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His pain doesn’t skip her notice.
She sees it in all of its shades and manifestations. The grimace behind his smug smile as he sits down on the dining table. The limp that becomes impossible to hide the longer he uses his legs. How he discreetly lingers in wait for everyone to walk in front of him so that they don’t hear his sharp breaths and choked grunts. How he flinches when she rests a hand, light as a feather, on his shoulder or his arm.
It brings her heart to a squeeze in her chest.
Rhaenyra doesn’t profess to know the extent of the torture he suffered during his weeks of confinement. And ever proud, her uncle would never give her the impression that he felt anything beyond a forgettable chafe inflicted by a nuisance of an assailer — never admit to being scared at a given moment, or doubtful, or despairing, or any of the all-too-human feelings one would expect of a man in his situation.
And although she hates seeing him in pain, there is a small part of her that rejoices in his dependence on his family. Her father would never send him away in this condition — he would keep him here, where the finest Masters in the Realm can tend to his wounds and ensure his safety.
For the time being, regardless of how transient this dependence might be, Daemon’s stay in the Red Keep is undisputed and impervious to anyone’s complaints. His presence is as certain as the setting sun and the stars that rise in its stead, and Rhaenyra finds an unprecedented calm in this certainty.
What she most appreciates is having an excuse to go see him. An excuse that would shame anyone’s accusations of her intents and actions into silence.
Someone must see to Daemon's recovery after all, must they not?
And who better than family?
Who better than her?
When the night is late enough for everyone to have retired to their bedchambers, Rhaenyra stands in front of her mirror, brushing her hair and contemplating what to wear.
A fine dress would speak of respect; of formality; of a calculated desire to impress.
An everyday dress is unassuming. Impersonal. Far too disinterested.
And then there is her nightgown and the comfort that it offers. Familiarity. A whispered invitation to look; quiet enough to be dismissed as a hallucination, or to be latched onto and heeded with a candid gaze; silent, but all too telling.
She chooses the nightgown.
Her hair is loose and long, save for a small braid sectioned from the crown of her hair.
In the mirror, her eyes glitter back at her.
She slips out of her room, and spares a moment of discomfort at the weight of Criston’s suspicious gaze.
“Where to, Princess?” he says, prepared to accompany her, but she raises a hand so as to gesture her lack of need for his protection.
“You needn’t come, Ser Criston — I only thought to check on uncle Daemon’s injuries,” she says lightly.
His eyes now burn her. “He’s sure to fare better while in your company,” he says. There’s an edge to his voice. “Yours is a healing touch.”
She stiffens.
Does he know?
Have the rumors spread to reach everyone’s prying ears?
Still she feigns ignorance. She gives him an uncertain smile and says, “I'm not sure I understand what you intend, Ser Criston.”
“Only that your presence will be a balm to his pains, Princess.”
She blinks and considers him silently, then begins to walk away. She turns her head once to spare him a curious look, and feels dread pool in her stomach at how his darkened gaze follows after her.
But she doesn’t let him sully her excitement. Once she’s sufficiently far away, she quickens her steps and renders them impossibly light, and she looks in either direction whenever she enters a new corridor. The furtiveness of something as simple as paying her uncle a visit in his bedchambers brings butterflies to her stomach.
The doors to his chambers stand tall in front of her. She raps her knuckles thrice on one door, then turns its handle without waiting for a response.
Her breath is suspended after one sharp inhale.
Daemon is sitting on the edge of the bed, his loose shirt unbuttoned down to the waist of his pants. The shadows thrown by the candles conceal the sharpness of his visage so that it appears soft, and the warm light brings emphasis to the leanness of his musculature. Even as he prods with apparent discomfort at the bandages wrapped around his middle, Rhaenyra can’t help but perceive a certain gracefulness to his movements. She has always admired his hands, and now that they move with such careful deliberation, she finds herself riveted by them.
His voice retrieves her from her reveries.
“Do you knock merely to affect a civilized front?” he says. His eyes are glittering in amusement.
Her lips tug upwards but she offers no further answer. She walks towards him, lacing her hands behind her back and nodding at the white bandages that have begun to be drenched in blood.
“Not the best work, there, uncle,” she says. “The bandages are far too loose. They won’t provide enough pressure to stop your bleeding.”
He sighs in vexation, undoing the end to tighten it around himself further. “How tedious,” he grumbles, giving her the impression that he has been trying to secure it well enough for a while now.
Observing him, she says, “Shall I call for the Maester?”
And his response is swift. “Heavens, no,” he says with a frown. “I can do well without the prodding and the frigid fussing. I feel like a specimen under the care of the Maesters.”
Amused, she says, “Not the greatest advocate of experimental therapy?”
With his head still tilted down, he looks up at her. “Not when I’m at the receiving end, no.”
She has anticipated this answer — planned for it, even; steered the conversation to this exact point. And now, she fidgets with her ring and bites her lips before she finally says, “Would you rather that I do it?”
He pauses his movements and regards her with interest.
“Experiment on me?” he says. Of course, he never misses the chance to tease her.
She rolls her eyes. “Fix your bandages.”
For a while, he is silent; but Daemon’s silence has always been expressive. He scans her in a manner that makes her wish she could peer into his mind; feel the emotions imparted to what he sees; learn his thoughts and what they inform him about her. Alas, she can do nothing but hold her breath in anticipation.
Ever since they kissed on the night of his return, they have been tentative around each other. Perhaps it is by a mutual desire to be discreet where many eyes await their smallest slip. Perhaps they fear rocking a boat that threatens to topple over at the slightest nudge. Perhaps they are simply at a loss as to what to do. Their duties collide with their desires relentlessly, and recklessness has paved a path for their ruin time and time again. Though she can never suppress the impulses that call upon her to act a certain way, she has learned to fear anything that might end up sending Daemon away again.
The culmination of all these dreads and anxieties is the yearning that has brought her to his chambers so late at night.
He feels this yearning, too. She knows it by his silence; by the look in his eyes. By how he unbuttons his shirt entirely and awaits her next move.
Rhaenyra fights the small smile that tugs at her lips. She walks over to him slowly and stands by his side, a few inches taller than him as he’s seated, and rests a hand against the collar of his shirt. His skin is warm under her touch — she pushes the fabric away with calculated slowness, letting her palm caress the bared skin as it is unclothed. One sleeve falls down his arm, and she gives the other sleeve the same treatment.
When the shirt has pooled around him on the bed, she puts it away on a nearby chair and allows herself to look at Daemon with unabashed curiosity.
Scars litter his body. His back is seared by burn scars, and his arms and chest bear the fruits of many battles. Stab wounds; angry slashes; whip marks. It makes her face pale and her imagination flare up.
“Gods,” she whispers.
“Cold feet, dear niece?”
His voice is as cool as ever. By all accounts, the idea of her wavering and choosing to abandon the task at hand seems to not agitate him in the slightest. But she knows him better than the facade that he presents. She knows he wishes for her to be unaffected by the sight of him. To accept him as he is.
And she says, “No. It’s just…” Her voice drops, allowing the quietude to conserve the sensitivity of this moment. “Do they hurt?”
He raises his head for a second to meet her gaze, then looks straight ahead again. “Most don’t,” he says just as quietly.
She wishes he would elaborate more. She wishes he would tell her every story behind every scar. But his few, select words and his allowance of her to see him in such a vulnerable light are a privilege that is yet to be afforded to anyone but her, and she savors every bit of it.
“I shall get clean bandages,” she says at last.
But he reaches to the side of the bed and offers her what she needs before she can search for it. Their hands brush against each other when she takes the wrap from him.
Ever so carefully, she unfastens the sullied bandage from around his midsection, grimacing when she sees the gash that it conceals. It has stopped bleeding for now, but it’s still red and inflated.
When she begins to wrap a new bandage over the wound, she feels the weight of his gaze on the top of her skull. She’s bending on her knees, so close to his body, feeling the slightest tremors in his muscles and the fluctuations in his breath as her fingers skim over his torso.
She leans closer to him when she brings the bandage around his midsection, and her heart skips a beat when she feels the heat that emanates from his body. His scent ignites something deep within her; something raw and primal. It dulls her wits deliciously.
By the time she has secured the bandage, his breathing has deepened. She chances a glance at him, and finds his eyes lidded and dark. Her mouth goes dry.
Daemon cups her cheek, pressing a thumb against her dried lips. She licks them instinctively, and on accident, her tongue meets his thumb. He stiffens and sucks in a breath, groaning so faintly she wonders if it was the product of her imagination.
Regardless, the sight of him, so strained and desirous, gives her an easy confidence to let her inhibitions go and indulge her curiosity. Languidly, she stands on her feet so that she may see his back again.
Rhaenyra touches the burn scar carefully at first, with only the tips of her fingers, and waits for his reaction.
When he stiffens further, she says in a low tone, “Does it hurt?”
He exhales, “No.”
Reassured, she sits on the bed as well, allowing her fingers to trail down the skin that alternates in its jaggedness and smoothness.
Before she can stop herself, she leans forward and presses her lips to his back, making him breathe out audibly. Her kisses are slow and lingering. They uncoil him until he’s melted under her touch, with impressions of moans barely leaving his lips.
Daemon turns so that he may lean his forehead against her shoulder, and she holds him in a loose embrace, running her hands down his back and arms and kissing his hair.
She kisses his face sweetly as he raises his head, and his lips brush against her neck and jaw with a featherlight touch, until their lips are separated by no more than a breath.
His hands are hot on her sides — the thin material of her nightgown offers only a teasing barrier; hardly a true impediment to feeling the full extent of his touches.
The way his fingers dance up her waist to stop just below the swell of her breasts causes her stomach muscles to contract. When her lips part to allow the release of a shuddering breath, he claims her lower lip in a kiss, and her eyes flutter closed.
“Daemon…” she whispers, and she kisses him with all the passion that has been boiling inside of her since that night in the brothel. She feels him smiling against her lips, and he meets her zeal in kind, until not a single coherent thought remains in her brain.
In a sudden move, he maneuvers her so that her upper body is reclining on the bed, and he looms over her with an arm perched beside her head.
He looks down at her as she looks up at him, his hand caressing her cheek, and her fingertips perched lightly on his wrist.
“As lovely as starlight,” he muses. “And just as out of reach.”
Her awestruck expression morphs into one of confusion.
Where did this wistfulness come from?
She takes his hand and presses it firmly against her cheek.
“I can’t conceive of how I could be more within your reach, uncle,” she says quietly. “You're touching me…” Her fingers graze the ends of his hair before splaying on his chest. She likes the sight of her hand on his bare skin. “I'm touching you,” she breathes.
His lips curl up in that rueful way of his, but he regains his serious expression quickly. “Does anyone know you’re here?”
With some hesitation, she says, “Ser Criston.” She quickly follows up with, “But he won’t tell anyone.”
“How do you know that?”
“Why would he?”
“Do you truly trust him so fully?”
She thinks. Criston's treatment of her has been cold ever since she started abstaining from his embrace. Ever since Daemon came back.
Her silence is enough of an answer for Daemon. He straightens up, and Rhaenyra quickly links her hands around his neck, preventing him from leaving her completely.
“Don't go,” she whispers with some urgency.
He kisses the inside of her arm and straightens up regardless, forcing her arms to fall listlessly to either side.
“I'll think of something,” he promises. “A way for us to convene without anyone’s knowledge.”
And without her volition, the corners of her lips strain in a pleased grin. The prospect of nightly trysts with Daemon — beautifully clandestine; a rebellion against the restrictive rules that bind her to her station — thrills her more than she’s willing to admit.
But then comes the sound of loud footsteps and chatter from behind the doors, and the two of them look over in alarm.
“Hide behind the divan,” whispers Daemon, helping Rhaenyra to her feet. “Be quick.”
She sinks to the carpet-covered floors by the divan, relying on the relatively dark state of her surroundings to conceal her.
The door opens, and she hears her father’s voice.
“Excuse the late hour, Daemon,” he says. “Sleep evaded me, so I thought a stroll might remedy my insomnia. Then I peaked a light from beneath your doors.”
The shadows that move along the floors tell her that they’re walking into the heart of the room.
“And you figured nothing could be more sleep-inducing than speaking to your brother,” says Daemon, his voice teasing.
Rhaenyra peaks her head from above the seat and sees that Viserys’ back is facing her. Her eyes catch Daemon’s for a second before he looks over to the doors.
As quietly as she can, she rises to her feet and sneaks her way across the room.
Viserys laughs. “You know I hold no such sentiment.”
It’s a wonder how she manages to open the door without a single creak.
She gives Daemon a triumphant smile and feels certain that the smirk on his face is completely directed at her, even if he's looking at his brother and not at her.
Continuing, Viserys says, “I merely thought to see how well you were recovering —”
What he says next doesn’t reach her ears. She slips behind the doors, closes them silently, and, with her heart full and soaring, she goes back to her chambers.