Chapter Text
Never in all his years had Dunk pictured that this would be his future.
Yes, there had been some truth to his fantasies. Truth in the spectacular tourney pavilions that hoist up around him as great cloth castles, even if his own is naught but dappled daylight through the leaves of an elm tree. There’s that undeniable buzz in the air as the event itself draws closer, heralding a time where the fortunes of men are known to the gods alone. And with that buzz comes the feasting. Wine, merriment and a throng of bodies lost to the fiddler’s tune. Sweet pastries dripping with crimson spring berries, stuffed swans and honey-ginger partridges, more food than Dunk could ever eat and no one here to slap his hand away.
Beautiful maids in their fine silk gowns threading their arms through his, smiles upon their lips. Great knights with storied names looking to Dunk and addressing him as ‘ser’, as if the honorific always belonged on their silver tongues.
One knight in particular.
The Laughing Storm. Ser Lyonel Baratheon.
The confounding man whose eyes have scarcely parted from Dunk for the night’s duration.
At first, Dunk had been summoned to him as a threat. Yet the truth had softened that threat into something else, something that could come to be far more dangerous. When they exchanged words, Dunk’s were tentative, careful. His dancing was nothing of the sort. His movement spoke for what his words could not, emboldened by ale, a full stomach and the attention of a man who had only ever existed in stories.
Under the golden drapery of the Baratheon pavilion, Dunk had gone toe to toe with the Laughing Storm and emerged victorious. And beneath his rhythmic hands, Dunk spun. Again and again and again. Until intricate brocade overhead became a golden sky, until antlered chandeliers blurred into branches, until the raucous cheers of the crowd faded into the bubbling of a brook.
Perhaps it was the ale speaking, but for the first time since stepping foot in Ashford Meadow, Dunk didn’t feel quite so out of place.
There was a beat somewhere, and Dunk’s body had followed the rhythm without any input from his mind. Instead, his thoughts had turned to the only sounds that mattered in this tent- yelps, howls, laughter from the one man who seemed to be on every side of Dunk all at once. And amidst those sounds, the only thing Dunk had been able to focus on was unbound mirth dancing in dark eyes, watching him no matter which way he turned.
It’s lost within that same mirth where Dunk finds himself some time later. A future he never could have imagined- trapped beneath the searing heat of Ser Lyonel Baratheon’s attention. No longer is it the blazing of wildfire, yet it burns all the same as he watches Dunk, head tilted back and body lax. They sit at the great table which Dunk had been so afraid to approach mere hours ago, only this time the fear is entirely absent. It’s been replaced by a warmth blooming beneath his skin that cannot be attributed to drink alone, a weight on his chest that has him leaning in to each new honeyed word that falls from Lyonel’s lips. Lyonel’s voice is deeper now, worn from exertion, a quiet rumble meant for Dunk’s ears alone. For Dunk’s part, he finds himself entirely lost in the stories that the knight spins, plucking him from this golden pavilion and casting him out to storm strewn seas.
Perhaps this is why Dunk has no hope of victory. For the tale Lyonel paints is a knight indomitable, one of those great men who will never know the sting of defeat, nor the bitterness of being turned away and disregarded. He is the kind of person who will never have to drag himself to the feet of greater men and plead to be acknowledged.
But his story is for Dunk. No one else is here to listen. There’s the weight of a warm circlet upon Dunk’s brow, and he sits at the head of a grand table looking out onto a vast pavilion of knights and their fair maids. Only Dunk remains alongside Lyonel Baratheon for all to see. It would seem like fallacy, if not for the way Ser Lyonel’s dark eyes still watch him with a warmth that feels remarkably private. A story for Dunk. A place at the table for Dunk. Lyonel’s rapt attention, indescribably, for Dunk.
Perhaps this is why Dunk retains hope of victory.
Lyonel leans in, his dark curls gilded with silver falling further across his temple. His earring catches the low candlelight, and an errant thought informs Dunk that he would very much like to reach out and touch it, to discover if the polished metal runs warm so close to the heat of such a man. Too long he spends staring, soon enough the earring is gone from his view and Lyonel is fumbling for more fine wine. Dunk’s instincts kick in to pour it for him- even if he is no longer a squire, that part of him is still functional. It’s the only thing he knows what to do at this point, as the drink has seemingly rid him of his good sense when it comes to spilling his heart to the heir of Storm’s End.
Lyonel listens. He listens to the woes of a penniless hedge knight and offers advice, words that may even be comforting if Dunk were in any other situation. But there’s no reason for the heir of a noble Lord Paramount to help him- Dunk, a nobody who wandered into his tent for supper of all things. So Lyonel laughs, but there is no malice behind it. The gentle strings play on, the couples on the floor dance heart to heart, entwined in each other and lost to the comfort of another’s body.
“So what should I do?” Dunk asks.
Lyonel’s hand comes to clasp at his shoulder, pulling him in ever closer. Dunk falls forward into warmth, to the scent of wine on Lyonel’s breath, to the tumble of his curls and the flash of his earring. To the unfocused intensity in his eyes.
“I don’t know. I’m really quite drunk.” Lyonel pats his shoulder and begins to hoist his weight up on his seat, lacking the elegance he had at the night’s onset. He strides across the table, the skirts that had once flared more emphatically than any maid’s now swing with uneven steps. When he reaches the ground at the other side, he looks back to Dunk with a furrow in his brow. “Are you coming or not?”
Dunk doesn’t wait to ask questions. He rises to his feet, clipping the table on the way and causing its great wooden frame to rattle at the impact. Lyonel’s answering smile is renewed with all the mirth of their dance and his laughter is for everyone to hear.
“Try not to bring the whole thing down with you.” Lyonel throws his hands up into the air to gesture at the pavilion, but Dunk’s attention catches on the glint of his rings. They will be warm- they’ve been on his hands all evening.
Dunk’s head swims.
Gods, when did he get this drunk? He’s wading through a sea of bodies, his head feels so heavy, as do his feet. How long has he been here? What if something has happened to the horses? Dunk would never forgive himself. Would he even know the way back to the horses right now? There was a stream, an elm tree…
He’s not walking anymore. No, there’s a woman staring at him, and he’s stopped in his tracks. She looks somewhat familiar, but Dunk can’t quite put his finger on it. Red hair, a revealing dress, a pretty smile… only, she’s not smiling now. She’s looking at Dunk with wide eyes, as if she knows something he doesn’t. Something important. Something Dunk should know. He opens his mouth to ask her what it is, but his tongue is heavy too and he can’t quite find the words.
“Come. She knows what she’s getting into with Ser Manfred,” Dunk hears Lyonel say somewhere nearby- is he speaking to him?
Any confusion is scattered when Dunk feels strong fingers clasp around his wrist and pull.
He almost loses his balance, careening forward into the open air. The scent of mud is the first thing to awaken his senses to the fact that they’ve left the pavilion. Then, it’s the twinkling of stars overhead, more beautiful than any lavishly decorated fabric could ever be. They are bright tonight- a hopeful sign.
It must be late, because never has he seen the tourney grounds so quiet, only a few odd servants scurrying around to appease the late night requests of their drunken masters. And here stands Dunk, Ser Lyonel Baratheon’s bejeweled hand around his wrist, leading him alongside the great golden silks of his pavilion to a smaller yet no less decadent tent. Perhaps they too look like master and servant. Dunk is certainly dressed the part.
Well, he thinks so until his circlet catches on the golden silks of the tent’s entryway, and Dunk remembers just exactly what sits atop his head.
“Oh, milord,” Dunk stumbles, his large hands fumbling for the antlered circlet before it can tangle in the draping fabric any further.
“No, no, no. Don’t you dare.” Lyonel draws closer to him. He’s still holding his wrist. “You’re keeping that on or your scalp is coming with it.”
He speaks the threat with a barely suppressed laugh, leaning into Dunk to deliver the words. His smile is blinding. It’s all Dunk can stare at as Lyonel’s free hand approaches dangerously close to his face.
Together they work to untangle the antlers from the fabric at the tent’s entrance, Lyonel leaning into Dunk to tease silk from the tines. His rings catch the candlelight again. They probably wouldn’t fit on Dunk’s fingers, wide as they are. He is built like an aurochs after all- not made for fine things. However it is increasingly difficult to convince himself of such thoughts when he stands at close proximity to a man who makes him feel richer with his presence alone. Lyonel’s warm breath washes over Dunk’s face, carrying the scent of whatever fine wine he’d been drinking. Likely an Arbor red. It’s nice. Somehow, it makes his heart race, which is almost intoxicating in itself, as if he could sustain his drunken state through the fumes alone. Dunk tries to get closer, stooping his head to allow Lyonel better access, only Lyonel refuses the proximity. Instead, he releases Dunk’s wrist and pushes at his shoulders.
“Tall,” Lyonel manages to say. “I told you to stand tall.”
Dunk rights his posture yet detests the gap it creates between them.
“Better,” Lyonel hums. “Wait.” A new frown comes to furrow his brow.
There’s the rustle of fabric, then a warm weight settles on the back of Dunk’s neck. The hot press of skin, interspersed with the smooth slide of polished metal. Lyonel’s hand. His rings are just as warm as Dunk had envisioned, heated by a body’s furnace. It’s easy to believe that Lyonel is trying to better leverage Dunk’s head to slip any errant fabric from his antlers, but after some time, Lyonel makes no effort to move. He’s a tall man himself, and he holds a position of power. How often does he find himself looked down upon? The pads of gentle fingertips stroke absentminded pathways through the short hair at the nape of Dunk’s neck. Soothing. Welcoming. More gentle than he’d come to expect.
The comfort of a warm touch combined with the drink thrumming through his veins leaves Dunk’s attention to stray to the space beyond Lyonel’s shoulder. He’d become so caught up in the entryway he’d not once thought to examine the lavish space he’d been brought to. Ornate armor. An antlered helm. Sword and shield and mace alike. A great polished wooden trunk sits at the base of…
Oh. This is a bedchamber.
Dunk’s heart leaps. Ser Lyonel Baratheon has brought him to his bedchamber.
Why has Ser Lyonel Baratheon brought him to his bedchamber?
For his help or for his head?
“You were born to be tall,” Lyonel repeats in a low rumble, deep enough that Dunk can feel it. His other hand comes up to grasp at the hard line of Dunk’s jaw. “Gods, I’ve not met a man like you in some time. Look at you.”
“Are you going to punch me now, ser?” Dunk says stupidly. They’re the only words that will spill from his fool mouth, held tight by the press of Lyonel’s fingers upon his chin.
Lyonel laughs, as if caught by surprise. “Would you like me to punch you, ser?”
“No… No, I don’t think so.”
Lyonel’s grin spreads. He looks just as he had in the tent, eyes alight with mirth, the same as when Dunk had ground his foot into well trodden soil. Somewhere, in the hollow recesses of Dunk’s mind, he hears the same warning he had heard then, only this time it is far fainter.
“Good, because that was not what I had in mind.”
“What-”
The fingers upon Dunk’s chin pull. A firm, forward movement. Into a collision.
All at once, Dunk is overwhelmed.
His eyes flutter shut in preparation for the impact, and his nose finds it first, just before all sensation is flooded by the taste of summer wine. Everything is warm and hazy, from the tickle of curls against his cheek to the weight of Lyonel’s hand on the back of his neck sliding up to cradle his skull, to draw him in closer, to readjust where their lips meet…
The impact. It had been Lyonel’s lips upon his, crashing down like roiling swells in a storm strewn sea. He draws back and seizes Dunk’s lips again, frenzied and hungry, like a man drowning.
Lyonel is kissing him.
He can’t manage to unlatch his thoughts from that one simple fact. Not enough to return the kiss. Not enough to even understand that Lyonel is kissing him. Dunk is a fool. A fool who has spent the evening utterly enthralled by this knight, unaware of the fact that Lyonel had been courting him with the intent to bring him back to his bedchambers. Not courting, no, that is for maidens. This is something far more primal. Lyonel’s lips are soft yet insistent, always in motion, and his hands where they grasp at Dunk’s head pull him impossibly close. There is a heat between them more intoxicating than any summer wine, and Dunk feels it sear beneath his skin at every point they make contact. The heat of Lyonel’s gaze now wrought upon his flesh.
Never in all his years had Dunk conceived of such a scenario. Never in all his years would Dunk disregard such an unexpected indulgence.
He’d been kissed before, of course. Once, by a sweet girl in a tavern just as tentative as he was. But this isn’t soft or sweet or gentle. Lyonel’s fingers curl into Dunk’s hair with mindless urgency, dragging him down until he’s all but consumed by the Stormlord’s ravenous mouth. It’s hot, it’s spit-slick, it’s strong hands upon him, it’s Lyonel’s beard rasping against Dunk’s face with exquisite friction, it’s senseless sounds poured into the wanting expanse between Dunk’s lips. How badly Dunk wishes to respond to Lyonel’s touch. How helpless he feels beneath the impassioned onslaught.
He tentatively raises a hand to the small of Lyonel’s back, yet the fabric beneath his fingertips is finer than anything he’s touched before and likely worth more money than he’s ever owned. So instead he lets his hand drop back to his side uselessly, desperate to touch, but forbidden by all the laws of man. Dunk’s hands were made in Flea Bottom, they rest every night in the hedges, their touch would stain the finery of a noble knight. It is not his place.
Instead, Dunk tries to return the kiss. He tries to relay what he’d learned from the tavern girl, but there is no rhyme or rhythm to the way Lyonel kisses. Lyonel is chaos clouded by pleasure, heavy and hot and entirely overwhelming. The hard lines of his body, the strength with which he pulls Dunk in, the heady taste of unabashed lust that he so shamelessly directs towards Dunk- together, it is enough to drag Dunk into such madness alongside him. So Dunk presses his weight forward and is answered by a lewd moan from Lyonel, rumbling through his body as they stumble further into the tent. Seemingly spurred on by the enthusiastic response, Lyonel arches into Dunk, seeking out the vastness of his body even as he falters with each step backwards. Dunk feels risen with gooseflesh from head to toe, responsive to each minute touch of the man before him.
Twisting the fingers in Dunk’s hair, Lyonel applies a firm pressure in order to tilt his head back. In no world would Dunk fight him on such suggestions, following his lead to each new path of pleasure as a willing lamb to the slaughter. It isn’t what he should be doing right now- not when he must seek out Manfred Dondarrion to enter the lists, lest his presence here be for naught- but when the press of Lyonel’s fingers at Dunk’s jaw opens his mouth wide enough for Lyonel’s tongue to slip in, then all thoughts of Manfred Dondarrion are scattered to the wind.
Inexperience breaks Dunk from Lyonel first. His chest heaves in great breaths that hadn’t been controlled through the velvet caress of Lyonel’s tongue, though he doesn’t wish to move far. Dunk comes to rest his crowned brow against Lyonel’s as he sucks in great lung-fulls of air, seeking eye contact for the first time since Lyonel had initiated… this. And there’s that mirth again twinkling in Lyonel’s eyes, just as bright as it had been as they twirled under golden silks. He’s grinning, but even a man as seemingly experienced as Lyonel Baratheon is winded by the intensity of it all. He sways on his feet.
“Is this new to you, hedge knight?” Lyonel’s tongue licks a slow line across his lips, teeth still bared in a grin that borders on dangerous.
Dunk can’t hold his gaze. Instead, he can only look down to where the knight’s lean muscled body is pressed into his. There’s a lick of fire deep in his gut.
“... yes, ser.”
Lyonel makes a sound in the back of his throat, neither surprised or dismissive, just a note of acknowledgment.
“Make sure the tent is closed then.” At last Lyonel pulls away, and Dunk misses the warmth of him instantly. “I don’t mean for us to be interrupted.”
Right. Closing the pavilion. Easy enough to do, even if they’d stumbled further into the tent than Dunk had expected- almost to the foot of the bed- but his strides are large, albeit uneven. Whether he’s more drunk from the free flowing ale or from the press of Lyonel’s mouth, he’s no longer certain. The only thing he is certain of is that he needs to be back under the heat of the Stormlord’s touch imminently.
A sound behind him draws his attention while his slow hands tug at golden fabric. Dunk glances over his shoulder to see Lyonel with a carafe of wine at hand, pouring a cup. Eagerly he downs it, head tilted back, his curls falling from his face, casting his noble profile into a beauty often reserved for sculpture alone. Dunk can only watch the exposed line of his throat while he gulps back fine wine as if it’s spring water, wondering all the while if the flesh there would taste as pleasant as his lips.
Lyonel notices Dunk staring and offers no protest, just a wink in Dunk’s direction before his own attention turns to the fastenings of his clothing.
Right. Closing the pavilion. So he can climb in bed. With Ser Lyonel Baratheon.
“Help yourself,” Lyonel offers over his shoulder, probably about the wine, but Dunk’s afraid if he drinks any more he’ll collapse or vomit over the heir to Storm’s End, and wouldn’t that be a spectacular way to finish his introduction as a knight? Not that anyone will remember him come morning. Not the master of games who had scoffed at his claim, not the Fossoway squire who had led him to the great pavilion for feasting, not the Laughing Storm- drunk as he is.
The pavilion closes. Dunk turns. Lyonel stands closer to his bed now, a fresh cup of wine in hand and his upper body bared to the low candlelight. There’s a smattering of dark hair across his chest, and while he’s slimmer than Dunk, he still carries the strength and build of a man skilled at arms. Masculine in a way that Dunk had never fixated upon before, but now it spools from his mind in a flood of unforeseen arousal. He stands slack jawed as Lyonel spreads his arms out with flair- welcoming Dunk’s awe. He’s still smiling. Gods, Dunk can never look away from his smile for long.
“What are you waiting for?” Lyonel speaks as if he’s constantly on the precipice of laughter. “You can touch me, you know. Should I have made that clear?”
So Dunk staggers towards him like a man lured by a siren song. He stops a stride short from where Lyonel waits, the mirth in his eyes now dancing with a knowing excitement. Excitement enough to rival Dunk’s own apprehension, which swells in his chest enough to begin sapping away at the lightness in his head. What is he doing? At least Ser Arlan had trained him in arms and riding. This, he is entirely unprepared for. And his opponent is one of the most storied knights in the realm. He’d likely fare better going up against Lyonel in the lists rather than the bedchamber. At least in the lists his humiliation would be short lived.
Dunk can only adhere to what his fool mind bids of him, and when Lyonel sets down his cup and tilts his head to spur Dunk on, the light once again catches his earring. His earring. Ideas flood back from earlier in the night, from a time where Dunk hadn’t understood how to interpret them. Reaching out a vast palm, Dunk cups the hinge of Lyonel’s jaw, the tips of his fingers collecting the smooth polished metal where it dangles. It is warm, just as he’d suspected. The weight of it brings a small smile to Dunk’s lips- such an eye-catching decoration, one he’d watched spin with its wearer all night. It feels so perfectly Lyonel, accentuating his already bright and bold demeanor, and while Dunk has only known the man for a night, it is already of little surprise that he’d be brash enough to invite the largest man in the room back to his bed. Dunk supposes that is far more ‘Lyonel Baratheon’ than a standard observed by other noblemen.
Using the hand cupping his jaw, Dunk brings Lyonel in for a kiss. He feels Lyonel rise to the tips of his toes to meet Dunk’s height, feels the willingness with which he follows Dunk’s guidance. It is the most emboldening gesture since Dunk had first arrived in Ashford. This kiss directed by Dunk is unlike their others, for it is slow and soft and sweet, closed lips that linger. It is the sort of kiss he’d shared with a tavern girl when the butterflies in his stomach had limited all other motion. The chaste affection of young love, innocent and gentle, completely disregarding how Dunk can still taste Lyonel’s tongue upon his.
When he pulls back, Lyonel’s expression has shifted. The mirth in his eyes has been replaced by an awed bewilderment, the thick lines of his brows raised towards his hairline. Again, Lyonel seems lost for words. He strikes Dunk as a man who is not often absent his ability for speech.
A soft, surprised huff of laughter. “Do you think me a maid in need of courting?” Lyonel’s laughter swells, though it is never demeaning. “I’ve never seen chivalry from a man who I’ve brought back to have his cock.”
Dunk knows he’s burning up, he can feel the flush spreading across his skin like wildfire.
“You’re full of surprises, hedge knight.” There’s that grin again, the one that leaves Dunk dumbfounded. Lyonel nods towards him. “I have great expectations. Take it off.”
Even as uncoordinated as he is, it takes Dunk seconds to throw the itchy linen of his tunic over his head and cast it to the lavish rug at their feet. It catches in the crown of antlers, but Dunk manages to free it from the fabric before it’s thrown aside and returns the crown to his head, carrying the memory of Lyonel’s warning.
Lyonel’s eyes take in his body once, twice, thrice. His grin grows.
“By the gods.”
Being wanted so openly is a new sensation. For much of Dunk’s life his size has been a spectacle- whether serving as reason for skittish types not to associate with him in Flea Bottom, or on the road for all those who laughed at his ungainly shape while he was filling out his frame. From then on it had become a mere curiosity, one that most people came to ignore when Dunk opened his mouth. Lyonel had taken notice, yet even after speaking and dancing and passing the dwindling hours together, he is still here, as drawn in by Dunk as when he’d first laid eyes on him across the bustling pavilion. It is a shame that this could be the only time Dunk ever experiences such a consuming feeling. He must seize the opportunity while it presents itself.
Dunk presses in for another kiss, but he’s clumsy in his eagerness and their foreheads find each other before their lips. For one singular moment, Dunk is able to laugh at the absurdity of it all, the feral nature of it, butting heads like rutting stags. Only, Lyonel is then turning them to push Dunk onto the bed, and Dunk yields oh so willingly.
He doesn’t have the capacity to worry about soiling finery this time. Strong hands grasp the antlers upon his brow, holding him steady as Lyonel swings himself across Dunk’s lap. Seven hells. One knee either side of Dunk’s waist, Lyonel straddles him with that same damned grin, and Dunk’s mind falls apart. He finds himself slack jawed, flushed, eyes wide, with each new breath coming heavier than the last.
“The size of you,” Lyonel delights, tilting his head back as if he can see more of Dunk that way. He fumbles for Dunk’s hand. “Touch me, gods. Your hands…”
So Dunk does. With one great calloused palm, he places it upon Lyonel’s breast and feels the knight’s heart thudding beneath. Slowly, he cards his fingertips through the dark hair there, catching against a nipple on the way down and invoking a choked off sound that stops somewhere in the back of Lyonel’s throat. He makes no move to hurry Dunk along. Now it’s Lyonel’s turn to watch enraptured as Dunk’s palm makes such a great man appear small beneath his touch, a gentle caress that travels down over the tender flesh at his stomach, soft and warm and pliant. Lyonel’s eyes remain downcast, pupils blown as he watches Dunk’s wide palm traverse to the coarse trail of dark hair curling just beneath his navel. Under his touch, the noble knight tenses with a hissed, expectant breath. Here, Dunk stops, fear tensing his throat. He can’t quite muster up the courage to go further, so instead he skirts across to the jut of Lyonel’s hip, finding handholds either side. Firm handholds to keep a drowning man afloat.
“Fuck.” Briefly, Lyonel covers Dunk’s hands with his own, as if assessing the difference in size. “Where did you say you’re from, ser?”
“King’s Landing.”
Not Flea Bottom, Ser Lyonel can’t know that. Knights don’t come from Flea Bottom.
“Gods, what do they feed you up there? You must eat like dragons.”
Bowls of brown. Dunk is quite the specialist in bowls of brown. Lyonel’s lips have never been sullied by such filth. Not until he kissed a boy from Flea Bottom, a squire borne from stubbornness, a knight with a mouthful of lies.
Dunk’s attention flits to the golden sky above, rippling gently in the spring breeze. He feels Lyonel’s palms come to spread across his chest, he hears the approving murmur from the knight atop him, the warmth of his touch seeping in. Outside, the music from the grand pavilion seems to have ceased. All is quiet except for the breathless moans slipping from Lyonel’s lips as he leans down to press open-mouthed kisses to the firm line of Dunk’s jaw, his hands pawing at the softness of Dunk’s sides. Dunk isn’t chiseled like a warrior, his strength is one forged through hardship and an unrelenting life, no comfortable beds or easy meals to measure his honor against. Just a squire from Flea Bottom with everything to lose. Lyonel‘s mouth finds the hinge of his jaw, his earlobe, the column of his throat, tracing down to the point in which Dunk’s pulse thuds in his neck.
Vulnerability. What all lords ask of their charges. What all knights offer in order to carry out their duty. There’s still pleasure thrumming in Dunk’s body, but it somehow feels distant, darkened with each new thought that pushes its way to the forefront of his mind.
It shouldn’t. Not when Lyonel sucks bruises into his neck in a way that makes Dunk’s toes curl. It’s almost enough to make Dunk forget such cruel thoughts as Lyonel presses more wet kisses down into the hollow of Dunk’s throat, across the vast plains of Dunk’s broad chest, down his sternum to the soft flesh at his belly. Almost.
The sounds he’s making are small and choked off in comparison to Lyonel’s unabashed moans. As if Dunk is afraid of breaking some unspoken rule, as if giving voice to what they’re doing will make it somewhat real, as if he’ll awaken in the morning to a golden pavilion overhead and Lyonel Baratheon in his arms.
Never in all his years had Dunk predicted that this would be his future.
It’s never to happen again. It shouldn’t be happening now. So Dunk should enjoy it while he can, savor the taste of something far beyond him.
Yet his mind trips on the reality that Ser Lyonel knows not of his origins, of how vast the distance between them truly is. He deserves more than a foolish hedge knight who has never touched anyone before, who is helpless to reciprocate the boundless pleasure he’s being made to feel. If Ser Arlan could see him right now- the heresy of wearing an antlered crown with the heir to the Stormlands spilled across his lap, all flushed with kiss-swollen lips and tousled hair. If only Lyonel could see how absurd this all is as he laps at Dunk’s sun-weathered skin with a wine sweetened tongue, so eager to make a man of the first knight that comes to him too stupid to carry ulterior motives.
Lyonel’s tongue finds the sensitive skin just below Dunk’s navel and Dunk involuntarily sucks in a sharp breath through clenched teeth, loud enough to give Lyonel pause. He lifts his head from where he’s slumped across Dunk’s lap, his expression schooled into something akin to affable curiosity. Dunk’s hands had gone so limp on his hips that he hadn’t realized when they’d slipped away entirely.
“Relax, man. Think of it as you would with any maid,” Lyonel’s voice is low and comforting, though now it has grown gravelly through the straining of moans. In a way it is reminiscent of how it had sounded when they’d sat together at the grand table.
Dunk opens his mouth and closes it, tries to speak the truth that Lyonel deserves to hear, feels useless all the while. They’ve made it this far. And Dunk wants Lyonel, he truly does. But his heart thuds too hard and his head feels too heavy to act upon that desire so intoxicating.
“I’ve never…”
He doesn’t need to go any further, the way Lyonel’s expression folds into one of shock tells Dunk that he understands immediately.
“You’ve never? Not with a maid?”
Dunk shakes his head, and Lyonel draws his body up higher. The mirth in his eyes has been replaced entirely by a measure of gentle concern. It’s not what Dunk had expected.
“I thought… when you said it was new, I thought you meant with a man.” Lyonel grimaces, but he blinks slowly enough that Dunk can see the way the wine still affects him. “Seven hells, you’ve really never…?”
“No, milord.”
“A man like you…” Lyonel’s hands slide back up to the plains of his chest. “I would’ve thought the maids would be trailing after you. Likely the whores too.”
Dunk clears his throat. “Dunk the lunk they called me.”
“We must all be fools in order to engage in life’s pleasures.” Lyonel lowers himself back down onto Dunk, bejeweled fingers teasing the kiss-reddened flesh at the hollow of his throat. “And you’ve certainly piqued my curiosity.”
“Thank you, ser?”
“You’re welcome in my tent any time, I’m not sure Lord Ashford has enough food in his reserves to both sate you and make it to the harvest.” A soft laugh. “And you may ease up on the formalities between the two of us- we are both knights, are we not? But I refuse to call you by that ridiculous name of yours.”
“Ah, thank you milord, Lyonel.”
“Mm…” Lyonel drops his head down onto Dunk’s chest, his body languid and warm where it rests upon him. Already the rush of arousal is beginning to sap away into something softer. “Do you have somewhere to be, hedge knight?”
“My camp. I have to attend…” To the horses, yes, but Lyonel will know that’s a squire’s business. He can’t know that Dunk lacks a squire- that without one he won’t be able to ride at all.
“A shame,” Lyonel murmurs against his chest. “I’m very drunk. And I don’t think I could have made anything happen tonight. I’m no young buck anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” Dunk says, barely above a whisper.
“Don’t be. Every man deserves to remember his first time.” Lyonel’s words are slowing, the loss of lust beginning to usher in the night’s wine-laden exhaustion. “It wasn’t boring, and the tourney hasn’t yet begun. Next time will be better.”
Dunk’s mind tries to piece together the meaning of his words- if Lyonel really does see their drunken states as the issue or if he’s covering for Dunk’s nerves. Perhaps he’s even unenthused by Dunk’s evident inexperience. It would make sense- Lyonel likely has access to the most skilled whores in the realm, he’s probably known both noblemen and women alike, and Dunk had made it painfully clear that he was practically incapable of a kiss, nevermind anything beyond that.
Dunk’s next time may never come to pass. Not if he dies at the lance of a champion, nor if he dies a penniless beggar bereft of horse and sword by the side of a road, insisting to the robins with his dying breath that he is a knight. Lyonel’s words insinuate something- whether that be another round for them, or if he’s simply supporting his previous statement that Dunk should be able to easily find himself in another’s bed. It doesn’t matter either way, the Stormlord is drunk enough to carry no memory of this to the morrow.
Dunk will remember. The panic has sobered him up enough to convince him of that much.
Working to slide himself out from under the comforting press of a languid Lyonel is a difficult job, made even harder when Lyonel allows his hands to linger upon Dunk’s body until he is out of reach. But after burying the old man, it can barely be considered a hardship to force himself out of the bed of a handsome highborn knight. Dunk is reluctant, yes, but this isn’t his place. Visiting the Baratheon pavilion in the first place had been the idea of a Fossoway squire- Dunk would never have considered it if not for one of higher birth’s prompting.
He sits on the edge of the bed for a moment, watching how Lyonel sinks down into his soft silken bedding embellished by furs, his curls spilling out across the pillow. A night drenched in wine is evident by the speed in which his features slacken upon relaxing, his breaths evening out before Dunk can even lift his weight from the bed. So he waits a little longer. Watches the rise and fall of Lyonel’s bare back, his fingers itching with the foreign craving to touch not for the purpose of desire, but just because Lyonel’s body feels so warm and inviting beneath his hands.
Lyonel is still wearing the skirts he had danced around in, and the part of Dunk which had served as a squire insists that he should rid Lyonel of them so that he may rest in comfort. Good sense prevails though, strongly influenced by Dunk’s ineptitude for anything that borders on sexual, despite the fact that even a minute longer would have likely seen Lyonel divesting them of their garments. It’s easy at this stage for Dunk to curse himself for the pleasure which he’d so readily discarded, yet there’s something strangely intimate about watching Lyonel sleep which Dunk covets even more than Lyonel’s body upon his. Perhaps it is a foolhardy kind of trust, yet it settles soft in Dunk’s heart all the same, held in the same place as the memory of Lyonel’s eyes when he realized he wouldn’t push Dunk any further.
Dunk searches for his tunic on the lavish rug, making sure to remove the antlered crown from atop his head in the process. It feels unsettling, casting aside his lordship for the night without seeking riches or rewards. He was allowed to play highborn oh so briefly, and instead of clinging to what power he could, he’d set aside the singular attention of Lyonel Baratheon, just as he sets aside the crown at the foot of the bed. Then he’s pulling the tunic back on over his head and resuming his life as Dunk the Hedge Knight- itself an ill fitting moniker.
Still, it feels better to wear his skin again.
He spares one final glance back to the sleeping Lyonel Baratheon as he stands at the entrance to the pavilion, his eye catching on the glimmer of his earring. His earring which Dunk now knows the feel of upon his fingertips.
It has been a whirlwind night, one which he will not regret, no matter how much shame it may bring his foolish mind.
A night of endless surprises.
They don’t end here. Not when he finally makes his way back to his camp to find a mouthy boy and a shooting star.