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The road to Storm’s End from Ashford is long, winding, and uneventful, until its second-to-last day, when Lyonel splits Dunk’s brain in two.
“Ser Duncan!” Lyonel calls, pulling his palfrey up next to Thunder. “A word?”
“I was having a word with him,” Egg pouts.
“Yes, yes, naming all the birds along the roadway, and how likely they are to be fucking insufferable. A conversation for some other time. Give me and your ser a moment.”
In truth, Egg had been chattering Dunk’s ear off about how a pheasant had once defecated on Valarr’s head, but Dunk has a feeling that mentioning the Targaryens would put Lyonel in a spectacularly foul mood. Even if it was about one of them being shit on. “You heard the lord, Egg. Fall back, give us the road.”
Egg sticks his tongue out at Lyonel, but does as he’s instructed. Lyonel responds with a rude gesture that Dunk will have to remind Egg not to repeat.
“Spoiled brat,” Lyonel mutters, as if he hadn’t slipped Egg an extra sweet cake at dinner last night. “You’ve much to teach him.”
“Like what,” Dunk says, “that it’s rude to interrupt others?”
Lyonel’s laugh rings out loud enough that a handful of his bannermen turn around in confusion. “As if you cared about the fucking birds.”
“I care about a boy’s curiosity,” Dunk replies, which isn’t a lie. “It’s good for him to know nature.”
“Ah, you’re good with children that way. Never understood the whelps myself, at least not the ones young enough to need help shitting. I put up with Ormund on sufferance.”
“I heard that, uncle,” Ormund calls from up ahead, scowling with the indignation of a youth with spots on his chin.
“Then you’ve heard enough to earn a licking,” Lyonel grumbles. “Give us the road for a half-mile, boy, or I’ll tell your mother you’re not my heir anymore.”
Ormund rolls his eyes, but does as he’s told, leaving a spot in the middle of the caravan large enough for Dunk and Lyonel to be unheard.
“Does everyone at Storm’s End act like you?” Dunk asks, unable to think of another way to say it.
“What, like Ormund? No, most of them are dreadfully fucking boring.” Lyonel sighs. “And Ormund’s not so bad. He’s just fifteen, and bitter that I’m not dying anytime soon. My sister’s done her best, but he’s been groomed to inherit Storm’s End since he popped out of her. Not even Ceryse is a patient enough mother to temper that.”
Dunk wonders, if Lyonel is bored by so many of his kinsmen and disappointed with his nephew’s ego, why he hasn’t taken a wife to make a new heir. Eight-and-thirty is hardly old age, especially for a man as full of life as Lyonel, but it is late to wed. Even Dunk knows that waiting that long is likely to trip up the line with a crowd of eager bastards, all waiting to be legitimized. Then again, Egg had mentioned that the Stormlands under Lyonel’s rule never had that problem. If the man does have any black-haired, blue-eyed children amongst the smallfolk, they’ve yet to show their faces.
The thought of Lyonel tumbling with half the Stormlands makes Dunk feel vaguely ill, anyway. Perhaps the man’s discretion is for the best.
“Ser Duncan? Good god, man, you look as if you’ve bitten a sour grape,”
“Apologies, milord,” Dunk says, shaking his head to dispel the turning of his stomach. “Lost in thought is all.”
“If you’re worrying about my family, don’t. Ceryse will be thrilled, she’s always said that I’d be less insufferable with company. And besides, my nieces are far more tolerable than Ormund, and he should settle down soon enough. Once I get around to knighting him.”
Lyonel gives him a knowing look.
Company. Something about the way Lyonel says it makes Dunk gulp.
“You see where I’m going here, lad? I believe we’ve some unfinished business, you and I, before you swear yourself into my service.”
“I…I don’t know what you could be speaking of, milord.”
“Oh, don’t play dumb. I’m a man of honor, despite everything, I’ve no intention of spilling the beans. It’ll be a truth for the two of us.”
Dunk casts a look over his shoulder, at Egg happily chattering at one of Lyonel’s bannermen, hoping that Lyonel can’t see the confusion on his face.
“No need for it right now, we’re too exposed on the road. But we’re a day’s ride out from the castle, and Storm’s End is a place of dark corners. Well, not a lot of corners, whole building’s a circle, but never the less.” Lyonel gives him a knowing eyebrow. “We’ll find a place without company. You’ll get down on your knees, I’ll take my sword out, and we’ll do what should’ve been done a long time ago.”
What should have been done a long time ago. Dunk on his knees. Lyonel’s…sword out.
Oh. Oh.
“Don’t worry,” Lyonel continues. “I’ll aim to finish the job, unlike the last man. Assuming he even started in the first place, the useless arse.”
“But, ser…”
“Good! We’ll speak no more of it, then. Under the rose until we get where we’re going, eh?” Dunk sputters, and Lyonel replies with an easygoing grin. “Good lad.”
“But, milord. There hasn’t been…”
Lyonel gallops up ahead before Dunk can finish speaking. Perhaps it’s for the best: somehow, Dunk doesn’t think telling Lyonel that there hasn’t been any other man, or even a woman, will stop him.
Egg’s pony trots up next to him. “Ser,” the boy asks, “what was Lord Baratheon talking about?”
Nothing that’s meant for Egg’s ears, Dunk is increasingly certain. “Never you mind.”
“I’ll figure it out, you know,” Egg says. “I always do. Daeron used to say I was the castle’s third ear.”
“I’ll tan your hide if you try.”
“No you won’t,” Egg says smugly.
“Yes I will,” Dunk replies half-heartedly.
Egg drops it for now, at least. Dunk squints his eyes against the late-afternoon sun and thinks until his head hurts, then keeps at it. Lyonel’s instant welcome of Dunk into his tent. Crowning him with antlers. Their dance. I knew you’d be trouble. Fighting for him in the Trial, and inviting him home afterwards. Proclaiming the only good dragon is a dead dragon in one breath and inviting Egg into his home the next, because Dunk swore that he’d not travel without his squire beside him.
Dunk’s thick, but he grew up a street rat, and he’s not blind to the world. He knows some men lie with men. Had wondered, distantly, if Lyonel was one, considering the way the smallfolk at Ashford talked - the bachelor lord, they’d whispered, with scandal on their breath. But it had been only a distant musing, put aside with the older man’s invitation to Storm’s End, one that that he’d taken on its face. Surely Dunk hadn’t been so thick of head to assume this journey something other than what it was. Surely Lyonel only wanted a sworn sword, a friendly companion, a brother in arms.
I’ll love you like a brother, or I’ll hate you like one.
“Egg,” he says, murmuring lowly, “are the Baratheons part Targaryen?”
“The Baratheons?” Egg says. “Oh, yes, ser, they’re our closest descendants. Everyone knows that.”
…well, fuck.
That night, once Dunk’s head aches from thinking, he takes a bath.
The Baratheon retinue had camped not far from a mountain stream, so he leaves Egg sleeping under a tree to find a quiet, rocky beach. It’s the first time he’s had true solitude in weeks, and he needs the space, his thoughts feeling too big for his skull.
He takes an old rag and runs it through his hair, under his nails, into the cracks and creases where the dirt of the road accumulates, watching it sluice off into the water. It’s cold, near-freezing, but Dunk’s gotten used to it. He wonders if he’ll still be used to it after a few months with Lyonel, spoiled with hot baths whenever he pleases. Wonders if he’ll even last long enough to be spoiled, if he says no.
Lyonel’s no cur. He would never force his affections, Dunk’s sure. But he is tempestuous, and used to getting what he wants. And it’s clear now that Lyonel has wanted Dunk for some time. Perhaps even from the night they met, an answer to Dunk’s long-held question of how he’d managed to secure a lord’s attention from the crowd. He’d never felt bigger than first entering the Baratheon tent, clumsy and oafish, stooping beneath every pole. But Lyonel must have looked, and he must have liked what he saw.
Dunk looks down at himself, at the miles of muscle and his cock limp in the cold river. He’s grown used to it, over the years, his body being a joke. The thought that it might be useful is pleasant. The thought that it might be desired is…odd. Pleasant, and warm, and strangely thrilling.
Dunk closes his eyes, and remembers Lyonel looking at him, and thanks the gods that the water is cold.
“You there! If you’re hoping to accost us, I’ve a dozen men who’re willing to stick you - oh.”
Dunk screws his eyes shut, and sends up a prayer to the Mother for his streak of humiliation. “It’s just me, milord.”
“Thought it was odd to find a bathing vagrant,” Lyonel chuckles. “Most thieves get their hands dirty, and never clean the rest.”
“Aye, milord,” Dunk says, keeping his eyes firmly on the riverbank. “My apologies. I needed washing, and wandered far.”
“Oh, drop the milord shit,” Lyonel sighs. “We’ve a night before we reach the castle, allow me to enjoy the delusion that we’re equals.”
Dunk peers over his shoulder, and lets himself properly look at Lyonel for the first time in the conversation. He’s less lordly than Dunk’s ever seen him, in a simple shirt and breeches, a crossbow under his elbow to skewer any bathing vagrants. He’s still handsome, stripped of his finery, although the earring glimmering near his face disabuses any humble leanings.
“Well,” Dunk says, “we’re hardly equal if only one of us is clothed.”
“Cheeky,” Lyonel scoffs. “Come on, grab your breeches, before you catch your death.”
Dunk shivers a little, despite himself, and clambers back onto the riverbed. He dries himself with a rag and peeks a look at Lyonel, who’s turned his back to the whole spectacle, like Dunk is some kind of maiden with virtue that needs preserving.
Or, perhaps, like he was afraid what desires might show on his face if he let himself look.
Dunk wants to see what Lyonel’s desire looks like. The thought doesn’t startle him near as much as it should, and before he can stop himself, he stands there shirtless in just his breeches and says, “you can turn around.”
Lyonel does, and can’t stop himself from a gasp.
He looks at Dunk. Dunk looks at him. His eyes are dark as pitch, hungry, starving, and Dunk feels a shiver go down his spine that has nothing to do with the night air.
He likes this. Enough to see what comes after, right here, without waiting for a dark corner at Storm’s End.
Dunk opens his mouth, prepared to do something more reckless than he’d even done at Ashford.
Nearby, the bushes rustle.
Both of them freeze, eyes wide, ardor forgotten like they’ve been thrown into the river. Unarmored, alone, and far from camp, and they’ve been stupid enough to get themselves into this position. Fitting, Dunk thinks in a scrambled half-second panic, that he’d survived this much only to be mauled here.
Before he can think much else, Lyonel raises his crossbow towards the bush and fires.
There’s a great bellow of pain, a grief Dunk can almost feel in his chest. Then, the half-dead body of a stag collapses from the bushes and straight at the men’s feet, Lyonel’s arrow poking out of its eye.
“...well,” Lyonel says, nudging the thing with his boot. “That’s an omen of some sort, isn’t it.”
“Good luck, perhaps?” Dunk asks, heart pounding loud enough to hear it in his ears.
“Perhaps,” Lyonel says. “Or eternal torment, I can never remember which. Now get your shirt on.”
Finally catching sight of Storm’s End does little to ease Dunk’s mind, mainly thanks to the shape of the place.
“It’s a…very large tower,” he says, trying to be polite.
“It’s a bloody great member is what it is,” Lyonel scoffs, “but it’s home. Now tell your mare to pick her feet up, the feast’ll go cold by the time we arrive.”
Dunk doubts that, considering that the centerpiece of the feast is the stag Lyonel had felled last night, but the sheer size of the thing stops the words in his throat. Even from here, atop the Stormland’s highest bluff, it’s the biggest building he’s ever seen. Big enough that even approaching it makes him doubt what he’s gotten himself into.
“It’s not that big,” Egg says beside him. “The Vale is much bigger. And it looks weird.”
“Egg!”
Lyonel snorts. “You ought to deck that boy for his impudence, Ser Duncan.”
“Why?” Egg asks. “Because I think your castle looks stupid?”
Dunk’s panic that they’ll both be put in the stocks is calmed by Lyonel’s laugh. “‘Stupid’ isn’t the word most use, lad, but aye.”
“What is the word most use, then?”
“Impenetrable,” Lyonel scoffs. “Ironically.”
“Why is that ironic, ser?”
Dunk never thought that the duties of a knight would include explaining to his squire that things shaped like cocks were funny. “That’s for adults to know.”
“I’m near grown,” Egg protests.
“Says the runt half my height,” Dunk replies.
“Ser Duncan,” Lyonel laughs, “there are very few men in the kingdoms who aren’t half your height.”
“See!” Egg cries out. “Lord Baratheon agrees with me.”
Dunk rubs his face. “I’ve slept far too poorly for this.”
He had, indeed, slept poorly last night, if by “poorly” one means “not at all”. It had been a difficult affair, dragging the massive stag back to camp, Dunk sweating enough to nearly undo the bath he’d taken. But not even the physical exertion could tire his body enough to quell his mind. Lying in his bedroll after, Dunk’s thoughts had been aflame with sordid images. What had happened down by the creek. What might have happened, if Lyonel’s arrow hadn’t pierced their interruptor. And worst of all, what might have happened had there been no interruption at all.
Dunk’s…well. He’s never lain with a woman, but he’s wanted to. Rafe, a handful of pretty barmaids, Tanselle. His appetites aren’t as ravenous as most men’s, but he certainly has them. Women are things of beauty, and he finds them all beautiful, even if only a few have truly stirred him. Men, on the other hand…well. He’s appreciated men, true, the well-shaped muscles and physiques of fighters, the bold and confident ways they’d carried themselves into battle. That was different. Knights could appreciate the fitness of other knights, and look up to their chivalry.
It was one of the first things Dunk had thought about Lyonel, when he’d entered his Ashford tent - that even when lounging, loose from merriment and wine, he had the air of a hero about him. And frankly, the build to match.
That was different. Wasn’t it?
“Ser,” Egg says, “have you been hit in the skull?”
Dunk blinks his thoughts away. “What?”
“Ser Lyonel,” Egg calls up the way, “he’s taken a blow to the head.”
“That’s just how your master is, Egg.”
Dunk groans. “Don’t be an arse, Lyonel.”
Lyonel turns around on his horse, the late afternoon sun making him look like a courtly painting, the wind whipping his hair out of place. He’s beautiful, Dunk thinks, and isn’t even shocked.
“Being a pain in the arse is my nature, I’m afraid,” Lyonel smirks. “Some might even call it a virtue.”
He licks his lip, just for a moment. Dunk’s stomach feels oddly queasy.
Oh. Oh.
Oh, no.
“Ser,” Egg asks, “are you going to be ill?”
“I’ll be fine,” Dunk croaks, and barely manages to dismount Thunder before he empties his breakfast into the grass.
Dunk arrives at Storm’s End in a haze. He’s distantly aware that he should be gawking, at the massive halls and thick stone walls and wealth dripping from every corner, but it all feels distant, like he’s had too much to drink. He keeps his manners about him, at least, shaking like a dog to ground himself before him and Egg are introduced to the lady of the house. Ceryse Baratheon looks just like Lyonel, from her curls to her smile, slightly portly in the way of many older noblewomen but no less regal for it. Her smile turns into a familiar-sounding laugh when Lyonel introduces him as Ser Duncan the Tall, my new sworn sword, and the most noble man you’ll meet in all seven bloody kingdoms.
“You do like them tall, don’t you, brother?”
Ormund sighs. One of Lyonel’s nieces snickers. Lyonel coughs awkwardly.
She’s always said that I’d be less insufferable with company. Seven above, what has Dunk gotten himself into, and why doesn’t the prospect scare him breathless?
He nods politely through the rest of the introductions - Lyonel’s nieces, slender girls of fourteen and twelve named Alyss and Lycette, and a steward Dunk immediately forgets the name of because he’s busy being intimidated by the man’s steel-sharp glare. The steward escorts him and Egg to their chambers with silence and nods, and Dunk prepares for dinner, limbs heavy and mind wandering. For once, Egg doesn’t chatter while he buttons up Dunk’s borrowed jerkin, and Dunk doesn’t push it.
“Ser,” Egg asks hesitantly, “do you think we can go riding tomorrow?”
Dunk groans. “Let’s focus on tonight, aye?”
“Alright.” Egg takes a moment. “I’m glad I’m here with you, ser.”
“Of course you’re here with me,” Dunk scoffs. “Did you think I’d let you go anywhere else?”
Egg’s eyes are wide and a little sad at the thought. Oh.
Dunk pulls him into an embrace. “It’s alright, lad,” he says.
“I didn’t want to go back to Summerhall,” Egg says, face buried in Dunk’s stomach. “It’s bigger than this, and it’s so empty.”
“And you won’t have to,” Dunk soothes. “Easy, lad. We might travel later, but we’ll do it together, and we’re here now.”
Dunk shakes again, resolves himself into a clear head as Egg pretends not to cry into his jerkin. The walls of Storm’s End are thick, after all, thick enough that Aerion can never reach them. Egg feels safe here. And if the price of Egg’s safety is unfinished business in dark corners, Dunk will do it a thousand times over.
And besides, ever since his bout of sick this afternoon, the thought of unfinished business with Lyonel seems more exciting than frightening. But Dunk can think about that later.
“Come on,” Dunk says gently. “Let’s go to the feast, yeah? I’ll let you ride piggyback.”
Egg’s face lights up. “Really?”
Dunk tells himself he’s calm, sits down at the feasting table, and inhales three cups of wine.
Egg looks at him oddly, and Lyonel gives him an eyebrow, but the rest of dinner moves quickly after that. Dunk lets himself eat - venison from the stag (which, Lyonel’s exasperated maester declares, is in fact an omen of an upcoming marriage), fresh bread, ripe berries, mushrooms and mutton and steak and kidney pie. It’s all a bit overwhelming, and the food is honestly enough to distract him. Dunk’s never starved - Ser Arlan might have been generous with beatings, but he was always fair with rations, especially when Dunk was younger and sprouting like a weed - but he’s never eaten his fill, either. The closest he’d come was the first night in Lyonel’s tent, but even that had been interrupted by the lord’s sharp, questioning eyes plucking him from the crowd.
That had been a thrilling evening, despite his fear and confusion and grief. But this, the high table bustling with warmth and laughter, Ceryse teasing Lyonel on his left and Egg happy and chattering with Lycette on his right - this might be better. Despite, or even because of, whatever lies ahead.
“Good god, man,” Lyonel mutters. “You packed away more plates than I could count.”
“I’m sorry, milord,” Dunk says, shame tripping through the wine and catching up with him a few seconds late. “I’m not used to feasting, and I forget myself -”
“Oh, stop that,” Lyonel says, chuffing Dunk on the arm. The contact is brief, but even through their layers of clothing, Dunk feels it in his bones. “Take as much as you care, and then some.” He leans in, the candlelight casting strange, hungry shadows across his face that Dunk shakes off the urge to touch. “You’re one of us now, and I don’t let anyone at this table go hungry. You hear?”
You’re one of us now. Dunk is five and twenty, a man grown by any imagination, and he can’t recall anyone welcoming him into their family’s arms like that. Not Arlan, or the Targaryens, or anyone at all, not since his first memories of Flea Bottom.
The thought makes a strange, warm feeling balloon in his chest. He can’t stop looking at Lyonel. The other man is smiling, low and slow and happy, and Dunk suddenly wants to kiss it off his face until they’re both out of breath.
“Big men have big appetites,” Ceryse adds, shaking Dunk out of his strange reverie. “Eat your fill, Ser Duncan. You’ll need the strength for the courses my brother will put you through.”
Lyonel sputters. “Ceryse!”
“Courses in the training yard,” Ceryse drawls, although there’s a spark of mischief in her eye. “Obviously.”
“Ignore my sister,” Lyonel huffs. “She’s drank far too much, and she forgets herself.”
Ceryse rolls her eyes good-naturedly, but returns to her plate.
“That being said,” Lyonel mutters, an odd tension in his voice that Dunk can’t place. “Now might be the time for what we’ve discussed earlier, now that everyone’s emptied their cups. Think you’re ready?”
Dunk gulps, panic dropping through to his stomach. “Um.”
Lyonel raises an eyebrow. “Nervous?”
“I’ve had wine,” Dunk stammers.
“And? So’ve I. You don’t need a brain for this sort of thing, so long as you can still wield your sword.”
Dunk thinks about Lyonel, the hand on his shoulder earlier, the warmth of I don’t let anyone at this table go hungry, the devotion of you’re one of us now, the way he’d bitten his lip and winked on the road, beautiful under the afternoon light.
Well. Dunk’s sword is…certainly in working order.
“Alright,” Dunk says. “Alright.” He looks to his right, prepared to make some excuses, and jolts when he finds the chair empty. “Um, Egg -”
“Off with the other children,” Lyonel says, “and my staff will get him to bed. Now come, let’s go, before the drunken revellers start slouching home through all of our secret spots.”
He gets up, hand on his sword belt - why hasn’t he taken that off? Dunk wonders, but can’t hold the thought for long - and beckons Dunk to follow, filling the mazelike halls of Storm’s End with chatter.
“You know,” Lyonel says, as soon as they turn a corner, “last I saw, Egg was out playing with Lycette in the yard. There’s what, a year between them? Would be a good match, since he’s fostered here.”
It takes Dunk a moment to follow his meaning. “Egg is ten.”
“Aye, and believe me, it’s never too bloody early to start thinking about these things,” Lyonel grumbles. “You think being a lord is about ruling? Nonsense. The most noble thing a man can do is betrothe children. You want an army? Water? Grain? Promise a five year old to a green boy three kingdoms over, that’ll solve it. In ten years they’ll meet for the first time on their wedding day and you can feel mighty fucking accomplished with your great deed. No need to worry that they hate each other to godsdamned pieces. Love’s for the smallfolk, and all that.”
Lyonel sounds bitter as an old grape, and Dunk blames the wine for opening his mouth and asking, “is that why you never wed?”
Lyonel doesn’t pause his strides, but he does slow down, looking back at Dunk with something like respect. “You do ask what no one else dares, do you? Not one bit of fear in your eyes.” Dunk opens his mouth to reply, but Lyonel just chuckles, and barrels on. “No, not me. It is why Ceryse’s useless husband is my envoy to the Reach. I’m sure he’s sired plenty of bastards there that he can diligently ignore, just as he ignores my own blood.” Lyonel pushes a hand through his hair. “But to answer your real question, Ser Duncan, no, that’s not why I never wed. I never wed because I never wanted to, and my lord father, bless the Stranger, knew I was a lost cause when I became a man. He wasn’t a very good Stormlord, mind, but he gambled enough to know when to cut losses.”
He talks like Dunk already knows his second meaning, the secret that lies quiet between them, the reason for his lack of marriage and lack of bastards and the smallfolk’s whispers of the bachelor lord. Which, Dunk supposes, he does. It took him overlong to puzzle it out, but he’s here now, following Lyonel down his home’s corridors, ready to become a part of the secret himself.
“Here,” Lyonel says, stopping at an unremarkable wooden door. “Old servant’s quarters. Unused since my father’s rule, except when I needed a place to tumble with stableboys.” He pulls a key out of his pocket. “Pardon the dust. That blasted steward always gives me grief when I request this room be cleaned, he’s got the memory of an exceptionally rude owl. Nasty cunt. I really should have him fired.”
It is, indeed, dusty inside. The room is modest, four single beds pressed up against the wall, and a single window letting in bars of moonlight. A month ago, Dunk would’ve thought it the height of luxury.
“Just a moment - gods above, this is old flint.” Lyonel, Dunk thinks as he watches the other man fuss with the candles, has a habit of talking when he thinks a room needs filling up. “There we are. Other reason I need to fire Obel, he stores flint in the cellar. Shit fucking steward. Barely protected from the rain, leaves all the firestarters wet as a whore’s - oh.” Lyonel blinks. “You’ve started.”
Dunk shrugs, shifting his knees across the cold stone. “It is best to be kneeling for this, milord. Even I know that.”
“Right,” Lyonel says, walking over. “Gods above, you’re tall even like this - well, regardless. No use dragging this out, I suppose.” Dunk raises an eyebrow, and Lyonel tuts. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, these things are hardly as romantic as the poets say. We’re being watched by a spiderweb, for fuck’s sake.”
“Right,” Dunk says, trying his best not to look at the offending spiderweb. “Let’s get on with it, then.”
“Right,” Lyonel says. “Let’s.”
Dunk closes his eyes to brace himself. He can do this. He wants to do this. Men have done it for years before he was born, and will for years after he’s gone. It’s like learning anything else new - a first tilt in a joust, a first hit in a melee, a first kiss in a crowded room. The clumsiness the first time will make mastery all the sweeter.
He could become a master at this. The thought makes his head swim.
Dunk takes a deep breath, leans in, and starts unfastening Lyonel’s breeches.
“What the - seven hells, man, what are you doing?”
Lyonel’s hand scramble across Dunk’s head, pushing him away. Dunk reels back, blinking in surprise.
“I…pleasuring you. What are you doing?”
Lyonel, eyes wide in the moonlight, blinks in confusion as he returns his sword to its scabbard.
His actual sword.
“Knighting you, you giant idiot!”
Dunk’s stomach crashes into the floor through his feet, and as the silence hangs and hangs and hangs, all he can think to say is, “you know I’m not a knight?”
Lyonel takes a moment, and bursts out laughing.
It’s loud, louder than Dunk’s ever heard, echoing off the walls of the tiny empty room, and it goes on and on. Distantly, through a fog of fear and confusion, Dunk wonders if Lyonel is laughing loud enough to scare the spiderweb.
“You thought - good gods, man. Of course I know you’re not a bloody knight! I was there with Ser Raymun! What do you think I thought, that you’d bit your tongue off?”
“...that I was nervous?”
“Nervous! Seven hells!” Lyonel is still laughing, slowly coming down, and Dunk wonders if his sides hurt. “I’ve seen children better at hiding secrets. You looked as if you were about to spew chunks, lad. Your hand was stuck in the sweets jar, and you’re lucky I caught you, instead of the bloody wet nurse.” Dunk’s not sure who the wet nurse is in this story, but decides that puzzling it out isn’t important. “If you weren’t twice as honorable as every other man on that field, I would’ve said something. But I took on that bloody farce for you, and invited you into my home, gods above, just in case any of the other bastards watching caught on. And they would’ve, mind, all they had to do was see your face! I thought you knew that!”
“You never said anything!” Dunk argues back, suddenly indignant. “You said you invited me here to make merry -”
“I did, and we will, assuming I don’t die of fucking laughter about all of this -”
“And then we’re on the road,” Dunk sputters, “and you talk about dark corners, and me on my knees, and taking your…sword out!”
“To knight you!”
“How was I supposed to know that?”
“Because - ugh.” Lyonel runs a hand through his curls, smile fading into indignation. “Get up, would you? I can’t rightly focus when you’re like that.”
Dunk does, dusting off his trousers. “You say those things, and then you act surprised when I misunderstand you.” He crosses his arms, just to have something to do with them. “Milord.”
“I’m acting surprised,” Lyonel says, staring at the ceiling, “because the night we met, I did everything short of take my cock out in front of you, and it flew over your head like a lame man’s arrow. I’m a deviant, but I’m no thief. I know when I’m not wanted.”
Dunk pauses. “You were…the first night at Ashford. Wait…”
“So I told myself, be chivalrous, fuck a few tall whores, it’ll pass. Talking to you, having you here, it’s worth it. No one else says the things you do to my face, and that alone is a gift.” Lyonel rubs his cheek. “Turns out I had, somehow, underestimated your thickness. Remarkable. I didn’t think it was possible. You learn something new every bloody day.”
Dunk feels like a dance that he’s ten steps behind. “Lyonel -”
“Ah, and the name comes out to turn me down proper. Perfect, just perfect.” Lyonel huffs. “Look, lad, I’ve no expectations of you. We’ll do what we - what I came here to do, and then we can leave this room, and once the door’s shut we can go on as normal. It’s not a condition to stay here that you return my attentions. It’s not a thing one chooses, that you like women -”
“I don’t just like women,” Dunk blurts. “I don’t think.”
Dunk’s fairly sure that this is the first time he’s seen Lyonel Baratheon stand still.
“...I beg your fucking pardon?”
“I don’t just like women,” Dunk says, “I think. I haven’t tried it with men. Well, in truth I haven’t tried women either, but I’ve been thinking about…what I thought you were offering, over the last few days, and I suppose - “
“Stop,” Lyonel huffs, sounding surprisingly irritated considering what Dunk’s telling him. “Stop, just stop. I can’t…seven hells.”
He lets out another laugh, lower and more genuine than the almost frantic bout earlier.
“You’re sure about this?”
“Not sure of many things,” Dunk says, because he isn’t, “but yes. Much as one can.”
“Because if this is some flight of fancy,” Lyonel murmurs, “a dalliance to try, and you change your mind. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop myself.”
Dunk’s cock twitches. “Um.”
Lyonel must be able to read his expression, because his lips smirk and his eyes go dark. “Gods above. You’re delicious.”
“I’ll not know what I’m doing,” Dunk says, backing up against the bedpost, as Lyonel advances on him like a dog on the hunt.
“You’ll learn. Every skill needs training,” Lyonel purrs, pushing Dunk against the post. “Melee. Jousting.” He takes a moment. “Swordplay.”
He looks down, almost comedically leering, and raises an eyebrow.
Suddenly, Dunk can’t stop himself from bursting out laughing.
Lyonel sighs as he rides the wave. “I deserved that.”
“No you didn’t…gods,” Dunk wheezes, because now that they’re here, now that they’ve spoken, it’s all so ridiculous. “Alright, you did. Perhaps a bit.”
“I’m never going to live this down,” Lyonel says, “am I.”
“I’ll forgive you if you kiss me,” Dunk replies, tapping into a boldness he didn’t know he possessed.
“A fair trade,” Lyonel says, and then they both stop talking.
Dunk’s kissed a few women - not well, perhaps, but he has kissed them - and feels something like relief to realize that kissing a man isn’t quite so different, excepting the scratch of Lyonel’s beard. It is far more passionate of a kiss than he’s ever received from a woman, Lyonel’s hunger apparent in his growls and his sharp, nipping teeth. Dunk doesn’t want to be passive, but he also doesn’t know what to do except to just give in, and the idea is appealing in some strange part of his mind that he’ll have to examine later. Lyonel, barely resting for a moment, is active enough for two.
“Gods above,” Lyonel mutters, hands running down Dunk’s chest and tangling with his shirt buttons. “You’re even bigger in hand than you are to the eye.”
“I - I didn’t know you’d been looking,” Dunk stammers out, fighting for the words amid Lyonel’s assault on his mouth.
“You might be the only one,” Lyonel huffs, returning to Dunk’s shirt with a frantic sort of determination. “Ormund had enough of me weeks ago, told me to close my mouth before it caught flies. Now stay there, and let me look my fill.”
Lyonel pushes his shirt open, nearly ripping off a few fiddly noble buttons, and then pushes Dunk back one-handed. It’s not a strong hold, but Dunk feels unexpectedly weak to it, Lyonel’s lust pinning him like a pressed butterfly to velvet.
“I - I’m not much,” Dunk says, trying to get his wits back, hoping that Lyonel isn’t disappointed by the jagged scars and lean, bony frame without much muscle. “Never been well-fed, is all.”
“Plenty for me,” Lyonel says, eyes dark. “And your hungry days are over, remember? You’ll be the image of the Warrior soon enough.” He presses his mouth against Dunk’s again, and the two of them get tangled up in a kiss for a moment, biting and passionate and the slightest bit mean, but in a way that makes Dunk feel warm inside and out.
“Gods, you’re so much already. Bet you could toss me about like a sack of flour, put me wherever you want.”
It’s a pleasant enough image, Dunk supposes, feeling Lyonel run his hands down his chest, fingers stopping close to his tightening breeches. He’s used to using his strength for fighting and pain. Using it for pleasure would be something else entirely.
“Or,” Lyonel whispers, leaning in to Dunk’s ear, “maybe the big strong man wants to be pushed around? Get shoved to your knees, feel small for once.”
The noise that comes out of Dunk is one that he’s not sure any man or creature has uttered before.
“There we are,” Lyonel purrs, groping Dunk’s cock through his smallclothes. “I had a feeling.”
“Ser,” Dunk gasps, trying to ride out the wave of heat Lyonel’s words had brought on, bucking into the other man’s hand despite himself.
“Normally, I’d insist on my name,” Lyonel smirks, “but you sound so pretty when you beg.”
He moves his hand from Dunk’s cock, and Dunk can’t stop himself from making a protesting noise at the loss. Something about Lyonel’s words, his demeanor, his presence, makes Dunk’s whole body feel like one time when he’d trained too hard and pinched his nerve - except the exposed, skittering feeling under his skin at every movement isn’t pain, but something like pleasure.
“Don’t worry, sweetling. I’ll give you what you want.” Lyonel smirks. “It’ll hardly be bad for me, either.”
Dunk’s not even sure what he wants. A thousand filthy imaginings are flying through his head - him on his knees, bent over a bed, on all fours like a dog, all with Lyonel looming above him, eyes dark with approval and lust - but Lyonel, thank the gods, must see his struggle on his face, and chooses one for him.
“Now be a good knight for me,” Lyonel murmurs, “and kneel.”
Dunk sinks to his knees like he was born there.
It’s easy down here. Quieter, somehow. Maybe it’s the way Lyonel’s hand runs through his hair, soothing and dizzying all at once. Maybe it’s being so close to Lyonel’s obvious interest, tenting his breeches, a reassurance that he’s wanted. Maybe it’s simply feeling smaller than someone, for the first time he can truly remember. Maybe it’s all of it at once.
“There we are,” Lyonel says, sounding fond. He traces his thumb across Dunk’s lips, and Dunk takes the tip into his mouth, acting on instinct. “You know what to do now, don’t you, lad? You were halfway begun a moment ago.” The hand not petting Dunk goes to his own breeches, fumbling with the laces one-handed. “Don’t worry about taking too much at once. Save your breath, and I’ll guide you.”
Dunk’s seen other men’s cocks before, in tents before battles or his rare visits to the baths, even the drunks that stumble out of whorehouses without trousers. Lyonel’s isn’t the largest he’s seen, but it isn’t the smallest, either. He should be intimidated by it, close to his face and pulsing with blood, but the hand in his hair makes it impossible to feel anything but happy and light. He’s a job to do, after all: pleasing his lord. And the thought of doing it well, taking Lyonel until he’s sated, makes his own cock twitch with lust.
“Easy,” Lyonel says, and Dunk listens as he takes the head into his mouth.
It’s saltier than Dunk expected, already leaking from the tip, and wide enough to be a pleasant weight on his tongue. Lyonel’s relieved groan is a balm, and his hand slowly guides Dunk down, until he can feel the head dripping down his throat. The feeling makes him shiver, the pinched-nerve sensation settling under his skin.
“Gods, you’re perfect,” Lyonel sighs. “Made straight from my dreams, you were, I swear.” Dunk bobs his head, savoring Lyonel’s strained inhale as he pauses. “Can’t even imagine what the rest of you will feel like, if your mouth is this good. Makes me dizzy with ideas.”
Dunk groans, letting Lyonel’s cock slide down his throat again.
“You like that?” Lyonel says, sounding amused. “Hearing what I could do to the rest of you? Spent most nights since Ashford thinking of it, cock in hand. Teaching you to take me, once we’ve tamed that cock of yours. I’d need more oil than I’ve ever used with another, but we’ve jars of the stuff, we could get there. Maybe me taking you back. Gods, I bet you’re tight as a vice. Never been touched, didn’t you say?”
Dunk groans in reply. Lyonel laughs, then moans at the feeling, hand tightening in Dunk’s hair.
“Perfect. Oh, gods, your throat is bliss. You can take me deeper, don’t you think, sweet thing? Breathe through your nose, I know you can.”
Dunk obeys, as best as he can. Lyonel’s cock pushes past the base of his throat, and the sensation makes him gag, like he’s swallowed a bone in a mouthful of fish. He shudders, body fighting the intrusion, hot shame flushing his cheeks. You have one task, he thinks, pleasing Lyonel, and he wants your throat. Give him your throat.
“There, there,” Lyonel soothes as he retreats. “Easy. These things take practice, and I don’t wish to hurt you, unless you’d enjoy it. I just wanted a taste.”
“Enjoy it?” Dunk gasps, releasing Lyonel’s cock. His throat feels gravelly, like when he’s inhaled dust from the road. “Is that a jest?”
“Some like pain,” Lyonel says, “if it comes from the right hand. You might, but I doubt it.”
Before he has a chance to ask Lyonel what that means, Lyonel’s thumb is back, hooking in between Dunk’s lips and pushing his jaw wide. He lets it, doesn’t even think to fight it, and the sight makes Lyonel’s face split open with a filthy, lustful grin.
“I think,” Lyonel purrs, “that you like doing as you’re told. And you’re so good at being obedient, aren’t you?”
Dunk nods. Or rather, Lyonel nods for him, the thumb still in his mouth moving his jaw like a hooked fish, and he goes along with it, cock desperate and straining and leaking through his smalls as something within him slumps and lets go.
“Good,” Lyonel says, voice rough as gravel. “Good boy. Sweet little thing.”
He slides his cock back in, and Dunk groans in relief.
They’re quiet for a few minutes, nothing but bliss as Lyonel moans and guides him and Dunk lets himself get used, be used, be useful. Dunk’s cock is throbbing, but he doesn’t give a thought to touching himself. There’s a comfort in the arousal, merely feeling it without feeding it, waiting until he’s granted relief. Dunk doesn’t suppose that’s normal, but surely none of this is, and he can agonize about it tonight. It’ll certainly be a more pleasant memory than the thoughts of the Trial that have been haunting him of late.
Then, Lyonel shifts forward. The movement thrusts his cock back into Dunk’s throat again, and the sudden pressure after so much gentle thrusting startles Dunk like he’s been woken from sleep.
“Sorry, sorry,” Lyonel soothes, retreating a bit. “But I’m closer than not, and I wanted to reward you for being so good, hm?”
There’s something against his cock, smooth and polished. There’s something - oh. It’s Lyonel’s leg, the top of his well-polished, lordly boots, ready and waiting for Dunk to rut against them and spill across them and dirty them up.
Dunk should say no. It’s - Lyonel’s a lord, and Dunk is a hedge knight, not even a knight at all, patted on the shoulder by a half-dead old man under a tree in the rain, Flea Bottom trash who’d dared to rise above his station. The fact that he’s here at all, his greatest lie forgiven by one of the most powerful men in the realm, already feels like too much. Perhaps it’s a laugh, that the whole mummer’s farce is about to collapse at the thought of dirtying some boots, but Dunk can’t find the humor in it.
Lyonel must sense his hesitation. “Dunk,” he says, tilting Dunk’s head back to meet his eyes. They’re filled with bits of his soul - fondness, lust, sadness, and something more that Dunk can’t read. But before he can puzzle any of it out, Lyonel simply says, “do it.”
As his lord commands. And so, Dunk does.
Once he’s started, it feels impossible to stop. Dunk groans in sheer relief at the touch, hot and blissful on his long-ignored cock even through layers of fabric, and the movement of his throat seems to drive Lyonel to madness. Lyonel’s movements get harsher, faster, closer to that spot in the back that makes him gag, but Dunk can’t make himself care when his own release is suddenly so close. Lyonel’s hand in his hair is back, grasping instead of petting, and the slight frisson of pain only reminds Dunk that he’s being held down as a vessel for his lord’s pleasure, and that makes him rut even more frantically against Lyonel’s thigh. It’s an endless, feeding circle, pleasure-pleasure-pleasure, one that would seem endless if it weren’t for the hot, desperate end Dunk can feel barreling towards them both.
“I - gods. I’m going to spill, you hear me? I’m going to finish down your throat and you’re going to take it, because I told you to, because you can. Take every drop, you hear me? Take it like you were made for, you were made for sucking cock, pretty filthy thing, giant man on your knees sucking the life from me because I put you there -”
Dunk moans - if he could speak, he’s sure it would be something desperate, like ser, please - and then his mouth is suddenly full of thick white salt as Lyonel finishes, taking his pleasure into his knight’s warm, eager mouth.
Dunk coughs, sputters, tries to swallow it all. There’s so much of it, flooding his senses, bitter like nothing he’s ever tasted, and he’s already short of breath. He coughs again, a trickle going down the corner of his mouth, and his hand wipes it away on instinct. It’s only when it comes away that he realizes he’d missed some, drops wasted when Lyonel told him to take it all, and the shame nearly sickens him before Lyonel steps in.
“It’s alright,” he says, petting Dunk’s hair again, breathing in great heaving pants like he’s just run courses at a tourney. “It’s alright, sweetling. You did wonderful. You hear me?”
Dunk nods, of his own volition this time. It’s all he can do; nod and swallow and rut against Lyonel’s boot, like an animal who’s finally been hunted, toppled and speared in the grass.
“Lyonel,” he gasps, unsure what he’s even begging for. “Please.”
“Come on, pet,” Lyonel says, pushing Dunk’s head up against his hip, letting Dunk hide his face as he whines and whimpers and ruts like a dog. “Finish yourself off, you’re so good for me. Now be good.”
It’s the command - be good - that hits Dunk like a bolt of lightning, and he comes all at once, soiling his smalls and Lyonel’s boots and feeling blissfully, deliriously happy.
They both just stay there for a moment, Lyonel bent over to catch his breath while Dunk swallows the remains of the spend in his mouth. The taste sticks to his teeth, and he wishes he could have a pull of a waterskin, or at least spit onto the floor. Spitting in a lord’s hall would normally be the most grievous of offenses; Ser Arlan had warned him about it, in the rare times when they’d been permitted to feast at noble tables. Finish whatever a lord gives you, he’d said when Dunk had pulled a face at an elderflower tart, even if you loathe it, or it’ll seem an awful insult.
Dunk wonders if that rule applies even here, and the thought is so absurd, it makes him laugh.
“Well,” Lyonel grumbles, straightening up, “you’ve certainly gotten your humor back.”
“I was thinking of an old lesson of my ser’s,” Dunk says without thinking, still feeling a little nerve-pinched and eager to share. “He used to say, eat anything a lord gives you, or it’ll seem an insult to his hospitality.”
“Well,” Lyonel chuckles, dropping to his knees to join Dunk on the floor. “The old man taught you well, at least.”
“Doubt he thought I’d use it for this,” Dunk says, wiping his mouth. “It was about an elderflower tart. Can’t stand the things.”
“I’ll make the cooks toss their elderflower in the morning, then,” Lyonel says. “Now come here.”
He kisses Dunk, slow and careful and sweet, with just a hint of filth despite both of their ardor being depleted. It’s a pleasant surprise - part of Dunk had been sure that Lyonel’s protestations had been false, that he’d leave once he was done with him, that he’d reach his peak and grow bored. This is - nice. Sweet. Pleasant, even, words that Dunk would naught use to describe Lyonel even on the best of days. And with the way Lyonel licks into his mouth, it even clears the taste up.
“You know,” Lyonel says when they break for air, “I meant what I said, about loving you like a brother. I told myself it was noble to deny my feelings. Selfless, knightly, even. Bloody nonsense. I blame you.”
“Well,” Dunk laughs, “Egg said that Baratheons are part Targaryen.”
“Oh, shut your mouth,” Lyonel growls, and proceeds to shut it for him.