A/N: This chapter takes place about nine years after chapter one.
Jon winced as his bruised eye made contact with his pillow while tossing and turning in a fruitless attempt to force himself to sleep. The storm outside of his window was raging on loudly, mirroring the anger that had yet to dissipate in his chest from the events that had occurred earlier that day.
Summer storms were quite sudden and common here in Essos, with nary a forewarning to their arrival. The day had started out fine enough, and Jon had found himself in a rather good mood despite the oppressive humidity. All of that had been ruined however when his mother had insisted - rather nagged - that Jon ought to take his Uncle outside for a spot of air and sunshine to train with the sword. This of course was her solution to get two bickering teenaged boys out of her hair instead of dealing with the problem.
Why of course mother! Thrusting tourney swords into the hands of near mortal enemies so they could get a spot of fresh air sounds like a delightfully logical idea. Oh and the black eye? A mere jovial disagreement over differing forms of swordsmanship. The sand that Viserys threw to blind him before the sucker punch BECAUSE HE WAS LOSING - just a laughable tussle between family members.
He groaned with frustration. His mother was under the delusion that somehow the boys would work their differences out and become...what was it she kept saying? The best of lads one day. That family members that tend to fight and spit venom at one another in youth grow to be the closest of all friendships when older. Jon had noticed quite early on that she had a rough time sounding confident in her statements upon the matter.
Stupid, arrogant, Viserys. Jon had tried continuously to placate the elder boy. Nine years spent in exile together - every day an effort to get along, to find common ground. And there were moments - so many moments - where Jon truly felt like their relationship was turning around for the better. Only for it to all come crashing down like the force of the fist that blackened his eye that morning.
He sighed. He wanted to hate his Uncle. Hate the stupid smug face that sat across from him during mealtimes, hate the poisonous glares he would sometimes shoot at his mother when she took any misstep moving them about to keep them safe or the way her berated and harassed Daenerys, hate his stupid silver hair and purple eyes that matched his dead father's. The fact that he looked more the part of a Targaryen king than Jon could ever hope to be.
But he couldn't. It was hard to admit. He was family and despite his shit attitude at times, there was a likeable side to him that Jon couldn't deny.
Viserys was the one who snuck Jon and his sister out when their current residence became too suffocating. He was the one who gave Jon his first drink of ale, the one who beckoned the pretty bar maiden over to give Jon his first kiss (outside of Dany who had kissed him once when he was nine - much to his bewilderment and annoyance).
Then again, he was also the one to run to Dany to tell on him. She was absolutely beside herself, and then in a streak of vengeance declared her undying love for the manse's stable boy and that she was going to run away with him. This was over two years ago and the two best friends had made up long since then - like they always do whenever they fought. It actually brought a slight smile to Jon's lips to think of the humor of the situation - though he did feel bad acting so dishonorably. He just wanted to see what it would be like to kiss a woman who wasn't betrothed to him since near infancy.
Lightning cracked the sky with booming thunder to answer it's call. The room's small window rattled angrily with the gust of wind the storm had brought. Aye, bad omens with a storm this ferocious - his mother always said so. But his mother often said a lot of outlandish things that Jon hardly took seriously.
Amongst the rattling staccato of his window pane came the sound of his door creaking open. He turned his head to to spy Daenerys awash in the orange glow of a small candle in her hands.
"Dany? Are you okay?"
Wordlessly she shut the door behind her, placed the candle down on a small end table and scurried excitedly into his bed. He was met with several jabbing kicks to his sides as she plopped down next to him and made herself comfortable.
"It's pouring down right now! I've not seen it rain like this in over a year!" she said jovially, violet eyes glimmering with mischief.
"Dany you're not a little girl anymore! You can't come to my bed because you're scared of the thunder." He rolled himself to face her, disapproving frown etched upon his face.
Several years back in their youth it had almost been a tradition for her to come to him during the heaviest of storms. It was on stormy a day quite like this night that her mother had passed. The memory of her face then floated before his eyes - tears hidden under the torrential downpour but still twisted in heartbreaking devastation. He held her close to him as they cried together when Rhaella was lain upon the funeral pyre.
Her face scrunched up in offense, "You think me to be afraid? Nay I'm not afraid of storms anymore, I've grown out of that since my Tenth year."
He sighed. His betrothed was excitable and like all girls her age, annoying. But he often liked the mischief that played in her eyes, and he liked her fun personality above all else's.
"What do you want then?" he didn't mean to sound so brutal, but he had quite the rough day and didn't want to deal with her obnoxious wiles.
She hummed at this, "It's your nameday. I thought I'd stop by and give you your nameday gift…"
He rolled his eyes and groaned, "That's tomorrow. Why can't you be like a normal person and wait until the morning?"
"It's midnight! It's morning enough!"
He knitted his brows together in frustration before deciding the struggle of shooing her away too great. "Alright." He sighed, exasperated, "what is it then?"
She leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the lips.
Jon's eyes widened in shock and a furious red blush encroached upon his cheeks. She pulled away and cupped his face in her hands, a softness in her eyes he'd never seen before. Dany hadn't kissed him in years, since long before she had flowered into a woman.
He shook his head to clear it of nervous (and yet oddly enthralling) thoughts that struck in his mind as split fast as the lightning outside struck the ground. It was disorienting. "Dany...you shouldn't do that. This is...coming to my room like this is improper. We're not children anymore. The implications…"
She cupped one of his hands upon her breasts over her nightgown, a sigh of contentment escaping her lips. Jon sucked in a breath of air, startled by her lascivious act. It took everything he had in him to pull away, the softness of her breast giving him a near insurmountable pause. It was like touching fire made flesh - so quickly he tore his hand away -heartbeat quickening to match his agitated breathing.
Her eyes fell and she pouted prettily. This wasnt going the way she had intended. What had gotten into her?
Much to his horror, he felt the blood rush from his head to his manhood, something that tended to happen more and more frequently as he got older. He scooted farther away from the daft girl, attempting to get a hold of the situation and mentally will his growing hardness away, "Dany! What in the seven hells are you doing?!"
She continued her childish sulking and turned away from him to lay upon her back, silver hair fanned out behind her like a soft halo in the pale candle light. Jon considered ever so briefly about reigning in his indignation, to answer her sulleness with apology. But this what she tended to do when in his presence. Pout when she didn't get her way, wind him up around her delicate little fingers. Not now. He couldn't let himself give in.
"You're a man now…your fifteenth year." she said softly, a bit of sadness and longing tinging her voice, "I had thought to give you a man's gift...I had thought to give you my maiden head tonight…"
Her words slid past him, as intoxicating as milk of the poppy, difficult to register in his lust filled daze. This wasn't right. Not now. Not here.
"Dany...I...thank you, but I can't accept. It would be a dishonorable thing to do…"
"We are to be wed in several years time! I don't see why it would be dishonorable if we're already promised to one another!"
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, trying his utmost to ignore the painful throbbing in his breeches. He had to admit that Danearys looked absolutely stunning in dim light, lightning occasionally casting silver fingers of rain upon his window and onto her visage, giving off a dreamlike effervesce to her reclining form. Her gown was loose, and low cut as most dresses in Essos were, giving him a hint of the curvature of her small breasts peeking out along the hemline.
When had she grown so beautiful? He hadn't really taken the time to notice until this very moment. He always knew her to be pretty, for sure, but not like this. To him, for all the time he had known her, he had only seen her as his best friend, his aunt, and that some day, far into the distant future that the youth tended to disregard or ignore, his wife.
When had they grown so fast?
"I um…" he swallowed hard, torn upon the precipice of decision. To do the right thing or to give in? It should be easier than this to make the correct choice, heady desire be damned. "We should wait until after we are wed Dany…" he respected her too much to defile her on this stormy night, at this late of an hour. "I want to do right by you…"
She sighed and relaxed her body a bit more, his words having the slight desired effect of alleviating some of her gaurded tension. "I just don't understand why we aren't married already. I got my first moon's blood two years ago…"
He chuckled a bit at that, allowing him to relax as well, "What is it with maidens your age desiring to be wed off so fast? We have all the time in the world for marriage. Why not wait on it?"
"And what is it with boys your age being so cavalier about it? You're eventually going to need an heir, Aegon. The responsibility of continuing our family's line rests entirely upon this fact."
He frowned upon hearing his truename, "Don't call me that...It's dangerous if overheard and...well Its weird to hear."
She turned to him, eyes crinkled in indignation, "You're going to have to embrace it eventually! You don't want to admit it but you're always running from your responsibilities!"
She wasn't wrong. He tried his best to uphold a strong sense of honor and morality, pounded into him since his youth at his mother's insistence. She called it Northern Honor - the strongest in all of the Seven Kingdoms. But his responsibilities, the expectations lain upon his shoulders...he didn't want any of it. He didn't want the Iron Throne, didn't want to lead armies against Robert Baratheon, didn't want to avenge a dead father who left them all in this mess in the first place. And that was just the begining. He couldn't even begin to fathom something as fantastical sounding as the Long Night. Didn't even really know what it meant.
He considered briefly on how to respond to her, thinking on how agreeing with her may offend her even more.
Instead he simply replied, "Dany...you should probably go back to your own bed."
She sat up angrily, eyes wet with unshed tears, "You don't even love me! You don't even care!"
Something in him softened and threatened to break. Of all the burdens placed upon him, Dany was never one of them. She was his respite. A place of safety where he could be himself, where all the obligations of his destiny melted away. His only true friend.
He reached out to grab her hand before she could storm off. "Dany, come on...of course I love you. How could I not? You're the only person in my life that makes all of this truly bearable." his eyes pleaded with her own for some sort of understanding. Perhaps he had been too cold with her? The ice in his veins acted upon too brutally? She wanted to be intimate, exposed, just for him and he shot her down.
She sniffed, anger and emarassment still smoldering in her eyes. "You say that word as if you're saying it to a friend or family member. You're not in love with me."
She knew him too well. He said it exactly the way she was implying. Because she was those things -all of those things. And it was confusing and disorienting on a night like this and with her so impossibly close. It was hard to sort through any of his feelings. This was a new side to Daenerys he'd never seen before, never imagined existing. It would take time to register her night and day transformation, and he couldn't say the words now and mean it.
Instead he settled on pulling her into an embrace and laying her down upon his chest, hand cradling the back of her head to hold her close. This was familiar territory right here. This could be processed and understood as the love he means to show her. Falling into the routine of embracing one another during the storm, an echo of a childhood that had slipped past his fingers like sand in the wind.
"I will always love you, Daenerys." He kissed her upon the brow, and then again chastely on the lips."just give me time to grow a little bit. It's only been about an hour since I've become a man of fifteen after all. I've had more experience being a child than a man grown."
She laughed at this, and nodded her head in agreement. "I'm sorry I'm always so pushy...I just wanted to show you what you mean to me."
He sighed in contentment, finally settling down to rest, Dany's own breathing becoming soft and relaxed. "Aye Dany. And you mean the world to me too."
A/N: If you missed Rhaella, don't worry - the chapters will go back and forth in time and there will be more dialogue from her. Thanks again for all the lovely support!