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Chapter Text

A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

Alicent is drowning.

Sleeping with Rhaenyra feels like diving headfirst into a bottomless ocean. An ocean filled with every pleasure you could possibly imagine. It is endless and filthy, and sometimes Alicent does not want to come up for air. Sometimes she wants to die there.

It feels good to take a part of Rhaenyra and hear her voice moaning, yes, please Alicent keep going, please please please. It feels good to see Rhaenyra needy and crumbing under her, to sit between her legs, and to taste her arousal. It feels good when Rhaenyra fucks her until her knees give out, and she is high out of her mind on the pleasure, sweating, cursing, and forgetting to disguise her voice because it feels so damn good, and she can’t keep it together.

It’s been better than Alicent thought sex could be — something visceral, a little violent, in the way her body reacts to Rhaenyra.

Alicent used to thought she had a little more of self-control, but Rhaenyra keeps proving her wrong again and again. She has this terrible, awful, embarrassing realization as she claws at the sheets, breathing out when Rhaenyra pushes another finger inside of her.

Sweat drips down the curve of her spine, making her shiver. Alicent rolls her hips, lower lip bitten raw between her teeth as her walls clenches around Rhaenyra’s fingers. The sudden pressure of Rhaenyra’s tongue against her small bud draws a moan from the base of her throat; wet and airy, filling the room and somehow making the temperature even hotter.

This is what they do now, it seems. Alicent stays in the morning and Rhaenyra rewards her for it.

A reward.

During all those months, she has let Rhaenyra fuck her and then pet her head when she’d done all the tricks she had demanded. At that time, it felt good to think of sex as such, as a punishment rather than a reward, but Alicent knew it was the both of them. The sex felt good, really good, so good that she unconsciously craved it every time they argued. 

That was before.

Usually, when she ended up in bed with Rhaenyra it was with a purpose. There was always that sense of control on Rhaenyra’s part, like she knew where she wanted her to go and how she wanted her to feel. Each moment had a clear goal, almost calculated. Easy, simple steps to follow that led to an inevitable end. Alicent wonders if it is still the same for Rhaenyra, if she is still controlling the threads that bind them.

Maybe she just needs to shut up her brain long enough to enjoy it, Alicent thinks as Rhaenyra looks up to meet her gaze, and she feels the pressure gathering at the base of her stomach.

Rhaenyra’s eyes are dark and hooded, but the intensity of her gaze makes arousal twist inside Alicent so much that she’s already on the brink of her orgasm, just on the verge of tipping over and letting go. 

“You are close.” Alicent can hear Rhaenyra’s voice through the ringing in her ears, as her orgasm gets closer, and closer. “Alicent,” she says in that soft, coaxing tone that goes right to her very heart every time. “Come for me.”

Alicent whimpers, feeling the sensation of Rhaenyra’s fingers curling inside her, disappearing underneath a brilliant rush through her skin. Her scalp prickles hot. Her spine feels like it’s being tickled from the inside-out. The soles of her feet where they’re rubbing against the bed arc with a pleasure so pure her thighs shake as she comes in shuddering, violent pulses. 

After a few seconds, her body finally stops spasming enough for her to collapse to the bed, wrecked like she’s been driven into the boards. 

Alicent breathes heavily for a moment, eyes closed, mind fading, before turning around. Rhaenyra lies down beside her and gives her a look, playful yet cocky look. She looks so smug and beautiful and bright, and unfortunately the day has to go on even though Alicent just wants to stare at the other woman for a long time— look at her long eyelashes, her lips, her nose. Gods. Alicent feels like she has been here many times before, sitting on the bed not knowing what to say and trying and failing not to stare at Rhaenyra. It is embarrassing. 

Feeling the heat rising up to her face, she tries to get up, but Rhaenyra reaches for her and pulls her back. A protest almost comes out of Alicent’s mouth but at the end, she lets Rhaenyra do as she wishes and flops down onto the mattress, brows furrowing as Rhaenyra sits on her lap. 

“Where do you think you are going?” Rhaenyra asks, bluntly, lifting an eyebrow. Suddenly, the bed creaks and Rhaenyra’s knees dig into the mattress, on either side of Alicent’s hip. It is a habitual gesture, sitting on her. One of many that Alicent got used to reluctantly, out of inertia and insistence, and now she wouldn’t know how to see it any other way but natural.

It’s the weight of a body on top of her which she did not expect to be pleasant. It oppresses her, but it also settles her. For once, she doesn’t mind having restricted control. It is strange to be comfortable being invaded and pushed down.

“I make you come and you are already thinking about leaving?” Rhaenyra scoffs, but Alicent can see she is trying to appear unfazed.

This time, when Rhaenyra looks at Alicent, there’s a flicker of that same old weariness in her eyes beyond the anger and indignation. Alicent has seen that look in her eyes a lot of times and for the first time she does not want Rhaenyra to be mad at her, to think she is a coward.

Alicent is hit in the chest with a heavy weight as a new sense of guilt settles in over what already exists. She is nervous suddenly; it almost feels like if she does one wrong step, she’s going to shatter something, going to send Rhaenyra running for the hills to never come back. 

“I want to take a bath. I feel sweaty and gross.” Alicent explains, trying to put confidence and sincerity into her voice. 

“Mmh, is that so?” Rhaenyra says, voice dropping an octave to an almost-purr. Her hand ascends towards her collarbones and she runs along it like a bridge to the shoulder and, once there, lingers at the junction between the two bones. 

Something about the feeling of Rhaenyra’s hands on her skin makes Alicent’s head feel misty, almost dreaming. Alicent tries to focus on their movement, on the feeling of them on her skin, even though she knows that she should probably leave. They are just hands, she should be used to it by now. But she is not. She will never be used to this. Rhaenyra’s touch is fiery hot. It singes her skin in a way that makes her want more, a pain she has learn to crave.

“Can you move?”

“No.”

“You know I can’t stay.” Alicent bleats, flailing a little. 

Rhaenyra makes a pause, considering it. Then she’s suddenly pulling away, the swift absence of her touch leaving Alicent missing it. “Fine. I am going to take a bath with you.”

Alicent takes the opportunity to get up, trying to play indifferent, because she finds that she wants to seem indifferent, even when she’s not. She rolls her eyes at Rhaenyra, knowing she won’t say no, but not wanting to give in too easily either.

“I never invited you to take a bath with me.” Alicent complains, turning to Rhaenyra. She always looks so damn calm. Sitting there all pillar-like and determined, like nothing can shake her.

Rhaenyra hops off the bed and leans into her ear. “We both know you can’t say no to me, Alicent.” 

It’s said in a light, playful tone, but as Alicent slowly follows behind her when Rhaenyra starts to walk, she realizes the joke is much closer to bordering reality than being just a joke.

Rhaenyra stops in front of the door and stares at her through her lashes. Alicent stops as well. “Go. I’ll join you later ” Just like that. Decisive.

You can’t say no to me, Alicent repeats it in her head over and over again.

Rhaenyra is wrong. She can say no— she just won’t do it, and in her mind, that’s a way bigger offense to herself.

“Fine.” 

Rhaenyra is not good for her at all.

Really, she isn’t. Because Alicent lets her mind wander when she looks at Rhaenyra. Lets her mind wander as she kisses Rhaenyra. Lets her mind wander when Rhaenyra drags her into any empty shadow of the castle she finds to get in a cheeky snog or more, whatever they can get away with, and Alicent never has enough self-control to stop herself.

Rhaenyra just has a way to make her forget she has a brain — to make her fall apart and shut up the small and traitorous voice in the back of her mind, the same little one that questions if right is right and wrong is wrong and who is to say they are so. Its tone is familiar: that voice is always conflicted about whether she should take what she wants or not, whether she should continue or stop.

Alicent forgets about everything as Rhaenyra cradles her jaw in her hand, practically wrenching Alicent’s mouth open and biting her bottom lip, hard, the swell of it caught between her teeth.

She spends a moment thinking they could spend the rest of the day here, in her chambers, just kissing. Her hips move needily against Rhaenyra, trying to get off on the friction, grasping onto her harder and harder until there are bruises on Rhaenyra’s shoulders. 

Not forever, though, Alicent thinks. She doesn’t have forever. Until the morning, perhaps. Until what they are doing sinks in, until Alicent realizes she is farther over her head than she has ever been, until Rhaenyra pushes too hard or too fast and Alicent wants too much, until their secret is found out and destroys everything, until Rhaenyra gets tired of her and Alicent realizes she cannot have this for the rest of her life.

There is no way to tell when she is going to stop doing this. The only thing she knows is that time isn’t something she should be wasting when she has this beautiful, devasting woman kissing her. 

Rhaenyra crowds her up against one of the walls, successfully trapping her in the prison, which Alicent is very enthusiastic to remain in.

Flush with desire, Alicent reciprocates her desperation, dragging her lips down to Rhaenyra’s chest and abandoning all decorum as she bites and licks her skin. Rhaenyra clenches her fists around the front of Alicent’s clothes, and for a moment, Alicent contemplates the shadow of what she thinks will be her best mark to date. She paints another one on the collarbone, purely to test if it looks different on the bone. 

Part of her wants it to be permanent. Alicent wants to sink her teeth and tear apart that skin; she wants Rhaenyra full of scratches and bruises; she wants her body painted in red, purple, green and yellow.

Alicent shifts closer, lifting on her tiptoes so she can press her mouth to Rhaenyra’s jaw and drag her lips down her neck. She allows herself to taste the crook of her throat. It tastes like salt and sweat, and she lingers there. Alicent wants to shove herself into Rhaenyra and live there for the rest of the day. She wants to wear that skin like the best kind of blanket. Wants to lap up the taste of it off of her skin.

Something dark squirms in Alicent’s stomach, and she tries to tamp down the strange streak of possessiveness that rises within her. It is something she is particularly familiar with, but thinking of Rhaenyra this way — that’s new. Or maybe it’s just her subconscious, unfiltered at last, voicing something she’s never dared to acknowledge before.

Rhaenyra makes a noise—low, rough, and ragged—and tugs her hair to pull her apart. “Enough.”

Alicent tries to chase her again, snarling through the crack in her lips like she is injured and ensnared. Rhaenyra giggles, and one of her hands cups around Alicent’s jaw, easing her head back until they can meet each other’s eyes.

“We are going to have dinner soon. What am I supposed to say if someone sees me with a love bite on my neck?”

Alicent blushes a bit at her words.

That squirming discomfort evolves into a visceral twist in her gut. The thought of someone seeing the mark she left on Rhaenyra... Her rational voice knows she shouldn’t want that, that it is dangerous and foolish, but there is an alarming disconnect between her internal desires and her physical self. Alicent does not know what to make of it—that distressing surge of possessiveness.

“I am sure you’ll be able to come up with a good lie.” Alicent replies, feeling slightly ridiculous for it. It’s not like Rhaenyra isn’t brazen enough to do that anyway. Look at her children, if she doesn’t care about their looks, a visible mark should mean nothing to her. “You can say that your husband did this to you.”

I am sure your father would believe it, Alicent wants to add, but she holds herself back. This is not the time to start a pointless argument or be resentful about the same old thing.

Rhaenyra’s smile spreads into a grin, her eyes gleaming dangerously as she looks back at her. “Maybe I’ll tell them that the Queen did this to me,” she leans in, ducking her head, her breath hot over the skin on Alicent’s neck as she gets closer, sending chills down Alicent’s spine. “That she is mad about me and loves to desecrate my body.”

Alicent grunts, feeling indignant, offended and dizzy for the closeness all simultaneously. She is about to respond with some useless lie, but then she realizes what Rhaenyra said a moment before and pushes Rhaenyra, panicking. “Oh, Gods. I forgot about dinner. You— ugh— why didn’t you remind me that before?”

Rhaenyra shrugs, a sign she does not feel shame for what happened, before fixing the top part of her dress. Alicent glances at her chest where she can see her erect nipples through the fabric and swallows, scolding herself for being tempted by Rhaenyra’s flesh so easily.

Her gaze goes down again, and this time Alicent pinches her hand behind her back, trying to get ahold of herself.

“You seemed very occupied attacking my body like a hungry animal.” There is another shrug. Something about the lazy curl of her voice, the way Rhaenyra manages to seem unaffected by all of this while Alicent loses her control all the time— she doesn’t know. It makes Alicent feel like she is the pervert one between them, even if she knows that is not true. “I did not want to interrupt you.”

Alicent groans— the bones of her cheeks dusted in deep ruddy pink. Her lips trapped shut. Shame had not come until now, but it is for all the wrong reasons. Alicent simply hates showing herself so vulnerable and... feral. 

Without any arguments to defend herself, Alicent sighs and gives in. “You should change your clothes. You, huh,” she stares at Rhaenyra for a moment. Her cheeks are still ruddy, and just below her collarbones are a series of small purpling marks. “You should not show a lot of skin for a few days.”

Rhaenyra crosses her arms and simply gives her a glare, narrowing her eyes. “Who’s fault it is?”

Alicent grumbles, feeling unjustifiably enraged, even if she knows Rhaenyra is right. “Just change your clothes, please. And for God’s sake, avoid wearing any dress with a low neckline.” 

“Understood.” Rhaenyra replies, lips curling up in a way that clearly tells she did not understand. “I am going to wear the dress with the most outrageous neckline I own for dinner.”

Alicent schools her expression into something serious and stares at her.

Rhaenyra barks out a laugh, amusement apparent on her features as she leans in and gives her a kiss on the cheek. The kiss is short, almost chaste, but it still makes her insides go hot and swimmy.

Alicent swallows and tries to stand her ground, brow furrowed and arms crossed, but her act only lasts ten seconds before her gaze follows Rhaenyra when she starts to walk towards the door.

Before leaving, the other woman gives her a smile and Alicent feels something between unbearable fondness, a hellish heat in her belly, and an ache that threatens to crack her breastbone.

Once Rhaenyra is gone, Alicent takes a breath and leans her head against the wall. There is something about Rhaenyra that ties her up in knots, winds her with how much she wants. How badly. Every moment with Rhaenyra makes her feel like she is fourteen, fifteen, seventeen, all over again. 

Alicent walks towards the mirror to see her own reflection. Her hair is a mess from Rhaenyra’s fingers, and her cheeks are still flushed. 

She sneers at the sight of herself. You’re acting like a goddamn child, Alicent hisses to herself, her face hot, mortified at herself.

As soon as Rhaenyra walks in the dining hall, she apologizes for the delay and slides into place beside Leanor and Viserys. 

Alicent risks a quick glance toward her usual seat and finds Rhaenyra already seated and staring steadily back at her. Her dress is not revealing, but if she looks closely enough, she can see a purple stain peeking through the dress. 

Rhaenyra raises her eyebrows at her when she finds her staring for too long. Alicent rolls her eyes, unimpressed, and Rhaenyra’s teeth sink into her bottom lip to disguise her smile. It’s a simple gesture, but Alicent’s heart gives a heavy, delighted thud. Which is ridiculous. How does Rhaenyra manage to make her weak in the knees, even when she’s sat down?

For the second time in the day, Alicent feels like a child, but just for this moment, it’s fine. It’s fine because Rhaenyra is there, and she’s staring right at her, her blue eyes consumed by her, and there was never a time when Rhaenyra’s attention didn’t make her dizzy and sick and pleased.

Being at the center of Rhaenyra’s attention is just as overwhelming as she remembers it being ten years ago. Those carnivorous eyes sparklers a fire within her gut and sends a tremble down her spine. Desire, her rationality insists, but is it really? Alicent knows how lust feels like. It is supposed to make her tingly and wet, not make her flush and sweat. Her heart thumpers, yes, but the beat it is not because she wants something carnal. It is different. It steals her breath.

Rhaenyra looks away and smiles at Jacaerys, who is telling her something quite excited. Alicent watches it and tries to identify the feeling going through her. Wistfulness, she thinks, is what comes the closest.

She regrets a lot of things, but the one thing she regrets the most is having to be the one to abandon Rhaenyra. She has largely come to terms with what she had to sacrifice, but after pushing Rhaenyra away, she had expected at least for Rhaenyra to run away after her and beg her for her forgiveness— to chase her just like she did. It never happened, and at that time, Alicent’s pride was too great to try to fix things between them. Why would she do it anyway? Rhaenyra was quite clear with her position on their friendship.

Alicent’s heart is lurching painfully in her chest as she keeps string at Rhaenyra and the way everyone adores her, even Viserys, and wonders.

Wonders if Rhaenyra will ever want her to be part of her life again. If she has any right to be part of her life, if she can receive that kind of smile that Rhaenyra gives to her children, if she can be worthy of receiving tender words and soft looks. If she can be... 

Alicent looks at her father, her children, her husband, and feels another pain. There’s an uncomfortable ache in her chest, like she’s got a large, deep bruise there. She catches herself rubbing at the back of her neck three times while she eats, like it’s too bare, too exposed, and yanks her hand away angry and embarrassed and scalded each time. 

Guilt pangs hard and sharp in her chest, and Alicent wonders if there is a way to fix all the broken edges to make them fit together.

They have been sleeping together a lot.

Initially, Alicent was certain that it would be something that happened sporadically, in the heat of the moment, on the rare occasions they both happen to be in the same room, and it just happens. Instead, it turns into something they do frequently.

Alicent thinks she may be losing her mind. She’d foolishly thought that her control was too good, her boundaries too firm. She’d known that Rhaenyra was undoing them, picking out each careful stitch, so gently that it didn’t hurt, not even a little. Rhaenyra has been pushing her over and over again — not too much, just enough. In her space. In her life. Making room for herself, to the point that Alicent has not noticed how much time she spends with Rhaenyra.

Fear and satisfaction walk hand in hand in her chest as Rhaenyra makes small noises, one hand in her hair that she tugs gently. It is sending zings of pleasure throughout her body with each tug and Alicent wants to cling to this, tightly: her left hand aching in Rhaenyra’s waist as she tries to keep it close and her right hand between Rhaenyra’s thighs, fingers deep into her up to the knuckle.

Rhaenyra is moaning, eyes wide, looking down at her. “That is—” she seems to have to swallow before she can finish the sentence. “That is— Alicent, fuck, you are—” she laughs, sounding frenzied as she rides her fingers.

Alicent can feel it, how Rhaenyra’s walls contract against her fingers and oh, it is so hot and wet, and strange. Strange because this is the first time they do this, the first time Alicent is inside Rhaenyra, the first time she feels her so raw, and she likes it.

At moments like these she feels like she could take all of Rhaenyra, every part of her, inside, swallow her up whole and keep her there where no one else could have her ever. Alicent wants to be inside her, as deep as the men she’s slept with have been. She wants to erase the memory of her ever fucking Harwin Strong and Ser Criston from Rhaenyra’s mind. 

“Curl your fingers—mmh, like that.” Rhaenyra moans, loud and needy, bucking her hips forward and clinging to her so tightly it hurts. “Ah—you fuck me so good, your fingers fill me so good. You are so good. So good for me.”

Alicent likes that, too. Being good. Useful. Worth of Rhaenyra’s grace. She likes that almost as much as she likes the feeling of Rhaenyra’s thighs closing on her hand when she is close, likes it almost as much as she likes the sound Rhaenyra makes when she comes.

Rhaenyra gets her palm on the back of her head and draws her closer, and Alicent kisses down the line of her jaw, mouth wet and soft under her ear, and along her throat before her teeth close on the skin of her neck. Rhaenyra groans in pain, leaning in to click her tongue and whisper in her ear, “You hate when I call you dog, but you sure bite me like one.” 

Alicent huffs out and narrows her eyes before leaning back. “Shut up,” she says, and then she kisses her. Rhaenyra lets out a breath, startled and warm, as her lips capture hers.

Rhaenyra laughs as she pulls back and Alicent looks at the line of her teeth — vision blurry, heart irregular. The sheets are a little tangled around Rhaenyra’s feet, and she is still naked. She is looking at Alicent, and Alicent thinks again, as she has so many times, that she’d had no idea what she was getting into when she started sleeping with this woman.

In the quiet of the room, it feels far more intimate, as though they are sliding inexorably over the boundaries, the lines, the rules, the regulations that Alicent has carefully set in place. Regulations and rules that have been in place far before she’d ever thought she would have the opportunity to sleep with Rhaenyra. 

Her breath catches in her throat, and she finds she can’t stop herself, now that she has started. Not right now. Alicent wishes the thought would make her sick, but at the same time, she is glad it does not, because she does not think she could say no even if she tries.

You can’t say no to me. Alicent remembers those words and has a bad feeling about all of this. Rhaenyra knows too much. For example, she knows how to get her guard down, how to make her go crazy with want. How to touch her to make her dissolve into some soft, content, foreign version of herself. It can’t be good to let Rhaenyra have this much power over her.

This woman will be your ruin, a voice in her mind tells her. And deep down, Alicent knows it is true. Rhaenyra knows way, way too much. She can tell her husband about it, she can tell her father about it. Gods, if they knew about this—

Rhaenyra shifts closer, the sheets rustling underneath her, and scoffs. “I can practically hear you thinking.” 

Alicent gulps and thinks for a moment that maybe asking wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Surely it wouldn’t. So she blurts out, in a moment of insane courage, “Have you told anyone about this?”

She is straining for casual, as though it is a thought that suddenly crossed for her mind instead of something she’s been stewing over for weeks. 

Rhaenyra watches her and gives her a long, slow blink. “About what?” She is going for innocent. Alicent knows better.

Alicent resists the urge to huff out. “About our...” her voice comes out hoarse, and she has to swallow before she can continue. “About our meetings.”

Rhaenyra pauses, looking at her consideringly, her mouth curving into a smile. “Yes, I have told the whole court that I am fucking the Queen. Oh, and that she also fucks me sometimes, and she does it surprisingly well.”

“Rhaenyra.” Alicent has to work to keep her tone dry, but she is pretty sure that her face is giving her away. 

Rhaenyra huffs out petulantly. “Do you think I am stupid enough to tell anyone about this?”

Alicent shrugs, because she is not sure of that. Rhaenyra might be brazen enough to believe she can get away with this. After all, she has been here before. She knows what she is doing. Her father has forgiven her for many things. Alicent is not like that, she cannot make mistakes, she cannot take so many risks. It is reasonable to be concerned about herself in this situation.

Rhaenyra’s eyes narrow to suspicious blue slits. Her chin jerks up. “Thank you for the kind response,” she replies sarcastically after Alicent stays silent. “I did not tell Leanor about it, if that is your question. He does not know how to keep secrets, I would never tell him about us.”

Us. 

It feels odd to hear it. Since when did they stop being two people and become one again?

The sheets give a bit underneath them as Rhaenyra presses her against them, and there is a bubbling feeling rising up in her again. She fumbles around in the dark searching for a way to put it into words, to keep it for herself, and eventually gives up trying to name the feeling.

“I understand.” Alicent replies after a moment, gaze sliding sideways.

Rhaenyra hums: no subtle dig, no indignant, thin-lipped glare. Just this endless, alien patience. After a second, she says, “Can I ask you a question as well?”

Alicent feels scared suddenly, but she can only nod, a reckless pulse throbbing in her veins.

“When you go to the Sept, what do you pray for?” Rhaenyra is pressing the words against her mouth. They are wildly inappropriate and sudden, a step too far even in the middle of this intimacy. “What do you ask for?”

Alicent cannot breathe, cannot think. She can’t believe Rhaenyra is asking this. She can’t believe she wants to actually tell her.

“For... sanctity. For the health of my children and your father.” Alicent doesn’t know what she is going to say it until it’s out of her mouth, and she barrels on before her good sense can catch up with her pounding heart. “I ask the Warrior to grant me courage and the Smith to grant me strength.”

Rhaenyra’s hands are on her waist, warm against her skin, sliding up her sides in a way that seems far more intimate than her fingers inside her had been last night. She kisses Alicent again, and again, seems to get lost in it and Alicent feels lost too. “What about me?” she breathes, finally releasing her mouth. She pulls back, just a little, just enough that Alicent can almost see her eyes.

“I pray for your health as well.” Alicent answers honestly. The Mother knows how much she has asked for her health. 

“Do you talk to them a lot about me?” Rhaenyra asks, and the rich, hungry amusement in her voice strikes like a match right down Alicent’s skin. Her shoulders snap back, her chin up.

It is that right there that unravels Alicent from the inside out. She can only swallow and nod. “Yes.”

Rhaenyra doesn’t laugh, the way Alicent had expected, the way she wanted to happen so she could find a distraction from this too-intimate question. Rhaenyra nods, instead, eyes focused and serious, like Alicent had said something profound.

For some reason, it makes her want to continue.

“I ask all the time to the Handmaiden to stop me from falling into the clutches of desire — to make me stop wanting you and thinking about you this way.” Alicent confesses, voice low.

There is so much to say. Once she starts, she does not want to stop. She thinks about telling Rhaenyra every moment that made her want to pray for forgiveness: how jealous she was of every person Rhaenyra looked at, how she loved the smell of her sweat and clothes whenever she came back from riding Syrax. How she used to walk in the Red Keep all the time, waiting for a glimpse of the ghost of a girl she used to know. How she waited outside Rhaenyra’s chambers countless times, working up the courage to get in and confess to Rhaenyra how lonely and lost she was without her. A dozen other things are all adding up in the back of her mind.

Alicent swallows the words in her mouth, and instead of elaborating, she licks her lips and lies back on the bed — eyes falling on Rhaenyra’s naked body, on her collarbones, her nipples, the muscles in her arms. Rhaenyra is a woman. Alicent desires this woman, badly.

“This way...?” Rhaenyra asks after a moment, lifting an eyebrow. 

Alicent blushes, eyes wandering from her breasts to her face. “You know.”

Rhaenyra’s smile gets more sultry, as though she knows exactly what Alicent is thinking about. “Oh, that way,” she replies, sounding perversely pleased by it. Her fingers trail up and down Alicent’s thighs, and her head tilts to the side. Alicent closes her eyes. “Have the Gods ever answered your prayers?”

Alicent laughs, a harsh sound, her body shaking underneath Rhaenyra. “Look at me,” she hisses, eyes still shut. “What do you think?”

Rhaenyra laughs as well, just like a child who hears a joke she can only understand; she laughs like she got away with something. And then she kisses her, like she is rewarding her for her sins. 

One of her hands rests on the nape of her neck, so light that Alicent can barely feel it. The other is on Alicent’s arm, nails digging in hard, as vicious as the want clogging up Alicent’s chest. Keeping her in place. 

“Lean back,” Rhaenyra instructs, sweeping her hand across the back of her neck to gather all the hair. Letting it fall heavily into her back. “I am going to fuck you so hard you’ll be talking to your Gods about it for the rest of the month.”

Alicent snorts, a sound of disbelief and disapproval. Then she opens her legs, and as they’d both come to expect, she does what she was told.

Alicent is a little startled by how fast she falls into the rhythm of things again. It’s like she never forgot the feeling of having Rhaenyra, or the comfort that comes from holding her hand. All-nighters drinking wine fade away, turning into long afternoons talking about anything. Her body molds itself into Rhaenyra’s bed like she always belonged there, right at her side.

She still feels a pang of guilt over that now and then. Though it all isn’t nearly as overbearing as Alicent thought it would be —and that might be due to the fact that she’s enjoying herself a little too much— it doesn’t erase the fact that it’s still there. It doesn’t change the fact that Alicent avoids speaking to her father and husband about Rhaenyra, like she’s avoiding an illness. It doesn’t change the fact that, on some nights, despite knowing Rhaenyra is in her chambers, Alicent goes straight to her own and doesn’t come out until the next day. 

Regardless, the guilt still isn’t enough for Alicent to pull the plug and end what’s happening between them, because a part of her needs it and now, it’s just so easy.

Most importantly, Alicent enjoys Rhaenyra’s company even outside of sex. It makes her feel a little crazy, driven mad by the familiarity of it all. It’s almost as if all she can think about lately is Rhaenyra and just Rhaenyra. It profoundly irritates Alicent. She doesn’t know what to do; she’s clueless with these feelings Rhaenyra provokes in her. It makes her lose control over herself and try to run and hide.

Avoid the unavoidable; when will they stop? 

She hopes later than sooner. In the meantime, nights blur into days, days blur into weeks, and Alicent – miraculously, incredibly, impossibly – does not run away.

One afternoon, Alicent comes back to her chambers and finds Rhaenyra asleep in her bed. It takes her a second to recognize that the woman on her bed is Rhaenyra, and she is grateful that the initial shock paralyzed her enough to not yell for Ser Criston to come. 

It’s barely after noon, but winter has cast the sky in a dim and ashy gray. Rain lashes against the windows and sends strange, drizzling shadows across Rhaenyra’s face.

Viserys had mentioned to her this morning that Rhaenyra was indisposed and would therefore not be present at the small council. Alicent did not ask about it. A year ago, she would have made a scathing comment about it; maybe she would have thought how typical of Rhaenyra it was to lie to avoid her duties. Apparently, something changed, and Alicent didn’t even notice it until she realized on her way to her room that she spent the entire afternoon thinking about it and debating whether to go to Rhaenyra’s room to check on her.

Her mind has been a storm all day, a spiral between 'maybe her blood has come early and she feels unwell' and 'maybe she is just stressed' and 'if she was stressed, she would have come to me to find comfort'. Then Alicent opened the door of her chambers and found the answer. 

Alicent looks around, taking in the sight.

All these years, she would usually come back to an empty room, to the dead silence of a place that’s inevitably too big for her alone. Even during the first couple of weeks when Rhaenyra started to sleep with her here, it still felt the same. Too big, too empty. But recently, Alicent has noticed the traces of Rhaenyra all over the place, and it’s surprising how quickly she’s gotten used to it.

The image of Rhaenyra sleeping on her bed and sitting on her plush chair and eating at her table is an image that no longer catches Alicent off guard. The place looks lived in, more so than when it was just her alone. 

That freaks Alicent out because no matter how hard she has tried to hide it, it is impossible not to notice all the ways she has inexorably made space in her life for Rhaenyra to fill. The extra pillows on her bed. The fact that she has been arranging her time with her father, children and husband only to see Rhaenyra. The fact that she has Rhaenyra’s favorite fruits and desserts on her table all the time, in case she comes.

Alicent can’t decide what’s scarier—how fast it happened or how normal it feels. How small and filled her chambers feels, and how much more like a home it is now, with little pieces of Rhaenyra all over it. All over her rooms, all over her life, all over Alicent.

Taking a deep breath, Alicent walks towards her own bed and stares at Rhaenyra. The other woman looks at peace, lying on her side while hugging a pillow, her face buried in the plush, inhaling and exhaling. It is endearing. Too much. Alicent knows it’s weird and creepy to stand there and watch her, but she can’t help it. Sleep is as relaxed as Rhaenyra gets, eyelids fluttering to the beat of her dreams, face slack and peaceful. No walls, no knotted muscles, no standing guard. It’s the closest Rhaenyra comes to look vulnerable.

Alicent doesn’t realize she’s staring too much until Rhaenyra stirs slightly and slowly opens her eyes. “Alicent?” Her voice is throaty and slurred with sleep.

Under her gaze, Alicent feels judged, even if she knows she shouldn’t feel judged because she, in fact, didn’t do anything wrong. She swallows once, twice, and clears her throat. “Rhaenyra. I am sorry—I just got here. Did I wake you up?”

“No.” Rhaenyra shakes her head, chuckling as she sits up in bed and fixes her hair. Her face is stolidly serene, but she is flushed the slightest pink. “I should be the one apologizing. I got here a little early because I wanted to see you, but your bed is so comfortable, and it smells good just like you, and the sound of the rain is so relaxing… I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

Alicent blushes a bit at her words. Which is ridiculous. “Oh, it’s fine,” she replies after clearing her throat, sitting in the bed. “I just did not expect to find you here.”

“Do you want me to leave?” Rhaenyra asks softly.

“There is no need.” Alicent replies, feeling a bit embarrassed by how rushed and desperate the words sound in her ears. Ignoring the heat in her stomach, she lies on her back next to Rhaenyra and scolds herself. Be normal. “I am just curious about why you are here. Did something happen?”

“I told you I just wanted to see you.” Rhaenyra insists, shrugging indifferently. “Sometimes I don’t have a reason to do the things I do.”

Alicent stares at the ceiling. “Is that so?”

Rhaenyra is quiet for a moment. Then she sighs. “When I was young, I liked to be around someone when I was feeling distressed or upset. My mother, most of the time, or you. I didn’t like feeling alone,” she explains, strangely open and vulnerable. Her voice is low and calm. “I’ve had a lot of things on my mind lately. A lot of worries about my future. I don’t know — I just needed a distraction.”

Alicent understands what she means.

She remembers how unnerving it was the first few times she watched Rhaenyra unravel. Because on all other days, Rhaenyra didn’t need anyone. She was funny and aloof and better at most things without trying than Alicent would be her whole life, and fiercely devoted to solving her problems with her own two hands. Stubborn, independent, and tough. Rhaenyra never needed anyone except when she was feeling upset.

Alicent remembers the first time Aemma got pregnant and how on those nights, it was Alicent that Rhaenyra went to.

It was Alicent that she needed on those nights when she felt insecure about her position in her family, when she had for the health of her mother, when she felt that her father would never be satisfied with a daughter. It was Alicent that she went to when she needed someone to remind her that she was wanted by someone.

Those nights got to Alicent’s ego. Because maybe she wasn’t enough for her own father. Maybe she was anxious and imperfect and a disappointment, but the one girl in the world who didn’t seem like she needed anyone to take care of her always picked her bed to fall to pieces in. That one girl chose her to be vulnerable over and over again. That one girl wanted her, needed her. And that always felt like it meant something; that always felt better than the approval of her own father.

“You don’t need to answer. I don’t want to talk about it.” Rhaenyra adds, fingers playing with the loose threads from Alicent’s dress. “Just... tell me about your day. What did you do today?”

Alicent understands and does not insist anymore. Instead, she takes a moment to think, still gazing out into the ceiling. “Helaena showed me a centipede. She wanted me to hold it, but I hate those things,” she sighs, remembering. “When she was four, she used to bring bugs and put them on my dress. The first time, I almost screamed. It was terrible.”

Rhaenyra laughs, and Alicent devours that sound like a starving woman, enjoying their sweetness and the delectable taste of Rhaenyra’s tenderness. So palatable, quite addicting. Alicent is greedy for it. It does not happen all the time. 

“You are fortunate to have a daughter. I was hoping that my third child would be a girl, but it seems the Gods are not in my favor.” Rhaenyra jokes softly.

“I also always wanted a daughter. I was happy the day Helaena was born. I thought we would have that mother-daughter bond everyone talks about.” Alicent reflects, but this time she directs her gaze at Rhaenyra. “However, sometimes I don’t understand her at all. I thought it was going to be easy, but it is not at all. I do not know what I am doing most of the time.”

Rhaenyra watches her so intently that Alicent has to look away. “My father didn’t understand me when I was young either.” Her voice is soft as she is shifting a little bit closer to her, their bodies touching.

“Because he is your father,” Alicent huffs out, and one corner of her mouth tenses for a moment. “I am her mother, I should understand her. Instead, I barely know what to talk about with my own daughter. I am sure that didn’t happen to you with your mother.”

“No. But I am sure you are doing your best.” Rhaenyra assures her.

It should humble Alicent a little bit more than it actually does— the fact that she gets warm in the face and weak in the knees and just a little bit wet in the eyes whenever Rhaenyra is especially gentle with her, that is. She doesn’t know what is wrong with her. Bite-sized pieces of the barest amounts of affection shouldn’t make her want to roll over and expose her stomach, shouldn’t light a candle at the pit of her gut and heat her from the inside out.

Alicent makes the mistake of turning around and finds Rhaenyra looking at her with a soft smile, one unlike anything she has seen on her face for the past ten years.

Suddenly Alicent feels like she knows and does not know anything at all. She knows that Rhaenyra is the same Rhaenyra as before, but she is also so, so different from the Rhaenyra she has been sleeping for the past months. This Rhaenyra is soft for her. This Rhaenyra is gentle, funny, and caring. It almost hurts to look at her; she is so open.

Alicent looks at this Rhaenyra and wonders what changed.

“I also have problems with my children sometimes,” Rhaenyra confesses and sighs dramatically. “I have a suspicion that Jacaerys is going to be like me when he grows up.”

Alicent lets out a chuckle. “A headache?”

Rhaenyra’s mouth drops open in mock offense, and she gives her an elbow to the ribs.

Her tenderness is intoxicating. Once Alicent has a taste of it, she wants more. She finds herself going out of her way to do things for Rhaenyra. Just to see her smile. That smile that makes her hands twitch and her stomach start to ache, like she is hungry or nervous. Alicent grew attached to that smile. When she was a child, she wanted to see it all the time. It seems like old habits never die. 

Rhaenyra meets her gaze, lifting her chin, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she works to keep her offended face on. Alicent realizes that she is barely breathing. She feels lightheaded as she struggles to articulate the strange, wriggling sensation undoing all the ligaments and capillaries inside her chest. She wants it to be nothing, but there is a thrum in her fingertips saying it’s something.

This is far more dangerous territory than fucking, even more dangerous than the words that almost slip out between them, hurled against clenched teeth; this is about sincerely conversations, hands working in her hair as they bathe together, surprisingly gentle, and youthful laughter.

Alicent lets herself relax against Rhaenyra because she doesn’t have any sense of self-preservation, and she thinks I could stay. I could have this for a little longer —

It always hurts.

Alicent is struggling with the fact that her relationship with Rhaenyra has irrevocably changed, again.

It feels a bit like she’s walking toward a cliff in the dark and doesn’t know when the drop is coming. She is afraid to give too much away. Not only does she crumble every time Rhaenyra touches her, but she goes back for more over and over again. She can’t stand the way she acts when it’s just the two of them, so juvenile and immature. She can’t stand the way she acts when she has Rhaenyra’s hands on her skin.

Alicent feels less and less like the person she’s been for the last ten years. Undesirable pieces of her are being sliced away by Rhaenyra and being replaced with something numb and new. Soon she is going to be eaten up by this thing and utterly cease to be, and surprisingly, she does not mind it.

She has spent so much time sacrificing herself over the decades, and inevitably it’s taken out its pound of flesh on an already precarious sense of self-worth. At some point, she isn’t sure when exactly she internalized it—always feeling like she was just a body, and any of the personhood attached to that was just consequential, in the way. It didn’t matter if she wanted other things, if she was ever happy, or if she was too tired to even walk. There were duties that came before all that.

With Rhaenyra, there’s no pressure, there are no expectations, and as much as Alicent would like to deny it, she enjoys that feeling of trust, of the everyday sort of settledness. 

Alicent wants to keep feeling like this. She craves it desperately. She craves it the same way she craves food when she is hungry— fervently, maddening.

She has always craved it, but there are rules to follow, duties that come before Rhaenyra.

Alicent is breaking her own rules. 

“Did you request my presence?” Rhaenyra asks with a sultry tone in her voice as soon as Ser Criston closes the door.

Alicent stands up from her seat and opens her mouth. Then she closes it, not sure what to say. What would she say anyway? That sometimes she feels tired, wasted and cold, and all she needs is to see her to feel better? That her favorite part of the week is to have a moment alone with her?

Something lurches high in Alicent’s throat, and she doesn’t know what to do with that information or what it could mean. She doesn’t want to assume what it means. She doesn’t want to know the answer. She’s too tired to even do so, even if she’d wanted to.

“I did it.” Alicent replies, picking at her cuticles. They’re already red-raw. She’d had little else to distract her after this long day.

Sometimes the routine gets tiring. Sometimes looking at her father, husband and children hurts more than usual. Sometimes being by their side after a night with Rhaenyra feels like a betrayal. It probably is.

Rhaenyra seems to notice her shift in stance, the dark rings around her eyes, because her expression changes then, her gaze lingering on her. “Is there any particular reason?”

“I just wanted to be with you.” Alicent confesses, but it sounds a bit hesitating, as if she’s not the one who called Rhaenyra here and then proceeded to stare at her in silence, hoping she’d take the first shot.

They’re silent for a moment, during which Rhaenyra just sort of watches Alicent, cool blue gaze assessing and curious. Alicent squirms underneath it, unable to make eye contact. Eventually, she can’t take it any longer.

Suddenly Alicent feels like she’s being seen, not like she wants to be but how she actually is, perfectly made out of propped up bits stuck together trying to be a person. And Gods, she hates herself for it, but somehow, seeing that look writ across Rhaenyra’s features... gratifies something incredibly deep and solitary inside her. She has never felt so seen in her entire life.

Alicent pinches at the skin of her arm. The sharp sting of pain focuses her mind a little.

Rhaenyra looks at her for a long moment, as if she’s mulling something over. Eventually, she says, “Let’s move to the bed, then.” As easy as that, she is crossing the room in two long strides, and Alicent has no choice but to follow her.

Rhaenyra sits in the corner of the bed, and Alicent thinks with guilt that this is all she needs. It satisfies something primal in her— to focus all her thoughts on something else.

Alicent sits on the floor beside her, laying her head on Rhaenyra’s calf, weightlessly. There are hands in her hair petting her, then fingers brushing through knots, combing through her hair, and pulling at the strands. It is so welcoming and familiar, and nauseating in ways she cannot explain. It is that damn feeling, again and again.

It is lust, she tells herself. The same desire she has felt ever since she discovered what sex was— the same old feeling that used to leave her eager, excited and half-sick with the thrill of wrongness.

Alicent looks up from Rhaenyra’s lap to meet her eyes. Rhaenyra’s gaze is intense, so she gulps and leans her head against Rhaenyra’s knee, sliding an eager hand under Rhaenyra’s dress to rest on her thigh. “Do you want me to...” she drags the silence, hoping that Rhaenyra understands the implication. To fuck you. “You know.”

The dry, logical part of her brain tells her again that this is something to be chalked up to lust, that she is giving into base desires. That the softness of Rhaenyra’s skin is not the sanctuary she prays for. That Rhaenyra’s name on her lips is not a prayer or a promise.

“Is this why you asked me to come here? To fuck me?” Rhaenyra asks, jokingly on the surface, but there is an undercurrent of bitterness and self-pity to it.

“No, I—” Alicent replies instantly. “I just wanted to see you.”

Rhaenyra hums and cups her face in her hand. Her knuckles trace the line of Alicent’s jaw from ear to chin and back again, unhurried. “The floor must be cold. Come to the bed with me.”

Alicent doesn’t know how Rhaenyra does it— that commanding tone in her sweet voice. She is helpless in the face of it. Rhaenyra makes her get up, but only for a moment, pushing her over to the bed, which, thankfully, is close by. Alicent’s knees don’t seem to want to hold her up.

Once she settles down next to her, Rhaenyra grabs her head, cradling it between her breasts. Alicent nuzzles the space between them, allowing Rhaenyra to sink her hands in her hair soothingly.

“Did you have a tired day?” Rhaenyra’s voice is so soft. Alicent has to suppress a shiver as she nods, weakly. “I know how it feels. Being a mother is hard, isn’t it? Sometimes you just need someone to take care of you after a long day. Let me do that for you today.”

Alicent knows her hopeless desire must be written clearly across her face. She’s never been good at hiding how she feels about anything, after all. But for Rhaenyra to see that and feel the need to say such sweet words to comfort her. It’s mortifying. It hurts.

There is a light pressure on her back — a hand, or what feels like one, stroking her like an animal. Alicent fights to suppress a hard sob rising through her throat.

Rhaenyra hums. “You are so responsive to touch.”

She is. 

When was the last time someone touched her so tenderly? She’d briefly enjoyed the sanctity of her mother’s arms when she’d been a small child, but that came to an end as quickly as it had come to fruition. The last person that comforted her like this was her father years ago before he left. From then on, she had to hold herself up to keep from breaking into pieces.

Perhaps it was there that the loneliness began first taking up space, right there between the bones and veins, in the seams of their home. It felt terrible, really. And she never thought about it, never allowed herself to admit she was lonely, never allowed herself to cry about it.

Now it is all coming out. Suddenly she is feeling too much, and she doesn’t know what any of it means— it all just kind of aches in a way that doesn’t quite make her sad, but it still feels like she’s mourning the loss of something.

Before she can realize it, hot tears wet her cheeks, and then her whole body shudders with the force of the first sob that wracks her. Alicent is howling, currently preoccupied with remembering how to inhale.

It gets a bit easier when Rhaenyra wraps herself around her, encompassing Alicent whole, and begins to rock her side to side to the beat of her own heart; Alicent knows this because her face is tucked snugly into the soft plane of Rhaenyra’s chest.

“Sorry,” Alicent interrupts herself by sniffling loudly, wiping at her nose as she rushes to get her words out before she loses the sudden bout of nerve that’s compelled her to speak. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I am crying.”

Alicent knows, but at the same time, she does not know. She knows she is crying because she has been so lonely without Rhaenyra. So so lonely. 

Rhaenyra speaks unhurriedly, cautiously, like she’s handpicked her words specifically for this moment. “Don’t apologize. It is fine.” Her tone is patient and understanding, like she was explaining it to a child. “You can cry if that is what you need.”

Alicent tries to catch her breath, but she feels hit by a wave of more emotions. It is too much, and she is tired. Tired of feeling this way. It is embarrassing to show herself in such a vulnerable state.

Rhaenyra puts her hands on Alicent’s face and pulls her closer, until their foreheads bump together. “What do you need?”

Gods, Alicent can handle Rhaenyra’s relentless chaos without a word— but she is not as sure what to do with her gentle affections.

Alicent knows how to deal with desire; she has learned it. She knows how to deal with lust and sex, and it makes her feel dirty and unworthy, but it is a familiar feeling. It is a comforting guilt. The other feeling is… chaotic. Painful. Awful. Familiar. Alicent should not feel like this. 

She is not going to survive this, she thinks. She is not built for this, or she did not think she was, not anymore. The last time she felt like this, she was young and stupid, and she did not understand what she was doing. Alicent has let so many changes into her life ever since then. She’d thought she was done, that she was a different woman, that she couldn’t do this sort of thing anymore, that she did not want this sort of thing, anymore. 

Alicent gets closer. There is already so little space between them, but she feels like she cannot get close enough. “Kiss me. Please kiss me.” 

Her lips are wet when she meets Rhaenyra’s, salty and warm, and Alicent feels like a part of her is breaking. She kisses back, in full measure, gasping. Rhaenyra presses her thumbs into Alicent’s cheeks, their noses pressed against one another’s so firmly it is hard to breathe.

It is hard to stop kissing Rhaenyra. Something has been wrenched loose in her chest, and now that she has started, she can’t bring herself to stop. A simple thought cuts through her mind, hard-edged and cold in its importance. You love that woman. The realization feels like a fist hitting square into her jaw.

Alicent wants to crumple and weep at the realization, but Rhaenyra’s hands hold her up, stronger than a vice. There is no moment to break down. Alicent lets Rhaenyra whisper good things against her mouth as she kisses her; she lets her voice calm down all the fears she is facing right now. She lets Rhaenyra hold her until the twisting burn of self-hatred shrank to a dull, restless ache. Alicent breathes on beat in Rhaenyra’s grip.

It feels like a revelation to get to have this. Her brain keeps starting to backpedal, uneasy background thoughts, worrying that this is too much, that they should stop, that she should stop, but suddenly, it is easy to push all of that away. Alicent gets lost in the taste of Rhaenyra’s mouth, in the feel of her skin underneath her hands.

It surges up in her then— the certainty that she’ll die if this is the only time she is allowed to have Rhaenyra all for herself. It won’t end well, she knows it, but as long as she finds a little bit of paradise in the hollow at the base of Rhaenyra’s throat, maybe it won’t hurt as bad when it ends.

Alicent is not particularly good at lying, especially to herself. She knows it is going to hurt like hell, but maybe it’ll be worth it. She’s owed a little selfish behavior.

If you had asked Alicent before —last week, or last month, or even earlier today— she would have told you she had already fallen a long time ago. Long before Rhaenyra and her were a thing; before that night where she felt Rhaenyra’s lips for the first time; before she fucked with her. Long before her coming to the realization that it wasn’t just the weight of her father’s expectations on her that made her so uncomfortable in her own skin. 

There is a list of moments she keeps stored in the back of her mind and ignores— one that’s too scary to confront except when she’s already feeling vulnerable.

It’s a series of moments over weeks and months and years, and maybe it goes back further than even she can remember. It starts with her friendship with Rhaenyra, and it starts again with the end of their friendship for the second time. It starts with Rhaenyra teaching her what a friend is, and it starts with long days sitting under the Godswood where she unknowingly grows fonder and fonder of Rhaenyra with time.

The real shift, though, can be boiled down to a single moment.

It was the Queen’s nameday and Rhaenyra had dragged her into the Gardens with a stolen bottle of wine.

Rhaenyra was teasing her, tipsy and bubbly, her cool lips against Alicent’s hand, promising her a life together. And Alicent was blushing, nervous and confused by her own emotions, and then Rhaenyra was vomiting all the cake she ate over her shoes and laughing at the disgusted look on her face.

Alicent was thirteen, and her face was burning, not from anger or embarrassment, but from adoration for the girl drooping against her, wiping sick off her lips. How ridiculous it is to realize you love a girl when she is at her lowest, apologizing for having vomited on your shoes on the nameday of her mother. But that was how it was with Rhaenyra. Alicent always adored her, even when she should not, even at the most inconvenient times. 

From there, it’s looking back at all the moments leading up to this realization and wondering how she didn’t notice before now, or if maybe she just didn’t have the words to put to it until now. 

Alicent softens towards Rhaenyra, against her own better judgement. She forgets herself, gets lost in old arguments, picking up the threads of their lifelong conversations as if nothing has changed, and laughs at Rhaenyra’s terrible jokes. Alicent does not know what kind of illness gave birth to such a desire. She is distraught with love.

She thinks about how dogs follow you after you feed them, asking for more. In a way, that is Alicent: always hungry, always happy for scraps, and yet always, somehow, still begging for more. That is how she is when it comes to things she loves. That is how she is when it comes to Rhaenyra.

Alicent hoards everything that Rhaenyra gives her like it is gold. Every glance, every touch, every brief brush of fingers— Alicent keeps them all. She knows she is lucky just to have this, but still—still, she can’t help but be greedy.

So she stays, even though she’s really not doing anyone any favors, herself included. She stays because, at the end of every ill-fitting day, she can walk her useless body to Rhaenyra’s room and gets to see Rhaenyra’s face. To be near her, to hear her voice, to know that, if she had the courage, she could just reach out and tell her how she feels.

A lot of things shift. 

The first time Rhaenyra asks about it, they are sitting on the chaise of her room, with the candles burning low. Comfortable silence growing thick and hot around them both. Alicent is combing Rhaenyra’s hair. Brushing and brushing. Her fingers work magic against her hair, placing a loose strand behind her ear.

“You’ve changed.” Rhaenyra blurts out, accusatory and suspicious.

“Is that a bad thing?” Alicent asks, a little nervous for the answer. She pulls away her hands and crosses her arms, resigned to looking defensive.

“No, no. You just seem,” Rhaenyra swallows, squeezing her hand to keep her from interrupting in a way that seems absentminded, habitual, and makes Alicent’s heart pitch against her ribs, “softer.”

Another version of her would have gotten angry and denied it, but now Alicent sits down there considering it. She doesn’t think she has let all that anger and self-destruction and despair that she’d clung to for so long beyond—she just feels like everything seems insignificant now.

It isn’t like Alicent doesn’t still get up in her own head; it isn’t like the anger disappeared, but Rhaenyra is here at her side. It feels like a change. Alicent feels changed—consumed by love, maybe. And isn’t that the most damning thing of all? Alicent thinks of the wall of ice that had been raised between them during all these years. Then she thinks about Aemond’s diamond eye, both of them unyielding.

How is it possible to love her despite everything? How could she possibly still feel the same way she did when she was a child? How could she still love this woman? It is ridiculous.

Alicent doesn’t even know why, how, or when it happened, but it definitely feels better than being consumed by hate.

Maybe she is finally ready to face her feelings; that would definitely be new in comparison to the chronic running away from it. All it took was a beautiful woman who usually treats her like an animal, being nice and petting her. How ridiculous.

“Softer, huh?” Alicent asks as she rests her hand next to Rhaenyra’s and taps her index finger against Rhaenyra’s knuckles a few times. “I don’t think I’ve done anything nice enough for you to believe that.” 

“Oh, you did.” Rhaenyra says playfully, gently, touching the back of Alicent’s hand. “You wait for me with my favorite desserts; you leave more pillows by my side so I can sleep well; you ignore my father to spend time with me. You think I don’t notice?”

It feels like Rhaenyra is peeling back Alicent’s skin to expose her flesh. Alicent suddenly feels nervous, exposed. Like Rhaenyra knows too much. She knows too much. 

Alicent’s heart aches, as if it were caught in a cage, and it has outgrown, and now it is straining against the bars. About to break. On the edge of something destructive. Or beautiful. Or both. Alicent stares at Rhaenyra with a conflicted expression, and then a voice in her mind whispers, why don’t you tell her? 

What could be possibly more painful than looking at Rhaenyra in the eyes and admitting that she loves her?

She has already made her decision to stay and endure the torment of knowing she loves Rhaenyra, yes, but that does not mean it is easy. The pain now comes from the fact that she does not know how Rhaenyra really feels about her. She shows affection for her, yes, but then, she has done the same things with Harwin Strong, and she did not love him. So how is Alicent special? They have sex. Really, really good sex. But Rhaenyra has fucked Criston Cole and then left him like he was nothing to her. Sex alone does not mean a damn thing.

They can’t talk about this.

Alicent knows that. If they talk about it then… something would be ruined, probably. She does not know how to talk about her own feelings, anyway. She barely even knows the words for them. So this conversation is an insurmountable challenge for her.

“You’ve softened too.” Alicent replies defensively. Not denying or affirming anything. 

“I did.” Rhaenyra admits, and Gods, sometimes Alicent wonders how she’d fallen for someone like this, so shameless and honest about her feelings. Alicent could never be like that. She has spent a lifetime working to tamp down the things she is thinking and the things she is feeling. 

Alicent admires the view for a moment: Rhaenyra as beautiful as ever, the candles painting the dark room yellow, the cold breeze coming through the window. These kinds of moments are unique to them. They are theirs. Something that belongs just to the two of them. Whether for now or forever, it is theirs.

Oh, how she wishes Rhaenyra to be hers as well.

If she ignores all the thoughts buzzing like flies around her head, then Rhaenyra already is. If she stops thinking about the things that feel wrong, the things she will never be able to have, then it is easier to pretend Rhaenyra is hers. Only hers. 

Alicent is selfish for wanting what she has taken away from someone else, but she wants to wake up next to Rhaenyra forever. She wants to steal Rhaenyra away from the rest of the world, have her hand in her as they walk, talk with her all night about everything and nothing, and shower her with a litany of praises, touches, and kisses until they’re back asleep again. It’s all so mundane, but Alicent wants Rhaenyra to be something like her lover. She wants to be Rhaenyra’s lover too. 

Sitting up, Alicent looks at Rhaenyra with hunger and cups the side of her face and kisses her, trying to get her hot. She wants Rhaenyra to want her today. She wants Rhaenyra’s hands to clutch at her shoulders like they sometimes do, scratching and holding her close. She wants to spread Rhaenyra’s legs wide and take everything she can. She wants to have the parts of this woman that weren’t shared with anyone else. Things that can be hers.

For the briefest of moments, Alicent thinks of biting and marking Rhaenyra. Of really biting, of her teeth tearing into the soft pinkness of Rhaenyra’s inner lip and drawing blood. And she does. Alicent bites Rhaenyra’s bottom lip until it swells, and she can taste the blood gushing out. Rhaenyra moans against her mouth and then whimpers as Alicent licks the blood desperately, as if she wants to taste it, as if she is thirsty for it. 

Then someone knocks on the door, and Alicent freezes in her arms. Rhaenyra pauses, both of them still for the span of a heartbeat, and then she pulls back. Rhaenyra pulls back, and Alicent wants to howl and claw at her and say, no, don’t go, stay here with me and never stop. Then she realizes that someone is knocking on the door, and she panics, standing up immediately. 

“I need to leave.” Alicent hurries to say, looking around frantically.

“It is just Leanor. He told me that he was coming later.” Rhaenyra replies, wiping the blood from her mouth with her hand. Before Alicent can complain about it or panic again, Rhaenyra gives her a firm look. “Just... sit down and act normal.”

Alicent sits there grumbling under her breath as Rhaenyra stands up and goes to open the door.

“My dear wife, I couldn’t wait to see you.” Leanor greets Rhaenyra as soon as she opens the door, leaning in to leave a kiss on her cheek. Alicent rolls her eyes. What a farce, she scoffs in her mind.

“You came early.” Rhaenyra responds, and Alicent can hear the nerves in her voice. At least, she is nervous.

“I thought you would be more excited to see me.” Leanor complains. Rhaenyra laughs, but her smile fades when he looks at her for a long moment, like he is studying her face. Alicent gets nervous as well. “What happened to your lip?”

Rhaenyra shrugs, like it is nothing. “I was trying to keep my mouth shut during the small council and accidentally bit my lip too hard. You know how she is. It is hard not to snap back.” 

Is she talking about her? Alicent frowns, biting her own lip to keep from snorting.

Leanor laughs and opens his mouth to respond, but then he finally looks to the side and notices her presence there. His immediate silence should make her feel all cocky, but it causes the opposite effect: suddenly Alicent feels nervous, and she can’t explain why. 

“Oh, I was having a fascinating conversation with Alicent—the Queen. You can join our women’s talk if you wish.”

Leanor looks between Rhaenyra and Alicent, and Alicent swallows, feeling suddenly sick when she tastes the blood in her tongue. It almost feels like Leanor can smell the blood on her mouth, like he can see the invisible line of red connecting their mouths. Like he knows. 

Alicent’s heartbeat is suddenly unbearably loud, a dull thumping in her ears. “I—” she starts, and finds that she doesn’t know how to continue. She gets to her feet and tucks her hands behind her back to hide how they’re shaking. “I was actually about to leave. I am sure you have more important things to talk about as wife and husband.”

She walks towards them and gives Leanor one last look, stumbling out the open door. Then, without waiting for an answer, she starts walking, running, far away from there. She walks and walks and walks until she is alone in the hallways, and she can finally lean against the wall. Her hands are shaking. Her breath comes in stuttering puffs.

“Alicent.” Alicent jumps when she hears that voice. That stupid, annoying, sweet voice. Why is she here? “Why did you leave?”

Alicent turns around and snaps at Rhaenyra. “Why did I leave? That was so—what you were thinking? I should have left or hid. He saw your lip. I was there. You don’t need to be too clever to understand what happened.”

“You’re blaming me for it, as if it wasn’t you who decided to kiss me and bust my fucking lip.” Rhaenyra snaps back, voice harsh and fierce. It has been a long time since she heard that tone. When was the last fight they had? Alicent blinks at her, suddenly aware that they are about to start arguing in the middle of the hallway. Rhaenyra must notice it as well, because she takes a breath and lowers her voice. “Leanor did not suspect anything. Gods, he thinks I hate you, Alicent.”

Alicent suddenly deflates, all the anger leaving her body. Instead, a wave of shame comes at her own behavior. “Oh.”

“Yes, oh.” Rhaenyra crosses her arms and huffs out, but it is more playful than annoyed. Her expression softens for a moment, and then she looks down before confessing, “I did not want you to leave so quickly.”

Alicent blushes a little, and looks down as well, unable to maintain eye contact. “What am I supposed to do there?”

“You could spend the afternoon with us.” Rhaenyra suggests, and even though Alicent hears the joking tone in her voice, there is also a seriousness to it that tells her she really means it. “Talk to Leanor. Talk to me. I don’t know—just be there.”

Alicent swallows, unsure. She wants to stay so badly, but she is sure that the moment she does, Leanor will read all the longing on her face and realize exactly what kind of feelings she has for Rhaenyra. It is too dangerous.

“I—” Alicent pauses and gulps again. Rhaenyra is staring at her like whatever she says next will either be incredibly cutting or incredibly important, and frankly, she does not remember how they ended here. “I... I think I’ll pass this time.”

Rhaenyra presses her lips together and clenches her fists into her dress. There is a moment of silence before she blurts out, “He used to spend time with me and Leanor.”

He. 

That is a low blow. Even for Rhaenyra. 

Alicent curls her hands into fists and drives her nails into her own palms. Without her self-control keeping her emotions at bay, it all comes spilling out. That little bit of insecurity, festering inside her, worming into her cracks. “Well, I am not Harwin Strong. I am sorry I can’t give you a child or be foolish enough to let all Seven Kingdoms find out I am fucking you.”

Rhaenyra’s face twists into a frown, and she clenches her jaw. “You know how to be a cretin when you want to be.”

Alicent opens her mouth in offense, ready to discuss. I am being the cretin here? You unconscious, shameless idiot. Alicent is about to explode and spit all the storm in her head. That is, until a handmaid passes by, and she shuts up, straighting in place. Rhaenyra reacts the same way, faking a smile.

Only then does Alicent finally come to her senses. What they are doing? Why are they fighting again? Alicent thought they were over it, that they were fine. Gods, she cannot do this again. 

“I—” I am sorry. “I can’t stay...” Alicent pauses. “But I will you see later?” How pathetic. Gods, she can hear the desperation in her voice, that plea behind it. Please don’t get mad at me. Please don’t go. Please let me stay by your side.

Rhaenyra is staring at her, her brow furrowed, and Alicent feels sick. Her head is swimming, her tongue is thick piece of cotton in her mouth. She might retch at any moment.

“Of course.” Rhaenyra replies — but oh, that’s not a seductive voice. That’s a disappointed voice. “If you still wish to come back at any moment, my invitation to spend the afternoon with us stands.”

All Alicent can do is nod and watch helplessly as Rhaenyra turns around and begins striding away. She wants so badly to follow her, to pull Rhaenyra close and simply hold her, tell her 'of course I want to be with you, I always want to be with you' but — she just stands there and watches go. 

Coward, Alicent tells to herself, digging her nails into her hand harder.

She knows she will never be Harwin Strong. She cannot give Rhaenyra all she needs. She cannot love her so openly, so freely. But for a moment she wishes she could, she wishes she could love Rhaenyra and not hide it anymore, she wishes she could take the things she want without thinking about the consequences of it. 

Alicent sighs.

Maybe she wants more than she is willing to take. 

A couple of days later, what Alicent knew would inevitably happen, happens. Her father requests her presence on the Tower of the Hand.

It has been a while since she sat down to talk to him. However, she knows he has been watching her. Alicent can feel his gaze all the time, analyzing all their interactions and judging her. He must know. He always knows. When it comes to Rhaenyra, they both know she is Alicent’s weakness, and for his own father to see it... it makes her want to vomit. 

Otto is familiarly unsmiling when he appears, a strained tension drawing unfamiliar lines in his face. It’s an expression Alicent has seen before in countless circumstances. Disappointment.

“You are close to the princess again.” He wastes no time on suspense, which is somehow something of a relief. 

Alicent feels her stomach swoop as though the ground’s given way beneath her. She had expected her father to ask her this question, but she is still startled by the certainty in the statement. 

The shock only lasts a moment, though, before her face reverts to blank.

“It is true that Rhaenyra has been inviting me to dinner to talk about our children, but I don’t think we are close.” Alicent explains as calmly as she can, and it is not a lie, but it is not entirely the truth either. 

Otto’s expression blackens as he scans her. “Is that so?” He wonders, more to himself than to her.

Under his gaze, Alicent feels watched, as if he could see through her and know the truth. He probably can. He has always known how to see through her; how to pull the strings that connect her limbs. Suddenly Alicent feels like a child again, anxious and nauseous, dread pitting in her stomach. She has to dig her nail into her hand to keep from ripping off her cuticles in front of him.

“The King told me you’ve been getting closer to Rhaenyra for the past months.” It’s not an accusation—at least, it is not an angry one. It’s just her father pulling at her insides, unspooling, unpeeling. “He seemed very pleased about it.”

Alicent’s jaw rehinges with an audible click. “The King wanted us to be close, and that is what I am doing,” she snaps, and it means to convey security and firmness, but she just sounds petulant instead. “It doesn’t mean anything. I’ve only been fulfilling Rhaenyra’s whims. Nothing else.”

Isn’t that what she has been doing all this time? Her father would be disappointed if he knew—disappointed about her behavior and how sick in love she is; disappointed about how she has allowed Rhaenyra to step on her over and over again for the past months.

Her father must know it, and that’s why he is looking at her that way. He can see through her. Everyone can: her husband, Ser Leanor, Gods—Alicent is sure even Ser Criston can see it. Everyone can see the way she changed. She has been isolating herself; she has forgotten about everyone except Rhaenyra for the past months. She has changed, for the worse. 

“Be careful with that.” Otto interjects, rupturing the train of thought.

He does not say it out loud, but Alicent can still hear the real warning behind these words. That woman will be your ruin.

Alicent knows it, dammit.

“I have to go. The King asked me to take care of him tonight.” It is a lie. Alicent needs to be far from here. Far from everyone.

The discussion ends there, and despite not having reached any preferable culmination, she feels like she just gave herself away. Alicent gets up and steps out of the room without looking back. Her brain is a swirl of bad thoughts as she walks. Her head hurt more than usual, the throbbing aches.

Once she is in the solitude of her room, Alicent leans against the door. The feeling of nausea has been present ever since she talked with her father, and she has tried her best to swallow it down. But now that Alicent is alone, it has finally taken hold of her, and the next thing she knows is that she is throwing up into her chamber pot.

Alicent wipes her mouth with the sleeve of her dress and backs away from it. Her arms wrap around herself, a mockery of a cocoon. She feels older than she’s felt in years, yet still like a clueless child. Like she’s gone back in time to her mother’s womb, and she knows nothing about the world.

She knew that in a way this was unavoidable; her father would eventually ask about Rhaenyra; people would eventually notice the closeness of her relationship with Rhaenyra. These are the consequences of her own decision to stay, something that was bound to happen sooner or later.

However, Alicent assumed it was going to happen later. Way later.

A laugh bubbles out of her throat before she has time to stop it. Incredulously, she holds her fingers up to her lips as she realizes that despite her father’s warning, she still does not want to stop doing this.

It is scary how much she loves Rhaenyra; how far she is capable of going for her.

You can’t say no to me is what Rhaenyra told her a time ago, and now that the words make their way to Alicent’s mind again, the reaction it elicits is much different from the one she had the first time she heard them.

Not only her father knows it, Rhaenyra probably knows it as well.

Alicent’s stomach sinks and her throat tightens around the lump in it, making it hard for her to breathe and even harder to swallow. She’s never felt so threatened. The thought that Rhaenyra might know that she loves her, that she might know that she would do almost anything she asks of her... rage clings to her chest in a repulsive manner, making Alicent want to physically recoil.

Alicent avoids Rhaenyra after that. 

It is depressingly easy.

All she has to do is strategically avoid the routes she knows Rhaenyra takes. Sneak out of the small council before Rhaenyra can say something; sneak out of the dining hall before Rhaenyra can follow her.

Rhaenyra stares at her for the rest of dinner. Alicent hasn’t looked at her once, but she knows it; she can feel it. The line that connects them is still there, tied around her neck, and Alicent feels it—the way Rhaenyra tries to push her back to her again and again. It feels like she is walking in the opposite direction from where the rope is pulling her; it feels like the collar on her neck is choking her.

Stubbornly, Alicent does not look, even if it hurts her.

See, she thinks bitterly, squeezing her hand into the chair and raising her goblet to her mouth without looking back to see if Rhaenyra is still looking at her now. See? She can say no to Rhaenyra. Pride surges in Alicent’s chest. She can walk away if she wants. She does not need Rhaenyra so much.

She is not a lost cause yet.

Alicent doesn’t expect Rhaenyra to try to talk to her. Because Rhaenyra is stubborn and proud, and she doesn’t approach first — she waits for Alicent to go after her and follow her like a lost child all the time. Rhaenyra never chases her. She hasn’t done so in years, not without any intention behind it. So, Alicent gets surprised when she steps into her chambers, walks towards her bed to rest, and finds Rhaenyra sitting on it. 

“You’ve been ignoring me.” Rhaenyra sounds accusatory, angry —eyes flashing with something that makes panic spike up in Alicent’s chest.

For a moment, she does not say anything, scared. Then she realizes what is happening, and her throat tightens as she swallows thickly, her chest heaving with anger. Rhaenyra is in her room, sitting in her bed, and yet here she is, complaining like Alicent is the one who did something wrong and deserves to get scolded for that.

“Have you lost your mind? What are you doing here?” Alicent grits through her teeth, lips twisting as she grows more irritated. “You cannot enter my room like it is yours.”

“You did not care about it before.” Rhaenyra reminds her, tilting her eyebrows. Her jaw is set tight, and anger is very much visible.

Alicent huffs out a laugh, even though deep down inside, she feels like that might not be the appropriate response. “Well, now I care,” she replies dryly, which seems to make Rhaenyra angrier. “What are you doing here?”

“Sit down.” Rhaenyra demands, patting the bed. Rhaenyra always demands. Sit, stay, kneel. She only knows how to give orders.

Alicent stands there, unmoving, stubborn, and stares at her defiantly.

Rhaenyra takes a breath, and when she looks at Alicent again, her expression is rapidly shifting. Her jaw is tightly clenched, her eyes darkening as her brows furrow. She is clearly not happy with what she’s hearing, but frankly, Alicent doesn’t care. “Why are you ignoring me?”

“I am not ignoring you.”

Rhaenyra glances at her and narrows her eyes. “You have been absent from our dinners, even when I requested your presence. The maids came back without you every single time I sent them to fetch you,” she says through gritted teeth. “When I try to get close, you run away. When I try to come to your chambers, Ser Criston Cole tells me you don’t want to have visits.” There’s so much bite to her words that it makes Alicent tremble. “Tell me, if that is not ignoring me, what is?”

Alicent thinks about all the times Rhaenyra has ignored her and burns with vitriol. A week ago she was clingy and soft, but now she can feel herself building the walls around her heart brick by brick again. “I did not talk to you for a week. A week—not a fucking year.” Not ten years. 

“So you’ve been ignoring me.” Rhaenyra states bitterly, like that just answered her question. “What is wrong with you?”

Alicent tenses. “I don’t want to discuss right now. I am too tired for this,” she sighs, rubbing her hands over her face. She’s exhausted, and she just wants to crawl under the bedsheets and sleep this night off. Her legs start to ache from standing so long, but the only free space is next to Rhaenyra. The thought is worse than standing. “Leave.”

Rhaenyra does not say anything for a moment. Then she stands up. And stupidly, Alicent thinks that for the first time, Rhaenyra chose to obey instead of making things more difficult for both of them.

That is not the case at all.

Rhaenyra stands there and looks at her. Stillness. Tense, awkward silence backdropped. Her eyes used to feel so familiar, but she’s dipped in steel now, harder and colder and reflecting back every shred of emotion Alicent feels—anger, hurt, longing.

“What happened?”

Alicent gnaws on her bottom lip, frantically shaking her head as she throws her hands up, starting to feel as equally helpless as she is frustrated. “Nothing.”

“Two weeks ago, you were acting all sweet towards me, and now you are ignoring me and treating me like this? What the hell happened?”

“Nothing.” Alicent repeats, forcing her tone to be somewhat lighter.

“Is this about Leanor? Are you mad because he saw us that time?” Rhaenyra tries again.

Alicent takes a pause to answer, jaw tightening. “No.”

Rhaenyra lets out a laugh, too sarcastic for it to ever come off as genuine. “It’s that, right?”

It is not that, Alicent wants to scream. I am scared of people knowing, of course I am, but I am more scared of loving you so much that it ruins my life.

Rhaenyra does not understand it; she will never understand it. Because she had other people before her. Because she went to a fucking pleasure house with Daemon and nothing happened, because she fucked Criston Cole, and then she fucked Harwin Strong for years, and she had no consequences for it. Because she can easily leave her and be with someone else if she wants to. Because if Alicent ruins herself for Rhaenyra, there is no turning back.

It was dumb of her to think she could have this—that she could have Rhaenyra. There are things she cannot have, things that are out of her reach. 

Alicent is miserable for that. She feels terrible every time she thinks about Rhaenyra, because this was something that should have never happened, because every time she thinks of Rhaenyra she thinks about how beautiful she is, how much she makes her feel and how things have changed so irrevocably that everything Alicent has been trying to do for the past ten years has been thrown out the window in just one month. 

Is this worth it? Is she going to throw out all her life for this? For this woman?

“You are scared.” Rhaenyra affirms after a moment of silence. “Scared that someone might find out about us. So ran away from this, from me, like you always do.”

Alicent’s words get stuck in her throat, burning like acid. Rhaenyra keeps looking at her, and Alicent knows she can see all the shit inside her.

“Are you still in denial?” Rhaenyra asks. Her fists are clenched against her dress. “After everything we’ve done?”

Rhaenyra is looking at her with such disappointment in her eyes.

Alicent is an endless well of disappointment; she knows this about herself. She has known it for this whole conversation, which has gone so off the rails that she can’t even think how to get it back on track. Alicent knows Rhaenyra is disappointed because she will never be like Harwin Strong. She knows Rhaenyra thinks she is a disappointment, just like her father. Because she cannot be the person her father wants her to be: ambitious, fierce, and determined. But she cannot also be the person Rhaenyra wants her to be: careful, loving, and brave.

She cannot be the daughter her father wants her to be; she cannot be the mother her children need; she cannot be the lover Rhaenyra wants. She cannot be anything at all.

Alicent feels wretched, broken. She is so fucked up. She can’t even do this; she thought she could, but she is too weak. 

“This might be easy for you, but it is not for me.” Alicent can barely get the words out. Her throat is tight, and she feels like she might start crying. She is ridiculous. Alicent wonders if Rhaenyra can hear her heart beating. It feels like it is filling the whole room. “I am not like you,” she spits it out like a chewed-up hunk of a carcass. “I can’t do this. My husband is the King, Rhaenyra. I have children. I — I cannot.” I can’t put you before them. I shouldn’t.

There is so much coldness in Rhaenyra’s eyes that makes Rhaenyra want to cower and grovel. This hostility between them—it’s familiar and somehow so painfully brand new at the same time.

“What kind of person am I? Tell me.” Rhaenyra steps into her space and looms over her, deliberately confrontational, shoulders squared.

“You know what I am talking about. I am not like you, or your husband. I am normal. I was normal before you fucked me.” Alicent runs her both hands through her hair, pulling at the strands, her eyes wild with stress and anger. “Fuck—why did you do that?” Her voice breaks. She inhales sharply through her teeth and shakes her head. “I was fine without you— I was fine, and you ruined it.”

It is a lie after a lie. No, she was never normal. No, she was not fine without her. Despite the pain and guilt, these months with Rhaenyra have been better than the last ten years.

“Do you feel normal when you are between my legs, begging me to fuck you?”

Alicent’s control is slipping, responding to Rhaenyra’s emotions too fast for her to reel in. Before she realizes it, it’s happening — she lunges, trying for a sloppy haymaker.

Rhaenyra sidesteps her easily and grabs her arm. Her grip hurts, holding Alicent in place. “I didn’t do anything you didn’t want me to do.” Her voice has gone shrill with the weight of her rage. “That day when I kissed you, you could have slapped me, but you did not. That day when I fucked you, you could have said no. But you did not.”

Alicent steps back, breaking free of Rhaenyra’s grip with a sharp movement of her arm. “You knew what you were doing; you seduced me.” Her lip is curling, and her voice is getting low and snarled. She can’t see straight—from rage? From anxiety? All she knows is that her mouth tastes like blood, and she is sweating through her clothes, blood pumping loud in her ears.

“You wanted me, Alicent.” Rhaenyra affirms, and she says it like it’s heavy. Like she has done everything she could to drop it full-force, have it plummet to the ground between them, and crater in the flooring. 

“I did not want you. I never wanted any of this!” Alicent barks out, voice rough with tension. Her breathing is harsh and stressed. Then she meets Rhaenyra’s gaze again, desperation storming in her eyes.

“I don’t believe you.” Rhaenyra looks at Alicent from beneath long lashes and blown-out pupils. She looks hurt. Sulky, like she’s planned out a game for them and Alicent isn’t playing along. “I see you looking at me all the goddamn time. You’re like a fucking kid. You even know you’re doing it? You’re so far from normal you can’t even see it anymore.” 

Alicent can see it. Fuck, of course she can see it. Of course, she knows she is not normal. The thought that Rhaenyra can see it too makes her want to throw up. Shame makes its way to Alicent, gnawing at every surface of her body, and she feels miserable, her chest rattling with anxiety and fear.

“You’re a fucking degenerate, Alicent. You and me. We are both the same.” Rhaenyra spits, sneering at the way Alicent flares up with each word from her lips. “You can lie to them. You can lie to yourself. But you can’t lie to me. I know you, Alicent, just the same way you know me. There is nowhere you can run, nowhere you can go, that will ever make you stop wanting me.”

Rhaenyra is shaking, hands still clenched into white-knuckle fists. She tries to hide it, ducking her head, but the pain is clear in her voice. It almost sounds like she is trying to convince both herself and Alicent about those words.

With a thrill of satisfaction, Alicent realizes Rhaenyra’s control is splintering. 

Rhaenyra takes a few deep breaths before meeting Alicent’s eyes, and for the first time, Alicent realizes that all the cocky confidence is nothing more than a bluff. Underneath it all, she is still the same insecure girl who used to seek comfort on her bed all those years ago— the same girl who used to need to feel wanted.

Alicent pulls back. She feels dizzy and stupid. Her whole body wants to press up against Rhaenyra and tells her that she is right; that she knows it is useless to run away from her feelings; that she has tried it over and over again, and it never worked; that she has the terrible suspicion that she will never be able to love anyone as much as she loves her. But her stupid fucking mouth is saying, “I think we should stop doing this.”

She doesn’t think that. She doesn’t want that. 

Alicent looks down. She does not want to see the look on Rhaenyra’s face. She does not want to crumble and regret this decision.

“Is this really what you want?”

No.

Alicent wishes she was someone different from who she is. Someone braver. “Leave,” she demands in a weak whisper, and she makes the mistake of looking up. 

There isn’t a shred of tenderness in Rhaenyra’s eyes. Not even hatred. Just steely impassiveness. Rhaenyra is looking at her like she’s nothing. Her face is plain, uncaring, and then she turns around, not bothering to spare Alicent another glance before leaving.

Alicent is nothing. She never should have been anything to Rhaenyra.