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It is with no small amount of misery that Lyonel listens when Maric tells him to be still. He's as battered as any other champion, battered and bruised and sore, and luckier still that he is alive to feel so awful. The battle on the tourney grounds was enough for him in truth, and the battle of wills against Maric is easily won by his manservant. He means to send for the maester, but that is a final battle Lyonel is still hungry enough to fight and win.
"I'll not stand to have my mind addled by milk of poppy," he thunders.
"You'll not stand at all," Maric gripes in return, his dark hair teased and tugged and worried into a cloud. Lyonel's own doing, he supposes, though he's not of a mind to apologize.
"Then I'll not lay to have my mind addled, if it pleases. I'll find rest all the same, I'm not so broken it will keep me from sleep." It takes the last of his strength to keep from voicing just how much it hurts to adjust himself on his bed.
He watches from the corner of his eye as Maric worries at his hair again, the stress and frustration he feels bared naked on his face. He's younger than Lyonel himself, and without silver shot through his hair, but his forehead seems to grow by the day. A self-afflicted curse, perhaps, when Maric's father kept a full, thick head of silver hair to his very last day.
The silence stretches between them for a long moment, interrupted only by the muffled signs of life beyond the tent itself. Maric doesn't move to busy himself as he normally would, instead content to wait out Lyonel's stubbornness. It shames him that it does not take long.
"Stop ripping you're hair out, boy. Fetch the milk of poppy. Just a bit," he insists, dramatically averting his eyes at the pleased look that blossoms on his manservant's face. "I'll not take a whole draught, the events of the day will be awful enough to remember without a poppy dream making it worse." He dismisses him with a loose wave of his hand and holds his groans in until he is finally, blissfully, alone.
The tent stinks of him and the day's exertion, horse flesh and sweat, the bitter stink of the herbs the maester at Storm's End mixes into the knit-bone poultice to enhance it's effect. There's a wine skin beside his bed that he can't quite reach, as stiff as his back has become, though perhaps Maric can be convinced to aid him upon his return.
When Maric does return, thankfully without a bloody maester in tow, Lyonel acquiesces to taking a small drink of milk of poppy, no more than a thimbleful. He presses the advantage his show of obedience wins him with Maric and gleefully empties the wine skin his manservant so kindly presses into his hands. The mixture is perhaps unwise, but anything to get the taste out of his mouth.
He begs for peace, for privacy, and finally settles once Maric takes his leave. The milk of poppy is effective and fast. It loosens his body from tip to toe like a gentle wave breaking on the shore. His mind slows, filling with cotton, and he wades through the twilight of his consciousness. The pain doesn't fade away, milk of poppy doesn't erase the hurt. It simply no longer important, it doesn't press to the forefront of his mind the way it would without the drink. Lyonel feels his pain but he does not care.
His mind drifts to the morning's violence, to the end of it and Ser Duncan's wails. He'd been near unrecognizable except for the ice chip of his one open eye, bruised and battered like the rest of them. The milk of poppy distances him from his emotions, even with as little as he had consumed, so his thoughts slip like silk over the complex landscape of the tragedy to settle on something more pleasant.
Ser Duncan himself.
Just the thought of him lets Lyonel sink deeper into his quilted bedding. It has been an age since someone has captivated him so deeply. Lyonel thought him almost plain at first glance, beyond his arresting eyes. Direct and with no artifice, simple in his wants, simple in his goodness.
He'd like nothing better than to draw him close and keep him closer, herd him off to Storm's End. His boy could come too, of course. Lyonel's presence might be a boon in granting them the ability to keep close, as it were. It is not so unfathomable that he as Lord Paramount of the Stormlands might foster a prince—the fourth son of a fourth son was not so precious to keep close, and House Targaryen and House Baratheon have a long history besides. It would be no trouble and it would keep Ser Duncan close besides.
Or if not at his side, then not so far that he's entirely out of reach. Ser Duncan seems comfortable enough sleeping in his hedges, but Westeros is large and Lyonel does not want to think of how easily his giant might become lost to him. It would be best to hide him away, plant him on Tarth where Lyonel might decree than any travel by ship would need to come through Storm's End first.
It's not so bad an idea the longer he thinks on it. Lord Donal of Tarth is without an heir, his only daughter run off an age ago, which leaves open the questions of succession. His lady wife still lives, and they're both too old to produce any more children. Their daughter is unlike to return, and Lord Donal was too dedicated to his lady wife to sire any bastards he might legitimize.
Ser Duncan could be a good fit. He holds no great resemblance to Lord Donal but for his eyes, which might just be enough with the weight of Lyonel's own word behind it. It could be an adoption in truth, though they could grant it legitimacy by presenting him as as some long lost bastard grandson for all that it would be a farce.
Tarth would suit him, Lyonel thinks, an island big enough to travel and offer his services but not so big that he might not be found again. The coat of arms would suit Ser Duncan, too. The white crescents on blue a perfect match to his striking eyes, the sun a match to his shaggy mop of hair, the rose a match to the pink of his cheeks, the sweet pout of his lip. Where else might he be so pink?
It's a pleasant thought to drift off to, so slow and subtle that Lyonel scarce realizes he's dreaming.
The tent stretches around him, the thready sunlight dims into the warm glow of candles. There is noise and merriment and the slow shuffle of dancers, and yet they are alone, he and his Duncan. He's flushed and hale and so very alive, his sweet face and sweeter eyes aimed as true as an arrow to Lyonel's own. There's a shine to his lip, the violent red of a burst berry from the delicate pastry dwarfed in his square hand.
Lyonel gazes upon his lip as he did the night it happened, but those events seem as if a dull and dreary dream. He remembers that he willed his gaze to feel like the touch of his hands, but in truth he did no more than continue their conversation until the heat stirring within his abdomen became too much to bear. It seems a false truth now, in the soft haze of this better reality, or at least that it should be. There is no fear here so he does as he wishes he did then and leans close to clean Duncan's lips with his own tongue.
He lives the experience and yet sees it from outside of himself, feels the sweet catch of their lips in a kiss as much as he sees the way a flush slices along his cheek like wine spilled upon cream. There's a warmth radiating from him, comfortable like the first sun through glass after a long storm, like Lyonel could curl up inside of it like a purring cat.
Duncan's hands are unsure, chaste in their placement—but then he is a maid, is he not? His tunic melts away, like it was never there at all, and Lyonel chases the spill of his blush along the thick column of his neck. His chest is just barely furred, faint and blond though it glows red in candle light. His nipples are pinker still, as soft as his lips, responsive and reactive. They pebble beneath the broad lapping of Lyonel's tongue, driving Duncan to grasp with his gentle, gentle hands.
He cards his thick fingers through Lyonel's hair, more delicate than a lady's brush. Broad palms cup his face, his neck, the rough of his callouses contrasting the softness of his touch. Lyonel turns his head, presses his ear against Duncan's great barrel of a chest, vibrates to the very beating of his heart, the thrum-thrum-thrum. He's naked now too, the sweet friction of their skin sliding together as Lyonel drags himself lower.
When he sits back on his heels, there is a moment where Lyonel can see their cocks nestled perfectly together. Duncan's is flushed as pink as the rose quarters of the Tarth coat of arms, long and straight as a lance, the perfect complement to Lyonel's own. His desire is an inferno inside of him, lust and affection both.
Lyonel glances up and is captured by Duncan's guileless blue gaze. It is sobering, the reminder that he's is still so inexperienced. Still a maid, yet to stand before a septon and accept the protection of Lyonel's cloak. They'll belong to each other soon enough, he's sure, but Lyonel cannot and will not take his maidenhead before they're married in true.
Duncan lets himself be easily moved, shifts under the gentle pressure of Lyonel's hand until his thighs press together. His lower half twists towards the side, just enough that Lyonel can still bend over his great big body and capture his sweet lips in another kiss. It's easy to push his cock between Duncan's meaty thighs, the way things are always easy in such dreams, warm and wet with oil that Lyonel doesn't remember pouring over him.
It's as if fucking a vice, as tight as the pink pucker Lyonel knows hides between the muscular globes of Duncan's ass, the prize that awaits him on their wedding night. The thought of being connected to intimately is nearly his undoing, burrowing inside of Duncan in a way he'll not soon forget—he'll never forget for as often as Lyonel will seek it out. It'll be different then, without Duncan's thighs in the way, their bodies slick with sweat and near fused together.
Lyonel yearns to get closer, wants to feel the hot puff of Duncan's breath against his face, wants to swallow down his sweet noises, wants to pierce him down to the hilt and stay there as long as he'll have him. He thrusts, again, and again, until he spends across the soft fold of Duncan's stomach. His thighs spread, hips opening until Lyonel's spent body can slide into the space created there for him. Duncan's arms encircle him, hold him, safe and warm and whole. Lyonel thinks that even just this might be enough for him.