Chapter Text
Someone knocks on his door?
Tyrion Lannister looks up from DMing one of the hot interns from Environmental Science, wonders who dares disturb him before lunch on a Monday. There are few who take the risk; Varys, obviously. Jaime. Attractively tall large breasted interns who bring him coffee and flirt mercilessly. Everyone else knows not to approach him until after at least two in the afternoon, and even then they bring bribes in the shape of pastries and/or phone numbers for various beautiful women.
No one quite knows what Tyrion does at KLU, especially himself, but it seems to bring in plenty of accolades and revenue. He has three potential Nobel prize winners on the staff, which in turn attracts the highest calibre of student, allowing King’s Landing University to charge the top dragon for degree courses. If it means charming mostly dead geriatrics, greasing palms, and poaching the best teaching staff from other institutions of higher learning, then fuck it.
More gratifyingly, it pisses off his Dad. According to Tywin, Tyrion should be working for him, but since they hate each other - hadn't every son fantasized about shooting their father in the chest at some point? - Tyrion thought it best to get out of that particular toxic Lannister cesspool. The further away from Tywin and Cersei the better, as proximity increases the prospect of losing one’s mind. Living in Essos and sampling the many fine women and even finer wines is the ultimate goal, but Tyrion also derives a perverse pleasure from being near enough to his family to drive them absolutely incandescent with rage and watch, with glee, the ensuing fallout, but far away enough that he doesn’t run barking mad.
He’s close to Varys who is close to the Queen, and if Tyrion spends rather a lot of time with the lovely Daenerys, no one says anything. Apart from Tyrion. Who rubs it in Tywin’s face that he’s in favour and Dad? Dad really isn't. Something about Elia Martell, Rhaegar Targaryen, and an unfortunate series of events that really upset the Dornish. Which is a shame, as Tyrion adores the Dornish, but at least they don’t seem to hold him personally responsible for wandering Targaryen cock, industrial blackmail, and very nice women scorned.
He and Tywin send each other frostily polite emails occasionally, containing plenty of subtextual insults and bitching, and cards at Sevenmas.
“Come in, I suppose,” he grumbles, making his excuses about having to work to the intern. She sends various emoji which Tyrion translates as possible blow jobs in the future, but he’s also slightly concerned that now interns are young enough to communicate without words these days.
Maybe he’s just getting old. Maybe he should settle down. Maybe.
No. He will not daydream of Dany.
Anyway, visitor. Before Lunch visitors are never his favourite. Unless they actually bring lunch, and then that’s quite acceptable, but normally the fools who turn up at almost lunchtime want him to do some work. Despicable. Tyrion stares at the door with the sort of mismatched dissolute gaze that makes him surprisingly popular with women under the age of thirty, and...well. He expects someone, because of the knock, but not the someone who comes through the door.
Willas is never that bold. He hibernates in his dungeon level laboratory and does weird shit with horse come. He also looks suspiciously healthy, sporting what might charitably be called a tan, a dark red shirt that he looks comfortable in - when was the last time Tyrell had been comfortable in himself? Ah, yes. When drunk and accidentally breaking Baelish’s nose - and a hopeful expression. Puppies are less adorable, according to the female faculty members.
The reason Willas gets mothered is because he’s gay as all Seven hells, and therefore non-threatening. His penis doesn’t get in the way of having a conversation. Given this is a Science department, there are far more penii than vaginas, and several of the professors can’t quite function around women. They either clam up and stare at their shoes while mumbling about weird medical procedures (Tarly) or go the Full Baelish and try and turn the poor women into sexbots.
The thought of Professor Asshai, who has, according the Varys, the most incredible cosmetic facial surgeon this side of Yi Ti on beck and call, and who clocks in at around thirty five years old but has been in the university longer than Tyrion has been alive, being turned into Baelish’s sexbot? Unpleasant, though Tyrion would be fascinated to go to bed with Mel. She’s gorgeous, and terrifying, and probably utterly filthy.
Baelish stares at her and calls her ‘Cat’ sometimes.
Tyrion makes a mental note to get Varys to ‘deal’ with Baelish.
Varys’ connections scare the shit out of him sometimes.
Right. Tyrell.
“Can I talk to you? Sorry.” Willas, as always, needs to be invited to take a seat. He’s too polite for a man who has been covered in horse come so many times that it’s actually gone past hilarious and on to both boring and slightly disturbing.
“Will it take long? It's almost lunch time. Aren't you supposed to be winning that Nobel Prize rather than delaying my lunch? No one likes me when I’m hangry. I cut funding and set the Prime Minister on people I despise.” Tyrion cultivates the ability to look and talk at a person while being able to type emails and answer texts; it’s delightfully unsettling. He clatters off a message to Varys to apologise for lateness and to ask him to order the sushi in the time that Willas Tyrell takes to look suitable apologetic.
“Sorry. I really am so sorry, Mr Lannister, I am. I just. I needed to speak with you about something, an idea I had, and it's quite time-sensitive really, because of what’s going on, as if we leave it too long we could lose, well, someone, and I was in Dorne, you see, and I had a wonderful idea. You know Sarella?”
Tyrell whitters when he’s nervous, which is most of the time when he’s around people he’s unsure of. Tyrion likes the man; he never complains, never spends all of his grant money so his department almost makes a profit, teaches very well despite his burgeoning fan club of stalkers, and he brings in quite a lot of financial investment for the university just by being pretty and good at science. That he’s a genius is a mere bonus.
But yes. He does know Sarella. Not as well as he’d like because, damn, Oberyn’s genetics - why aren’t they studying Martell’s sperm and selling that off to the highest bidder? Surely that’d be more fascinating than horse come? - but he’s had the pleasure of her company. Tall. Androgynous. Tyrion would, definitely. He likes his curvy Lorathi dancers, and loves his pale Targaryen rulers,, but, like Jaime, sometimes he'd like to be the one thrown around. He never thought he and his brother had women in common until he finally met Brienne, and then everything slotted into place. Ah Sarella. Scientifically as brilliant as Tyrell, pretty much his research partner, and he’s had strangely erotic dreams about her turning from a girl into a boy and back again, all while they’re having sweaty sex. Virginia Woolf would have a field day.
“Of course I know her.” He waves an imperious be-ringed hand. “Go on.”
“Oldtown have offered her a position.” Willas widens his hazel eyes, just a tad.
Tyrion freezes.
Fuck the Citadel! Fuck them. A bunch of mostly dead hermits who wouldn't know a new scientific theory if it bit them on their wrinkly scrotums.
Oldtown and and KLU have always been rivals. The former sees the city university as a jumped up young whippersnapper who never cares for tradition. The latter considers their Citadel colleagues as stuck in the past and pretentious to a fault. Hate isn't the word, but looking under loathing in a thesaurus describes the enmity quite accurately. Also Tyrion poached Tarly from them, and the Grand Maester hates him personally for that. He sent an angry polite email, but since Tyrion’s immune to them after dealing with Tywin for so many years, it merely amused him.
“The absolute fuckers!” His Sarella. His! By dint of being Tyrell’s research partner. And if Sarella goes to Oldtown, does that mean that Willas will have to cooperate with the geriatric twats who everyone at King’s loathes, to a man?
Willas leans in, rests his elbows on the desk. For whatever reason he seems almost in control of himself for a change - how can he be, in such a dire situation where the Citadel are after his research partner? - a dimple dancing in his cheek, all soft-eyed but overlain with something sharper, almost devious? Quite like his hot sister. Damn. Margaery. One that didn't quite get away as never got near in the first place because of the ginger charms of Robb Stark. Loras tried it on with Tyrion once, but it wasn’t the same. Despite Varys’ quiet encouragement, he’s never been at home with more than one cock in an orgy.
“But they don't want Sarella, either, they only want Alleras because they’re awfully odd about women, aren’t they? But then I had an idea. Sarella wants to experience teaching at another university for a while, a good one, and I know Sunspear is decent, but it’s not us or Oldtown, so I thought maybe she could come here for a bit because everyone knows her here as Sarella and Alleras, she knows the syllabus, she's really so good and brilliant and she deserves to not have to go to the Citadel?” He splays his fingers on the desk, drawing patterns in the polish.
“Very few people deserve to go to the Citadel, and only then if you believe in cruel and unusual punishments. However, we can’t afford another associate.” Shit. Shit shit shit!
“You could.” Willas smiles, charmingly helpful. “See, maybe she and I could swap for a bit? It would help the research so much if I was in Dorne for a while, and I'd still be part of the university, just a visiting professor in Sunspear, so you'd just pay me, and they'd still pay her, so you'd not have to spend any more and-”
Tyrion isn't stupid. If he was, he'd be working with his father. No, unlike his sister and, to some extent Jaime, he's bloody clever. More than others give him credit for. He takes in the earnestness, the hope, the semi-desperate use of even more puppy-dog eyes than usual.
The suspicious hickey on Willas’ neck.
“You got laid in Dorne, didn't you? You little shit.”
To go the same colour as a maroon shirt is simply talented, and Tyrion congratulates himself for having that effect. Willas stares at him, mouth opening and closing, before he sighs.
“Yes. Oh Gods. Am I that transparent?”
“You were only there two weeks and you want to move to Dorne because of cock?” he jokes. Tyrell merely goes purple, confirming what was a mere jest with sheer obviousness. Despite this coming from left field, Tyrion deals with it admirably. After all, as much as he’s aware of Willas’ earning potential for the university, he’s not Sarella Sand, who could be even more marketable. Also, he’d still own Tyrell’s arse, and would merely be loaning him out to Sunspear, who would owe King’s Landing a favour so big that Tyrion can almost taste the grovelling thankfulness.
“Shit. That's fast. Here's me thinking you're the least likely person in the entire universe to do anything drastic, and you merrily piss that away. Do I know him?”
Nervousness flickers. Tyrion almost feels sorry for the poor bastard: Willas’ love life has forever been a colossal shit show. Rumour is that he walked in in his ex being fisted by that short weird mortuary sciences lecturer, the one that steals body parts. Hopefully it was Bolton’s own fist. Otherwise they'll have to burn all the cadavers and start over. Actually, knowing Ramsay, it’s best to nuke the department and rebuild on the ashes of the damned.
“He works with Professor Lannister’s wife,” Willas mumbles, looking at his endlessly moving hands.
Flight crew then. A quick round up reveals two suspects, and he rapidly decreases that to one because Theon is a shagger and not a lover.
“Oberyn? You’re fucking Oberyn?"
Willas whimpers.
Tyrion grins, broad and evil. Varys likens him to a demonic pug when he’s like that.
“You. And Oberyn Martell.”
Another whimper.
“Stranger on a pogo stick, you’re a dark horse, aren’t you? Screwing your research partner’s Dad.”
“Please stop?”
“Then trying to get the research partner a post here so you can return to Dorne for some more hot Professor on Dad action, you surprisingly sneaky bastard.”
“Oh. Gods.”
Tyrion, on a roll, clambers from his chair and starts wandering about his office, oratory style. “You’ll be Sarella’s stepmother, if you’re not careful. At least Oberyn can’t knock you up - he’s got enough kids. Your grandmother will be all over this like plague, won’t she? Loras and Renly is one thing, but you and a fucking prince? I can see the magazine deals in the future, Willas my boy.”
Willas has to give him the dying goat look before Tyrion finally takes pity.
“Is he offering you more than just a quick romantic shag in Dorne? Because if he’s going to toy with you, I will have Varys put a hit on him. No one hurts my prized and most favoured future Nobel winner and gets away with it. You’re one of the more likeable of the scientist twats under my command. I wouldn’t want you to be hurt.” Despite his cynical nature, Tyrion can be a bit of a romantic sometimes. He has enough sex to sink a whaling ship, but he’s just searching for his one. With his penis. And sometimes other parts of his body.
Oh, Dany.
Willas manages a faint smile, his skin slowly melting back toward that tanned milky tea colour that looks so out of place. “He doesn’t mind that I’m weird. He kind of likes how weird I am, which is weird in itself.”
“You’re not weird. How many times have I told you that you’re rich enough, pretty enough, and clever enough to be the dictionary definition of eccentric?”
“He gets me, I suppose? And he’s - oh, he’s beautiful, and clever, and he understands when I talk to him about covalent bonds and polynucleotides, and how centrifuges work. He lets me be me? It’s hard being me when I’ve been so used to being what other people expect, so it’s all quite new, and a bit scary, and I’m just prattling on now because you’re the first person I’ve told about him apart from Sarella, and she’s fine with it, finds it hilarious actually, which is quite odd. What if I’d slept with Sarella? That would be more odd. Wouldn’t it be odd?”
Tyrion throws a stress ball at Willas’ head, which bounces off and lands in the recycling (white only, because the university has a racist paper recycling policy) bin.
“Will you at least have a think about it?” he begs.
“You have to admit,” Tyrion calls after him, as Willas retreats out the door with more apologies and promises of bringing whisky-sodden hot toddies at some point, “Sarella ticks more inclusivity boxes than you. Ethnic minority, gender fluid, possibly gay. I’ll shove her in your wheelchair and bask in the approval and funding that’d result.”
Willas flashes a smile, and it’s only then that Tyrion realises he’s not got his cane and the limp doesn’t seem as obvious as usual.
“Good evening, and allow me to welcome you to Sunspear International. I’d like to thank you all for your patronage on behalf of myself, Captain Tarth, the flight crew, and Lannist-Air. Please remember to check the hold for luggage and other belongings but, for safety reasons, please remain seated with seatbelts fastened until the aeroplane has come to a complete halt. Please also be aware that smoking is not allowed until you reach the designated areas outside the terminal building. Again, thank you for flying Lannist-Air.”
First Officer Mormont has excellent North-inflected vowels, a low honied tone, and, from the brief glance into the cockpit before take off showed, looks very much like the sort of handsome army officer that can be found in Westerosi war films of the 1950s. The sort with stiff upper lips, noble deaths, and Alec Guinness or Dicky Attenborough. Very much The Great Escape , or Bridge over the River Rhoyne .
Willas Tyrell pays no heed, however, to the charms of tall Bear Islanders, or that First Officer Tarth has finally won her promotion, or how Theon Greyjoy isn’t anywhere to be seen and has been replaced on this flight by a strange green-eyed young man who promises they will all land safely as he has foreseen it. Even his glass of wine - not Dornish, or Arbour, but something more rotgut and tannin-sodden - remains half-touched.
Because of his leg he’s the last one from the plane, clambering carefully down the steps and onto the tarmac, cane in hand; months away from Dorne have played havoc with his stupid knee, especially with winter coming, as Robb Stark texts on a daily basis. As much as he likes Margie’s husband, and, by extension, the whole of the Stark clan, the meteorologist thing does wear. Robb tends towards enthusiastic amateur rather than accurate forecaster, and the last time he said they were due a cold snap the entirely of Westeros sweltered in the hottest Sevenmas for eighty six years.
Willas never got to wear his favourite awful jumper, the one with the reindeer with light-up flashing antlers and a battery pack that looks quite suggestive if he doesn’t keep it tucked at waist height.
Through baggage retrieval, this time without a suitcase - everything he needs fits neatly into the carry on he’s dragging - and a lazy check of his passport by a bored looking border guard, before out into the arrivals lounge. For a moment he feels a little lost, all glass and air and packs of people milling about chattering in languages he half-understands, and accents that reverberate through his head, before hands find his hips and a moustache tickles the side of his neck as lips brush his pulse point.
“Oberyn?”
“No. Just a Dornishman taking advantage of a beautiful man. I know of no Oberyn. I am most definitely not him. I am merely enjoying pouncing upon lovely professors who should never be abandoned by any Oberyn."
Willas turns on his toes, almost elegant despite his mad hair and madder grin, before he’s being kissed. Kissed and kissed, and those strong tanned hands at his waist migrate south for the winter - which is coming in the North, but not at all in Dorne, and someone should be coming, really, because it’s been months of texts, and phone calls, and Skyping without a webcam as he doesn’t own one, though obviously Oberyn does, and there have been one or two saucy videos sent up to blow his mind even harder, and Willas is a passionate soul underneath, and he just wants sex and romance and love, dammit, is that too much to ask? - to cup his arse and squeeze. And yes.
This feels right. Everything left behind in King’s Landing and Highgarden fades into a sepia nostalgia rather than a nervous-driven craving of ‘what if he was wrong.’ This is right, and true, and wonderful, and Oberynish, and the man himself tastes of black coffee and lust, combined with a certain mind-addling Martellness that must have some sort of addictive quality. DNA analysis of saliva might be needed, just to check.
Oberyn lets him up for air, murmurs something fond about stubble rash and how Willas’ jeans are indecently snug.
“Loras bullied me into buying them.”
“I must meet Loras. He obviously wishes for you to be ravished, and I appreciate his dedication to his and your cause.”
Helplessly, Willas buries his face into Oberyn’s shoulder, fisted hands absolutely destroying the once pristine smoothness of his linen shirt. That tension that lives forever in his upper neck and shoulders lessens, just a little. Magic Oberyn touch is magic.
“Shall we go home, sweet one?”
“Yes please. It’s been too long since I saw you, and-” Willas nuzzles further, uncaring for once of being stared at by half an airport.
Being physically apart ached more than he ever posited. Ridiculous really, because how long has he known Oberyn now? A few weeks over five months - five long months, spent trying to sort out tenures, getting Alleras properly acquainted with King’s Landing, carefully maneuvering around his familial duties tying up loose ends - and all because of a whirlwind two weeks in Dorne, with possibly the love of his life. Beric thinks he’s being very brave. Everyone else warns him about Oberyn’s reputation, which Willas knows and accepts and secretly thinks quite exciting. Olenna merely heard the words prince and Martell and congratulated him upon landing a prize worthy of a Tyrell. Garlan promised to set helicopter gunships on Sunspear if Willas is hurt, and Margie invited the two of them to Winterfell for Sevenmas. Loras? Asked for photos with a sort of leer that seemed shark-like. Renly had to resort to nose bopping with a tea spoon.
“It’s been wonderful you talking to me for all these months, you know what your voice does, but I’d really like to stop the just talking and start the full experience now, please?”
Oberyn tilts Willas’ chin up with his thumb, trails fingers across his cheekbones.
“I hope you are prepared to not get out of my bed for at least a week, lovely, but then I propose we thoroughly investigate this living together as a couple idea that others seem to enjoy, hmm?”
“Is that a promise?” Aware of the particularly soppy look on his face, and fearing that he’s broadcasting fuck me now vibes all over the east of the Dornish peninsula - like some sort of homing beacon - Willas attempts to school his visage into something cooler. Sexier. As if attractive men say these sorts of things to him at all times. He fails miserably.
“My tongue,” Oberyn purrs, heated and lusty and Dornish-sexy in Willas’ blushing ear, “never lies.”