Work Text:
I
Jon will do his duty by his prince. That does not mean he cares for the child who has her curved eyebrows and her crooked toe and her hesitant smile.
There are nurses, a string of them, and all the teachers the eunuch’s money can afford.
At night, when the boy refuses to fall asleep in his nurse’s arms, Jon takes him and paces the room, over and over again. The ringing of bells makes it hard to find rest anyway.
Years go by. He dyes the boy’s hair himself and teaches him what nobody else can, who he is, what he needs to do one day. It means he has to spend too much time with him who grows up to be a spitting image of his father, except for a few things that seem little in comparison. To Jon, they mean everything.
Their small band of companion grows until he only needs to see the boy at meals, and he pretends not to see the hurt glances when he leaves him behind.
The brothels he visits are for those who share his tastes. He pays for men with blond hair and blue eyes whenever the loneliness becomes too much.
II
The boy comes to him late at night as the oppressing heat outside has settled and a cool wind breezes through the open windows, moving the heavy curtains. Outside it is quiet – as quiet as can be in a city like this – and the night air smells of salt and seawead from the ocean
Jon wakes from his slumber as the the boy, naked, settles against him, back to chest and there is nothing between them but the shift Jon wears at night and that has come up to his waist in his sleep. Warm, smooth skin on his, the curve of a buttock, and while Jon tenses, his body already reacts, his cock filling and rising against the boy’s arse.
“I can be him,” the boy whispers, head turned, and his breath smells sweet, “Let me, just let me,” and touches Jon in the dark.
Jon’s arms come around him on their own.
The boy is old enough, he thinks, and whyever not?
Just this once, he thinks, when he turns them so the boy is lying under him, and Jon covers his back with kisses.
He knows what he is doing, he thinks, when his fingers push in a tight hole and find it slick with grease.
He wants it, Jon thinks, and pushes in, soft clinging heat, and the boy sobs and twists beneath him.
Rhaegar, he thinks, and reaches completion deep inside the boy’s body.
His mind is blank afterward.
The boy curls against him, and Jon, carefully not thinking about anything, puts and arm around him. He stares at the wall, listening to the sea.
In the morning, the boy sneaks out, and Jon turns to lie on his belly, on a sheet that smells of sex and the boy’s distinctive scent, blue hair dye and salt and the mint sweetmeats he likes best.
At the light of dawn, Jon closes his eyes, listens to the bells and tries not to think about a man he loved too much and a boy he never loved enough.