Chapter Text
When the redistricting happened a few years back and the trailer park on the floodplain behind the strip mall was suddenly fed into Wendwater Secondary instead of Slayne North High, there was an uproar.
Storm’s End mayor and Lord of all the Stormlands Symeon Baratheon led a public campaign to revise the redistricting, with several community and town hall meetings in which dozens of concerned citizens, young and old, aired their grievances. There were children with banners, incoming middle schoolers crying on public television about their right to a preserved legacy; it wasn’t pretty.
By the time Dunk lands in that same trailer park, where his great aunt’s ex boyfriend happens to bed down between stretches of open road in an eighteen-wheeler, he has no idea that he’s part of a visible minority of outcasts and losers, and that everyone at his new school will hear his voice and understand exactly where he’s been.
Nevermind the omega thing.
Dunk’s lived in the city his entire life. He’s bounced between the group homes and more foster homes than he can recall, for longer than he can recall. It’s been a long time since he was young and cute enough to be adoptable. Of course, he’d never wanted that; he had always privately hoped for his mother to reappear with a clean drug test and open arms.
Rafe was right about her. He’s almost aged out of the system, and he’s not even sure if she’s dead or alive. She’s sent no word, and an internet search for Nancy Smith has never been particularly illuminating.
For some reason, the only person he’d ever been able to track down, the only person with any shred of reliability, the only person capable of picking up a damn bic pen and buying a stamp was fucking Arlan Pennytree. Dunk lived with the alpha for a stretch of months when he was young enough to tug on the heartstrings of his mother’s distant relatives, particularly his mother’s aunt Deb, who’d always had a taste for drunks, Arlan included. Arlan’s not a saint and he’s not even particularly pleasant, but he’s always written back, his letters carrying a gentle, comforting scent, and that ends up making all the difference.
“Just keep it clean while I’m gone,” he said, when Dunk moved in and asked about the capital-R Rules. “Don’t have anybody bringing the cops ‘round.”
Arlan kept a clean trailer. He vacuumed as if it were a matter of religion. He rubbed the chipped Formica countertops down with bleach regularly. He made his bed military style. He gave Dunk the big bedroom, on account of his being gone all the time, and Dunk is big enough that, he says, he’s not even sure if Dunk would be able to lie down in the little one.
Arlan also gave him a truck.
“You can’t be serious,” Dunk said, looking at the thing, an older brown model—probably ten years older than Dunk himself. It was parked in the sparse grass, among a couple other vehicles in various states of disrepair. Arlan called it Chesnut.
Dunk never mentioned what he thought about Arlan giving names to cars.
“This is too much,” he refused, simply. “I can take the bus.”
“No bus,” Arlan shook his head.
Dunk stared at him for a minute.
“No bus?!” he cried. “How do you get to the store?”
Arlan inclined his head toward the tiny pickup.
Dunk spent the entire next day learning how to change a tire. And oil. And spark plugs. By week’s end, he considered himself a few hundred YouTube videos away from being a car expert.
Of course, he forgot to mention to Arlan—he doesn’t actually have a license.
There is a bus, but not a public bus. It’s a bright yellow school bus—something he’s only ever seen in cartoons—that he rides the next Monday. He wonders at the bare interior, the way students have grouped themselves amongst the seats.
He takes the first available, because it seems polite. There’s a girl who sits across from him, still in her fleece pajama bottoms, curly red hair piled atop her head. She props herself up between the seats on her elbows and stares at him. Put off, he simply leans his head on the misted window and closes his eyes.
The school itself is gorgeous.
It’s the largest, cleanest building Dunk has ever seen. The bathrooms have all their doors, and the doors all have locks. There’s working soap dispensers at the sinks, and a mirror above each one.
And it’s the first school he’s ever been to that doesn’t immediately call down a coach to talk to him about fucking basketball.
The front office lady does say, “Gee, how’s the weather up there?” in a way that has Dunk smiling indulgently.
At least when people talk about his height, he knows what to say.
Even the teachers are wildly different from what he’s known before. They smile when they greet him and encourage him to introduce himself, an offer he always declines. Dunk hears no threats from them, and students raise their hands to speak. Between the quiet classrooms and the lack of apparent, rudely obtrusive scents, it seems as if there’s a gentle hush over everything.
And if that is unexpected, the lunchroom is insanity.
Having attended ten high schools in three years, Dunk thought he’d seen everything. He’s never seen seven different salad dressings in one place.
A boy from his trigonometry class, Raymun, waves him over as he stands very tall and very obvious at the outlet of the lunch line. Toting the heaviest, most diverse school meal he’s ever received, Dunk joins him.
And of course, like a movie, Raymun points out groups of people, explaining their significance. The information is mostly lost on him; it’s clear Raymun has grown up amongst these people. When he gets to the long table of rich, sporty alphas, he explains a few names that mostly roll out of Dunk’s head with nothing on which to stick.
“And a wayward dragon, there at the end,” Raymun says.
It takes an embarrassing few moments for that one to settle in.
“Targaryens?” he asks. “They go here?”
“Yep. Word is, the two of them got in some trouble at their own school, and now they’re out here, ‘cause of their summer home.”
“Summer home,” Dunk repeats to himself.
“Daeron doesn’t come to school much, but Aerion there, he’s the captain of the lacrosse team, and the swim team, and the baseball—”
“Seven above,” Dunk says. “Doesn’t he get tired?”
“Of being in charge of everyone?” Raymun laughs, his huge mouth charming over his scraggly beard. “Not likely!”
“Lots of sports here?” Dunk guesses.
“Aye. Course, big man as you are, you’ll get to know them all soon enough,” Raymun laughs.
Dunk wrinkles his nose. “Don’t particularly like sports. Too many alphas,” he says. Raymun, whose pleasantly neutral scent belies his beta nature, nods agreeably.
“So you won’t be trying them in the yard?” Raymun asks, “probably the best course. My cousin will want to bloody you up first, introduce himself second.”
Of course there’s a sword yard. Dunk is familiar in the ways of competition, and sparring has followed him ceaselessly through each of his schools as both a continual threat and a strange, hopeful opportunity he’s tried to resist.
Nothing good has ever come of a fight, Dunk thinks. Not for people like him.
All he has to do is avoid the angry alphas, he remembers—it’s advice he’s stuck to since Rafe died, always careful, always guarded against them.
Everywhere he goes, that is perhaps the only consistency: angry alphas. During his fifth period physics class, the worst happens—one of them notices him.
The alpha is male, with silver hair. Dunk remembers Raymun Fossoway pointing him out as a royal. Bits of video flash through his brain, clips he’s seen on television news throughout his life: silver-haired, officious-looking people, dressed in an opulent, pressed way that no one actually is in real life.
Dunk is looking at the chalkboard, waiting, when the royal walks in. The boy meets his glance for a brief moment as he settles his things at his desk, then looks away. He’s greeted by many, slapping hands and backs with a straight face. Raymun characterized him as popular and sporty; he’s wearing a jersey for one of the school’s many sports teams, but Dunk doesn’t recognize the style. The boy looks at Dunk again, focusing on him without making an expression or saying a word. Dunk glances down then, pretends to be absorbed in his textbook.
Then he approaches.
He’s short, Dunk notices, below average, even.
“Are you new?” he asks, without so much as a preamble. He’s wearing some kind of amplifier, a spray that covers most of his scent while advertising the most prominent notes.
The worst thing about alphas is the way Dunk reacts to them. The omega part of him unfurls at the smell, interested despite the way Dunk wants to shove it down. This part of him is mostly dormant and negligible, and he likes it that way—it’s safest that way.
Faced with the amplified scent, something fiery and warm, Dunk can’t help but react. A flush settles in his face, around his neck.
Dunk nods silently.
“Where are you from?” the boy asks.
“Kings Landing,” Dunk answers. He wipes his palms on the thighs of his jeans. He’s begun to sweat. The boy isn’t even particularly attractive to him—he’s beautiful, the kind of beauty that scares him, makes him feel as if he’ll be punished just for existing around him.
“Oh,” the boy says, “we have that in common. And what school did you attend?”
“Lots,” Dunk says.
“Lots?” the boy asks.
“I was at—Blackwater North, for the most of it,” Dunk says, even though ‘most of it’ was still less than a full school year.
“Oh,” the boy says. “And you can read?” he asks.
Dunk stares at him silently, irritated at the insult, but more so at the warmth that still flows through him, threatening to swell parts of him that will make it difficult to concentrate. The omega part of him wants to bask in the attention, even while his conscious mind wants to run far, far away.
“Well, good for you,” the boy says. “I’m Aerion Targaryen.”
“Duncan,” Dunk says. The boy looks him fully up and down, stopping at his chest, and then his face.
“I don’t recall asking, Duncan,” the boy says, and turns on his heel, returning to his seat at the front of the classroom.
Dunk is unsettled throughout the class, his normally weak attention span stretched thin like a rubber band. He feels irritable, less safe than he had, and tries to calm himself as he proceeds to the Gymnasium.
There will always be angry alphas, and there will always be gym class.
Dunk clings to the outer edges of the gym, folding himself onto the bleachers in a lonesome spot, at least ten feet away from the red-haired girl he’d seen on the bus and her loud friends, who’re shouting at the instructor about being on their periods.
“You should find a doctor, Red,” the instructor says, “those aren’t supposed to last all year.”
Red sneers at the man and digs into the crinkly bag of hot cheetos her friends share. Dunk doesn’t realize he’s staring until she looks at him, her bright, kohl-lined stare immediately arresting. His head jerks away from her, like he’s been burned.
“What you looking at?” she asks, and Dunk shakes his head dismissively, gazing out at the yard.
“He’s a big one,” her friend says.
“Omega, too,” Red says, and Dunk can feel his traitorous face heat throughout.
“Rude,” he mutters, under his breath.
“You’re lying,” her friend says. “They don’t come that big.”
“It’s like us,” Red assures, sounding relaxed. “Picked him up from the trailers this morning.”
Suddenly, a slight, reddish-toned girl with a sharp chin is sat next to him, offering a dark red chip from her bag.
Dunk wants to refuse on principle. He doesn’t know this girl, doesn’t want to owe her anything. He thinks about Rafe, the way she took more than she should have.
But then, the salty, spicy smell hits his nose. It’s combined with the gentle floral notes of the girl’s welcoming omega scent, and Dunk’s stomach pinches with more than hunger.
Dunk holds out his hand and accepts a shake of the bag.
“Where are you from?” she asks pleasantly, if a little loud. “Are you new?”
Red and their third friend gather around him as the class continues. Dunk notices that the blonde smells like cigarettes.
“Aye,” Dunk says, “I come from King’s Landing.”
“King’s Landing!?” Red exclaims. “What’s it doing here, then?”
“If you found me in King’s Landing, I’d never be like to leave,” the third friend says.
“It’s not like that,” Dunk shakes his head. “Not like the films.”
“Oh, too good for King’s Landing,” Red laughs, “And so quiet!”
“I… try not to draw attention to myself,” Dunk says, quietly.
“Attention just happens when you're as big as all that,” the dark girl, Beony, says. “Are you going to try your hand at one of them?”
She gestures with a delicate hand at a group of alphas wrestling over a ball.
Dunk shakes his head.
“They won’t go against an omega,” the third girl says, her bone-straight, straw-blond hair shaking with her head.
“They’ll try,” Dunk says in a low voice. The three girls look at each other, and Dunk feels suddenly that he's said too much.
“How tall are you, anyway?” Beony asks.
“Six-eleven,” Dunk replies, easy as breathing. The number’s been plied from him once a day for years.
“That’s taller than anyone here,” the blonde laughs.
“What about Lyonel?” Beony guesses.
“He’s tall. He’s not that tall,” Red offers.
“Where will he be, then?” Beony asks.
“Stables, most like,” Red says.
Dunk blinks, absorbing. He says, “There are stables? As in, for horses?”
The girls laugh at him, but it doesn’t feel as harsh as it might have a few minutes ago.
Dunk has never seen a horse up close. They’re things of fairy tales and legends and perhaps parades he can never get too close to before he’s shoved back by someone with a badge and a gun.
He’s stunned by the open fields, firstly, and then by the enormity of the animals themselves.
“What is this?” he gasps, despite himself.
“Never seen a field before?” the blonde, Daisy, asks. “There’s trails, too, for riding—”
“And not just horses,” Red chuckles, and Daisy shoves her.
“Does all this belong to the school?” Dunk asks, incredulous.
“The trails and stables, yes, but the horses belong to the students,” Red explains, “The rich ones, anyway.”
“They’re beautiful,” Dunk sighs, gazing at the rippling muscle under the flesh of each shining beast.
“Yuck,” Daisy says.
“She’s scared of ‘em,” Beony laughs.
“They’re huge!” Daisy shouts, defensively.
From the side approaches a silver white horse with a dark nose, and its rider, a young man with a shock of bright red hair.
“Ladies,” he nods to Dunk’s new friends, who murmur their greetings.
“I found a fiver on the sidewalk earlier,” he says, “if any of you fancies a go in the barn?”
“You’ll have better luck with the sheep, Manfred,” Red says.
Daisy gags visibly as the young man rides away, laughing.
“What was that?” Dunk asks, wrinkling his nose.
“The worst case of whiskey dick I’ve ever seen, is what,” Red says. “I blew him for fifteen minutes without so much as half-mast.”
“Oh,” Dunk says, and embarrassingly, feels himself flush.
“Careful, Red, we’ll scare off our new friend!” Beony says, taking Dunk’s arm. The touch feels good, Beony’s hands small and soft. Her floral scent is wafting from her strongly, as if she’s trying her best to comfort him.
“He can’t be as shy as all that,” Red laughs, “Coming from King’s Landing—”
“Must you mock me?” Dunk snaps, “I’ve told you it’s nothing from films. This is far nicer than anything I’ve seen.”
He gestures to the fields, and the three of the girls fall quiet. Surprisingly, Beony hasn’t let go of his arm, despite the embarrassment that surely pours from him, the defensiveness in his posture and his scent.
“Didn’t mean anything,” Red says, muttering. “You might have noticed—we aren’t exactly the Maiden’s favorite daughters, ourselves.”
“S’alright,” Dunk says. “I can’t—I can’t say I’m very fond of alphas. That one seems like a mess, if you ask me.”
“Are you fond of omegas, then?” Daisy asks, with a wink.
Dunk flushes again. “Oh, like—no,” Dunk shakes his head.
“You’re sure? Daisy likes it all, nothing to be ashamed of,” Beony nudges him conspiratorially.
“No, I—I only meant—they’re hard to trust, is all,” Dunk says.
“Bad experience?” Beony asks, and Dunk shakes his head.
“Don’t got an alpha then?” Daisy asks. “Ever had one?”
Dunk shakes his head, hoping they won’t ask if he’s a maid.
“I had—a friend,” he says, wondering what’s come over him, chiding himself before it even comes out, finding himself trusting these girls immediately for whatever reason— “Rafe, back in King’s Landing, in my neighborhood.”
“A friend,” Daisy sighs, “Sounds nice.”
“We weren’t—we were kids,” Dunk shrugs, his voice tight. His omega is still so obvious in his mind, in his bearing; he’s still so vulnerable, but something about the friendliness of the omega girls compels him.
He says, “But she was an alpha. I trusted her, but she died. She was—”
He can’t say it. She was all I had.
Red starts to usher them further out of the field, recognizing the look on Dunk’s face. They’re sitting then, on a massive assemblage of metal bleachers, just a cluster of bodies in empty stands.
Beony is petting his arm, then, Daisy offering him a sip of water, which he accepts.
“Sorry,” he says, and Red shakes her head.
“Don’t be,” she says.
“We all have it,” Beony says. “Y’know. Shit.”
“Mhm,” Daisy hums, consolingly.
“Yeah,” Dunk says, steadily now. “She was good, really good. My best friend. But she stole something she shouldn’t have, and someone killed her.”
“Shit,” Red says, and then she’s taking a vape from her bag and offering it up. Dunk finds himself in the midst of teenage horror stories galore: abuse of all kinds, trauma, relatives dead and in jail. It’s horrifying, but they all tell it dry-eyed, and Dunk understands the way they laugh then, the light inherent in the darkness.
Dunk rides home next to Red.
He isn’t going to presume, but when he boards the yellow bus with its smell of baked metal and vinyl, there she is, patting the space next to her.
He’s too shy to say much, but she doesn’t seem to mind—only leans against him and shows him clips on her phone sometimes, allowing him to be silent.
They get off at the same stop, and Red only asks what trailer is his before he’s suddenly through the door, once again alone.
He’s carried home every book. He’s never had a textbook assigned to him before, and they look so crisp and new that he’s immediately anxious he’ll spoil them somehow.
Instead, he opens one and pores over the words, trying his best to answer the questions he’s been assigned for homework. It’s supposed to be quick and easy, but it takes him over an hour to answer five questions—and that’s only one class.
He sighs. Storm’s End—and Wendwater Secondary—is no joke.
“How am I going to keep up with this?” he asks himself, half joking and half miserable.
Arlan is away, as he often will be, and Duncan decides spaghetti-os are the order of the evening - something warm and salty and most of the way filling, not to mention a small but intimate familiarity in this sea of unfamiliar places and people.
When he finally trudges to bed near midnight, he’s glad Arlan’s been encouraging him to make his bed. It feels perfect to slide into a well-made bed at the end of an uncomfortable day.
There are only a handful of things he’s kept with him for all of the time he’s been shifting from place to place. His trash bag full of clothes has been emptied into a dresser, and atop that dresser are a few photos—some from schools he barely remembers, some from relatives who have kept him for some amount of time. Arlan’s gifted him a card that says “welcome home" in big orange bubble letters. In his bed is a stuffed horse with huge cartoon eyes and black hooves, something he’s taken with him and hidden in the bottom of duffel bags for a number of years. He presses it to his nose as he settles in for sleep, petting it absently.
“Funny place we’ve found ourselves, isn’t it?” he asks, and Sweetfoot doesn’t answer.
“You don’t have to talk,” he says, and she doesn’t, and Dunk sleeps anyway.