Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The righteous has enough to satisfy his appetite, but the belly of the wicked suffers want.

When Alicent wakes up, she can feel a body plastered along her back and a soft murmur of breath against the back of her neck. Keeping her eyes closed even after regaining consciousness, she tries to move a little, but the hold in her waist tightens, keeping her in place.

Alicent lets out a contented sigh and turns around in the arms that hold her. Her forehead is resting under a chin, and her face hides in the crook of a warm neck. The smell feels too familiar, and the surrounding warmth is too comfortable. It feels like— Alicent’s stomach twists and her cheeks turn bright red when she recognizes the body next to her. 

She struggles to swallow around the shame lodged in her throat, feeling how that one little voice in her head suddenly makes an appearance, panicking and telling her to run away as quickly as she can. 

With a deep breath, Alicent makes the effort to collect herself, to reel the waving threads of her attention and her consciousness back within the bounds of her skin. Just for today, she chooses to ignore that voice and allow herself to feel at peace. 

Progress. Or recoil. It is hard to tell what this is.

They are motionless and silent for a long beat. Their breaths synced up, their chests and backs expanding and touching for each inhale or exhale.

Alicent lets out a sigh and finally opens her eyes, startling as soon as she adjusts her vision. Rhaenyra is awake, and her scrutinizing eyes pierce more than usual. The burn of her gaze is precise and sharp as a dagger. Her touch is fiery hot. It hurts. It all hurts suddenly. Feeling as if the air was being sucked out of her lungs, she tries to move away, but Rhaenyra’s grip around her prevents her from escaping.

“You hugged me all night as if you were a helpless baby, why are you acting so shy now?” Rhaenyra asks, her deep, rich, and smooth voice folding into a low rumble. 

Alicent feels her heart race with horror as some memories of last night play behind her eyelids. She squeezes her eyes, ashamed of her own behavior.

“What are you doing up so early?” Alicent changes the topic. She must look as untethered as she feels, squirming around Rhaenyra’s arms. Taking a deep breath again, she tries to calm herself. “How long have you been awake?”

“Not so long ago.” Rhaenyra answers honestly. “I thought you were going to run away, but then I remembered that this is your bed. Where else would you have gone?” Of course, she is straightforward with her words. Extremely blunt. Of course.

Alicent wonders if she should fake a laugh, or at least try to respond with a scathing comment or some lie to save her skin.

At the end, she makes no response to the declaration, and after a couple seconds, Rhaenyra releases the grip she had around Alicent’s waist and lies on her back, staring at the ceiling. Only then does Alicent breathe again, placing her hands on the bed to lift her body and sit between the sheets. She inhales and exhales, and then she is fine again, or near enough. There is only a small, tight ache between her shoulders that Alicent rolls out as subtly as she can before looking at Rhaenyra again.

Her hair is falling down her back and onto the bed, and there is a light, soft look in her eyes. The sight of it leaves Alicent momentarily breathless. Rhaenyra is beautiful, always, but in the sunlight she is ethereal; high cheekbones and intense blue eyes. Alicent loses herself for a moment, her heart thrumming a quickening beat as they look at each other.

“Did you regret asking me to stay?” Rhaenyra’s voice filters through her brain, and Alicent stops abruptly when her mind reignites for a second and things become a little clearer. 

“No,” Alicent replies, and it’s true, but it still amazes her for how hurriedly her brain felt the need to clear it up.

Rhaenyra smiles at her. It feels as peaceful as it looks.

Alicent looks away and pulls her knees up to her chest, her palms sweaty and her heart pounding. She doesn’t want to ruin the moment and screw up whatever truce they arranged last night. She really does not want to. But—

“Talya is going to come wake me up soon...” Alicent blurts out, hoping Rhaenyra understands what she is trying to say and does not get offended by that. Embarrassment is etched on her face, because she really doesn’t want to ruin the moment, but she still retains her common sense.

Rhaenyra gives her an understanding look. “I know,” she replies as she stretches herself and rolls her neck before standing up. She looks unbothered. It is a skill Alicent cannot match, and she feels her shortcoming more and more each day.

A part of her thinks the comparison is not fair. Rhaenyra does not know shame as deeply as she does. She doesn’t even seem to know what shame feels like. How could she, after years of carrying on her affair with Harwin Strong? Slipping out of another person’s sheets might be easy for Rhaenyra, but it isn’t for her.

Alicent settles her hands more surely upon her knees, the only sign of resentment and anger, if those are the words for it. She cannot point out if what she feels is resentment or anger, exactly. It feels close to rage. Alicent has felt it many times, anger for Rhaenyra’s brazenness and impunity. It feels different this time— a different kind of itch. Alicent recognizes that feeling.

“Next time, tell your lady-in-waiting not to wake you up.”

Next time? Alicent blinks at Rhaenyra. She is used to feeling like she’s three pages behind Rhaenyra in any given conversation, but this feels more like they’re not even reading the same book.

At the end, she just nods in response and tries not to think about the words too much, the assumption that Rhaenyra will come back, that she’ll stay the night in her room again. She especially tries to ignore the way she perks up at the idea.

When Alicent looks up to meet Rhaenyra’s eyes, the other woman is smiling now. A soft, muted thing that’s a bit too warm for the mundanity of the situation, but it eases Alicent’s nerves all the same. A little bit. She just hopes Rhaenyra doesn’t want to talk about last night. She doubts she’d have anything to say about it other than being embarrassed by how pathetically needy she was. 

Rhaenyra doesn’t say anything about it. But she is also not kind enough to leave without making everything more complicated than it should be, like she likes to do all the time.

“I can’t leave without a proper goodbye, Alicent.” 

It takes Alicent a moment longer than she’d expect to process her words this time. But when she does, she feels her face heat all the way down to her neck, and she’s grateful for the fact that Rhaenyra doesn’t comment on it.

“You cannot be serious.” Alicent tells her, a few stuttered heartbeats too late. 

“I wonder how quickly Talya could open the door and see me here.” Rhaenyra looks at the door, pinching her bottom lip between her forefinger and thumb. “Although I am sure you could come up with a good explanation for why I am in your chambers so early in the morning, with my nightgown still on!” 

Alicent gives her a long, stern look, but Rhaenyra doesn’t move at all from her spot, crossing her arms where she stands like a petulant child.

Unfortunately, Alicent is not awake enough to come with a witty remark or avoid the petition. And maybe it is the panic of someone finding out Rhaenyra is here or the way Rhaenyra is staring at her, but suddenly she feels much more nervous than before, and honestly, she doesn’t have the energy to get mad at her little games.

Alicent feels her cheeks burning as she reluctantly gets out of bed and walks towards Rhaenyra. She stands in front of her, watching the way Rhaenyra gives her a challenging look. Alicent presses her lips together, unsure of what to think of this. She shouldn’t think of this, so she swallows, not thinking too much about it as she leans in and leaves a sweet, chaste kiss on Rhaenyra’s cheek. 

Rhaenyra blinks at her, then tilts her head with a smile. “Is this your usual way of saying goodbye? I didn’t ask for a kiss.”

A sinking sickness appears in Alicent’s belly. She lowers her shoulders, defeated. “I thought—” she stops in the middle of her babbling when she sees the glint in Rhaenyra’s eyes, and then, she grumbles, running a hand through her hair. Rhaenyra is playing. Of course, she is. “Go. I don’t want to see your face for the rest of the day.”

Rhaenyra giggles, bubbly and amused, and Alicent hates how the sound makes her heart skip a beat. She rolls her eyes and tries to turn around, but Rhaenyra stops her, moving her hand to the back of her neck to bring her into a kiss. Her lips are soft and plush under hers, making Alicent’s mouth tingle as soon as her mind registers she’s kissing Rhaenyra.

Alicent pulls away and blinks her eyes open dazedly, dreamily, seeing the way Rhaenyra is looking at her—fun and bright.

Rhaenyra leans in again, just for a second, just to kiss her one last time. It’s sweet and slow— everything that she could have wanted. Sadly, it’s over far too soon for her liking, and she finds herself wanting for more when Rhaenyra pulls away completely. 

Alicent swallows, mouth wet and throat parched. She is grateful, then, that Rhaenyra turns around, so she can finally breathe.

Rhaenyra’s head inclines, and sunlight paints the line of her back lightning gold. Her voice, when it comes, is soft. “I hope that was a joke. We’ll see each other later, right?”

“Perhaps.” Alicent replies, not committing to anything, but not denying the possibility either.

Rhaenyra gives her one last look before she gives Alicent her back again, and Alicent hates to see her go, despises the way it makes her hands feel the need to reach out and hold her in place, but she can’t help it. She wants Rhaenyra to be here.

She doesn’t know why— why today, why now, why so desperately, even after they spent a whole night together. Maybe it was not enough; maybe she still feels greedy for an orgasm; maybe— maybe she just wants to be close to Rhaenyra for no reason at all. She has been wanting to get away from her constant eyes on her the whole morning and the shame that comes with it, right up until the moment she was faced with the real possibility of Rhaenyra leaving again. She tries to see her walk out of the door, and she just can’t.

Alicent forces her eyes to shut and takes a deep, steady breath, then slowly exhales through her mouth. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

Then she goes back to bed and waits to be woken up.

It feels hollow without the second body there— meaningless, even. The emptiness inside her echoes with something she can’t name.

On sleepless nights, Alicent allows herself to wonder if it was really Rhaenyra who ruined her or if she never stood a chance, and she was born broken. Just like every night, she never finds an answer. It just ends with a simple maybe. Maybe if she had grown up in Oldtown she would be a different woman with normal needs and normal thoughts. Maybe.

The truth, really, is simple: she never finds an answer because, deep down, she doesn’t want to find an answer. Because no matter how miserable or terrible her life gets because of Rhaenyra, she can’t imagine one without her.

Meeting Rhaenyra changed her life; it changed nearly everything for her. From the moment she first smiled at her and called her friend, Alicent dug her claws into her adamantly, even before she had learned how to say her name.

Sometimes Alicent does not even remember what she was like before Rhaenyra, as if she had created her. Rhaenyra feels like a God in that sense. Alicent clung to her as if she were a God. When kneeling and praying didn’t help her find comfort, she found peace in Rhaenyra’s lap. Around her, the pressure to perform didn’t exist, and Alicent could go quiet, soft, and unguarded. Around her, Alicent could be gossipy, sharp-tongued and noisy, and just... herself, without the fear of being questioned.

Rhaenyra became her third leg, her support, and once their friendship died under the Godswood, Alicent discovered how hard it is to walk with a phantom limb.

There were days when they could be full of each other; after that, they slowly started seeing each other less and less until they were entirely out of sync, only seeing each other for a handful of hours when they were forced to interact. It was a big change.

Alicent never admitted it, not even in her head, but during the first three years in which she had to re-make her life without Rhaenyra, she missed her every hour that trickled by. It felt similar to the phantom sensations people feel from a part of their body that is no longer there. It’s the only way Alicent can come close to describing how it felt—a piercing incompleteness—as her mind reached toward something that used to be immediately present. 

Ten years later, she realizes that she did not only miss Rhaenyra for the first three years. In fact, that part of herself she worked so hard to scrub out of her bloodstream was never really gone, only expertly hidden, ready to come back out if they gave it an opportunity.

And Rhaenyra gave it an opportunity to come back over and over again, and now it is too late, and the feelings she tried so hard to repress are outside the grave, walking between them like a bunch of ghosts.

Alicent has never understood what part of sex makes men lose their minds enough to kill for it. She has never understood why they seem to chase the warmth of an unknown woman like it is something special, important, or necessary, as if they were going to die if they did not pursue their degenerate whims. 

She never understood why sex makes people go mad. Until now. It’s a need she didn’t feel before and has gotten out of her control. It’s hard not to think about it when she goes back to her chambers and lies alone in bed, feeling the sheets cold and aching with the memory of what it felt like to wake up hot and tangled with Rhaenyra after morning.

Lately, Alicent feels off-kilter, like another person, a greedier version of herself. She hates herself for it, but she has also punished herself enough for it, and after having the skin around her nails bloody and raw for a whole month and her knees bruised for spending so many times in the Grand Sept, Alicent has learned that hurting herself does nothing to put an end to her feelings or desires.

Recently, though, Alicent hasn’t had to do much hand wringing at all over that particular anxiety and uncertainty that has been eating her alive the past weeks, and it all comes down to three reasons she’s going to hang onto until her knuckles blanch. The first one is that Rhaenyra hinted that there would be a second time. The second one is that Rhaenyra seemed quite content the last time they met. The third one is that Rhaenyra gave her permission to touch her whenever she wanted.

The last one feels like a dream.

Alicent wonders if Rhaenyra meant what she said that night; she wonders if Rhaenyra somehow still does. She does not want to talk about it, though. Alicent wants to skirt around it. It’s enough to let that stone go unturned and to trust in it as another weird and nebulous thread tying them together.

She knows it’s foolish to expect something. Rhaenyra has always been loud and dramatic, and she also says a lot of nonsense and then forgets she ever said these things within the hour. She swears and breaks her promises, she lies and twists the truth. Alicent knows she shouldn’t trust Rhaenyra blindly and wish, long, hope. But in the last few weeks, she has felt like a child again — in a lot of different ways.

Rhaenyra makes it so easy to feel like a fifteen-year-old girl again.

Alicent has no idea if she slept for ten minutes or ten hours. Lately, she hasn’t been able to sleep well. It’s not like this is unusual, though. The last time she slept well was probably twelve years ago. Ever since then, there has always been something ugly splintering in her. 

This time is different. It does not feel like that anxious and horrible feeling that invades her in the middle of the night. It is hunger, or something like it, both visceral and metaphoric. Primal emptiness, a lean winter.

Alicent’s stomach is not empty. She knows it’s another hunger.

It has only been three days, but Alicent finds herself wishing for Rhaenyra to come and kiss her, or fuck her, or whatever she wants to do with her. And then she wonders if the Gods are sick of her asking for that, and they are punishing her for the same reason. She wishes she wasn’t so tired and could pay attention to her husband or father, or whatever Lord Jasper Wylde is saying that makes Rhaenyra lean her back against the chair and frown. Technically, she could try to listen, but it’s probably not worth it, and anyway, she only needs to look at Rhaenyra to feel wide awake with a growing pit in her stomach. 

It takes her a couple of seconds to realize her father is staring at her. There is no expression on his face, none that anyone else can notice, but Alicent is his daughter, and she can feel that judging gaze piercing her skull. He can probably see how distracted she is, and Alicent hopes that’s all he can see through her.

Alicent gulps and straightens her posture. How humiliating.

From there, she tries to pay attention, but then she realizes that Rhaenyra is also looking at her, and that makes her feel even more nervous than her father’s gaze. Alicent feels a bit like she is between a rock and a hard place, as if Rhaenyra’s gaze on her was a knife to her throat.

She does her best to ignore it until the very end, but once she leaves the small council and Rhaenyra tilts her head for her to follow her, the beat of Alicent’s heart falters. Then she can feel it— the tether drawing tight and pulling comfortingly towards Rhaenyra.

There is a fight in her head between what she is supposed to do and what she wants to do. What she needs to do is go with Viserys and take care of him because she is his wife. What she wants to do is follow Rhaenyra, his daughter, and, well, fuck her. The thought makes her feel sick. 

Alicent wonders what kind of woman that makes her.

Rhaenyra almost disappears down the hall when she looks over her shoulder. Then there it is again, that little tug on this leash linking them, telling Alicent it’s time to follow her. And she does. Alicent makes up an excuse and apologizes to her husband before she walks after Rhaenyra until she catches up with her. Rhaenyra’s eyes flicker toward her, settling into something self-satisfying, and she definitely must feel it as well, that tangible line connecting them.

For a moment, it feels like Alicent’s body moves before her brain has time to catch up with the situation. It takes her a couple seconds to realize they are heading towards her own chambers, and it takes her half a second to get excited ridiculously quickly about it. Alicent should be embarrassed of that, but she can barely fit a foot into the room before Rhaenyra shoves her back against the door the second it closes.

Trepidation about what’s to come bleeds into anticipation and a complete jumble of emotions that leaves her gaping, heart galloping wildly.

“Rhaenyra.” Alicent greets her, a little dazed due to the proximity.

“Alicent.” Rhaenyra leans forward, and Alicent tenses, a nervous sweat starting up under her hair. She considers her, teeth sinking into her bottom lip, and Alicent can’t help the way her eyes drop and linger. She’s sure Rhaenyra can tell.

Rhaenyra’s tongue darts out to wet her lips. It’s enticing and torturous, and if Alicent were a braver woman—a worse one—she'd kiss Rhaenyra right now.

It seems Rhaenyra is braver than her, because her hand slides up the side of Alicent’s jaw, and then their mouths are pressed together. Alicent barely has time to process it before it gets heated. Rhaenyra’s tongue brushes against her lips, and she opens her mouth and lets Rhaenyra kiss her deeper.

There is a chorus of small, desperate sounds and for a moment, Alicent thinks she is the one making those sounds before she realizes it is Rhaenyra, small and desperate. One of her hands has gone up to Alicent’s hair, threading itself in the strands on the back of her head. She lightly scratches her nails on her scalp, making Alicent shiver.

A protesting sound dies in her throat when Rhaenyra pulls back, breaking the kiss. Alicent blinks, mouth falling slightly open, taken aback by the sudden turn in the conversation.

Rhaenyra sighs and buries her face in Alicent’s neck, mouthing along her jaw and collarbones. Alicent can’t help but let out a sigh then, throwing her head back a little further and exposing more skin for Rhaenyra to kiss.

Alicent swears the room is hotter than it was a few minutes ago, and it has all to do with Rhaenyra’s mouth working on her skin.

“I am tired,” Rhaenyra complains, trailing her mouth from Alicent’s neck all the way up to her ear. “If I had to spend one more second listening to a bunch of men talking as if they knew everything, I would probably commit murder. Did you see the way Lord Wylde ignored me? I am the heir to the throne, and he doesn’t even care about my opinion.”

Alicent can’t find her voice right now; she can’t answer. So instead, she just makes a sound of agreement, feeling Rhaenyra’s fingertips drag along her sides.

If she didn’t have Rhaenyra’s mouth breathing in her ear, she could probably scoff or tell her that maybe it would be best to just sit back and listen if she wants to rule one day like her father does. Alicent doesn’t want to be cruel, though. Rhaenyra has been trying lately, she no longer argues or refutes every single little thing she says, which shows that she really is trying to make peace with her or something like that.

A part of Alicent believes that maybe, just maybe, Rhaenyra has been seeking her approval ever since that conversation they had in her chambers. Sometimes it seems like she does that when she throws her little glances across the room, as if she expects her to applaud her or pat her head for understanding something. Alicent just does not understand what Rhaenyra wants from her. If she wanted the throne, she'd be seeking her father’s approval, and yet she keeps looking at her.

Maybe it is simple, and all she wants is for her to kneel down and tell her she’ll be a good Queen. Maybe she just wants to make sure she has her father and stepmother’s support in her claim. Or maybe, just maybe, she is doing this for a senseless reason, like—

Rhaenyra’s mouth biting on her earlobe pulls her away from the frustrated spiral of her thoughts she got herself into— all too familiar and way too dangerous a thing to get sucked into right now.

This is not the place or moment to overthink about these kinds of things.

Rhaenyra collapses onto her shoulder and tilts her head, nose tickling Alicent’s neck. “If only something could help me find some brief relief.”

Alicent hums, too distracted by the feeling of Rhaenyra’s lips mouthing her collarbones. 

Rhaenyra is very touchy today, she realizes. Although, it makes sense. When they were young and Rhaenyra was stressed or grumpy, she used to rest her head on her lap, grab her hand and force her to scratch her hair until she was docile and happy under her fingers. At those moments, Rhaenyra felt like a cat. Alicent always liked cats, even though her father never allowed her to have one when she was a child. She also really enjoyed knowing she was the only person who could make Rhaenyra feel better. It felt good to be useful.

“Alicent.” Rhaenyra’s voice cuts through her thoughts once again. She’s frowning, a little frustrated tilt to her brows. 

Alicent meets her gaze. “Hm?”

A sigh. “I need you.”

“Oh.” Alicent’s voice is flat. She blinks again.

It’s not like she did not anticipate some level of directness after last night, but for it to come like this... Maybe she was not best prepared for this. The skin of her neck heats up again, all the way past her ears and down to her chest. 

Rhaenyra is still looking at her expectantly. Her eyes are so close, so dark, and unmoving. “Don’t you want to fuck me?” she asks rhetorically, running her palms soothingly along her sides.

Alicent’s stomach twists absently at her words, but it’s not a feeling she can focus on. Instead, the sensation of Rhaenyra touching her washes over her, as unforgivingly alluring as it always is.

“So?” Rhaenyra repeats, getting visibly impatient.

There’s that look in her eyes again, that dark, devouring hunger as she steps so close that Alicent can feel her chest heaving against her own.

“You want this, don’t you?” Rhaenyra doesn’t even bother phrasing it as a question. It is a statement, like she knows how powerless Alicent is in the wake of her will. “How much have you thought about this since last time? How much have you wanted this? And now you’re going to throw away the opportunity to have me?”

Alicent leans her head back against the door and finally crumbles at the sound of Rhaenyra’s voice, low and warm by her ear. Rhaenyra is always hard to resist, and Alicent’s resolve is still weak from the last time. It’s been a rough couple of weeks. Even after several days, she can still feel Rhaenyra’s hands on her, the heat of her body pressing close.

Rhaenyra is right. She is not going to waste the chance to have her. No matter how much or how little she gets from this, she still wants it. She wants whatever Rhaenyra will give her.

Alicent lets the moment drag out for a moment before she gives up and drops to her knees, making a point to cushion her fall.

It hurts a little when she hits the hard floor. Her knees are still sore, but she’s gotten used to the pain that comes with spending hours repenting in the Sept. Kneeling seems almost natural to her. Alicent has done it countless times— alone, beside her mother, beside Rhaenyra, but never before Rhaenyra. It should feel degrading, but it does not. It feels easy.

Rhaenyra raises her eyebrows and curls a hand around the back of her head. “I didn’t think you’d get down on your knees so quickly.”

“Do you want me to fuck you or not?” Alicent blurts out, and there it is again, that sexual frustration jamming into her voice. It was not her intention to let the words slip out of her mouth like a disgusting glob of half-chewed food, and now she feels a bit mortified to have said it like that, without even a mocking tone to hide behind.

Rhaenyra’s mouth falls open in pleasant surprise. Then she laughs, a full-belly laugh, low and rumbling.

“Who would have thought that the Queen could have such a vulgar mouth?” Rhaenyra scoffs, rubbing the oversensitive side of her neck. Alicent shivers and gives her a pointed look, attempting to get up, but Rhaenyra tightens her grip on the back of her neck and keeps her on the ground. “Go ahead, then. Use that pretty mouth of yours.” 

Alicent looks up and bites her lip, knowing there’s a blush creeping down her chest. “Someone might hear you,” she points out, worried, as she watches the way Rhaenyra leans against the door and awaits.

“It makes it more exciting, don’t you think?” Rhaenyra tells her seductively, her voice all low and hot. “I wonder what people would think if they heard such lascivious sounds coming from the Queen’s chambers.”

“Rhaenyra.” Alicent warns her through gritted teeth. Her dead pride feels a little insulted. If Viserys finds out about this, if her father does... Alicent doesn’t want to think about it. She closes her eyes and pushes the thoughts away, trying to ignore the way her gut twists. The pins and needles of guilt didn’t start sinking in until right now. 

Rhaenyra rolls her eyes. “I know how to be quiet,” she replies as she sweeps her dress up and above her knees, holding it against her waist. She is not wearing any undergarments, and Alicent suddenly forgets about all her worries, feeling her throat dry when she notices the aroused glistening between her thighs. “Unlike someone.”

Alicent doesn’t miss the teasing tone in the last part. She rolls her eyes and swallows her shame and guilt before leaning in.

Rhaenyra is soaking wet, and that makes her a bit dizzy. Alicent barely grinds her nose against the small bud and breathes against her cunt, just to annoy Rhaenyra. Unlike the first time, she wants this enough to allow herself to play a bit, to take her time, and to explore and taste.

After a couple of minutes, Rhaenyra gives her one sharp look before throwing one of her legs over Alicent’s shoulder and leaning forward, bumping her cunt against Alicent’s face to find more friction. If Alicent were in a position to complain, she would have called her out on how rude that was.

“Alicent.” Her voice is collected, yet hoarse and threatening. Her hands tangle in Alicent’s hair, desperate in a way the rest of her isn’t, and Alicent wonders which part of Rhaenyra’s body is telling the truth.

Alicent takes a look up at her, wanting to see Rhaenyra’s face above her. It’s ridiculous how fine she looks when she’s all frustrated and impatient with desire— a sort of eager fieryness in her eyes as she bites her lower lip, looking down at Alicent with need.

“You really want this, huh?” Alicent asks. She is a little bitter about it and tries to inject in her voice the same amount of mockery that Rhaenyra uses on her all the time.

Rhaenyra looks down and gives her an annoyed look that Alicent allows herself to enjoy for a few seconds. It’s a rhetorical question, Rhaenyra must know it. Alicent doesn’t expect an answer, and Rhaenyra doesn’t give one; she just puts her hands in Alicent’s hair, trying to nudge her to where she’s hot and wet already.

She definitely wants this badly, maybe more than she is willing to admit. Alicent can tell by the way her teeth let go of her lip, her mouth falling open just slightly, and she jerks her hips forward with selfish abandon.

The thought of Rhaenyra being this desperate for her is more than enough encouragement to stay still and let Rhaenyra take what she needs. Alicent immediately swirls her tongue around her clit and when she sucks it, Rhaenyra moans, soft and quiet but distinct enough, tightening the grip on her hair and holding her against her cunt. Rhaenyra lamps her mouth shut as soon as the sound reaches her ears, her face hot.

“I thought you knew how to be quiet.” Alicent taunts from below, and this time she thinks she deserves to have her hair pulled.

Rhaenyra’s grip on Alicent’s hair tightens, pushing her face forward without caring whether she can breathe or not. Alicent is not as bothered by it as she should be; her cunt is wet and aching just by listening to Rhaenyra, and smelling her, and feeling her on her tongue. It’s a humiliating revelation, but it feels good to please Rhaenyra. Alicent supposes it is similar to the feeling she used to feel when she was young and made Rhaenyra happy by fulfilling her whims.

It’s a bit frightening how accommodating she is becoming, even without the need for Rhaenyra to encourage her with any reward as she used to do before.

Alicent tries to tell herself that she can keep it under control; that she is not that far gone yet. The voice of reason in her mind dies along with her worries as she feels the meat of Rhaenyra’s thighs closing around her head when she comes with a strangled moan.

Tightening her fingers in Alicent’s hair, Rhaenyra pulls her head back, forcing her to look up at her. Her head is against the door— chest heaving, slack-jawed, tits swelling and fighting a bit against her dress.

Alicent feels dizzy as she stands up.

Rhaenyra stares at her and then holds her face to lick the wetness out of her face. Alicent holds a whine and places a hand on Rhaenyra’s neck, pulling her in and kissing her with fumbling desperation.

Rhaenyra lets herself fall into her properly, letting Alicent touch and hold her. She wants to feel as much of Rhaenyra as she can, and Rhaenyra said she could touch her wherever she wanted to— anytime, anywhere. She said it.

Alicent kisses down her throat, and Rhaenyra hums, wrapping her arms around Alicent’s waist. Her other hand digs into the wealth of Rhaenyra’s hair at the back of her head, keeping her exactly where she wants her. Her tongue, hot and wet, licks along Rhaenyra’s bottom lip.

Rhaenyra finally pulls away, and she still manages to look more put-together than Alicent, who is now panting and trembling. She is staring at her with the same hunger in her eyes as before, doing a once-over of her face all the way down her chest. Then her gaze falls low, all the way down to her legs, where Alicent is pressing her thighs together.

Alicent feels embarrassed suddenly, like Rhaenyra can see through her clothes how wet she is. Maybe she can sense it in the way she is breathing. It is so embarrassing how transparent she is.

“I promised my children that I would spend the day with them.” Rhaenyra explains as she takes a step back.

Alicent almost screams.

Rhaenyra must be on a mission to kill her.

Alicent clenches her fists at her sides. She wants to beg, to demand, to tell Rhaenyra that her children can wait. Unfortunately, she is sober, and the drunken sensation of kissing Rhaenyra isn’t enough to make her say any of those things.

Rhaenyra looks at her for a moment, and Alicent thinks she sees her lips slightly curl up for a moment. It makes her want to slap her. She knows what she is doing to her. Maybe Alicent teased her a little too much.

“You can have me tomorrow,” Rhaenyra promises, almost as a consolation, before she leans in, pressing a fleeting kiss against Alicent’s cheek. It’s as light as a feather. Not more than a brush.

Rhaenyra leaves right after that, smiling at her one last time before turning away.

Alicent sighs and watches her walk away, disappearing as she closes the door behind her. Only then does she bring a hand to her own face, fingertips tracing over the spot Rhaenyra kissed her on. It tingles.

Once again, Rhaenyra slips away from her fingers. Once again, she feels edgy and unsatisfied. Her body aches with a discomfort that stretches through every muscle. To be so close and yet so far from the goal, to have Rhaenyra’s hand on her waist, to be looked at with such desire, only to have it taken away again.

Before Rhaenyra called her, she meant to go to her chambers, to collapse on the mattress face-first and pass out for a good long while. Now she spends the next ten minutes in the same place she fucked Rhaenyra; fingers deep inside her and forehead against the door. 

It takes her less than a minute to come, and she is thinking about Rhaenyra in such tormentingly close distance the entire time: the way her voice sounded; the way she looked, blushed and wet and struggling not to moan, the smell and taste of her, the feel of her skin. Her orgasm punches through her, leaving her sweaty and sticky and turned inside out, panting up at her ceiling.

When Alicent looks at her own fingers, she lets out a breathless laugh. The situation is not funny at all. It is just ridiculous— the image of the Queen giving herself pleasure in such a public space, thinking about her stepdaughter who she just fucked... Gods, what has she become? 

It’s not that simple to deny herself these kinds of pleasures anymore, and maybe it never was. Maybe she has just been really good at pretending she does not want any of this.

The only thought that comforts her is that at least this time Rhaenyra is not here to see how pathetic she is. At least she is not here to witness this particular lapse. 

Alicent said to herself that she doesn’t want to appear desperate and needy, and that is still true, but her feelings do not work that way, they are changing all the time. Sometimes she wishes it was something she could hold on to, something simpler and more solid. 

This time, there is a sick satisfaction twisted in Alicent’s chest, bubbling up her throat, when Rhaenyra keeps her word, and the next day, she calls her to her chambers. The feeling of anticipation she feels is even worse than the day before, and Alicent thought it couldn’t get any worse.

Once she starts thinking about it, she can’t stop. She thinks about Rhaenyra walking up to her, a hand on her hip, chest-to-back, and asking if she wants it. She thinks about accepting, because she would, of course. Alicent thinks about Rhaenyra underneath her, her hot skin and heavy eyes. She thinks about kissing Rhaenyra. She thinks she wants to. She definitely wants to.

Her body feels light and tingly as she heads toward Rhaenyra’s chambers. It almost feels like her feet aren’t even touching the ground, and she is just being pulled across the passage. Before opening the door, Alicent takes a breath. Then she enters the room.

The first thing she sees is the image of Rhaenyra holding Joffrey in her arms, and it does not take her long to realize that perhaps she was wrong about a lot of things. 

It settles some of the agitation crawling over her skin, like a lot of ants, but there’s a hollowed-out disappointment in the bottom of her stomach that rings louder. Then the shame comes, faster than usual, for coming here with such intentions. It’s dumb, of course, to expect something sexual or physical all the time. Alicent tends to forget that Rhaenyra has a life outside of this, outside of her.

She feels like a fool suddenly. She just hopes desperately that this realization isn’t written all over her face, like her every thought always is when it comes to the woman standing in the middle of the room.

Alicent scrubs her hand up into her hair, then down to the back of her neck. Joffrey is awake, but she doesn’t know if Rhaenyra is just playing with him or trying to get him to sleep. Just in case, she mouths, “Is it a bad time?”

Rhaenyra gives her a reassuring look as Joffrey digs his head into her chest. “No. I was just teaching him some words.” Her voice is so quiet, so soft. 

Alicent is jittery, with one of her heels bobbing up and down and her chest expanding a little too quickly. Rhaenyra looks casual, wearing only an old red dress, her hair falling in waves over her shoulders. 

“If you want to spend time with your child, I can leave. I don’t want to be a burden.”

“You won’t be a burden. I just wanted to ask you something, it won’t take so long,” Rhaenyra explains calmly as she wraps Joffrey more securely in her arms, hugging him. “Besides, Joffrey is not a noisy boy. He won’t bother us.”

Alicent is still unsure, and it must be obvious, because Rhaenyra cuts her off before she can even open her mouth to retort.

“Wait a moment,” Rhaenyra commands as she leans down and carefully puts Joffrey on the floor, where all his toys are scattered. She gives her a long, pinning stare. “Don’t leave.”

Rhaenyra seems to take her silence as assent, because soon she disappears to the next room.

Unfortunately, Alicent cannot leave, even if she wishes to. Without saying a word, she sits down on the bench, hands settled on her knees. Her heart is on a race, and every beat of it says: stay stay stay. Don’t leave don’t leave, stay. 

There is a moment where she doesn’t know what to do, so she looks down where Joffrey is.

He is already one year old. It seems like it was yesterday when she held him in her arms after he was born. Alicent thinks about that day, and the memory of it settles an awful, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. A year ago, she could not even look at Rhaenyra in the eyes without feeling pure rage. It is strange how much things have changed since then.

Alicent looks at Joffrey and his dark brown hair and feels something close to resentment.

Maybe some things did not change at all.

Alicent wonders if it will ever stop making her heart ache, if she will ever stop feeling so mad every time she thinks about Rhaenyra with that man. It is not even the fact that Rhaenyra had bastards what bothers her— not this time. The anger comes from the image of Rhaenyra loving him enough to have three children with him. The first one was perhaps a mistake, but the rest?

That is what bothers her the most— the thought of Rhaenyra loving him.

Alicent has seen what lust does to Rhaenyra— she sees it all the time. She has seen what curiosity leads her to do with Ser Criston. She has seen the consequences of her sick obsession with Daemon. But she has never seen what lines she is willing to cross for love. Alicent remembers the way she used to smile at Harwin Strong and thinks; is this what Rhaenyra looks like when she looks at someone she loves?

Joffrey shifts his gaze from his wooden dragon to her and stares at her for a long time. There is a frown on his face that makes Alicent uncomfortable enough to get out of the storm that is brewing in her mind.

He looks upset, even though it does not seem like he wants to cry. Alicent can’t understand what he wants, and that frustrates her. She has always found it difficult to decipher what children want. Helaena used to cry a lot when she was young. Alicent would try to give her everything a child would want, but that never stopped the crying. In the end, she always gave up and let her nursemaid calm her down for her.

Maybe Joffrey is reading through her, just like his mother does, and he does not like what he sees. Maybe he remembers the first time they met. She probably left a bad impression on him.

It is an uncomfortably long minute before she can hear Rhaenyra’s footsteps again. Alicent does not stir.

When she looks up, Rhaenyra’s hair looks different: she is wearing a braid now, and loose strands fall down the sides of her face. Alicent wonders when she learned to do her own hair. When Rhaenyra was a child, she’d always ask her to do it for her because she was too lazy to do it on her own. Another change.

Rhaenyra looks… good, as always. Touchable. Comforting. Alicent’s fingers itch. She clenches her hands into fists and presses them into her own thighs.

Alicent does not know what to say, so she blurts out the first thing that comes to her mind. “I think he does not like me,” she says, cocking her head towards Joffrey, and— she feels absurd. This shouldn’t be the first thing out of her mouth.

Her words seem to catch Rhaenyra off guard because she lets out a chuckle before lifting an eyebrow. “Why do you believe that?”

“He is frowning at me.”

Rhaenyra laughs, this one softer. “Oh, he tends to do that when he is focused,” she explains, walking towards both of them. Once she is next to him, she crouches down a little, follows Joffrey’s gaze, and contemplates the view. Then the corners of her lips curve upward. “I think he likes your hair.”

Alicent instantly brings a hand to her head and touches her hair, frowning in confusion. “How do you know that?”

“He keeps looking at it. I wonder if he thinks your hair is made of flames,” Rhaenyra says, thoughtful. “I understand how he feels. I was also fascinated by your hair when I was young.”

Rhaenyra is smiling this time, open and bright.

Without consent, Alicent’s heart aches, and she wonders if this is ever going to stop hurting.

Alicent twists her hands in her lap. After a moment, her head tilts down, jerky. “Where is his father?” It is an inappropriate question, and she doesn’t realize the implication of it until it is too late.

Rhaenyra throws her an unreadable look across the room. If it hurts her or reminds her of someone else, she does not show it. “Leanor is with Jace and Luke.”

Alicent nods. The conversation is too boring, too mundane, too goddamn normal. She rubs her hands — her palms itches and has gone sweaty. It’s just a conversation, and yet she is still biting back some weird, painful desire. 

“What do you want to tell me?” Alicent manages to get out, unlocking her jaw and prying her tongue off the top of her mouth.

“Oh, right,” Rhaenyra blinks, as if she has forgotten the reason she made Alicent come here. “I’d like to have dinner with you tonight. Just you and me. I talked with my father about it. I think he is happy we are spending time together.”

Alicent stiffens at the last part. It is obvious she did not mention any inappropriate detail to her father, of all people. But for months, each one of their encounters has been their little secret, and Alicent does not know how to feel about the fact someone knows they are getting close, or something like that— specially Viserys. 

“What is the reason for this dinner?” Alicent asks, deciding to ignore this information for now. Suddenly it is all too much, and she’s wondering why her head works the way it does, and everything is giving her a migraine today.

“Do I need a reason?” Rhaenyra asks, and she sounds calm. “I just wanted to.”

It can be so simple? 

Oh, what a stupid question. If Rhaenyra wants something, she takes it. If she wants to have dinner with her, she invites her to have dinner with her. It’s stupid, but—oh, but. Some unnamed muscle unclenches at the thought of it.

Rhaenyra sits next to her, leaving a small space between them, as if someone else were going to sit there. “What is your answer?”

Alicent glances sideways at her, meeting her eyes for one fleeting second before she looks away again. “I expect nothing less than a feast, princess.” 

Rhaenyra chuckles contentedly and then rests her hand on the bench, near where Alicent placed her hand a moment before. Alicent wonders if it is deliberate.

There has been a lot of space between them for the past weeks—months, years. Alicent is no longer mad, or well, at least she is not mad right now. Rhaenyra also said she can touch her if she wants to, and she wants to touch her right now.

Rhaenyra takes what she wants; she pushes her against a wall and kisses her without warning when she is needy, and she plans dinners without asking her first when she wants to. Alicent is not brave enough to do any of these things, but she wants to hold Rhaenyra’s hand. So she allows her hand to move a little and hooks their pinkies together. 

When Rhaenyra moves her hand away, Alicent’s heart drops. For a second, she thinks she got rejected, but then, Rhaenyra scoots so close their thighs touch, and holds out her hand to her, as if inviting her to do whatever she wants with it.

Alicent does not hesitate when she intertwines their fingers and squeezes, to show that she understands. There is a certain familiarity to it, mutual knowledge. Rhaenyra has always known what she needs; she can sense it; she knows her better than Alicent knows herself. If she wants something, Rhaenyra gives it to her— if she feels pious enough, of course.

Rhaenyra seems to be feeling merciful today.

Alicent wouldn’t go as far as to call this a win, since she really didn’t win anything at all, but she feels quite satisfied with this one little thing.

“I think he wants to touch your hair.” Rhaenyra muses aloud, squeezing her hand as she looks down at Joffrey, who is now reaching out his hand to her.

Alicent just hums, pretending not to have heard that. Rhaenyra looks back at her for a long moment. Then she releases her hand and stands up to take Joffrey into her arms. 

“Wait. Maybe next time. I don’t want to mess up my hair. My handmaidens combed my hair today and—” Alicent winces when Rhaenyra sits down next to her, leans towards her and then some small hands are tugging on her hair. “Fine. Let him do it. When have you heard me?”

“Whining is not proper for a Queen,” Rhaenyra scoffs. Alicent rolls her eyes, opening her mouth to retort, but Rhaenyra cuts her off. “Elinda does my hair pretty quickly. I’ll call her later.”

Alicent presses her lips together, gently grabbing the small hands to soften the grip on one of her locks. “And the compensation for the hair pulling?”

The blue of Rhaenyra’s eyes darkens. “After dinner.”

Oh.

It is quite ridiculous how, suddenly, the pain in her scalp is easy to bear. 

Alicent has grown accustomed to the feeling of being anxious and uneasy every time she goes to see Rhaenyra. Her hands get sweaty, her pulse races, and her throat gets dry. There is always a certain paranoia in it, a helplessness.

This time, it feels different. There are nerves, Alicent is definitely nervous, but it’s the kind made of both excitement and anxiety— an old, mostly forgotten feeling that anyone else would call butterflies. She used to get those around Rhaenyra quite a bit when they were young, before she began suspecting what it meant, and it all got wrapped up in layers and layers of complication and impossibility.

Alicent is not sure if it is the same feeling, but she is feeling really nervous right now. The nerves are mostly due to the uncertainty of not knowing what all of this means. Rhaenyra just seems different today— more attentive, open, and talkative. Alicent simply does not know what to do with this Rhaenyra. She knows how to deal with biting words, heated arguments and wordless sex, but this is... not new, just strangely familiar and distant at the same time.

It is simply awkward because they usually don’t talk, not in detail, and certainly not like this. It just hasn’t happened in a while.

Alicent is just unsure of Rhaenyra’s intentions. She doesn’t know if this whole dinner is something innocent she did not plan or if she is hiding something else behind it, like the last time. However, she admits that, despite the confusing and anxious feeling that has been taking root in the pit of her stomach ever since she sat down, she is sort of enjoying this. The food is delicious, and now her stomach is full and bubbling with something good and different from the anxiety she usually feels. 

It is easier to not think what it means. 

“Lost in your head?” Rhaenyra’s voice breaks in, severing whatever was tethering the nerves to the center of her chest.

It’s an innocent enough question. Yet it still catches Alicent off guard. Her mouth purses, trying to decide whether to admit the truth or not, even though, by the calculating tilt of Rhaenyra’s head and the wrinkle that’s etched itself in around the corner of her mouth, she has obviously already figured it out.

Alicent clears her throat and drops her gaze for a second. “No.”

Rhaenyra’s eyes narrow and sharpen as they focus on her face. “Were you even listening?”

“Of course I was.” Alicent rushes to answer, cheeks flushed with embarrassment. 

Rhaenyra crosses her arms, tilts her head and sizes her up for a second. “Then what did I say?”

“Lucerys is bad with the sword, and sometimes Jacaerys is too hard on him when they are training together.” Alicent repeats her words in a monotonous tone. 

“So you were listening.” Rhaenyra says, disbelief plain in her voice, and her eyes sparkle.

Alicent nods, wrapping her lips around the rim of the goblet as she takes a long sip of her wine.

Rhaenyra doesn’t stop making eye contact with her the whole time, searching her face. She keeps looking back, but Alicent can’t read her. Why is Rhaenyra still looking at her? Did she notice she is acting weird? If she doesn’t slow down, she’s going to choke on wine, so she comes up for air, puts the goblet on the table, and blurts out, “I remember how much you wanted to learn how to use a sword when you were little.”

“And instead, all I was allowed to do was spend my afternoons reading.” Rhaenyra replies with a roll of the eyes. It is almost juvenile in the way she complains. Alicent can see a glint of that young Rhaenyra, who always used to whine about the same thing all the time. It makes her lift the corner of her lips, and Rhaenyra must notice it because she smiles as well before she asks, “Have you ever wanted to learn how to use a sword?”

The tension that had been wound tight at the very top of Alicent’s spine during the whole conversation relaxes involuntarily. Just for this moment, she lets all the anxiety in her body physically seep out of her veins. 

“Never.” Alicent replies honestly. The truth is that she always liked to spend her afternoons reading. There was nothing she enjoyed more than having Rhaenyra’s head in her lap as she read to her, even if she was not listening to her at all at times.

“What a shame, I think you’d be good at it,” Rhaenyra blurts out, staring into space as if imagining it. “A sword is not very different from a dagger. With enough anger, you could cut off more than just a wrist.”

Alicent feels how the implications of those words echo off the walls and come back to reverberate in the hollows of her skull, ringing inside her teeth.

Her stomach knots, feeling the pit-stone weight of guilt at the memory of that day, that moment. 

Alicent remembers the anger, pain and anxiety she felt when she saw Aemond without his eye as her heart desperately tried to maintain pressure. Then she does not remember anything other than feeling the loss of her self-restraint— and then came the anger, devouring and endless, beyond anything she ever experienced as a human, even at her worst. After that, the pain subsided and all she felt was an incredulous amount of adrenalin that made her move without thinking. And then there were just sharp words and blood dripping on the floor.

It makes her feel ashamed of herself—but not for the reasons she’d expected. Suddenly, everything that had been unfurling, relaxing, and stretching out into something slightly comforting snaps back to wind tight around her.

Alicent breathes, and she imagines that the suffocating weight in her lungs isn’t there. “Do you think so?” It is not a question, and the shape her mouth makes is not a smile, for all that it tilts upwards at the corners.

Rhaenyra’s gaze settles on her again. “It was a bad joke, I admit it,” she blurts out, flashing her the ghost of a regretting smile.

Alicent thinks about laughing, but her throat is constricting steadily, and it’s about to meet the hard lump that’s always sitting in there when she thinks too much. 

Rhaenyra blinks and looks down, looking almost ashamed. That is new. “I did not say it with the intention of starting a fight,” she explains herself, and Alicent believes her, because she did not really feel any anger in her words— nothing unpleasant like she felt many times before. The words just slipped out of her mouth without any intention, and all in all, Alicent understands.

Their communication style has always been confusing. To others, it would not make much sense, but for them, it worked. A lot of the time, Alicent found it difficult to say things aloud. And a lot of the time, Rhaenyra was too hot-headed, said things without thinking them through, and ended up making things worse.

Back then, they understood everything about each other. Rhaenyra could read her moods easily, so she found it simple to navigate what she needed, and Alicent never took words said in the heat of the moment to heart, at least not oftentimes. 

Rhaenyra goes quiet after a few seconds, and the air goes thick. 

The silence is killing Alicent, and all she wants to do is dissipate the uneasiness in the air, so she says the first thing that comes out of her mouth. “Can I see it?” 

Alicent regrets the words as soon as she says them, but it is not like she can shove them back into her mouth; she takes a breath and just lets the moment happen.

Rhaenyra opens both eyes fully and looks at her. Looks at her in such an intense way that Alicent stop breathing. Two seconds pass, or maybe an eternity, before Rhaenyra nods calmly, as if Alicent were asking her for something simple and not to show her the scar she left her. Then she rolls up her sleeve.

The wound is already healed, and there is only a scar left. Alicent looks at it, and there is no resentment or rage, just guilt and shame, something she is very used to feeling. But as she keeps looking at it, there’s also something darker, more shameful—something she can’t look at head-on. An itching in her palms. It is sick and repulsive.

“It hurt a lot, actually. I cried like a baby.”

Alicent looks back at Rhaenyra with eyes wide and round, feeling her heart skittering out of rhythm in a way that makes her vaguely nauseous.

Rhaenyra tenses, then shuts her eyes, looking ashamed again. “I am joking again, sorry. It hurt, but I did not cry.”

“About that...” Alicent starts, unsure, shutting her eyes. She has so much she wants to say, but she does not even know where to begin with it.

Almost a year has passed since that day, and after everything that has happened, she feels disconnected from the person she was that night. It was simply different before— she was mad for a lot of reasons, and there is just something wrong with her when she’s angry and wounded. The feelings can’t stay contained, and the hurt explodes out of her, infecting anyone who stands too close.

Alicent swallows and opens her mouth to explain herself, but she feels sick and can’t even voice it. Instead, what comes out is the synopsis of the entire fight, which is boiled down to, “I was only trying to protect my son.”

Rhaenyra tilts her head, and that shimmering, liquid thing in her eyes is definitely pity. “So was I.” 

It feels unfair for Rhaenyra to say that—at least Alicent feels it to be— but then again, her words probably don’t seem fair to Rhaenyra either. Surely that whole situation didn’t seem fair to either of them. Alicent remembers the look on Rhaenyra’s face when she grabbed the dagger, how teary her eyes were, and feels a lump in her throat and a fine sheen of sweat across her forehead.

She wonders if Rhaenyra has also held resentment towards her for that, for trying to take her son’s eye in the heat of the moment. It hurts to think she might. 

“I was frustrated, and I lost control, and then that happened,” Alicent continues, her voice cracking. “It was unbecoming of a Queen, of me. I was just... angry.”

“I know.”

Alicent bites her lip hard, on the slew of words that want to come out all at once.

It is the truth, she was mad about a lot of things— about Aemond, Lucerys, Viserys. But all that anger went straight to Rhaenyra, as if she were the root of all her problems.

Alicent tries to remember what caused it, and maybe it was Rhaenyra’s apathetic and cruel demeanor, or how, even at a disadvantage, she took complete control of the situation, twisted it, and in the end, got her way. That was probably what made her the angriest: Rhaenyra, so full of debauchery, shamelessness and indecorum getting her way like she does every time.

It was about their children, of course it was, but it also almost felt like a fight they had less because either of them were upset and more because they were waiting for the moment to lash out and say all the things they had been holding back for the past ten years.

They were just both so tired, Alicent realizes. It was painful harbouring it. Of course they were unravelling at the seams and falling apart. Of course that was where it had all taken them. It hurt to carry this inside of her for so long. It still does. And after years and months of drowning herself in her own anger, Alicent doesn’t think she is angry anymore. Now there is only an overwhelming feeling of sadness. Now all of this just haunts her—mind-boggles—her. How did things end this way? When did everything go so wrong? 

Alicent rubs her eyes tiredly. She wants to apologize, but she can’t. She wants to ask Rhaenyra if she believes there was ever a chance for things to be different; she wants to ask her if she hates her; if she is honest about any of this; if she wants to give her another chance; if she thinks there is a chance to fix everything that is broken between them. There are so many things she wants to say, but as always, the words are all stuck in her throat, and she wishes she could vomit them out of her system.

The room suddenly feels crowded with all the things they haven’t talked about. All of it crushes in on them, the pressure making her ache.

Alicent bites her lip and plays with the remains of food on her plate, absentmindedly— like she’s a child; like she can’t sit still and straighten up and just look at Rhaenyra because she can’t. As always, she can’t do anything. She can’t apologize, she can’t tell Rhaenyra how she feels, she can’t stand up, she can’t move. She is simply useless, as always.

It does not matter, it will not be long until Rhaenyra gets tired of her, and she can finally leave and start processing the fact that she’s a failure of a human being.

Rhaenyra drags her chair back and stands up. Alicent blinks at her and watches her walk to the next room, where her bed is. “Come here.”

Alicent is no fool, she knows what it means. A couple of hours ago, she would have run to bed with her tongue hanging out like a hungry dog, now she just feels dejected after this conversation.

Rhaenyra beckons her to come, and in the end, Alicent gives up and just sighs before walking towards her.

“What?”

Rhaenyra rubs a hand up and down her neck to her shoulders. Alicent sighs again, trembling under her touch. “I still have to make it up to you for before,” she murmurs, trailing her fingers down Alicent’s chest and abdomen with a featherlight touch. Alicent’s body is wracked with goosebumps; Rhaenyra watches as they appear. “A compensation, that’s what you requested before.”

Alicent trails off with hesitance. “I was being dramatic. It didn’t really bother me that much. Aegon used to pull my hair all the time when he was a baby,” she rambles as Rhaenyra takes her by the waist chain and pulls her to the bed, walking her backwards toward one of the beds until the backs of her knees hit against it. “You don’t have to do it.”

“But I want to.” Rhaenyra murmurs, tugging on the waist chain to drag her closer and kiss along her jaw. Alicent’s knees grow a little unsteady, and Rhaenyra seems to feel it because she pushes her onto the bed and climbs to settle on top of her. 

Alicent deflates backwards into the pillows and looks away.

“You look like you’re thinking up a storm.” Rhaenyra teases her, but there is no cruelty in it; it seems like pity. It surely is. Rhaenyra seems to be living in her skin by the way she can tell when she is dejected and internalizing negativity. She knows. She just knows.

Alicent feels weak and dejected, so she gives herself over to whatever Rhaenyra wants to do. “What are you going to do about it?” 

Rhaenyra brushes their lips together, her breath warm, her mouth wet. “I can kiss you,” she kisses Alicent deeply, licking her way past her lips to suck on her tongue softly. When she pulls away, Alicent’s heart racing, and she thinks it only gets worse when Rhaenyra grabs her hands and runs them down her body to her breasts. “Or let you touch me.” 

Alicent takes a shaky breath and relents, squeezing and exploring her breasts with her hands. Their shape, their weight, their softness, what makes Rhaenyra hum and what makes her curve her spine demandingly. 

It is foolish, but at the same time, it is almost considerate of her. Alicent’s hands itch to touch something, to pick at her cuticles, to do something. It is always like this when her head is in turmoil and Rhaenyra knows it. It is almost ridiculous. Alicent just does not know how everything between them can flit between being so complicated and so simple all the time. 

This is easier, Alicent realizes. It is easier to speak though her hands than though her mouth. It is easier to speak with Rhaenyra in bed than in any other place. She might be useless when it comes to expressing what she feels in words, but she can do it in other ways. Their hands have always communicated in a language that only the two of them can understand.

Alicent pushes Rhaenyra down onto the mattress, so she rests against the pillows, and goes down. She can feel Rhaenyra shivering when she lowers her head over her lap and shoves her face into Rhaenyra’s groin.

“Alicent?”

Heat coils in Alicent at the call of her name, but she doesn’t respond, she just pushes Rhaenyra’s dress up to her hips and leans down.

Rhaenyra doesn’t push her away, so she assumes it is okay to lean down, and— there is a wet spot in the front of Rhaenyra’s smallclothes. Alicent’s mouth goes bone-dry. Then, paradoxically, she finds herself drooling. She can smell Rhaenyra’s arousal and somehow, just the thought of Rhaenyra being turned on for a few touches, does things to Alicent.

“Do you mind if I ruin your hair?” Rhaenyra asks, and Alicent can feel her breathing heavily as she places a hand on her head. 

“It is unlike you to ask permission.”

Alicent can’t see Rhaenyra’s expression right now, but she is almost certain she just rolled her eyes.

“I am trying to be kind. I already ruined your hair today.”

Kind? That is also new.

Alicent hums thoughtfully. “It is unlike you to be kind.”

Rhaenyra gives a hard tug to her hair, and Alicent whimpers a bit. It hurts, but in a good way. It is the kind of pain that turns off the noise in her head and turns it into a hum. Rhaenyra tugs at her hair again, as if she wants Alicent to make that sound again, and this time, she gets more than that; Alicent makes a helpless noise into the crease of her thigh, too turned on to think.

As simple as that, Alicent tilts forward and drags her nose down from the pubis to the center of her cunt, right where the heat gathers most. Alicent shoves her nose against the fabric and inhales deeply, a feral desire pooling at the center of her gut when she sniffs Rhaenyra’s scent.

At the first touch, Rhaenyra exhales a long, shaky breath when Alicent nuzzles her cunt and lets her jaw drop open, mouthing at the wet fabric and licking between the contours of her folds.

“Alicent,” Rhaenyra groans, fingers carding through the curls at the crown of her head. There is saliva pooling at the front of Alicent’s mouth, and she uses it to wet her tongue, licking her harder through the cotton. Needing Rhaenyra to feel her tongue. “Alicent.”

Dizzy with headiness, she licks downward, downward, until she can feel Rhaenyra’s slick heat against her tongue. Alicent starts, without shame, to suck the taste of her out of the material, feeling the mild throbbing through the fabric and feeling how it is getting wetter and wetter. It tastes too good, it feels too good—

“Stop messing around,” Rhaenyra complains, accentuating her point with a sharp tug on her hair. Alicent stops, breathing heavily against the wet fabric, the air hot and teasing. “Once we’re done, I can give you my used undergarments for you to lick clean, but right now I just want your tongue inside me.”

Alicent moans a little at the thought of it, imagining how she could hold the wet fabric against her mouth and lick the rest of her arousal as she touches herself on those lonely nights, smelling Rhaenyra’s scent even in the distance, and — she is being odd. She pauses to take a breath, and then, she feels ashamed of herself. However, the tug on her hair reminds her that she has a desperate, panting Rhaenyra beneath her, and that is more important right now. That is enough for her to discard Rhaenyra’s undergarments, revealing a tuft of white hair and beautiful wet folds.

It changes when Alicent’s tongue spreads her folds and traces her cunt from top to bottom, and Rhaenyra reaches back to grab her hair and shove her face forward. It changes because it is Rhaenyra taking over, and Alicent will always be needy for that. It changes because she is buried in Rhaenyra’s cunt now.

Rhaenyra throws her legs over her shoulder to push her further, and now she is spread open in front of her face. It feels so dirty and so good; Alicent can feel her own chin and nose getting wet from her own spit. It feels good, partly because there is a perverted satisfaction in this that she can’t explain yet, and partly because she wants to make it up to Rhaenyra, just like she does to her sometimes.

Alicent knows that fucking Rhaenyra isn’t going to fix anything, but she still feels guilty about what happened, and this is all she can do.

Without wasting any time, she sucks on the small bud, and Rhaenyra reacts beautifully, moaning prettily and squirming under her, practically forcing her to keep going despite the fact she needs to take a breath. Her desperation is enough to have Alicent grind uselessly into the mattress, feeling a familiar ache in her jaw. 

Alicent shudders herself the louder Rhaenyra gets, flicking her tongue harder against her clit and then going in and fucking her deep. She licks one final stripe before lifting her head again to take in the expression on Rhaenyra’s flushed face. She wants to watch Rhaenyra’s head tip back when she comes, pleasure etched on her stoic features. Wants to witness the arch of Rhaenyra’s back as she watches her lose control. She wants to feel that Rhaenyra wants this. She wants to feel wanted.

Rhaenyra looks down, meets her eyes and then gives up on trying to watch, her head dropping back down to the pillow as she moans and mutters something entirely incoherent. Alicent keeps looking at her, even when Rhaenyra’s hands find their way into her thick hair, and she clings on to her for dear life, her body trembling uncontrollably now as she comes.

Her fingers clench and tug Alicent’s hair so tightly that it hurts. It hurts so good. Alicent lets Rhaenyra use her tongue as much as she needs until Rhaenyra releases her at last, going totally limp on the bed with her chest rising and falling rapidly.

Alicent breathes heavily as she crawls up, daring to kiss Rhaenyra’s belly before laying her body on hers and resting her head on her chest.

Rhaenyra reaches out to place a warm hand against her cheek, and Alicent lifts her head and looks at her, letting Rhaenyra’s thumb brush her lip before taking it into her mouth and sucking on it. Rhaenyra’s mouth curves into a tired smile, and Alicent’s heart skips a beat.

“I hold no grudges for that night, in case that is what is bothering you.” Rhaenyra reassures, her voice soft and low. Her hand caresses the soft skin over Alicent’s cheekbone, and it feels good, comfy, safe. Rhaenyra always knows what she needs. 

Alicent breaks eye contact first. Her stomach twists in a familiar pain, and her face is too warm now. It could be because she is exhausted, it is late, and she would normally be asleep at this hour. Or it could be because her ear is against Rhaenyra’s heart and the sound of her strong heartbeat is making her a little dizzy. It does not matter. For a moment, she feels no regret or guilt, only peace.

It almost feels like her heart might jump from her chest at any moment. It is impossible to stop. Now that she knows what it feels like to do this—to kiss Rhaenyra and share the same heartbeat—how could she ever possibly desire anything else?

The same night, Alicent thinks about it a lot, about the breaking point of her friendship with Rhaenyra.

Looking back, everything was ruined since Viserys announced their marriage. Alicent still remembers the look on Rhaenyra’s face, the fight that followed, the words that were said in the heat of the moment, and the pain that came when she saw how angry Rhaenyra was.

Maybe she didn’t lose Rhaenyra that day, but that was the first crack.

After that, things inevitably changed, and even if they reconciled, the hope that their friendship would be the same as before was just that, an illusion. Of course things weren’t going to be the same. They were no longer two girls and, in Rhaenyra’s eyes, she was no longer worthy of her trust, touches, and soft glances.

It was a gradual loss; it began with the loss of her trust. Alicent thinks back to the day she learned that Rhaenyra had sneaked out with Daemon to the brothels, the anger she felt when she confronted her about it, and then remembers the pain she felt when she learned that Rhaenyra had lied to her during that confrontation, that she had sworn to her in vain— in the name of her dead mother, Gods—did she have so little trust in her?

Alicent thought the lie had hurt more, and it hurt because, from that day on, she lost the trust she had in Rhaenyra as much as Rhaenyra had lost it. But finding out that Rhaenyra slept with Ser Criston also hurt in a way she could never explain—a dirtier and more possessive pain— the kind of betrayal you feel when someone wears your favorite jewelry and ruins it. 

It hurt, but many things hurt ever since then. It hurt to see how happy Rhaenyra was without her; how easy it was for her to start again and find someone else. It hurt to see her make a loving family and forget about her. It hurt because, despite everything, she missed Rhaenyra. Because her anger never burned hotter than her hurt did. Because she always needed Rhaenyra, and she still needs her. Because she still feels that phantom limb every day, and she still has trouble walking without it. 

Alicent thinks about the possibility of losing Rhaenyra again, of ruining whatever they are having now, and suddenly she feels far away, like she’s shrinking into that empty darkness that’s lived inside her for so many years.

It is hard to breath, and she has an awful, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, one she recognizes from the sound of the door opening to let her know that the King requests her presence, from standing in her place and watching her children cry without being able to console them, from feeling the taste of blood in her mouth after she picked at her cuticles too much, from knowing that Rhaenyra is going to give birth and at any moment she can lose her as she lost her mother–

Alicent sits down on the bed and swallows convulsively, and then she inhales and exhales; she needs to come back to her senses. There is no reason to feel like she is about to die. She had dinner with Rhaenyra a few hours ago. Rhaenyra kissed her a few hours ago. Things are fine. Rhaenyra is not going to abandon her.

Slowly, she begins to breathe calmly, and then a thought runs through her head. She wants Rhaenyra to be here with her; she wants to feel Rhaenyra’s warm skin and hear Rhaenyra’s heartbeats while she sleeps. Every inch of Alicent aches for that; she trembles with how much she wants it, with how terrified she is of it.

Alicent wonders how long she can dance around whatever is messed up in her own head before it all manages to slip out.

From the moment they met, Rhaenyra dropped herself right into the middle of her life without even asking first, persistent and noisy, clinging to Alicent as if she had decided from the first time she laid her eyes on her that she belonged to her. Alicent was never bothered by that; on the contrary, she quickly learned to turn into Rhaenyra’s touch rather than away from it, to match her humor and read her moods. After that, it was only a matter of time before she got used to Rhaenyra’s presence and eventually fell deep into that pit, where only the both of them existed. 

Alicent supposes it is natural, then, that she slips into old habits.

It feels like she is young again, as if she had fallen into that pit again without even realizing it. It is not the same as it was a long time ago, though, and she knows it.

When they were children, they used to be in each other’s space all the time, everywhere, anywhere, without decorum or shame. Now they only fall into that pit when they’re alone. They will exchange words in public, smile kindly at each other, and pretend nothing has changed. They will try to keep up appearances, or at least that is what Alicent tries to do.

Sometimes Rhaenyra invites her to dinner or spend time with her, and Alicent is never sure of her intentions, but she accepts; she plays along, listens to her complaints, burns with desire, and that is how the night goes.

Rhaenyra always seems to know that she is burning with desire, but she never gives her what she wants, she just leaves Alicent waiting and stamping her shoe impatiently on the ground. It feels like a new game. Rhaenyra plays with her for a while, tells bad jokes, ignores her needy glances, and then, after having her squirming in her chair for an hour, she allows her to be in her space. Just a few touches, some desperate kisses. That is enough for Alicent to get desperate and hot, and then... Rhaenyra pushes her away.  

That is the worst part of the routine.

Alicent doesn’t want to be greedy, because at least Rhaenyra is not ignoring her, and that is better than nothing. But at moments like these, when Rhaenyra tugs her hair a little too hard and her tongue is in her mouth, hot and wet against her own, she can’t help but want more. 

Rhaenyra settles into her lap, and the weight of her body on top of her and the way her thighs are flush against Alicent’s torso make Alicent squirm. Rhaenyra groans, determined to get as far down her throat as possible. And Gods, she feels so good, soft and hot, and absolutely mean with the way she pushes her against the chaise like she wants to devour her and then pulls back like she wants to keep her chaste.

Now, this is the part of the routine she does not like: once Rhaenyra has touched her and kissed her until her body is on fire, she stops and steps away, leaving Alicent panting, dissatisfied and frustrated. It’s been like this all week. It’s been like this all month. Alicent wants to scream. She feels like she is losing her mind. 

Rhaenyra stands up and smooths her hair, like she is about to leave and needs to fix herself, and Alicent’s hands hang at her sides, balled into fists that she clenches and unclenches multiple times as her cheeks grow red. In the end, she finally gives in to her own despair and reaches out to grab Rhaenyra’s wrist before she can utter whatever excuse she has for this afternoon. Maybe it is something about her children again.

Alicent has been collected and calm as much as she can around Rhaenyra lately, but she has reached a point where she is desperate enough to beg, a little bit. Not literal. But close. “Rhaenyra,” she calls her firmly.

Rhaenyra glances over her shoulder and raises an eyebrow. She looks as calm as ever, but now there is a blush on her cheeks that Alicent has learned appears when they kiss for too long. Her lips are red and swollen, and the contrast between her white hair and all the red in her face fascinates her a little.

Alicent takes a breath, orders the words she is going to say in her mind, and works up the courage to ask, “Do you want to come here tonight?” Do you want to stay here overnight? Do you want to fuck me? There is a lot she wants to do tonight.

Rhaenyra’s gaze softens. “I can’t,” she says in an apologetic tone, and Alicent doesn’t know if it is another excuse or if it is true, but she feels the sincerity in her voice this time. “I promised my father that I would have dinner with him tonight and take care of him.”

Alicent feels like someone just kicked her in the stomach. “Oh,” she mutters, hoping it does not sound so disappointed, but it is probably obvious. She forces a smile. “Viserys is probably happy about it.”

Rhaenyra takes her wrist, the nearest part of her body to her, and rubs it over Alicent’s pulse point. Like she is calming her down. “His health has been getting worse, so I thought I needed to spend more time with him. You can take the night to yourself and rest. It must be hard to take care of him all the time.”

Alicent shrugs. It has been a routine for a long time. It is tiring, of course, but it is part of her duty as his wife. Oh, his wife. The thought makes her sick of the stomach. This is why she prefers not to talk about Viserys and her father when they do these kinds of things. Looking into the eyes of both of them after fucking Rhaenyra is hard enough. She does not need more reminders of how terrible what they are doing is.

“How thoughtful of you.” Alicent says wryly, and Rhaenyra rolls her eyes but doesn’t move. It is torture, how painfully close she is, and how easy it would be for her to fuck Alicent, yet she chooses not to.

It’s obvious what Rhaenyra is doing, but that doesn’t make it any less confusing and annoying. Alicent just wishes she knew why she seems to avoid fucking her like she has a disease.

Because Alicent knows that if Rhaenyra had wanted it, she would have fucked her against the door that day when she left her in her room alone. Gods, time and space never meant anything to her before. Alicent knows that if she had had the intention to fuck her, she would have made a nursemaid take Joffrey away and take care of him. Alicent knows that if Rhaenyra had wanted to fuck her any of these days, she would have done it, but she didn’t do it, because she doesn’t want to.

Alicent just does not understand what changed, and that is driving her crazy. The last time Rhaenyra touched her, she did not even let her come, and it has been far too long since Alicent has felt her fingers, and she doesn’t know how she has managed to survive this long without it. 

“Do you miss me when I am not around?” Rhaenyra asks casually, as if it were something simple, as if Alicent could give her an answer to that.

Alicent blinks at her, head bowed, eyelids lowered, and knuckles absently held between her lips. Then she huffs out, heat rising to her face. The answer is yes. A resounding yes. Rhaenyra teases like she doesn’t know the answer, like she did not hear her whining how much she missed her a couple of weeks before. Like she doesn’t see it in Alicent’s eyes all the time, wide and nearly black from desire.

Rhaenyra is just tormenting her, using her words like a sword, cutting past her thin veneer of self-control into the wild.

Alicent clears her throat and caresses her neck. She won’t beg or cry, if that is what Rhaenyra wants, but she can give her this one truth. “Sometimes the bed feels cold without you.”

Rhaenyra crosses her arms childishly. “So you only want me to warm your bed?”

“No, it’s...” it’s not that? She doesn’t even know what all of this is. Alicent makes a frustrated noise, because she actually does not know what it is. Sometimes they sleep together. Sometimes her head is between Rhaenyra’s legs. Sometimes they are together for no reason at all, and it feels like the world is beginning and then ending when Rhaenyra leaves.

Lately, she has been feeling like they are speeding towards the edge of something terrible. Sometimes, when Rhaenyra kisses her, she gets scared and sad because she knows that this can’t last forever. She knows how unwise it is to hang your entire life on another person; it’s what she did when she was young, but it is what she does, what she knows. Dependency is dirty— something shameful she should have outgrown, something she has not.

“It’s fine, you don’t have to explain yourself. I understand,” Rhaenyra responds to her silence, and this time, Alicent doubts she truly understands. Not even Alicent herself understands her own feelings. Rhaenyra watches her for a moment. Then her lips curls up in that way that Alicent hates and loves. “Do you touch yourself when you miss me?”

Alicent almost chokes on nothing.

That is another tease, another poke at her ego and her patience, and she refuses to give Rhaenyra the satisfaction of a reaction.

“You’re still pent-up?” Rhaenyra asks, as insistent as ever. “Do you still deny yourself that pleasure?”

Alicent wants to laugh at the irony of it. She is not the one denying herself some kind of pleasure. 

Something in her is stirring— something too big and insolent to be held by this room, by her body.

Alicent runs her hand once through her hair before breathing in slowly to try and regain her composure. “No. I don’t deny myself that pleasure.” She simply replies honestly and winces at her words, hating how depraved they sound.

“Oh.” Rhaenyra goes quiet after that for a few seconds, and suddenly the air feels thick and hot. Rhaenyra’s gaze sparkles with something playful, and that excites Alicent as much as it frightens her. “Close your eyes.”

Alicent does not say anything, choosing instead to stubbornly cross her arms over her chest. “Why?”

“Please close your eyes, Alicent.”

At least she is asking nicely, though the pleading doesn’t erase the demanding tone in her voice.

Alicent looks at her, feigning careful consideration whether to follow her command. It is all for show. At the end, she sighs and closes her eyes.

Even if she sees nothing, she can feel Rhaenyra’s smile. If she could, she would roll her eyes. Instead, she just sits and listens to Rhaenyra start walking around her room, feeling a bit nervous. The situation gives her a sense of vertigo, as if she were walking on a cliff blindfolded, and Rhaenyra’s voice was her only guide. Her palms are getting sweaty.

A couple of minutes later, she hears Rhaenyra standing in front of her again.

“You can open your eyes now.”

Alicent stares at Rhaenyra, unblinking. Then she looks around and back at her, but everything looks the same. “What...?"

“I left a gift under your pillow in case you miss me tonight.”

Alicent processes her words for a couple of seconds. Once she figures out what Rhaenyra did, shivers prickle her spine, and she is certain all the blood powering her brain rushes down. The realization is as insulting as it is wildly tempting.

This woman— this untamed, shameless and infuriating woman. Alicent turns her head away with an embarrassed sniff. 

For the rest of the talk, she cannot concentrate. She just sits down as a dark hunger twists inside. When Rhaenyra leaves, Alicent asks her handmaidens to prepare a bath for her and leave her alone for a moment.

Alicent dreams about Rhaenyra often; sometimes she can remember the ghost of her warmth next to her and the comforting feeling of sweet words directed at her, washing over her. Sometimes the dreams are of her childhood, of Rhaenyra’s head in her lap; other times they are of the present, of Rhaenyra’s hot mouth leaving her all weak and shaky. Sometimes she wakes up wet between her legs, other times with her heart in her throat. Sometimes she wakes up crying and doesn’t remember her dreams, she feels that is for the best. The dreams waver, change, and evolve.

This particular night takes her ages to fall asleep, tossing and turning in her sheets. It’s impossible not to think about Rhaenyra, it’s impossible not to think about what she wants her to do tonight. Gods, it’s almost ridiculous. Rhaenyra knows exactly how to pull a physical reaction from her; how to manipulate her body, even from the distance.

Her self-control finally breaks, and she reaches under her pillow. It is what she expected it to be; Rhaenyra’s undergarments. Alicent takes a breath, swallows her shame, and touches the front of the fabric, feeling the dampness still present. It is wet, soaking from Rhaenyra’s arousal. 

Alicent taps into every last bit of self-control she has to not act like some sick pervert, but it is impossible to refrain from burying her face in the fabric and give it a long sniff before sticking it in her mouth to lick it and suck it, savoring the taste of Rhaenyra on her tongue.

It is unseemly and disgusting, unlike her—it is shameless and beyond pathetic and desperate, and she wants it. No matter how bad it is, she wants it. Alicent doesn’t care anymore. She grabs her pillow and slides it between her thighs, rubbing herself against it.

Her eyes roll into the back of her head as she brings the cloth to her nose and inhales deeply, rocking her hips forward into the pillow when the musky smell of Rhaenyra floods her senses. It’s like Alicent is suffocating with it, with Rhaenyra. It feels like she’s everywhere, like a viper, unrelenting, slithering around her shoulders and hissing in her ear.

Alicent can almost feel Rhaenyra in the bed, mocking her in her ear about how nasty and desperate she is, and that makes Alicent moan into the fabric— riding the pillow hard and fast and burying her face in Rhaenyra’s used and dirty smallclothes, damn near crying from how good it feels. 

There is only one thought running through her head as she rubs herself desperately against the pillow, letting out breathless whimpers as she bites the fabric: she hopes Rhaenyra is thinking of her too; she hopes Rhaenyra gets so aroused at the image of Alicent doing this that it aches; she hopes Rhaenyra touches herself as well this night and comes moaning her name.

Alicent comes so fast that it is embarrassing. She comes hard, too, enough to make her loud and breathless. Her orgasm is quick to build and violent as it hits her. Every ounce of shame in her body has been replaced with hot pleasure, and every humiliating sound leaving her lips is nothing before the image of a large line of saliva dripping from her mouth onto Rhaenyra’s undergarments.

A terrible, yawning trepidation has opened inside of her, one that Alicent cannot bring herself to name. She lays on her back, on her stomach, curled in a tight ball on her side, and tries to fill the pit in her stomach.

That night, she dreams about pressing kisses into pale skin and a low giggle against the side of her neck. When she wakes, it’s to an empty bed, with Rhaenyra’s ghost still marking indents into the extra pillow.

The thing is, once she starts thinking of how much she wants Rhaenyra, Alicent doesn’t stop. It grows into a bottomless hunger. Everything is hazy, heightened. She’s helpless to it, so much that touching herself becomes something normal, bordering on a routine. Sometimes even thinking about Rhaenyra gets her hot and edgy, breaking through the slugging in her head. Sometimes, she thinks just the sight of Rhaenyra gets her all tingly and wet. 

Alicent still behaves herself, tries to pretend it does not bother her as much as it does, and acts nonchalant even if she is trembling of desire.

One day, she wakes up with bottomless hunger, and the other, she’s scraping sustenance off of lingering looks and gentle grazes. But it is like chewing on a bone, it is not real food, and she knows her patience has its limits. Innocent brushes here and gone aren’t good enough any longer, she needs the real thing— how she had it once.

Alicent does not understand what game Rhaenyra is playing. It just feels intentional— giving her a little but never enough, as if she wanted to keep her waiting for more and more. Alicent wonders if that night made Rhaenyra realize some things. Maybe it was a mistake to show Rhaenyra that part of herself—to show her how much she needs her. It’s moments like these that remind her that Rhaenyra is still Rhaenyra and Alicent will never know how to win a fight against her.

It is natural for her to lose it after Rhaenyra walks her backwards into the wall to kiss her and then tries to turn around like nothing happened. Alicent just had enough.

Something bursts. 

“What is wrong with you? Why—why do you keep doing this?” Alicent complains with a helpless and whining tone, hanging her hands at her sides uselessly and clenching her fists as if that could make all this sexual frustration go away.

Rhaenyra has the nerve to blink as if she doesn’t know what she is talking about. “Doing what?”

Alicent is beginning to breathe heavily, her hands moving restlessly. “Avoid touching me as if I had a disease.”

“I touch you all the time.” Rhaenyra responds as she begins to walk towards the chaise.

Alicent follows her, feeling the frustration grow more and more with each passing second. “That is not the kind of touch I am talking about. You know it.” 

Rhaenyra sits down on the chaise, and Alicent walks behind her till she is standing in front of her. Leaning forward, Rhaenyra wraps a careful hand around Alicent’s wrist. With her thumb so gentle against the sharp bone on the side of Alicent’s arm, she tugs.

It doesn’t take more than the slightest pull to get Alicent to sit on her lap and straddle her legs across her body. Rhaenyra probably didn’t even have to tug at all. There’s something luring them together anyway, magnetic, constant, urging them toward one another. 

Rhaenyra pets Alicent’s cheek and trails her other hand toward her waist, looking at her with dark eyes. “Do you want me to fuck you? That is what you are trying to say?”

Of course that’s what she is trying to say. Alicent is sure that Rhaenyra knows that she wants it, and how badly she does. Rhaenyra has to know just how pathetic she is, to the point that Rhaenyra has been everything Alicent has been thinking about.

Alicent lets out a frustrated huff. “Don’t ask stupid questions.”

Rhaenyra tuts, raising her eyebrows. “Is it so stupid that you can’t even afford me an answer?”

Alicent takes a shaky breath, hands mapping Rhaenyra out, landing on her shoulders and squeezing hard. She feels cut open, like she’s holding the flaps of her skin closed to keep everything from spilling out.

“Gods, yes. I want you to fuck me, Rhaenyra.” The words come out easily, and oh, it feels good to admit it, like ripping off a bandage and scratching out an itchy scab.

“You really want it, huh?” Rhaenyra coos, and she’s right— so right, so hopelessly right. 

Rhaenyra moves her hands along her thighs to grip her ass, and Alicent has almost forgotten how difficult it’s to think when Rhaenyra’s hands are running over her, always moving, always touching. Alicent wanted to be touched, and now she is. It feels good.

“It must have been hard. You got used to the best with me, and now you just settle for what? A pillow, my used undergarments and some sad, lonely touches?” Rhaenyra murmurs in a tone so soft that it leaves Alicent with goosebumps. “Your own fingers don’t feel so good, do they?”

Alicent grinds her teeth and sets her jaw. “Rhaenyra.” 

Rhaenyra’s fingers find her waist chain, pulling on it gently. “Are you getting impatient already? This is fun to me.”

Alicent rolls her eyes, still having the capacity to get annoyed no matter how enraptured she is. “What? Do you want me to tell you how impatient, needy and pathetic I am? Is that what it is, Rhaenyra? Do you want me to tell you that I touch myself all the time thinking about you? That it drives me up the wall that you tease me? That I want you to fuck me all the time? That sometimes my skin itches from the way you get under it? Gods, I want you all the time, Rhaenyra.” 

Alicent feels Rhaenyra’s violent shiver under her, but her expression is still unwavering. Lifting an eyebrow and wetting those sinful lips, she says, “All the time? Even when we are on the small council? What about when we are simply talking in public, do you want me then? When we’re having dinner with everyone, do you think about me while we’re with them, too?”

Rhaenyra brushes their lips together and laughs when Alicent nods weakly. She laughs. A sick, cruel and utterly sadistic laugh. It bangs and clouds inside the empty skull of Alicent’s head as her face burns.

“You’re so needy, like a dog in heat. I am sure you are already wet. You are a nasty, nasty puppy, Alicent.” 

Alicent is certain that her skin is flushed red. It is more than degrading to be called a puppy in her face, but there’s something about the way humiliation feels when it’s mixed in with her arousal. It’s like she can’t differentiate between the hot flashes of shame and those of her lust, both zipping up her spine in quick bursts and melting her from the inside out. 

“Rhaenyra.” Alicent groans, but there is no anger behind the words, she is just frustrated, digging her nails into Rhaenyra’s shoulders.

“Am I riling you up? Or am I turning you on?” Rhaenyra asks rhetorically, and Alicent makes a pitiful little sound and closes her eyes. “So it is both.”

Alicent can feel her cheeks growing warm with the words and is hit by the incessant need to disprove Rhaenyra’s words. She knows that Rhaenyra is pushing all of her buttons, but they’re all the right ones. Rhaenyra just plays this game well.

“You are acting like a brat.” Alicent tries to sound angry or irritated, but it only comes out whiny and filled with need. 

Rhaenyra lifts her chin like the fucking brat she is. “Then shut me up.”

Alicent grabs her by the back of the neck, yanking Rhaenyra up and into a harsh, needy kiss. Her tongue probes at Rhaenyra’s lips, and she opens with a sigh. There is no finesse, no gentleness, just the strong pulse of Rhaenyra’s tongue against her own, but it doesn’t matter. It feels incredible and only adds to the want, the need, rushing through her veins.

As their tongues drag against one another, Alicent growls as the fire in her roars. None of this is ever enough. There’s a boiling heat in her tummy that’s practically demanding for her to claw into Rhaenyra, sink her teeth in, smother them both with her desire. 

“Fuck, I need you closer.” Alicent groans.

Rhaenyra scoffs breathlessly, bending one of her legs to slot between Alicent’s. Alicent whimpers at the friction and claws her way closer, practically just laying fully on top of Rhaenyra now. She grinds her hips forward against Rhaenyra’s leg, her breath stuttering its way out of her lungs as she rubs her face against Rhaenyra’s neck. 

Alicent’s mind is blank. She feels frantic, so wet that she can feel herself leaking into Rhaenyra’s thigh, warm and aching. It is too much. Rhaenyra moans when Alicent sucks the skin of her throat and then licks. The salt of Rhaenyra’s skin and sweat has never tasted better, and Alicent’s hips stutter against her thigh—Gods, Rhaenyra’s thigh, so big and thick between her own. Alicent is losing her mind.

“What do you want me to do to fuck me?” Alicent gives up, sounding beyond desperation as she rubs her hard bundle of nerves against Rhaenyra’s leg, letting out small whimpers at the pressure.

Rhaenyra’s hand come up to sift through her hair, petting her scalp and combing generously through knots. “Earn it,” she says, ruffling her hair as if Alicent were a misbehaving dog that needs to get domesticated again. The mere thought makes Alicent twitch involuntarily and hump Rhaenyra’s thigh faster. “If you are good, I will reward you.”

“How can I be good?” Alicent asks before she can stop the words from rolling off her tongue. 

Rhaenyra gives her a look that makes Alicent’s stomach curl. The room is dim, and the shadows across Rhaenyra’s face make her look more intense. “Tell me that you want me and stay. Stay, even after the shame of sleeping with me comes,” she demands. Her breath is heavy, the surrounding air is damp, and Alicent is sweating at her brow and feeling her heart go all the way up to her throat. “You can start with that.”

Guilt and shame are all Alicent knows. It is necessary, she thinks. If she does not feel it, it means she is a lost cause. Guilt and shame are something she feels all the time; she feels it after spending time in secret with Rhaenyra instead of committing to her duties as a mother and wife; she feels it every time she uses the same hands that touched Rhaenyra to care for Viserys; she feels it when she looks at her father and thinks how disappointed he would be of her; she feels it when she sees her children all the time.

Alicent has grown accustomed to living with guilt and shame, and though she believes it is necessary, sometimes she wishes she could admit that she wants to kiss and fuck a woman, and that woman is Rhaenyra and be okay with it. Sometimes she just wants to be honest and stay. And sometimes it happens— in moments like these when her mind is clouded by desire and Rhaenyra and only Rhaenyra, she allows herself to want without feeling guilty about it.

That is the most dangerous thing about Rhaenyra: she makes her want more and more, she makes her greedy, selfish, and lustful.

Alicent feels her heart rate rise. “I want you, Rhaenyra.” She whines breathlessly, dropping her head slightly back as Rhaenyra tugs gently on her roots.

“How much?”

“A lot. I do not know what is wrong with me. I am... I am so desperate all the time, you have no idea. Gods, you were right. You have me acting like a fucking dog in heat, like some feral animal.” Alicent sounds like a devastating mix of frustrated and turned on, and she feels small, warm, and weak beneath Rhaenyra’s hands and body. “Am I being good? I am... I am not going to run away. I am not going to do it. I can’t run away from this. Not anymore.”

No matter how much she tries, she can’t run away from this. She has tried over and over again for the past few months, and it has never worked. Rhaenyra may not know it, but she has her on a leash. Even if she runs in the other direction, she will always feel that yank, bringing her back to Rhaenyra.

Rhaenyra pulls Alicent further into her lap with the arm wrapped around her waist, as if they aren’t already pressed together head-to-toe. Then she moves her hand under Alicent’s dress to thumb at the wet patch on her undergarments from where Alicent has leaked through them, selfishly merciful. The contact sends violent shivers throughout Alicent’s body.

“You better mean those words.” It sounds like a threat, even though Rhaenyra is trembling beneath her and her voice comes out cracked.

Heat creeps up into Alicent’s abdomen, a flush making its way down her chest as Rhaenyra applies some pressure against her clit, rubbing circles around it, slowly building up tension that she can feel in her belly. Alicent feels her smallclothes getting wetter and wetter, adding to the mess and assisting in the slide of the soaked fabric across her clit. The whimper that escapes her from the sensation is loud enough to echo across the room.

Rhaenyra’s rhythm begins languid and slow, as if to torture. Then, she finds the speed she has always favored. The drag is wet and rough, and Rhaenyra is not fucking her, but she is rubbing her, and it’s so much, and it’s so good— and Alicent is suddenly very, very close. She opens her mouth to tell Rhaenyra she’s already close, but her breath catches in her throat. Alicent moans, and her hips move, arcing toward pleasure. How base, how degenerate. 

Alicent grinds against Rhaenyra’s hand, jerky and uncoordinated and so fucking desperate.

“Are you already close?” Rhaenyra’s voice cuts through her rambling. There’s genuine surprise in her tone when Alicent starts trembling. “It’s been what? Two minutes? I wanted this to last a little longer.”

Her voice edges into condescension, and Alicent squeezes her eyes shut so hard that she sees stars. She also wanted this to last longer. The humiliation of it makes Alicent’s cunt ache.

“Mmh, it’s fine.” Rhaenyra kisses her sloppily, almost as if she’s rewarding her. “You can come, you’ve probably been wanting this for months. I’ve been teasing you a lot, haven’t I? I was too cruel, I am sorry.”

“Fuck—” Alicent says with a noise like she’s being strangled, so pitiful that Rhaenyra starts rubbing faster. Her orgasm crashes into her, and it isn’t unexpected, but the intensity of it is. Ripples of pleasure travel through her in waves, and Rhaenyra keeps touching her through it, even as she soaks the front of her undergarments. Rhaenyra is quiet the whole time, but Alicent can practically feel the way she watches her and studies each micro-expression on her face.

When she comes down from the high of a mind-numbing orgasm, the sensation of Rhaenyra’s fingers rubbing her clit over the material turns sharp rather than bearably-overwhelming, and she whimpers as her hips twitch away from it.

“Rhaenyra,” Alicent groans breathlessly, like it was punched out of her.

Rhaenyra, thankfully, shows her mercy, and settles for resting her soiled hand on Alicent’s thigh. Alicent slumps, defeated and glorious.

“I adore when you get pathetic and needy like this, when I can feel that you want me, when just a few strokes are enough to get you off.” Rhaenyra admits, and just from the sound of her voice – a little more languid now, a little further away – Alicent can tell that she’s affected. It gives Alicent that feeling of self-satisfaction, knowing that Rhaenyra enjoys it so badly that she loses her breath for her. 

Alicent rolls her head to the right to see Rhaenyra looking directly at her. She wants to speak, but she can only pant. Rhaenyra is utterly focused on her, mouth parted and pupils blown out, as she brings fingers to her mouth. Her hand is a mess, coated and slippery, and Rhaenyra licks it clean, sticking out her tongue to lick the remnants of arousal between her fingers and on her palm.

It makes Alicent laugh in disbelief, feeling the familiar pool of arouse in her belly. Adrenaline still rushes through her veins, and she knows her grin looks too broad and a little manic. The image in front of her is so filthy that it makes her unwittingly grind against Rhaenyra’s thigh. Her mound is still sensitive, and the friction is painful, but she wants more of that, wants that familiar ache again. She doesn’t want this to end, even if it hurts.

Alicent burns all the time around Rhaenyra, burns with shame, with desire, with pain, with yearn. As another wave of arousedness goes down to her core, Alicent wonders if the hellfire she is going to face after death will be as painful as the burn she feels between her legs right now. 

Rhaenyra brings their foreheads together until they are breathing in the same air. “Does it hurt? Do you want more? Needy dog, this is not enough?” she coos, placing her hands on Alicent’s waist to push her hips forward. “Fine. Let me help you.”

Alicent cries out. The overstimulation is painful, or maybe it transcends pain. Alicent is not in a place of definition. She just feels the jolts of pain traveling through her abdomen when Rhaenyra forces her to ride her leg again. Nobody else has ever been able to break Alicent like this.

“We’ve barely started, and you’re already whining like a mutt. Is this seriously all you can take?” Rhaenyra scoffs, and Alicent shudders. The tone of her voice is almost enough to make her feel clouded with urge. The hand Rhaenyra has on her waist grips tighter and Alicent tries to breathe steadily. “Oh, come on, Alicent, you’ve been wanting this for weeks. Let’s find out how many times you can come in your clothes tonight. I am going to be nice and go slow so you last longer.”

Alicent slams her eyes shut, her whole world going dark.

All she feels is the suddenly all-consuming ache of her cunt, making a mess of her smallclothes. A little longer, and she won’t even need a touch. She’ll come from the sheer humiliation and depravity of Rhaenyra whispering dirty things in her ear. It seems like Rhaenyra would enjoy it. Sometimes Alicent wonders if Rhaenyra is just testing her out, wondering what will push the limit. At this point the two of them are constantly pushing the line, hungry like vultures who’ve been waiting years to eat.  

Alicent begins to rub herself raw against Rhaenyra’s thigh, wedged between her legs. The intense combination of pleasure and pain gives her a revelation. It is not anger what unites them, it is this what unites them, this disgusting part of themselves that both of them share.

And when Rhaenyra digs her fingers into the skin of her waist, hard enough to leave a bruise, Alicent finally understands why men lost their minds over sex. This is a feeling people would die chasing.

Intimacy between them has always been liminal, blurring lines beyond decency.

On Rhaenyra’s tongue she was friend and sister and Alicent in that gentle voice. Rhaenyra’s mother treated her like her own daughter, she saw Rhaenyra naked more than once when they used to bathe together, she slept in Rhaenyra’s bed almost every night. Her lips lingered on Rhaenyra’s neck longer than they should have, Rhaenyra sat on her lap on carriage rides. It feels like that was where it all started, crossing lines and boundaries that were too much to make them just friends.

Alicent remembers how innocent she was, how she never used to swear. How bottomless the world had been beneath them, how she was older but she’d follow Rhaenyra everywhere, and Rhaenyra would hang onto every word that left her mouth. How she’d act scandalised when Rhaenyra ran her mouth with endless curse words, some that she’d make up on a whim just to be crass and win a laugh out of Alicent on a day that she was sad.

In the past years, their entire relationship has been tinged in this sweet, savoury flavour of corruption. Alicent never used to swear until Rhaenyra. She’d never wanted a woman until Rhaenyra. She’d never let anyone enter inside her body besides her husband until Rhaenyra. She’d never gotten off to half the strange things she likes until Rhaenyra. This Alicent and the Alicent that Rhaenyra met forever ago are two entirely different people, made different in large part due to Rhaenyra. 

Alicent believes she has found the answer to the question she has asked herself for years. She was born broken. The true spark of her soul has always been a twisted wretch of a thing.

Rhaenyra did not ruin her, but she was the catalyst that brought out everything bad in her. Alicent never wanted any woman until Rhaenyra, but she never wanted any man before Rhaenyra either.

When she was young, she used to think that one day she would be courted by a good man and fall in love, just like it happened in the fairy tales she used to read. That never happened, and a part of her never wanted it to happen. The idea of being with a knight, a lord or her husband has never made her feel as giddy as she used to feel when she was around Rhaenyra and she... she never knew what to do with that information. It was not worth the headache of pinning down something so essential to her as a person, so she shoved it deep in her mind and locked it behind a door with the key thrown in the ocean. 

Alicent hasn’t thought about it since a long time. But that’s how it goes, you repress one thing, you tend to repress everything. She’s hard-wired to hide, hold tight to herself. 

She repeats the words in her mind: I want a woman, I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a man. The thought still makes her want to run and throw up in a panic, just like it did when she was a child. The feeling of nausea comes and she suddenly feels dizzy. Alicent tries to get up to breathe, but the grip around her waist keeps her still. She is almost positive she doesn’t imagine Rhaenyra’s fingers on her arm tightening to the point of pain.

Alicent blinks at the woman next to her. It’s clear Rhaenyra is not fully awake, but she still seeks her out in the darkness, feeling her hand on her wrist. Alicent swallows as she remembers Rhaenyra’s words: stay, even after the shame comes. She inhales and exhales.

It takes her a bit to find her voice. “Sleep.” Alicent murmurs to her, barely audible. “I am not going anywhere.” 

Rhaenyra looks tired, and is letting her eyes drift shut through slow blinks. When her breathing finally levels out, making it clear she’s asleep, Alicent takes a breath. Then she rests her head against Rhaenyra’s chest and lets the sound of Rhaenyra’s heartbeat carry her faraway – away from the shame and the guilt and the uneasy feeling inside her, and back to the bed, back to Rhaenyra and her long hair tickling her face and her long eyelashes and her hands on her body. Everything comfortable and warm.

There are some things about herself that she doesn’t want to define. Some things about her won’t ever belong to someone else and she prefers to keep them secret. Alicent doesn’t want to confront it, and tells herself it’s something to worry about at a later date.

The most ridiculous part about all of this is how easy it is. Even when they aren’t together, Alicent floats around in a euphoric, electrified cloud that she frankly finds a little embarrassing. Rhaenyra was right about calling her a needy dog— all it takes is Rhaenyra calling her name for her to come running, salivating at the mouth. At this point, it is impossible to pretend she is not acting desperate.

Rhaenyra is no better than her, though, and that is the part of all of this that makes Alicent the most dizzy. Most nights, she doesn’t even make it all the way through the door before Rhaenyra is trying to stick her tongue all the way down her throat. Sometimes they don’t even make it to the bed, crushing each other against the nearest surface. It is a new kind of desperation, but it feels good to have her desire reciprocated, it feels good to not feel like the only one who is crazy about it.

Alicent has felt Rhaenyra’s eyes and attention all night, like a low, unintelligible murmur that she simply can’t tune out and as always, just one look is enough to know what she wants.

Four glasses of wine and a couple of hours later, she finds herself being pressed against Rhaenyra’s body in the middle of the hallways after walking up the stairs. Rhaenyra backs her up against the concrete wall, gentle, her nose bumping against hers, and Alicent is torn between pulling her closer and pushing her away. Her body buzzing with want while her brain screams at her how dangerous this is, how much trouble they could get in if they were caught.

It is late, there is no one around, and, as she has done on many nights before, she has ordered Ser Criston to rest tonight. It is strange to order that to her sworn shield two times in a week, and she knows there is only a certain amount of times she can avoid someone to find them, but it is impossible to stop herself.

It makes her feel like a child again, doing something she shouldn’t. Alicent is also a little drunk, bubbly and hot, enough to lost her common sense. It makes her draw Rhaenyra in with hands on her neck, lips closing the gap between them until they’re reunited in the dark. Gods, Rhaenyra’s perfect lips have haunted her, they’re so soft and addictive in the way Rhaenyra tilts her head and kisses her back harder, demanding for more.

Alicent is brought back to her senses when Rhaenyra’s hands slip into her back and squeeze at her ass, heat gathering in the pit of her stomach. It makes her insides feel all gooey.

“Rhaenyra,” Alicent murmurs against her lips, whining when Rhaenyra pushes a knee between her legs, making her shiver. She tries to find the courage to pull away. “We shouldn’t—not here.”

In the soft wash of the moonlight, Rhaenyra looks like some kind of half-forsaken divine creature, something too beautiful and heavenly, out of this world. She looks unreal. Alicent reaches out to touch her face, and yes, she is real.

“You are right.” Rhaenyra mumbles as she retracts her hands. She has that glint in her eye that tells her that even though she is tipsy and playful, she still cares deeply. “Your chambers are closer.”

Alicent doesn’t say anything, just lets Rhaenyra take her hand and drag her forward. Rhaenyra is careful about it, as if she knows where someone might cross and where they might not, as if she knows the ways to sneak through those hallways like the back of her hand, as if this is something normal for her. It sure was. Alicent wonders if she used to do this with Harwin Strong— kissing in the hallways at night, sneaking around, culminate the night by fucking in Rhaenyra’s chambers.

“Do you used to do this with him?” Alicent blurts out before she can even think about it carefully.

Once the words come out, Rhaenyra stops in front of the door to her chambers, and Alicent freezes in horror at what she just asked. She just talks without thinking on rare occasions — usually when she is drunk, and only ever when Rhaenyra is close. Wine and Rhaenyra is a terrible combination.

Rhaenyra slips into a guarded expression. “With whom?”

Alicent, still awkwardly standing behind Rhaenyra, brings her free hand to her forehead and rubs at her temple. “Your husband,” she clarifies, and it is a terrible lie. Both know it is a lie. 

Rhaenyra lets out a laugh. “Not really. Leanor is always occupied,” she replies, as if she did not understand who she really was talking about. Alicent is grateful for that, for sparing her this humiliation and ignoring her comment.

After that, Rhaenyra opens the door and drags her into her own chambers. She is shameless about it, as if they were her own, and doesn’t let go of her hand until she pushes Alicent into the plush chair.

“Wait here.” Rhaenyra orders simply, giving her only one look before turning and walking out the door.

Where else I could go? Alicent wants to say, but Rhaenyra is gone without any explanation before she can even process the words.

Alicent waits for Rhaenyra to return, like a pet waiting for its owner to come back home or a wife waiting for her husband to get into bed, or something less humiliating.

Lately, it’s hard to name what she is to Rhaenyra. She is a wife to Viserys, a mother to her children, a Queen to her subjects. But what is she to Rhaenyra? 

They don’t talk about the meaning of their meetings, so Alicent tries her best not to think about what it means too often. It is simpler to keep this little secret as a thick rope strung round both their necks. Alicent thinks she’s doing perfectly fine categorizing it with all the other feelings she doesn’t want to confront head on.

After a few minutes, Rhaenyra comes back with a jug of wine. Alicent doesn’t ask how she got it, she just watches her put it on the table.

For a moment, neither of them says anything. Rhaenyra just stands with her back to her, silently pouring wine into her goblet, and just Alicent silently admires Rhaenyra— her hair loose, her small waist, her long shoulders.

“You seemed curious about my relationship a moment ago.” Rhaenyra is the first to break the silence. She pauses to sip wine, and Alicent feels cold sweat trickling down her neck, fear settling into her bones. “I am going to let you ask me one question about it.”

Alicent bites down on her own teeth, and a feeling of dread sinks into her. The sudden change of conversation is strange. Beyond uncomfortable. Rhaenyra is clearly talking in riddles. This is not about Ser Leanor.

The silence is so loud it feels like it fills the room. Rhaenyra hasn’t turned to look at her yet, and Alicent is grateful for that, she does not think she can look at her into the eyes right now. Alicent takes a breath and shifts uncomfortably in her seat, feeling too unwelcome in her own skin to move. Holding in the explanation is difficult, and she resists the urge to let all of what she feels spill over, but it is hard.

Wine makes her a fool, Alicent thinks before asking, “Did you love him?” Do you still love him?

Alicent feels it, that feeling she feels all the time, that reminder that Rhaenyra had someone else, a lover, someone who has done what she is doing for the past ten years. There’s an ache in her chest, pulsing.

There’s silence for a few moments, tension flickering in the air now that it is being acknowledged.

“I liked feeling desired in such a devoted way.” Rhaenyra admits after a few seconds. Alicent isn’t shocked by it, but it still feels like the ceiling might cave in with the words. It’s confirmation of something she has known in the back of her mind for so long, but that Rhaenyra has never quite admitted out loud, always omitting who any of it happened with. It confirms something Alicent has known for a long time, that Rhaenyra had a lover, but the knowledge still makes something burn low in her stomach. “I don’t think it was love, but I was fond of him and I trusted him.”

Her words make her feel strangely relieved. It feels similar to swallowing something that’s been stuck in her throat for years.

It is not love, Alicent repeats the words over and over again in her mind. Even thought it feels good to know it was not that, the thought of Rhaenyra sleeping with that man still makes her feel mad.

Alicent doesn’t know what is wrong with her, she doesn’t know if she’ll ever stop feeling like this. It is possessive and dirty and improper, and she hates to feel so betrayed when she thinks about Rhaenyra sleeping with someone else, as if someone had touched something that is hers. Rhaenyra was never hers, even if in some dark corner of her mind, Alicent always felt a certain childish possession over her.

“You are not talking about your husband.” Alicent answers uselessly because she doesn’t know what to say.

Rhaenyra turns around, staring at her with zero emotions on her face. “You did not ask about him.”

Alicent just looks back at her, unsure of how to convey what she feels inside, which is so much, far too complex to even understand, so complicated that she does not know how to categorize it or put it into words. There is so much to be shared between the two of them; finding where to begin is a feat in and of itself. Alicent wouldn’t know how to express it anyway.

At the end, she doesn’t say anything and the room falls silent again. All that remains in it are Rhaenyra, Alicent, and the mess in her head.

Rhaenyra takes a sip of wine and sets her goblet down before walking towards her. Her expression is different from before, calmer, more like her usual self: playful and bubbly. “I am tired of talking. There is something you want to do tonight?” 

Alicent’s eyes flicker up. Rhaenyra is standing in front of her and for the first time she doesn’t look unattainable and demanding, she just looks like she’s waiting for Alicent to decide how the night is going to continue. That catches Alicent off guard.

“Does wine make you more docile?” Alicent clears her throat, and tries to act more normal about it. 

Rhaenyra shoots her a playful look. “I can be docile if I want to,” she argues, crossing her arms. Alicent can feel herself slowly beginning to relax. “Tell me what you want.”

Alicent blinks at her, feeling her heart hammering in her ears. When Rhaenyra acts so tender and youthful, she doesn’t know what to do. Rhaenyra uses her sweet voice on her, and it cracks Alicent wide open for the taking. Alicent is a fool for it. She is a fool for Rhaenyra, and it makes her lose hold of everything she’s ever known about herself, all that she’s been taught throughout her life. It is terrifying.

Rhaenyra lets out a long sigh and gives her a feigned tired look. “What kind of degenerate thoughts are going through your mind?”

Alicent, with rosy cheeks and a stubborn gaze, hurries to reply, “I was not thinking about any of that.”

“How vulgar you have become, Your Grace.” Rhaenyra scoffs, ignoring her response as she straddles her thighs, pinning her in place.

Alicent tenses. Rhaenyra seems to like kissing in this position a lot, with her mostly on Alicent’s lap, as they lay together in bed, propped up on pillows. It is not like Alicent does not like it, but it makes her feel helpless. Beneath Rhaenyra’s weight, she can’t escape—she is cornered. Sometimes Alicent wonders if this is the reason Rhaenyra does it. 

Rhaenyra grabs Alicent’s jaw and stares at her. Her dark gaze makes Alicent feel even more restless. “If you get tired of me, are you going to look for some whore to fuck you?”

Alicent hasn’t really felt shame until now.

It’s not sex what feels so good about this. Well, it is, but it is Rhaenyra who makes it good. It’s not always about pleasing or being pleased. Alicent just enjoys the feeling of having Rhaenyra; of having Rhaenyra’s hands on her and her own in Rhaenyra; of feeling Rhaenyra closer than ever in such a raw way, like they are about to merge. Alicent thinks that Rhaenyra could open her up with a knife and take out her intestines like a fish, and it would feel as good as sex.

Alicent doesn’t think she would want to do this with any other woman, she can’t even imagine it. It feels wrong, worse than this. It feels like another kind of sin. With Rhaenyra, despite the guilt, it feels natural, like Rhaenyra is her birthright.

“What kind of person do you think I am?” Alicent snaps. “I am not...” like that, her mind finishes for her. Alicent swallows because a part of her knows that she is like that. She has decency, though. Even if she has a particular taste on women, she’s not desperate enough to seek solace in a whore. “I am the Queen, Rhaenyra. It is almost an insult to even suggest that I could do something like that.”

Rhaenyra’s eyes meet her own. Her lips parted, the pink of her tongue peeking out. “Well, good,” she shifts on her lap, and suddenly she feels heavier, like she’s trying to remind Alicent how much bigger she is, how easily she could pin her down. “I’d be offended if you think some whore can fuck you better than me.”

The intensity in Rhaenyra’s voice makes Alicent a little dizzy. She would have expected Rhaenyra to at least have a playful look in her eyes, but she looks oddly serious about it. That scares Alicent.

“I want you to shut up,” Alicent blurts out in panic. “That is what I want right now.”

Rhaenyra nods in understanding, bringing her hands to her mouth. It’s more silent than usual then.

“Oh, you were serious about being docile.” Alicent utters, tone flat, voice paper-thin. “I was wrong. I think wine just makes you act ridiculous.”

Rhaenyra rolls her eyes and pushes her head into Alicent’s neck, inhaling and pressing her lips softly against her neck. Alicent’s breath hitch, but she doesn’t make any motion to move. 

“What are you doing?” Alicent asks, and she clears her throat right after. Her voice is unsteady and hesitant.

“I am just tired,” Rhaenyra murmurs back, moving her head like she is trying to push her head further into the nook. Alicent tries to ignore how her lips brush against her skin with every syllable. 

Silence settles around them and Alicent breathes slowly. Rhaenyra smells like her childhood bedroom, she smells like home and laughs made at a time entirely too late for a girl to be awake. She is not sure why but Rhaenyra smells like everything she could ever need. Alicent is about to tell Rhaenyra this, about to open the floodgates and let every saccharine admission come tumbling out, but Rhaenyra sighs. She sighs like she is tired and wants to sleep, and that is more important than any confession she could hold. A part of her is grateful for the interruption, she is too drunk to remember what is correct to say and what is not.

“Do you want to sleep?” Alicent asks, using her hand to card through Rhaenyra’s hair. It’s an awkward angle, but it doesn’t really matter.

Rhaenyra hums and Alicent squirms forwards, closer into her hold. It’s almost as if the vulnerability is hurting her when Rhaenyra is too far away. If she isn’t almost inside Rhaenyra, shame and all other bad things come to her.

A long ago, Alicent knew their boundaries better than Rhaenyra. Now she barely knows them at all. She stumbles and slips over the line all the time. The longer time passes, the harder deciphering the limits become.

Sometimes Alicent feels if there is a line, they have surely already crossed it many years before.