even asked how Lyonel’s leg was after being smashed at the Ashford tourney.

“You’re sure you’re not—” his breath hitched. Embarrassing to even ask, to consider asking. Embarrassing and pathetic and small. “You’re not angry with me, ser?”

A questioning mumble only, as if it made no sense, “Angry?”

“Because I did not come with you. After Ashford.”

“Not angry. Terribly disappointed. Heartbroken even.” Lyonel said it casually, like it didn’t matter to him anymore at all. Like being heartbroken was something he’d accepted as a fact of life, and moved past. He wriggled against Dunk’s body, seeking a slightly more comfortable position, nestling against his chest, hooking an ankle around Dunk’s to arrange their legs into better alignment. He sighed, “But not angry.”

“You really don’t hate me?”

Lyonel huffed a laugh, all amusement, and dragged Dunk’s hand up from around his chest to press kisses to his fingertips.

“No, you big fool. I love you.” As simple as that. Too simple to be true.

Dunk mumbled, whispered, entirely to himself and not meant to be heard by anyone else, and indeed it seemed Lyonel didn’t hear him at all, despite Dunk’s lips against his very ear: “No, you don’t. You can’t.”

A great highborn lord like Lyonel Baratheon didn’t love him. That was the fever talking. The fever misled. The fever told lies and spun tales.

The fever was a fantasy where the great handsome Laughing Storm could place his heart in the hands of a nobody fraud like Dunk.

Dreamily, undeterred in the slightest, Lyonel added, “After all, you did come, didn’t you? So what that you didn’t come right away? ‘s alright. You’re here now. My hedge knight. You’re here.”

“Yes, ser. I am.”

Dunk ducked his head and pressed his nose against the soft warmth at the back of Lyonel’s neck. He would have this at least, for this stolen moment. While Lyonel was fuzzy and dazed, Dunk could bask in his warmth and sweetness, but certainly only as long as Lyonel’s fever continued to burn in his jumbled brain. Until Lyonel remembered he was angry with him, as he surely must be, as he had promised he would be. Then it would end.

Yes, he’s here. But he wouldn’t stay and he wasn’t worthy. He would cause more hurt before he was through, he was sure. He was here but he would leave, and leave Lyonel heartbroken again. But he needn’t say that now.

There would be no point saying it now anyway, because Lyonel was asleep. Tucked into his arms and comfortable and contented, like he belonged there. Like he would never be happier anywhere else.

For this night, Dunk would stay in the illusion. In a sweet dream where Lyonel wasn’t mad at him, loved him in fact, and would happily remain in his arms and keep him in his home. Forever, like as not.

A dream. A passing dream.

In the morning, as promised, Egg was fetched from the inn, together with the horses, who were stabled in Lyonel’s personal stalls and fed and watered and pampered better than Dunk himself had ever been pampered.

Lyonel had barely woken up when Dunk had left his side, only groaned in disappointment and pulled a ring off his bedstand to shove into Dunk’s hand, saying something about the stables, the servants.

It had worked. Everywhere he’d shown it about the keep, he’d been received with wide eyes and deferential bows. It was embarrassing, really, to beg off being bowed to. He was no better than any of them. He merely had Lyonel’s ring, and his favor, and only briefly.

Though he was glad to see the horses happily munching on oats and being brushed by young men who knew their business.

He was glad to see Egg too, bounding along beside him with wonder in his eyes.

“It’s more marvelous than I’d read,” he gasped, looking all around at the high walls of the castle.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Dunk growled at him. “We won’t be staying.”

Egg’s little blond eyebrows tilted upwards in surprised disappointment. “No, ser? After the hurry we made in getting here?”

Dunk gave Egg a push on the shoulder, not a clout at all— though the little fellow did go stumbling a few steps— more an encouragement to shut up. Egg got an awful lot of leeway, he thought sourly. Really thought he could say any old thing he wanted, didn’t he?

Glowering, Dunk led the way back up through the keep, back in the direction of Lyonel’s chambers. Egg dragged his feet, taking his sweet time looking around at the tapestry draped walls and softly glowing lanterns. Every few steps he let out a heavy, full-breathed sigh. It began to shred Dunk’s nerves.

“What are you pouting about?”

“I’m not pouting.”

Dunk said nothing. If he was patient, he could wait the boy out. Egg would crack.

And quickly he did: “It’s just… When we rushed here, you thought he might be dead already. You were terribly distraught.”

Dunk’s shoulders climbed up around his ears. “Well, he’s not dead.”

“That’s good,” the boy chirped. He traipsed easily over carpets and stone floors, as familiar to him as if it were his own childhood home. “I only thought that you’d want to spend some time. No?” Dunk grunted. Even if he wanted to spend time, which he did, that didn’t necessarily mean that he would get to. He’d been mad to rush here, and though he was glad he’d done it, glad to see Lyonel again and help him in his little way… it couldn’t, wouldn’t, last. “Then… When will we be off?”

A good question. How long could they stay? How long could Dunk justify lingering? 

“Dunno. Suppose we’ll stay until Ser Baratheon’s out of danger.”

Until his fever had broken, at which point he’d remember how Dunk had treated him, at which time Dunk would be banished to slink away like the wretched beastly thing he was. Yes, that would about do it.

Egg’s little head perked up. “Will it be a long time? Is it very bad, then?”

Dunk grimaced at him. Why would he be interested in staying at Storm’s End for a long while? What was it to him? Or perhaps, Dunk thought, he was merely excited by the macabre promise of blood and pulp. Egg did sometimes have a taste for violence— he cheered and shouted at tourneys as loud as anyone—

And was it very bad? Lyonel had slept through the night, then roused easily enough as Dunk had slipped out in the morning. Under the light of day, he’d been black and blue and yellow, yes, and though he’d still been feverish, to Dunk’s less than educated hand he was slightly cooler to the touch. So he was improving.

To answer Egg’s question, he said lamely, “Not very.” Egg harrumphed like this was a terrible disappointment. Pouting again. It was certainly not that Egg disliked Lyonel overmuch or wished him ill, Dunk thought. He better not. Certainly his dismay was more that the rumors had been very exciting, and now the excitement was being quashed. Certainly that. “Do you want to see? He’ll need fresh bandages. You can help.”

Egg’s face split into a grin— so it was excitement over a bit of blood, then, after all— and he took Dunk’s hand, ready to be led. It wasn’t squirely, exactly, but Dunk didn’t have it in him to shake off the boy’s hold. He rarely did.

So off to Lyonel’s room they went.

Lyonel was slow to rise, groggy and grumpy. Dunk touched his forehead, feeling his temperature, and Lyonel hummed and pressed up against his palm. When his eye cracked open and he saw Egg, his expression fell into a disgruntled frown.

“Oh,” he said flatly. “The boy is here.”

Egg puffed up, prideful, ready to defend his place.

“Now, Egg,” Dunk said gently. “There are fresh bandages over there. Go get some.”

Clearly annoyed by Egg’s presence, Lyonel grumbled as he pulled himself to sit up. He fussed with the blankets, pulling them over his lap and tucking them around his waist. All this was done with a put-on show of petulance.

Egg returned with an armful of bandages and jumped up onto the bed, shuffling forward on his knees for a closer look. He took in Lyonel’s bruised chest with wide eyes, all interest. The boldness of him, Dunk thought. Something must be done about that in the future.

“Is this from falling off your horse, ser?”

Lyonel swatted at him, bullying him back.

“Mind yourself, lad. I’m lord here.”

“Your father is,” Egg chirped back, pure haughty innocence. He leaned forward again, reaching a little finger towards a particularly nasty black spot on Lyonel’s ribs. “This one—”

“Egg—” Dunk chided, catching his hand before he could touch. “Don’t.”

The boy frowned, his eyes big and pleading, but listened to his ser and sat back out of reach, crossing his legs before him. He watched patiently, eagerly, as Dunk unwound the bandage from Lyonel’s head. But when Dunk removed the pad of bandage from Lyonel’s left eye, and he saw the full extent of Lyonel’s swollen, bleeding, injury, his little face turned green.

Meanly amused, Lyonel barked a laugh. “This is what took me off my horse,” he said, turning to show Egg the worst of it. “It doesn’t please you to see?”

Egg merely blanched and recoiled. “No, ser,” he admitted in a small voice.

Lyonel sighed; whatever small joy he got from shocking a little boy passed quickly. “There, there,” he said, shooing Egg away with a limp hand. “Off you go, lad. Why don’t you go recover your guts somewhere else? There’s plenty at Storm’s End to entertain a clever squire.”

Egg glanced to Dunk for allowance, got it in the form of a small nod, and gratefully saw himself out, leaving Dunk laughing as he busied himself preparing a fresh bandage.

“He’s learning,” Dunk explained with a chuckle. “His stomach will learn too.”

“He’s a decent enough lad,” Lyonel admitted, huffing as he flopped back against his pillows. “For what he is.” Meaning, a dragon. Perhaps Dunk would have fought him on that, but Lyonel saw the look on his face and changed the subject with a grunted, “Damn, but I’m bored of being in bed.”

Not an elegant redirection, but functional. Why had he been kept abed, Dunk wondered? There was no need for it. His legs weren’t the problem.

He shrugged. “I don’t see you couldn’t go out and about, if you wished it.”

“No? My stupid Maester… but then he kept me blind for a week, didn’t he?” Lyonel slapped the bed next to his hip with a firm determination. “Just so. Let’s walk.”

Dunk insisted they wrap his head properly first, and that he put on clothes. That took some time to achieve. Despite Lyonel’s pointing guidance— No there. The next drawer down. No, not that— Dunk struggled to find the things he wanted. There were just so many clothes… Never in his life had Dunk owned more than two shirts, so to be directed to Lyonel’s overflowing armoires and dressers was overwhelming. It was all so soft, so elegant, the shapes complicated and clasps unfamiliar. Then there was the lord’s impetuous demand that Dunk help him dress, as if he were too injured to lace up his own trousers.

He wasn’t, surely, though he was slightly unsteady on his feet when he stood. He did lean heavily on Dunk’s shoulder as they wrangled his legs through breeches and fed his arms through sleeves, and seemed genuinely grateful for the help.

Finally, draped in simple linens and twill, with a heavy quilted cloak over his shoulders and delicate house slippers on his feet, Lyonel took Dunk’s arm as a crutch and they set out.

If Dunk had thought Lyonel would find his feet and release him, he was terribly wrong. Even when they were moving comfortably and Lyonel was showing no difficulty at all, he kept Dunk’s arm clasped tightly to him. They walked arm in arm through the keep, along parapets that seemed to threaten to tip them into the sea, past magnificent chambers filled with paintings and tapestries and books and more antlered pieces of furniture than Dunk could have ever dreamt existed.

It was a tour as much as a stroll, and a pleasant one. Lyonel showed him a beautiful castle, a beautiful place to live. And how lovely it was to have Lyonel hanging off him, toying with his sleeve, telling him story after story of his family history, the things these walls had seen, a tale for every inch of stone…

Standing against the stone edge of the seaward curtain wall, overlooking the storm tossed rim of the continent, Lyonel said, “They say my great-great-great-great-fuck-however-many grandfather threw himself into the sea just here.” For the first time all day, he released Dunk’s arm, only to put both hands on the wall and lean forward, putting himself precariously over the edge to look down at the crashing waves below.

“Really?”

Lyonel shrugged, like the story bored him. He came back from the edge effortlessly and a tightness in Dunk’s chest eased. “For want of love, they say. Luckily he’d already had his brood.” His tone was wry, mean, then took a sharp turn to forced lightness— “On a clear day you can see Tarth from here,“ he pointed vaguely east, his finger finding only fog. The day before them was relatively clear, the storms that named the Stormlands absent, though they’d left their evidence behind in the form of damp stone walkways and the heavy fog sitting a hundred yards off the coast. Dunk looked, but there was no sign of Tarth at all. “I suppose if it were ever truly clear you might be able to see all the way across to the Flatlands.”

He wobbled and Dunk stepped in to steady him with a hand on his lower back and the other on his elbow.

At the touch of him, Lyonel melted. His features went soft. “Thank you, love.”

Dunk ignored that, and ignored the blush it brought to his cheeks. He asked, “Have you been?” A questioning hum was his answer. “Across the sea to the Flatlands?”

“No.”

With a heavy sigh, Lyonel took Dunk’s arm again and started them walking once more.

So it went like this for days— Dunk came to Lyonel’s bedchamber in the mornings and ensured he ate, then changed his bandages, checking the wounds. The rest of the day was spent walking arm in arm around the keep, Dunk asking questions, Lyonel telling stories. Laughing stories, often, funny stories. Stories of childhood and nursemaids and knights and squires. Sometimes Lyonel even spoke of his mother, the departed lady of the keep, who had not yet come close to being replaced. His father, still living, never remarried, and Lyonel himself remained a bachelor.

It was something Dunk turned around in his head during those few days. That Lyonel, no longer young, was yet unmarried. No children, no heirs.

He told very few love stories neither. The odd tale of a romp or tumble, a boyish crush or adolescent heartsickness… but not much of that. No crippling disappointments. No great love affairs.

Nothing save the heartbreak of Ashford, of Dunk’s abandonment and rejection. The great disappointment of that hung over them as they walked, even now.

Standing back where Great Lord So-and-So Baratheon gave himself to the sea, Dunk asked, “Ser… don’t you want children?”

Lyonel hummed, giving a noncommittal waggle of his head. “Well it’s my duty to have a few, isn’t it? Though I admit I’ve been putting it off… I simply haven’t much interest in a wife.” He snorted. “The idea bores me to tears. The best I could hope for is a decently pretty girl who doesn’t ask too much of me.” He paused, thinking through some further idea, or imagining this possible lady bride. His nose scrunched in distaste.

It seemed to not only bore him, but disappoint him. To be trapped by the expectation of wife and children and the continuation of his great, noble line. Would he rather be back at sea, Dunk wondered? Among sailors and sailcloth? Or traveling the lands from tourney to tourney, dancing and laughing and clashing steel with knight after knight after knight?

Lyonel continued thoughtfully: “I just don’t think I could love a woman. I mean I could—” an obscene gesture with his hips made clear his meaning— “love one, but not in the… proper way. As the poets say. Oh, you know what I mean.”

Moody now, he waved it off and turned to look back out over the breaking waves. In doing so, he missed the forest fire flash of a flush that rushed to color Dunk’s cheeks. It was merely the implication of it— and the plain way he spoke about it— That Lyonel Baratheon, soon enough to be lord of Storm’s End and its surrounds, would love a man. Would prefer a man. Not just to bed, but to love…

Lyonel’s voice cut through his tumultuous thoughts. “Not that it much matters in my situation, does it? Heirs ought to be gat. But that isn’t terribly fair, is it? To me or to whatever unfortunate baron’s daughter ends up saddled with me. It must be easier for the smallfolk… marrying whoever they want. Loving however they want.”

“I don’t know.” Dunk demurred, distracted. Real love, proper love, was as rare a thing in this world as he knew of. Rarer than gold, or jewels, or bravery. Rarer than a lord who treated you as a friend. A friend who shrugged and took your arm, and guided you away from a deadly drop. Or a friend who jumped with you. A friend who joined your trial and risked his life and invited you to share his home—

Lyonel turned to him with a glittering suggestion in his eyes, a touch of sadness lingering just behind his gaze.

“What do you say, Ser Dunk? Are you in want of a wife?”

He’d never thought about it. Not really. Briefly he’d dreamt of Tanselle Too-Tall, not too tall for him. But what could a marriage be for a man like him? No wife could be asked to sleep in a hedge. No woman would wait until his travels were done, if they ever were.

When he tried to imagine someone he might love, his mind offered dark hair and gold, glittering eyes, bright white teeth and clever hands and laughter— so much laughter—

It was stupid. He shook his head, trying to shoo away his stupid, fruitless dreams before he made a right fool of himself. What did he know about it anyway? Love wasn’t meant for men like him, who bashed up everything they touched.

“No, ser,” he fumbled to say. “No, I—

But Lyonel was already moving away.

Later, much later, Dunk found himself sitting by Lyonel at a long banquet table, surrounded by the remnants of an unbelievable feast, leaning against the table and staring at Lyonel twist the tip of a knife into the tabletop.

It had been a lovely feast. Food and drink and warmth and laughter. Lyonel had taken Egg onto his lap for most of the evening, tickled him behind the ears, put his chin atop Egg’s bald head. He’d whispered to the boy, making him laugh. Courtly gossip, Dunk guessed, the kind of thing he would never really understand. Ah well. As long as Egg was enjoying himself, and Lyonel was enjoying himself, and they were getting along…

The night grew old, the candles burning down and the household gone to bed, save for the odd lingering servant. And Egg, drooping alternatively over the table or back against Lyonel’s shoulder, too stubborn to retire to sleep on his own.

“Time for bed for this little beast,” Lyonel purred, laughing as he gathered Egg up in his arms. Before he could heave to his feet, Dunk lurched forward.

“I’ll take him.”

Lyonel watched with wide eyes as Dunk plucked Egg easily out of his arms and carried him away.

Egg made a sleepy sound of protest when Dunk handed him off to be taken back to his squirely quarters, but settled back into his drowse quickly enough in the arms of the housemaid who carried him away. Dunk rubbed the top of his head and watched until he was out of sight. Good lad, he was.

Then it was just Dunk and Lyonel, Lyonel and Dunk, alone in this beautiful hall, surrounded by warm candlelight.

It made his mind spin. He needed another drink, he thought. Something to cool his head

Lyonel watched him come back to the table, watched him drink, watched him lick a lost drop of wine from his lower lip.

“You’re very good with him.” He draped himself back in his seat, languidly looking Dunk up and down. “A right mother you are.”

Dunk laughed weakly, had to laugh, and dropped himself back into his chair at Lyonel’s side. Under the table, their knees brushed, parted, pressed together.

Quiet fell between them and around them, a hush as comfortable as Lyonel’s extravagant bed, and as warm. Lyonel dug the tip of his knife into the table, twisting it brutally, then abandoned it, letting the blade fall with a thump.

He’d been here before, Dunk thought hazily. Back in Ashford. It had all started just like this.

Lyonel lifted his eyes. Gold, gold and shining. His long, lovely eyelashes blinked.

The bandages had been removed a day ago, and Lyonel’s horribly swollen and bleeding eye was now nothing more than tender, sore and itchy. Bruising remained, but it was fading fast enough.

He looked very well, even despite the smudges of purple that painted his face. His curls were clean and bouncy, his eyes glowing— and how bright and molten they looked in this light, compared to how dark they were on the battlements— he had even, for tonight’s feast, put his dangling gold earring back into his ear, where it danced with each toss of his head.

It had been just like this. Before it all went wrong.

The quiet broke: “I wouldn’t need for a wife… if I had you.”

It took Dunk’s breath away, as sure as if he’d been slapped. Stole it right out of his chest. It was a statement he couldn’t grasp, couldn’t face. Too big, pronounced with too much weight. Not a joke. Not a joke at all.

“M’lord,” he gasped, reeling. “You don’t mean that.”

Lyonel snapped out a hand, grabbing hard to Dunk’s forearm. His body followed, pouring out of his seat to lean forward, putting his determined face inches from Dunk’s. “But I do. Dunk, I do.”

It didn’t make sense. Without a wife, Lyonel would have no heirs. There would be no future for his line. No one would ever claim to have descended from the Laughing Storm, the greatest Baratheon living. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be what Lyonel wanted.

“But… but your lordship,” Dunk stuttered, “Storm’s End, your lands— An heir—”

“An heir?” he scoffed. “I need no heir. It can all go to my brothers, their idiot sons. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me at all. I’ll be dead.” He waved a hand. He should be laughing, Dunk thought. Why isn’t he laughing? “I would have you instead, while living. Ser Duncan the Tall.”

A terrible heat rose in Dunk’s face. He wasn’t being teased, but this was all… a horrible mistake.

He dropped his head, his shoulders. Slouching, hiding. “You, you don’t know what you’re saying. You’re jumbled, ser.”

Lyonel’s chin ducked back in offended surprise. “Jumbled? Are you calling me mad, hedge knight?”

“No, no! Just that you’ve taken a knock, and…”

Lyonel looked at him seriously, his brow furrowing. “Let me be perfectly clear, my lad. I am not jumbled. I love you. With all my heart. I would have you.”

He had been so odd these past days, so quiet and subdued. He’d hardly laughed at all. Dunk had assumed it was to do with his injuries, his badly jostled head…

But perhaps he was not brain addled from his injuries after all. Merely… dimmed by his experience. Thoughtful. Made serious.

He’d had a scare, Dunk realized. Perhaps the first serious one in his entire somewhat unserious life. The Laughing Storm, not laughing now.

Not laughing at all. He had been face to face with death, and it had made him serious. Then he’d come face to face with Dunk, and it had apparently made him foolish.

“I’m quite serious, Dunk.” It was so in line with his own thinking, Dunk almost laughed. Might have laughed if it weren’t all so tragically absurd. “Take me seriously.”

“I do, Lyonel, I do, but…”

“But?”

“You’re not being serious. You cannot… wed me. I cannot be a wife to you, or bear your children, or, or—”

“I don’t expect you to. Weren’t you listening?”

“Then what can I be for you? I cannot be your knight, or your woman, or— I wish I— But I can’t—” Flummoxed, frustrated, he bit his tongue to stop his rambling. He would not serve under Lyonel, that didn’t seem right. And there was Egg to consider, too. No, Dunk could not be a household knight for Storm’s End, a kept warrior to show off and play with... Which wasn’t what Lyonel was suggesting at all, of course. It never had been. His offer had never been to come and serve. It had been to come and hunt and feast and make merry and be loved. “I… I have nothing. I am nothing. What— what can I be to you that would be any good?”

Lyonel placed a gentle hand on the back of Dunk’s wrist. His own hands, clenched hard in his lap, only tightened at the touch. Shame and horror danced a rib-breaking tattoo in his chest.

“You can be my love,” Lyonel breathed, softer and more sweet than the freshest spring breeze. “Come live with me and be my love, and we will taste all the pleasures this world can yield.” His smile flickered, like he was quoting some bit of poetry Dunk didn’t know, and it amused him to do so. Or made him sad. “I wish to have you near, that’s all. I knew from the first I would love you, and have only been proven again and again how right I was. Your decency, your bravery… You needn’t be my sworn knight or ever fight for me. I would not ask it—” his breath hitched slightly— “I can do my own fighting, I love to do my own fighting.” The hitch broke into a little laugh, which Dunk echoed. To laugh together, even in this fragile way… it eased some of the pain, some of the nerves. When the laughter settled, it sat between them like a heavy dew. Or no, Dunk thought. Like the warmest quilt, draped over both their shoulders. “Just… love me and let me love you.”

“But, my lord…”

“Not your lord. Your love. If you would have me. If you wish it.”

Unimaginable. That Lyonel would look at him, grubby stump of a hedge knight that he was, and want him. There was a mistake being made. Lyonel didn’t know. He’d mistook Dunk for Ser Duncan the Tall, and that man didn’t exist. That man was a lie. Lyonel had met Dunk once, back in his tent in Ashford, and perhaps liked him. But that was long ago and far away, and for such a brief time…

“You barely know me.”

That made him laugh. A light, twinkling, beautiful sound. “I know you, Dunk. Dear Dunk. You are… the best of men. Kind and true and decent. You came to my aid when you heard I was in need. You’ve cared for me so dearly. You are good, and sweet. Honest like no one else. I like speaking with you— You never bore me, and so many people bore me. I could want no better. There is no better.” He paused to catch his breath, and glanced at Dunk with a shade of something like shyness in his expression. It was not a look that Dunk had seen on him before, and it drove him nearly to his own jumbled madness to witness it. “And you’re so handsome, you know. You big beautiful thing.”

“Ser…”

“I know there’s the boy. I know. I know you feel you have to travel the world with him, and sleep in ditches and all that nonsense, in order to train him, I know all that.” He tossed his hand, like it was terribly silly to him, but he would allow it even so. “I won’t ask you not to do it. I understand it matters to you. But I’ll ask that you come back to me. Regularly. So I may love you. And when his training is done, I’d ask you stay and be mine and allow me to shower you in comforts.”

Dunk thought he might cry. Thought he might shatter to pieces at the unreal enormity of what Lyonel was offering him. Not only his heart, and a home when he wanted it, but his freedom. Lyonel would not ask to own him. Only to share what he had with him, if, and only if, Dunk wanted it. It was the most generous thing— the most impossible thing—

“I’m not… I’m not worthy of you. I'm just a hedge knight. Not even, I—”

“Oh my dear, Dunk,” Lyonel said gently, taking Dunk’s face in both of his hands. He lifted his face, bringing him out of his agonized pit. His expression was all sweetness, laced with the smallest touch of affectionate pity. A warm finger smoothed hair off his forehead. “You are the brightest jewel to ever grace this world. It is I who is not worthy of you.”

He leaned then, and pressed his mouth to Dunk’s. A kiss. It didn’t feel like much— there were no sparks, no lightning strikes that shivered through Dunk’s blood— yet at the same time it felt like everything. Like home and comfort and everything he could ever want.

When Lyonel retreated, Dunk fought the urge to chase him. Even so he heard a weak, wanting whimper escape his own lips.

“I ask too much,” Lyonel said, soft and quietly resigned. “I talk too much. I understand. Forgive me.”

“No, ser, I— I mean, yes. Lyonel, yes. I want that. All that.” His hands drifted to find Lyonel’s hips, as much to hold him and be sure of him as to keep him from going further away. “All your talk.”

“Do you?”

They were pressed together knee to knee, crammed against each other, each still in their chairs.

“I do. Lyonel. Lyonel, yes. Your talk and your love and, and—”

How silly it seemed to be apart, even the few inches they were. Dunk pulled at Lyonel’s hips, and Lyonel went, gliding easily across to place a knee on either side of Dunk’s lap and crawl atop him. He threaded his hands into Dunk’s hair, petting him, trailing fingers from temple to crown.

“And?”

“You. I want you. To be yours. I—” he choked, the words too big to find their way out of him. “From the first.”

Which was true.

Lyonel’s eyes went wide and round, awe-struck and shining with wet tears.

“Dunk. My Dunk.”

They were close enough now Dunk could feel Lyonel’s breath ghosting against his face. All he could see was Lyonel’s big golden eyes, lit up by the low-burning candles surrounding them. Luckily it was all he wanted to see.

He nodded. “Your Dunk.”

Lyonel melted against him, pouring himself against the contours of Dunk’s body, fitting himself into the nooks and curves of Dunk’s chest and belly and hips. And mouth, when he kissed him.

Kissed him like he wanted to eat him. There, at last, after days of dampened energy and moody storm clouds hanging over him, was the Lyonel Dunk had met back at Ashford. Pushy and biting, licking into Dunk’s mouth like he owned it, like he could live off the taste of Dunk’s molars. He wrapped his arms around Dunk’s head, holding him tight, and Dunk returned the favor around Lyonel’s body; he found he could encircle Lyonel entirely with one arm, folding his bicep into the small of his back, hooking his elbow into the delicious divot of his waist. His other hand covered both shoulder blades and kept Lyonel firmly against him.

What a beautiful thing to be kissed with such desire.

Dunk could feel Lyonel’s grin against his mouth, and the sunshine warmth of it oozed from Lyonel’s lips to Dunks like sweet nectar.

Finally, they broke for air, gasping big gulps. Lyonel ground his forehead hard against Dunk’s, a rutting stag locking antlers. Thoughtless and hungry, his lips sought Dunk’s again, stealing another breath.

Under the hunger, under the desperate desire, Dunk sensed something else. Gratitude, perhaps. Admiration. A deep well of feeling that was genuine, true. Just for him. However foolish Lyonel could be, however light-hearted and frivolous he could seem, or behave, he was, in fact and truth, a knight. A lord. A man of great honor, great sincerity, great feeling. A man who contained many men, and all of them loved Dunk.

“You do love me,” he sighed, sure of it now, no more doubt or disbelief. Only Lyonel in his lap, so eager to love him, so glad to have him in his arms. A miracle.

“I do. By all the gods, I do.”

“I… me too. I do too. You. Love you.”

The smile that bloomed across Lyonel’s face grew and grew, showing his straight white teeth and carving deep lines into his face.

Dunk hooked his arms under Lyonel’s thighs, lifted, stood. He would carry Lyonel to bed, carry him across the breadth and height of the keep, the world, and never let him go. Lyonel purred, growled, into his mouth, digging his knees into Dunk’s side to curve like a question up over Dunk’s face.

“Yes, aren’t we so lucky.” He wriggled, clinging to Dunk’s shoulders with strong fingers. “To love each other.”

“Yes,” Dunk breathed, grateful and thankful and almost drunk with it. He swam, spinning, the room growing wobbly and wonderful around him.

Lyonel laughed, tossing his head back, a blessed beautiful sound, and returned to press his lips to Dunk’s temple. “I am yours,” he whispered. “And you're mine.”

His earring pressed coldly against Dunk’s cheek, burning like a brand. Lyonel’s brand.

“Yes.”

“Then take me to bed.”

For a week he laid in Lyonel Baratheon’s bed, and arms, and heart. The last lingering burn of fever disappeared and Dunk was still kept close, all his fears for naught. Lyonel kissed his mouth at each waking, kissed his brow at each parting. The wounds on his face fully closed and healed, leaving nothing more than shiny new skin, and Lyonel looked at him with two clear eyes filled with nothing but love.

But it couldn’t last forever— Dunk was constantly reminded that their time was for now limited, as Egg was always underfoot, asking questions, demanding stories, wanting instruction. Even when successfully shooed away, he wandered the keep making trouble with the servants, leaving scattered tomes around the library, and being a general nuisance wherever possible. When he wasn’t briskly doing that, he stared out the windows with dreamy eyes. No matter the comforts of Storm’s End, he was growing bored, that was the truth of it. It was time to continue on.

No matter how contented Dunk was, no matter Lyonel’s entreaties to stay just a little longer, another day. No, I’m not quite healed up yet, you see, you can’t possibly leave me in this state—

The boy had to be trained. There was still so much to do, and putting it off would only make it take longer.

Besides, despite his protests, Lyonel was firmly, decidedly, out of danger. To linger now was to tempt complacency, to never leave at all. It was tempting but… it could not be done. His responsibility to the boy, his debt to the boy’s family, was not to be taken lightly or ignored. No matter the pull of his own heart.

“You could come with us,” Dunk had offered weakly one night, whispered against Lyonel’s soft stomach.

“No,” Lyonel had laughed. “No, absolutely not. For too many reasons to count.”

And that was that.

So the horses were prepared, supplies were gathered, and Dunk pulled on his old cloak to leave.

Lyonel watched on, sighing heavily and being altogether quite unfair.

“You stop that now,” Dunk chided, tightening his saddle against Thunder’s back. “It was you who said I was free to go.”

“And you are,” he protested, only slightly flippant. He scratched idly at the new thin skin under his brow. “Off you go, then. I’ll only miss you terribly. I’ll only waste away in want of you.”

“Don’t say that.”

Lyonel laughed, big and boisterous, a parting gift that nestled under Dunk’s ribs.

“Come here, my Dunk. Come.” He gestured with both hands, sweeping Dunk towards him. There was no denying him; Dunk went.

Lyonel reached for him, and briefly Dunk thought he was about to be kissed. Instead, Lyonel dropped heavy hands onto Dunk’s shoulders, digging fingers into his muscles. He shook him, dragged his hands down Dunk’s arms, and briefly grabbed and held firm Dunk’s large hands in his own. In pulling away, he pressed a ring into Dunk’s palm— the same ring he’d given him after that first night. The key to the castle. A reminder of him.

“My love,” he whispered lightly, his lips parting to show a hint of his lovely, straight white teeth. It wasn’t quite a smile. There was something too bittersweet about it. “Think of me sometimes, won’t you?”

“I’ll think of you always. I did before, you know, before—” Lyonel interrupted with a true smile now, bright and blinding, distracting Dunk away from his thoughts. Affection bloomed and oozed out of him like honey. Meaning it desperately, Dunk promised, “I’ll be back. I’ll come back.”

“You better. And fucking soon, if you don’t mind.”

“As soon as we can.”

Lyonel pouted, tsk-ed at him, big and showy and playful. “Sooner.”

“Sooner,” Dunk agreed.

As soon as Egg was in need of a decent bed, or a bath, or a meal. As soon as one of the horses fell lame and needed decent care.

As soon as Dunk grew too lonely on the road, as soon as someone laughed too loudly near him, as soon as his heart felt the string that tied him to Lyonel tightening too sharply.

As soon as his mind wandered while riding and he too well remembered the way Lyonel’s fingers trailed over his bare skin, the way he bit his lip, the way his eyelids fluttered, the way he sighed so beautifully when—

It would be hard to stay away.

It was hard enough to turn away, as Lyonel held his eyes with a dreamy, adoring look on his face.

From across the yard, a little voice shrilly called, “Ser! Can we go? At this rate we won’t make it outside the gates before dark.”

Shamed, Dunk ducked his head and made his escape, hauling himself up atop Thunder and settling himself to ride. Egg was quite right. It would be easier once they were away, besides. With each step away from Lyonel, the following step would become easier. The hard part was in the starting, as it always was, in all things.

Thunder shifted under him, eager to find the road and take it.

“Wait, wait!” Lyonel called. “Most brave and handsome knight, one last thing—”

Dunk directed his horse to where Lyonel had leapt up onto a bit of stair, in order to be of better height to reach him. Princely, he looked. A dashing sea prince swathed in yellow and black, with streaks of silver in his hair. This was the vision of him Dunk wanted to keep always, or at least until their next meeting. This beautiful, rapturous vision in gold.

“Yes, m'lord?”

Lyonel caught his ears and pulled him down, half off his horse, to press a sweet, lingering kiss to his forehead. A blessing, a gift, a promise of more, whenever Dunk wanted it. When he retreated, he was glowing and his eyes were teary. “There. Now you are dismissed.”

“Lyonel…”

“Go, go. Off you go.” He waved Dunk away with limp fingertips, and Egg too, but followed after them to the very outer gates, their own personal procession.

He stayed leaning against the portcullis, watching, as they rode away. Whenever Dunk turned back, he was still here. Waiting. Waiting even as the keep receded into the distance and Lyonel’s gold shape was nothing more than a smudge on the horizon.

He would still be waiting when Dunk came back. Still golden and laughing and beautiful and loving him.

Yes, it would be hard to stay away.