Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Welcome to the best years of your life.

That was written on a big banner at the entrance of the campus.

He felt minuscule while watching the big buildings in front of him projecting shadows over the green grass of the campus. It felt oddly calming, though, to feel so little, almost insignificant, for once; with a little effort, he could pretend he didn’t even exist.

Jace looked at the empty car in front of him, the car that that morning was filled with all his belonging, nineteen years of life all in one car with the seats put down.

“It’s not as cold as I thought” Daemon admitted, looking around with his hands deeply buried in his pockets.

His mother looked at him with a reassuring smile, nodding toward her husband.

“Yeah” he simply admitted, nodding. He had talked so little that day, and that year in general, that he had almost forgotten how to process language. Finding the right words to say seemed an extreme fatigue, lately.

He looked around, at the courtyard of his new college, he observed the students laying under the trees, playing guitar, or simply enjoying the sunny day.

He supposed summers must be warmer even in Winterfell, but by the number of students reversing in the courtyard, he guessed that days like that were rare, or that the warmer, sunny days were coming to an end.

“Jace, honey,” his mother put her hands above both of his shoulders. “You don’t have to stay if you don’t feel ready. We can talk to the dean and…”

He shook his head, trying his best to do a convincing smile.

“He already let me freeze one year. I don’t think many students had this possibility”

“Not many students have been through what you have…”

“I think I can use a change of air.” he interrupted her, diving his hands in the pockets of his jacket. “Maybe the cold will do me good.”

Rhaenyra smiled. “As you wish”

Jace looked down and nodded.

“Just,” his mother began again. “Just promise me you won’t bury yourself in your room, okay?”

He scoffed. “I have classes, mum. And football practice”

The woman shook her head. “I don’t mean only that. Go outside, make some friends, go to parties, have fun.”

If he had the strength, he would laugh. He had always been the one that had to be convinced to come back early, to respect curfew, his high school years had been a four years long party.

But he guessed it was a lifetime ago, now. Now he was the one that had to be begged to get out of his room, and forced to get out of his home.

“And please cut your hair” continued his mother, smiling a bit.

He smiled, looking away. During the last year, he had let his hair grow, too busy playing video games, binging tv-shows, and sleeping his days away to go to the barber. Now his hair almost touched his shoulders, thick and wavy, like his father’s. It was good to look in the mirror and see a familiar face, a face he didn’t realize resembled him so much.

His mother hugged him tight, clenching her fingers around his coat, and looked away when they separated, probably to not let him see the tears in her eyes.

He and Daemon exchanged an embarrassed look. He had been a good father figure to him and all his brothers, and Jace never, not even one day, felt like he loved them less than his actual children, but the man wasn’t exactly a physical touch guy. They exchanged a respectful nod.

“Luke wouldn’t want you to give up on life” Daemon casually dropped.

Everyone kept telling him that.

Luke wouldn’t want this… Luke wouldn’t want that… All things he knew: he knew that his little brother wouldn’t want for him to live like a hermit, he wasn’t doing any of that because he thought Luke might like it. Simply putting, everything that he loved doing before, now had lost any sense: going out, partying, meeting people that Luke would never meet. 

He said goodbye to his parents and watched them go away. His smile dropped the moment they disappeared. 

His dorm was loud.

Music from the rooms, music from the corridors, college guys running around, chasing each other with water guns, laughing out loud. 

And moans, a lot of moans.

He stood at the entrance of the corridor, his bag on his shoulder, watching those scenes with his back tensed, petrified. How could someone lose all his social skills? He guessed that’s what happens when you retire from social interactions for a year.

Jace held his breath. If he walked straight to his room, looking down, he could avoid talking to anyone and he could make it safe to his room.

One , he counted in his head.

Two.

Three.

Holding his breath, he walked rapidly to his room, the one he had already visited with his parents, and that already had all his stuff inside. He quickly opened the door, and went inside, putting his back against the closed door, breathing deeply, his heart pounding against his ribs.

He looked at his watch, if he took his anxiety meds now, he wouldn’t be able to sleep.

Just a few hours, he needed to resist for just a few hours, and then he could take his meds and go to sleep. And simply leaving that day behind.

A loud knock startled him, so loud that he felt it on his back still leaning on the door.

He opened the door, unsure. Outside, a guy with his tie around his head was looking at him.

“What’s up, bro?” he asked.

Jace blinked in confusion. “Ehm… do we… do we know each other?”

“Not yet, mate,” he said, stretching his hand. “You are in the football team, aren’t you?”

Jace looked at the bag with the Winterfell football team logo and nodded.

“Shit, really?” the guy asked, covering his mouth with his fist. “Do you know Cregan Stark, then? That man is a legend!"

Jace shook his head. “Only by name. I haven’t met him, yet”

“Come with us,” the guy offered him. “We’re going to the city. With a football player, we’ll get free entry in every club”

Jace imagined going with them, following them around the clubs, the loud music, the lights , having to answer questions…

You are nineteen? Why are you going to college one year later?

Do you have any siblings?

“Maybe another time” he muttered, trying to do a convincing smile.

“Do you have a girlfriend or something?” the guy asked.

He opened his mouth to say yes , but closed it quickly.

That belonged to another lifetime, too. A lifetime in which he waited for his mother and Daemon to fall asleep, before sneaking to Baela’s room, and returning to his own room before sunrise.

He looked down, holding onto the door. “I have practice early, tomorrow.”

“Oh, come on!” the other said.

“Another time” he muttered, closing the door.

“Bummer” he heard, through the closed door.

He ran to his backpack and began to rummage inside until he found the little orange package of his anxiety meds. He took two.

His pills usually calmed him down, and he was able to function almost as usual for a few hours, but sometimes he felt a little numb, his head felt light and his mind felt in a bubble. He lay in his bed and fell asleep while he was still dressed, above the mattress without sheets on.

The sound of a car horn woke him up.

He didn’t even know if the sound was real or only in his mind, but it was too late now. Nothing could calm the beating of his heart, or the quick pace of his breath, or his mind telling him that he was going to die, and his mother would lose another child, and the pain would kill her and it would be all his fault. He, who couldn’t be a good big brother, he, who couldn’t be a good son, a good boyfriend, a good football player, a good anything.

Be calm, now.

Be calm. Focus.

His therapist had taught him a trick.

He had to find five things he could see.

His lamp, the courtyard outside the window, his little brother laying on the ground, with a white cloth on.

No. From the beginning.

His lamp, the courtyard outside the window, his desk, his chair, his shoes.

Four things he could touch.

The sheets, the duvet, his trousers, his skin covered in sweat.

Three things he could hear.

Music from the corridor, a couple fighting, girls laughing.

Two things he could smell.

His sweat, the room deodorant his mother gave him.

One thing he could taste.

He reached into his pocket, took a protein chocolate bar, and gave it a bite. His breath was now steadier, and his chest had stopped hurting, he only felt shattered. He gave a quick look at the clock on his nightstand.

3 o’clock.

He lay on his bed again, hoping that sleep would come to him easily as the first time, but it didn’t happen, his mind kept going, and his thoughts ran loud in his head.

Move. He needed to move.

He wore his sweatpants and his running shoes, without even changing his t-shirt, and ran down the courtyard. Without even knowing where he was going, he began running, wrapped and protected by the dark sky, unable to see anything, and he couldn’t hear anything, with his headphones on, he just had to run until he was too tired to process a thought. 

He ran, surrounding the building once, and twice, and then three times. During the fourth round, he was beginning to feel a little tired, but not enough yet. He wanted to feel exhausted, without strength, he wanted to crawl to bed and abandon himself into a dreamless sleep. Not the best of coping mechanisms, but it was that or his anxiety pills. And he felt he had too much of those, for the day.

His therapist had said he could take two pills a day, instead of one, if he was too stressed, and she agreed that the day he would move to Winterfell would be stressful, but he had already had three, one in the morning, and two in the evening.

His chest was starting to ache, he looked at his watch and stopped running, watching his heart rate increase by the seconds, 130 beats per minute, 140, 160. It has never been high like that. He leaned over a wall, trying to breathe, feeling dizzy and weak.

Something terrible has happened.

He heard his mother saying. He was already in the Vale when he received her call, during his road trip to Winterfell.

What happened?

His mother didn’t reply for a bit, then started sobbing through the phone. He had already lost his grandfather, and his baby sister, what else could have happened worse?

His mother's sobs became so loud she had to pass the phone to someone else.

Jace, it’s Baela. He finally heard. Her tone was so different since their last talk, when she kissed him goodbye before he left for college. You have to come back immediately.

Baela, what happened?

Other silence, then a sigh.

It’s about Luke.

Luke? The same Luke that had texted him just that morning? What could have happened to his little brother? He was just sixteen, he was practically a child, and nothing bad happens to children. Right?

Let me speak to him. He said.

Jace, please. Baela begged, her voice cracking. Come back.

He came back, freezing his college admission for a year. And a year later he was in the campus’ courtyard, unhappier than ever, counting his heartbeats with a watch that alerted him when he was having a panic attack.

Five things he could see.

The stars, the trees, the cars parked, the buildings, a guy coming towards him.

Four things he could hear.

His shallow breaths, his heartbeat, crickets, a voice asking “Are you okay?”

The guy was kneeling in front of him, and Jace realized he was sitting on the ground. A pair of light, grey eyes were looking at him with a worried look, Jace couldn’t look at him properly, but he could see high cheekbones and a defined jaw.

“Can you hear me?” the guy put his hand on Jace’s knee, so big that completely surrounded his knee.

That touch burned on his oversensitive skin, already tensed like a violin string, and without thinking, he kicked the stranger off, hitting him with his knee right in the face.

The guy looked at him with his nose bleeding, touching the blood coming from his nostrils.

“What the fuck?” he said, looking at him like he was crazy.

“Stay away from me” Jace muttered, before running away.

Welcome to the best years of your life.

He didn’t lie, the day before, he really had practice early. And what better way to start the first training with the new football team if not after taking too many anxiety pills, three hours of sleep, and a breakfast that consisted in black unsweetened coffee and an energy drink?

He trudged to the pitch, regretting having agreed to sign up for college that year and join the football team. He was just pretending, he was cosplaying the old Jace, and it wasn’t working.

The freshmen team was already in line on the pitch, the best players in the Seven States, all fresh and polished, while he walked with his back arched forward and his eyes circled in black. He tried to stand as tight as possible, his hands behind his back, waiting for their coach.

The chatter ended abruptly, he looked around to see what had happened and saw someone approaching. The Sun was hitting him in the face, making the figure approaching indistinguishable. When he was near enough, his heart stopped.

“That is Cregan Stark!” someone next to him whispered.

“Why does he have a black eye?” another asked.

Oh, fuck me. This can’t be.

Cregan Stark, captain of the best football team in the Seven States, stopped in front of them, with a bruise on his cheekbones and a black eye. Jace wondered if it had the shape of his knee. The one in front of him wasn’t just a regular player, he was practically a legend. And Jace had kicked him in the face.

“Hi, everyone,” Stark said, looking at them. Jace tried to keep his gaze low. “I’m Cregan, your teammate, and captain of the team. For the next three months, I will be your coach. We will see each other five days a week, every day at this hour. Question?”

A guy raised his hand shyly.

“Your name?” Cregan asked.

“Jon, sir. Jon Tarly, sir.”

Cregan grinned while looking at the list in his hands. “There’s no need to call me sir, Jon. I’m not the coach, I’m a player just like you”

Jon nodded.

“What was your question, Jon?” Cregan asked again.

Jon swallowed, and Jace thought he was about to faint. “I-I was wondering… Why are we training separately from the main team?”

“Excellent question.” the captain admitted, with an open smile, and Jon blushed . “Before joining the main team, the coach asked me to train you freshmen and help him decide who will join the main team, in three months.”

They all started murmuring with each other.

“You all can talk in the locker room after the training” Stark hushed them, and they all returned to look at him.

“You,” the man said, and Jace just knew who he was talking to. When he raised his gaze, his eyes met the deep grey ones of the man in front of him.

“Name?”

Jace bit his lips. “Velaryon”

Stark seemed surprised for a moment, then he looked at the list in his hands.

“Jacaerys, right?” he asked.

“Jace”

Stark looked at him, blinking in confusion. “What?”

“It’s Jace.” he corrected him. “It’s short for Jacaerys.”

The man nodded.

“Good, Jace.” he sighed. “Five laps around the pitch”

“What?” asked one of his teammates, followed by the others.

“Why?”

“What did he say?”

Jace simply nodded and started running, without bothering to ask why.

Welcome to the best years of your fucking life.

Chapter Text

Jace arrived at his first lesson at college fashionably late.

He did it on purpose, to make sure to get a seat that was far from anyone else. 

A man with a white shirt and a grey waistcoat was explaining the fundamentals of Constitutional Law, while the whole classroom was looking at him in awe, quickly tapping on their laptops.

Leaving his bed had been traumatic, so as long as he was there, he might as well make it make sense: he put out his laptop and tried taking notes. His attention span was disastrous, he could only type a few phrases before his mind started wandering, and when he looked at his notes, they didn’t make any sense.

It seemed like he was the only one who couldn’t pay attention to the class: the other students were all concentrated, perfectly dressed like they had been in that classroom for all their lives. He recognized two guys from the football team, one of them was a Baratheon for sure, but he couldn’t recall his name; the two guys were exchanging amused looks, laughing behind their laptops.

Jace wondered if he would have been like them, in another universe; if he would have been just a happy, thrilled version of himself that could really enjoy his freshman year.

Looking around, he spotted someone who wasn’t exactly paying attention, just like him: a girl two rows ahead of him that was drawing on her paper notebook while keeping her head leaned on her hand, her laptop abandoned on the table, untouched, the writing page blank.

“ Now, form the couples, while I take my coffee”

Jace panicked. Which couples? To do what?

In front of him, all his colleagues started talking, smiling at the nearest person to choose them as a partner, while he was alone, on the highest row of the classroom, hidden from anyone else.

The girl in front of him stopped drawing and looked around herself as if she had just woken up from a dream, she asked something to two girls in front of her, and then nodded. She turned her head until her grey eyes met his, and smiled.

Jace sighed: better her than the others.

The girl moved next to him and could look at her more closely: she was wearing a big, oversized, white sweater, with tartan pants and a pair of black high-heeled boots, her blonde hair was tied in a messy knot on top of her head. She sat by his side unceremoniously.

“ I guess we have to do this shit” she put her ankle above her knee. “I’m Sarah, by the way. Sarah Snow”

She offered him her hand and crushed his when she took it.

“ What… What should we do?” Jace asked.

“ According to the girls right there” she pointed at the two girls ahead of them. “We have to introduce each other to the class when the break ends”

“ Oh.” he simply concluded.

She nodded slowly, looking at him as if she was waiting for him to say something.

“ So…” Sarah began. “What’s your name?”

“ Oh, right.” he blinked and shook his head. “I’m Jace”

She nodded. “Jace…?” 

He sighed, closing his eyes. “...Velaryon”

Sarah opened her eyes, surprised. “You are… You are Rhaenyra Targaryen’s son?”

He nodded.

“ The first female President of the Seven States?”

He nodded again.

“ Oh fuck, I love your mother!” she confessed, enthusiastic. “I’ve voted for her”

“ Ehm…Thank you, I guess”

He never knew what to say, when people told him they had voted for her mother. Like, was he supposed to thank them?

An awkward silence spread between the two, while the buzz of the other voices kept going.

He knew it was his turn to make questions.

“ So you are…?” he began.

“ A bastard…?” she tried to guess. “Is this a problem, for you?”

“ What? No!” he defended himself, raising his hands. “I would never…”

Sarah giggled, shaking her head. “Don’t worry, I recognize assholes who think that bastards don’t deserve a place in this society. I knew you weren’t one of them.”

And then, for the first time in weeks, Jace smiled. A little smile that felt so strange, like his muscles had forgotten how to.

“ Thank you for not mistaking me for some conservative asshole” he admitted, still smiling. “And I was about to ask if you were from here”

She nodded, proudly. “Born and raised in Winterfell”

“ And you haven’t thought about going away, for college?”

She shook her head. “You know what they say about people in the North, we don’t leave home easily. My brother brought me to King’s Landing when I graduated high school, and we both had been counting the days till we came back. It smells like death, there. No offense.”

He giggled again. “Is your brother from the North, too?”

She nodded.

“ You two go along?”

Sarah sighed. “He pisses me off and I want to kill him most of the time, but I love him”

His lips curved into a sly smile. “Yeah, brothers are like that”

Sarah looked at him, and he wondered if she might know about Luke. His accident wasn’t on the news, luckily, and the North was notoriously not interested in the matters of the south, but every time he said his name to someone, he was still scared they might know about his brother.

When he looked at her, though, there was no pity in her grey eyes, just a little amusement and a pinch of curiosity.

“ And you’re here to study law?” she asked.

“ Not actually.” he replied, tilting his head “I study law, but I’m here to play football”

Her mouth fell open, while she blinked in disbelief. “ You are in the football team?”

“… Yes?” he squinted. “Why?”

A little laugh escaped her mouth. “I don’t know, I wouldn’t have said you were a football player”

“ Don’t I look like one?” he pointed at himself.

Fine, the previous hadn’t been the best year of his life, he had forgotten one training or two, but he still was fit, and he still had the body of an athlete.

Sarah shook her head. “No, no, you do. It’s just… I thought you would sit with the other athletes, just this…”

The two guys that were in the team with him weren’t doing the assignment, anymore. They were talking to two girls sitting in the row behind them, exchanging numbers on their phones.

“ We are teammates,” he explained to the girl. “We don’t have to be friends”

She looked at him, before nodding. “Good for you. They seem just spoiled dickheads”

“ How do you know that I’m not a spoiled dickhead, too?”

“ The verdict is still open” Sarah raised her hands. “But for now, you don’t dress like an idiot, you don’t think badly about bastards, and you don’t make the football team your entire personality, so you’re good…”

“ Okay, guys” the professor spoke into the microphone. “Let’s hear what you have to say, now”

Sarah collected her things while standing up.

“ Well, Jace, it was nice. We should do it again”

He giggled, nodding. It was the first time in months he had talked to a person without feeling his palms sweating or wanting to run away. Something in her bright smile seemed to make him feel comfortable. 

“ Absolutely” he agreed.

For his training, he arrived more than just fashionably late. His teammates were already divided into two groups and playing against each other, while Cregan Stark was watching them from the bench.

“ Tully, your mate is free. Pass that ball!” he yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Yeah, just like that” he clapped his hands and wrote something in his notebook.

Jace stopped behind him.

“ You’re late” Stark noted, without even turning.

“ I know I…”

He had laid in bed until a few minutes before, trying to pep talk himself to get up and go to his training, but he couldn’t find the strength to just get off the bed. So five minutes became ten, and then fifteen.

“ You surely have your reasons” the other interrupted him, writing something again. “Anyway, one lap for every minute late”

He opened his mouth to reply but closed it right away. Who was trying to fool? He was wrong, he hadn’t even been able to arrive on time at his second commitment of the day. So he took off his jacket and started running.

While he ran, he spotted the two guys who were in his class looking at him and immediately talking to each other, grinning.

What a funny vision, must he be, the son of Rhaenyra Targaryen, young football promise, bound to just run around the pitch.

“ Baratheon! Lannister! Do you want some coffee, over there?” Stark shouted to the two guys. “We are playing, here!”

A rush of pride made Jace smile, while the two guys muttered. “Sorry”

The training match was still going on, half of his teammates were wearing orange jackets, while the others were wearing just the regular uniform with the color of the team. 

His heart dropped when he looked at Stark and met his icy glare. Stark’s eyes looked severe but at the same time also… inquiring, like he was trying to figure him out or something.

Don’t waste your time, there’s nothing to figure, here. I’m exactly what you see, someone that was destined for something but got lost in the way.

When he was done with his punishment, the training was over.

“ So?”

His mother’s face was looking at him through the screen of his laptop.

Even though he was missing her, he had to prepare himself for hours, before talking to her. Saying that he was busy with assignments had briefly crossed his mind, that afternoon, but he couldn’t forget her face when they had parted, two weeks before, how worried she was for him after all it had happened the last year. He could make an effort and reassure her.

“ I told you, mum” he replied, shrugging. “It’s fine, here. The weather is still warm, for now, the classes are fine…”

“ And football practice?” she asked, giving a sip from her cup. “How is it going?”

Jace swallowed, nodding. “It’s good”

“ Have you met Cregan Stark?”

He nodded. “Yes”

It had been almost two weeks since his first practice, and he still hadn’t touched a ball. Stark had exiled him to the bench every single day.

“ How is he?” she asked. “I haven’t seen him since he was just a baby”

Strict wasn’t the right word. Stark wasn’t strict with him, he didn’t insult him or give him unjustified punishments, he simply acted like Jace didn’t exist.

The only words he said to him were. “Velaryon, bench”

“ He’s… fine. I guess.” Jace bit his lips. “He doesn’t speak to freshmen”

That was a lie: Stark did, actually. He usually gave high fives, advices, and encouragements to any other freshman in the team. It was only Jace the one he ignored.

“ I have photos with you and him at your baptism. You two looked so cute”

Jace grimaced. “You have what?”

Rhaenyra laughed. “His father was a good friend of your grandfather, so we had invited him. He was one of the most honorable men I had ever met, I’m sure his son is no exception”

No, probably Stark was no exception. He was the exception, he was the problem, not Stark.

“ Have you made some friends?” his mother asked.

This time he smiled. “Actually, yes”

Rhaenyra’s eyes grew wider like her smile. “Really?”

He nodded. “A girl in my Constitutional Law class.”

That was surprising to him as well. Due to his lack of sociality, the last thing he expected was to make a friend during the first week of college.

But being friends with Sarah was easy, even for him: she had basically adopted him, she sat next to him at every lesson, dragged him to the library to study, and to the cafeteria to eat. He didn’t have to do anything and that reassured him, somehow.

Soon afterward their first meeting, he realized that doing something without her was boring, and his favorite lessons were the ones he shared with her.

She would surely make a good lawyer, because she had been stubborn enough to convince him to go to a party, drilling like a jackhammer until he had to say yes out of exhaustion .

“ And where are you going, tonight?” his mother asked.

He shrugged, rolling his brown eyes. “There’s a party. She had convinced me to go”

“ I already like her” the woman admitted, with a large smile.

Going to the stupid party was worth it just to see his mother smile like that.

It took more than he thought to find the courage to make it out of his dorm. The days in which his worst worry before a party was what to wear were far: now he had to listen to calm music, repeat affirmations that his therapist gave him, and do breathing exercises from YouTube, before going out.

I got this. 

He waited for Sarah on the street, he had asked her to meet him outside his building, to make sure to not have second thoughts.

The nights were getting chiller and chiller, in Winterfell. He was already wearing the jacket he used during winter, in Dragonstone, and if that was just the first half of September, he was afraid of what might happen the following months.

He took off his phone from his jacket and texted Sarah.

Outside the building. Hurry up, it’s freezing here.

The reply was fast.

I forgot boys from the south were chilly

Followed by a rolling eyes emoji.

He chuckled before putting his phone back in his pocket, shivering.

Thank God he didn’t have practice, the morning after. It was becoming annoying, seeing Cregan Stark still ignoring him after two whole weeks.

Fine, he had made a mistake, the evening they met, and then he had arrived late once, but the captain of his team was still keeping him on the bench.

How could he make it to the main team if he didn’t play?

A car passed by, right in front of him, its headlights hitting him in the face, two bright flashes that made him quickly close his eyes.

The scene changed almost as quickly. He wasn’t in his building’s parking lot anymore, he was in Dragonstone, by the side of a road, a cold drizzle making the scene blur and confusing, and the blue and red of the ambulance was blinding him.

His mother was screaming, wailing in Daemon’s arms, who had his knuckles bruised and bloody, Baela and Rhaena were crying, beside him. He stayed immobile: couldn’t cry, couldn’t scream, or wail, or punch something. 

But in his mind, he was doing all these things together.

Something touched his arm, and he jumped. The scene was again clear now, he was in Winterfell, not in Dragonstone, he was nineteen, not eighteen anymore.

“ Hey” he heard Sarah’s voice.

He looked at his friend, shaking his head to banish the images. “Hey”

“ Jace, are you okay?” the girl asked again. “You’re a little pale.”

Sarah was looking at him with almost a motherly look, checking him with her grey eyes. It had to be pretty common, in the North: Cregan had the same eyes.

He cleared his throat and forced a giggle. “Of course I’m pale, five more minutes and I would have frozen to death”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “You’re gonna die in two months or three”

The party was exactly how he had imagined it: loud, crowded, and chaotic.

Sarah seemed in her habitat, though, so at ease that eased him as well. She had never asked him anything, but that never stopped her to understand him in a surprising way: she never proposed to go in the more crowded spaces, she was the one that went taking the drinks, and never left his side.

They met some colleagues from their Constitutional Law class and chatted a bit, well, she chatted, he just followed the conversation and nodded every now and then, but for a bit he felt like he was still able to be around people. 

Their colleagues left and they remained alone again.

“ It seemed that the only two assholes in our class are my two teammates” he admitted, nodding toward the two guys chatting with two girls on a sofa.

He usually talked little about football practice and the way his teammates probably made fun of him because he hadn’t played once, yet. It probably pissed him off more than he wanted to admit.

“ I can’t imagine having to see them even during practice”

“ Trust me, the captain is worse”

Sarah cleared her throat. “Cregan Stark?”

He nodded, sighing.

She looked away, looking at their colleagues.

“ They’re hot, though.” she admitted, dropping the topic “I give them that”

Jace chuckled. “You should see them in the locker room”

Sarah turned to him with a wide grin.

“ Jacaerys Velaryon!” her smile grew even wider. “Who would have thought…”

He almost blushed. “What? That I liked both?”

“ So you’re bi, then?”

Jace shrugged. “I mean, I know I like guys, but it’s not like I had ever liked a guy. I don’t know if that count”

“ If it counts to you, it counts,” she replied. “You get to decide”

“ So, I guess I’m bi, then.” he admitted. “Hurrah for me”

“ Maybe this is your year,” Sarah said. “There’s plenty of guys, here”

As for now, he just couldn’t see himself liking someone. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had felt something slightly similar to sexual attraction for anyone, of any gender.

“ Who knows” he admitted.

Sarah raised her glass. “To our Jace, then, who is never as it seems”

“ What is that supposed to mean?” he asked, giggling.

She shrugged. “I mean, I thought you would be the typical closeted football boy… I’d never thought you might be so open about it”

“ Of course I’m open about it,” he replied, sneering. “My father is gay, so I always knew it was an option”

Sarah blinked, tilting her head. “Your father is gay?”

Knowing that Laenor wasn’t his biological father didn’t make him love him less. He was proud to be Harwin’s son and was proud to look like him, but he was also proud to have been raised by Laenor. Fuck everyone else and their opinion, he had been lucky enough to have two fathers who had loved him.

“ I’m sure it was everywhere, on that Mushroom guy’s blog,” he told her. “I thought everyone knew about it”

She opened her mouth, gasping. “Oh, right! Laenor Velaryon, right? I thought it was just gossip”

Jace shook his head. “He lives in Essos with his husband. They got married two years ago”

“ And what does your mother think?”

He chuckled. “They are best friends. My mother was his maid of honor”

“ Aaw, that’s so cute!”

The good thing to add should have been It’s not all gold all that glitters, he should have talked about how messed up his family could be, sometimes. But for once, he could pretend it wasn’t, he could pretend he had been raised in a normal family, filled with only love and affection. 

“ Sarah?” a girl behind his back called.

He turned and saw a girl with long, wavy hair, with a red cup in her hands.

“ Aly!” Sarah moved closer and hugged her. “I hoped you were here”

The girl looked at Jace with a curious smile.

“ This is Jace, a friend from my class” Sarah introduced him. “Jace, Alysanne”

“Aly” she corrected her friend. “Nice to meet you”

He took her hand in his. “Nice to meet you, too”

“ We are on the sofa over there, do you want to join? It’s less crowded” Alysanne proposed.

Jace and Sarah looked at each other.

“ Do you mind?” she asked.

He shook his head, they had him at less crowded place. So they followed Sarah’s friend.

“ And Sabitha?” Sarah asked her.

“She is on the sofa with your brother,” Aly replied while turning a bit. “They are talking about North independence, so they may be over tomorrow morning”

Sarah stopped walking. “My brother’s here?”

Aly turned around, giggling. “Of course he is, why wouldn’t he?”

“ Because he said he wouldn’t”

“ We managed to convince him, in the end,” she replied, shrugging. “What’s the matter?”

Sarah looked briefly at Jace, before shaking her head. “Nothing”

They walked to a corner of the party that was filled with older students, the air was filled with a smokey haze that smelled like herb. No one was dead drunk, there, just a little high, and the music was low enough to let them talk.

People were talking, and exchanging heated opinions about politics, music, and literature.

“ Look who I found!” Alysanne exclaimed.

When he looked at her, she was pointing at Sarah and him. When he looked at the two people sitting on the couch, his heart stopped for a moment.

He looked at Sarah, his mind connecting the dots. His friend smiled apologetically and then looked at her friends.

“ Guys, this is Jace,” Sarah introduced him to them. “Jace, this is Sabitha, Alysanne’s girlfriend,” a girl with curly hair waved at him and he waved back, shyly, “and I think you already know my brother Cregan”

Cregan Stark was looking at him with a serious face, his eyes immobile on his figure. He looked different from practice, not wearing his tracksuit, just a green sweater, and grey jeans ripped on his knees. His lobes were filled with hoop piercings that made him look like a pirate.

A hot pirate.

“ Wait,” Alysanne said pointing at Jace and Cregan. “You know each other?”

Cregan didn’t answer, just looked at his sister.

“ I’m in the football team” Jace replied.

“ In the freshmen football team,” the older guy pointed out. “Do you know each other?” the captain asked pointing at Jace and Sarah.

“ We are in the same class” Sarah explained.

Cregan just nodded.

They sat on the empty spots of the sofa, Jace on the opposite side from Cregan. He couldn’t even see him, from there, and after a bit, it became easy to pretend he wasn’t there at all.

“ So you’re a freshman, too?” Alysanne asked him.

He nodded. “Yes”

“ Where are you from?”

“ Dragonstone” he replied.

“ You must be freezing to death, then”

He laughed. “I’m wearing the heaviest jacket that I brought. I thought I would have worn it in winter, not in autumn”

Alysanne was studying Law, just like him and Sarah. The two girls were more passionate than him about it, though; they both had big dreams about laws they wanted to change, and how to renew the legal system in the North. He was studying Law because his mother had, and he didn’t know what else to do.

“ Who wants something to drink?” Sabitha asked, standing up.

“ Me” Alysanne agreed.

“ Me too” Sarah added. “Do you want something?” she asked him.

“ No, I’m fine”

“ You?” she asked her brother, who simply shook his head, making his earrings wiggle.

The girls disappeared into the crowd, and suddenly there were just the two of them on that couch. 

Jace rubbed his hands on his trousers, trying to dry the sweat on his palms, and dared to look at Stark. The boy’s eyes were already on him, and his breath stopped for a second.

The bruise on his face had already disappeared, and Jace realized that that could be a good time to try to befriend his captain.

He opened his mouth to speak.

“ What’s the deal between you and my sister?”

Jace quickly closed his mouth and frowned. “I… What?”

Stark came closer.

“ If you’re using her to get to me…” he began.

Jace scoffed, interrupting him. “To get to you? Calm down, I didn’t even know you were related, one hour ago”

“ So you’re telling me that you happened to casually meet my sister, and this wasn’t all your plan to get in the team?”

“ I didn’t know she was your sister” he confirmed. “You can ask her if you don’t trust me”

“ Of course I don’t trust you” Stark snarled.

“ Why?”

“ Mmh,” the captain began. “Maybe because you’re the kind of guy who gets drunk at parties and hits people?”

Jace swallowed and looked down. “About that… I’m sorry.”

Stark sneered. “I bet you are”

“ But I wasn’t drunk” the other pointed out.

“ So you hit people when you’re sober? Just for fun?”

Is this guy really this dense? Jace wondered.

“ It’s not like that” he tried to explain.

“ No?” Stark asked. “And how is it, then?”

How far he had to go, to explain why he had acted like that? To a year before, when he had started to have panic attacks, or when had lost his little brother in a car accident, probably caused by their uncle? Or maybe he could dig deeper and talk about when they had a fight with their uncle and gouged out his eye.

But he didn’t talk about any of that. He stayed in silence, instead.

“ As I thought,” Stark said, shaking his head.

“ I don’t have to explain myself to you”

Stark nodded, in agreement. “And I don’t have to like you”

Chapter Text

The library had surprisingly become his favorite place.

It made him feel less guilty than spending his days in his room, without talking to anyone, while still having the comfort of being alone. He was around people who were too interested in their own things to care about him.

A girl sitting next to him cleared her throat aggressively, Jace looked at her and saw her nodding toward his pen, which he had been clicking loudly without noticing.

“ Sorry” he muttered, sinking his head in his shoulders.

Sarah was sitting in front of him, wearing her big headphones, rhythmically tilting her head left and right, her music almost audible outside her headphones.

He gave another look at the essay to submit that evening, after procrastinating about it for days. Every time he thought about sitting at the desk and writing, he felt paralyzed, but now the assignment was due in a few hours, and he was late and his heart was beating faster again.

It had been five minutes since the last time he had tapped on a key on the keyboard. A coffee sounded so inviting, right now.

“ Psss” he hissed at Sarah. The girl kept tilting her head, her blonde ponytail waving behind her neck.

“ Sarah” he called her, without results.

He tore a piece of paper from his notebook and threw it at her.

“ Hey!” she exclaimed, loud over her headphones. “What the fuck”

Everybody turned to them.

“ You two” a girl sitting at their table called them. “If you aren’t here to study, get out!”

They looked at each other, exchanging a nod.

“ Coffee?” Sarah asked.

“ Yeah”

“ For when is it due?” Sarah asked, taking the cup from the barista. “Thanks”

Jace sighed. “This evening”

Sarah blew on the steaming cup. “You have all the afternoon, then”

“ I have practice, this afternoon” he groaned in frustration, tilting his head back. “And the captain already hates me, especially now that he thinks I’m trying to bribe his sister ” he reminded her.

She bit her lips, guilty. “Listen, dude, I’m sorry, I already told you. It’s just that people get weird when they know…When they know who my family is. And being a bastard already sucks, but being a bastard from a known family is even worse. And Cregan, he is the football star, the glorious captain, and everyone keeps comparing us… Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to just not know who my family is. But then I feel like shit”

Jace looked down, trying to not think that that could have been his life. He could have been the bastard born in a very known family. It could still happen, people in King’s Landing could still have actual proof about it and his life would be ruined. But, after all, how worse could he be than how he is now?

“ And he is not crazy, you know? My brother, I mean,” Sarah continued. “A lot of people have used me just to meet him. So I keep a low profile as long as I can”

“ Yeah, well, I prefer being your friend rather than his, so…” he admitted.

“ He is not that bad, Jace.” Sarah sat on a bench under a tree that was losing all its leaves. Winterfell was all red, orange, and yellow, those days; piles of leaves were lying at any corner.

“ It took him one look,” Jace told her. “And now he thinks that I’m a drunk who… hits people for fun. It’s been almost three weeks since the season started, and the only thing I did was warm the bench”

Sarah shrugged. “I know he is quick to judge. It’s just that he has always had this rigid morality and that’s why people think he is just an asshole. But he had to be this way, he had to grow fast and take care of everything. I think that that made him a little too… severe, sometimes”

“ Why did he have to grow fast?” he asked, squinting his eyes.

Sarah shrugged. “He doesn’t like when I tell his story, so I’ll tell you mine: no one in the world has ever cared about me, except him. Our father, he was a really honorable man, but… even to him I was just a girl, I’ve never really felt like I was his daughter, but I have always felt like I was Cregan’s sister. He helped me with homework, went to my hockey matches, and fought the guys who were mean to me, even if I didn’t need it, I could have done it myself…”

Sarah laughed and gave him a shove with her shoulder, and Jace giggled too.

“ I’ve never wanted to be a Stark,” his friend admitted, sighing. “I don’t care about a stupid name, but I wanted a family, a place to belong, and he was it, he was my family. That’s how he is, he cares for the people he loves”

He is an older brother, just like me. Jace thought.

That pissed him off even more. They were similar, both the first sons of important families, with many younger siblings to take care of. Cregan was probably doing a better job than he ever did, though. What kind of good older brother would let something happen to his little brother like he did with Luke? He should have protected him, nothing would have happened if he had been there.

“ Sorry?” a girl came near them with her phone in her hand. “You are Jace Velaryon, right?”

His heart sank in his stomach. “Ehm, yes?”

“ Oh my god, I can’t believe that you go to my college!” the girl commented, with a wide smile. She looked at Sarah. “Can you take us a picture?”

“ No, I’m sorry,” Jace told her. 

The girl’s smile dropped. “What?”

Jace bit his lips. “I don’t like pictures, I’m sorry. Goodbye.”

He nodded at Sarah and stood up, walking away, his friend following him.

“ Mushroom’s article was wrong” the girl yelled at him. “You are no prince charming!”

Jace turned around, squinting his eyes. “Which article?”

The girl gave him her middle finger. “Find it yourself, asshole”

When he turned to Sarah, she already had her phone in her hand, searching on Google.

“ Did you find anything?”

She looked at the screen, nodding, then handed him her phone.

On the screen, there was a picture of him, a picture he hadn’t shared, on a chaotic site with pink and purple banners everywhere. In the picture, he was running around the pitch, his Winterfell uniform on.

That wasn’t the first time he had seen online a picture of himself that someone had taken without his consent, but somehow it had never stopped unsettling him, it was hard getting used to the idea that at any moment of his life, someone could be hidden somewhere, watching him, taking photos of him, getting paid for that photo.

He scrolled down.

Our Lost Prince is finally BACK

Right when we thought we had seen the last of our favorite Targaryen, here he is, right under our pretty noses.

After a year of being M.I.A, Seven State’s most eligible bachelor makes a comeback at Winterfell University, where he is currently studying Law, and most of all he plays football in the university’s team.

Many are the hypothesis about where the prince might have been during this long year: many say he took a gap year that he has spent with his father in Essos, where he has had a steamy romance with a Braavosi girl, others swear he has been in Dorne, sunbathing and drinking fine dornish wine, but many had also seen him in the Vale, last year, right before he disappeared from the public eye. Was the Vale so bad, Jace?

Anyway, we haven’t heard from him since then. Oh, we love a discreet guy, don’t we? Especially because they hid the best secrets. 

What we know, though, is why our heir has decided to take time for himself: the tragic breakup with Baela Targaryen (in the photo), his stepsister, must have burnt him very badly (pun totally intended).

There was a photo of Baela walking down the beach in Driftmark, with a turquoise sundress on, and a cup of iced coffee in her hand. 

Anyway, we’re happy our prince is finally back from the dead, especially now that he is single and that he had decided to bless us all with those football shorts.

Dear prince, Winterfell’s winters can be cruel, so if you’re reading this, let us know if you are accepting applications to find someone to keep you warm.

Always yours,

Mushroom

“ Did you notice they were taking pictures of you?”

He shook his head.

“ Fuck, Jace” she caressed his arm. “That’s fucked up”

“ Yeah” he sighed, giving her her phone back. “Welcome to my life”

“ You sure you want to go to class?” Sarah asked. “I can help you finish the assignment”

“ Nah” he replied. “It’s fine. I’m… I’m used to it, by now”

He wasn’t used to it when he was a party boy who relished in attention and praise, now that he was a hermit who would have loved to just be invisible, it gave him a stomachache, and he wanted to puke.

“ You really disappeared for a year because you weren’t over your stepsister ?” Sarah asked.

Jace chuckled, shaking his head. “Of course not. We broke up but we are on good terms, now. She is family”

“ If I had broken up with her,” Sarah admitted. “I wouldn’t be getting over her for a lifetime. Look at her”

Jace giggled. “Have you ever considered studying psychology?”

“ I’m just honest. Arrest me” she raised her hands.

“ Hey, Velaryon”

Jace looked up, the two guys from his team were looking at him with friendly smiles.

“ How’s going?”

They usually ignored him in class and ignored him during practice, and now that the world just got reminded that he was the son of one of the oldest families in the Seven States, they were suddenly friendly with him.

“ Fine” he replied, short.

“ We are going to class, are you coming with us?” they asked, pointing at the building.

Something told him the invite was only toward him, and not Sarah.

He looked at her, and then at the two boys.

“ Actually, I think I’ll skip this one.” he declined. “We have to finish an assignment”

They looked at Sarah and grimaced. “As you want, bro”

When they were far, Sarah spoke.

“ You could have gone with them, you know?”

He turned to her and giggled. “You really would have left me with those two? I thought we were friends”

Sarah chuckled. “Idiot”

Jace sighed. “Let’s go, now. This assignment won’t finish itself”

After the last time, he made sure to be on time, for his practice. He looked at his watch, while walking to the pitch with his headphones on, and realized he was even early.

The music in his ears stopped, and he knew he was about to receive a call. When he heard his ringtone, he picked up his phone from his pocket and smiled at the screen.

“ Hello, ” he replied. 

“ Hey, I just wanted to make sure you were getting over our tragic breakup”

He chuckled. “Unfortunately no, but thank God I have my Braavosi girl”

There was no girl, there was no Essos or Dorne, he had just spent the entire last year in his room, laying on his bed for days, not talking to anyone.

Baela laughed, he imagined her shaking her head and putting her hand on her forehead.

“ You know she can’t compete with me, your one true love”

“ You’re right but what was I supposed to do?”

They both laughed.

“ How are you, Jace?” Baela asked.

He shrugged. “Same as always, I guess. You? Are you spending your days surfing and tanning?”

“ I wish. I study most of the time” she admitted. “You’d tell me if something is wrong, right?”

“ Everything is wrong, Baela, you know that” he admitted. “I only need to get used to it”

As if he could ever be.

“ You know you can come here whenever you want.” she offered him, for the hundredth time. “I have a house by myself, I don’t live in the campus, Driftmark is sunny, and the sea is wonderful. Winterfell looks so lonely, especially since the winter is approaching…”

Only thinking about Driftmark made him sick, thinking about Luke’s favorite place in the world, their holiday house, the place where they had the fight with Aemond.

“ Winterfell is perfectly fine. It’s not even that cold” he lied. He was freezing his ass every single day.

“ But you are alone, up there. There is no one of the family around for miles”

Exactly . He wanted to say.

Everybody kept saying him that he was all alone in Winterfell, when that was the main reason why he had left home and chosen to go to college there. He loved his family, but sometimes it could be too much to handle. If Luke had been born into a normal family, he would be safe. He would be alive.

“ I just want to be sure you’ll be fine” Baela confessed.

Jace sighed, stopping right before the pitch.

“ Between you and me,” he told her. “I don’t think I’ll ever be fine, again.

“ Don’t say this”

He laughed, sadly. “Baela, I’ve lost too much. All this that I’m doing, going to college, moving to Winterfell, I’m just trying to survive, but it will never be like it was before. I will never recover”

“ It doesn’t have to be like it was before, Jace. But you can recover, you can be happy”

He swallowed, looking down. “I… I have to go, now. Sorry”

He hung up and walked toward the pitch, taking off his headphones. It was so early that he was the only one already there, or that’s what he had thought at first, before looking up.

Cregan Stark was just outside the locker rooms, leaning on a wall, casually talking to Alysanne, the girl that was at the party.

They were right next to the door, but Jace walked with his eyes down, trying to avoid them at all costs, hoping to make it to the locker room without getting attention.

“ Jace!” he heard.

He closed his eyes, sighing, before turning around. Alysanne was waving at him with a wide smile.

He waved back. “Hi”

“ How you doing?” the girl asked. She was smiling at him, while Stark kept looking away with his hands in his pockets.

Jace looked briefly at him, before talking to the girl. “Ehm, fine, thanks… You?”

She shrugged. “Always the same… Sarah?”

Jace felt Cregan’s gaze on him, while he replied. “We had been together since ten minutes ago. She helped me with an assignment”

Alysanne laughed. “I admire you. During our first year, I think we haven’t completed even an assignment. Right?”

Cregan nodded, still looking away.

“ You study Law, too?” Jace dared to ask him.  

The captain looked at him, and Jace had to make sure to breathe regularly. There was something in the other’s grey eyes that flustered him in a peculiar way.

Cregan blinked, almost surprised to see him talking to him. He quickly regained his composure, though.

“ Political science”

“ Cool” Jace tried, hoping that the other would ask him something in return, but he didn’t.

“ Yeah” Cregan only replied, dropping the conversation.

Jace looked at Alysanne, pointing at the door of the locker room. “I think I’m gonna go change”

“ Wait,” Alysanne told him, “We’re throwing a party, next weekend… Why don’t you come?”

Cregan looked immediately at his friend.

Jace fumbled. “Ehm… Yeah, yeah, why not. Thanks”

“ See you next weekend, then,” she said. “Have a nice training, boys!”

“ All right guys, let’s warm up a bit”

He waited in the locker room until at least two other teammates had arrived, to make sure to not have to talk to Stark again. Not that the captain looked anything near interested in talking to him, anyway: he had greeted every single other player but him and proceeded to ignore him as always.

Jace supposed he couldn’t do more than what he was doing, coming on time, obeying directions, and trying to stay out of trouble.

“ What’s going on between you and that Snow girl?”

He turned around to see Baratheon and Lannister at his sides, running beside him.

He squinted. “What?”

Baratheon laughed, his dark brown hair hopping while he ran. “You and that girl… Are you two a thing or what?”

“ We’re friends” he replied. “Why?”

“ Well” Lannister said, breathing heavily. “You should be more selective with your friends…”

“ What’s that supposed to mean?” the blood in his veins started boiling. He could see where the conversation was headed.

You’ll die screaming just as your father did. Bastard.

“ Oh, c’mon!” Baratheon chuckled. “You’re a Targaryen! You should hang with people worthy of your name, not with some girl with no name at all”

“ She has a name” he growled.

Lord Strong.

“ Oh,” the boy whistled. “Looks like someone’s got it bad for the bastard girl”

Lannister laughed at his friend’s joke. “Be careful, mate. Don’t you know that girls like her only want a good name to give to her children?”

Everything turned black. He immediately stopped and pulled Lannister from the shirt, hitting his cheekbone with his closed fist.

The boy crumbled to the ground with a groan of pain, covering his face with his hands.

“ Why don’t you say it again, asshole?” he told him, kneeling on the ground and hitting him in the face. “Uh? C’mon, say it again!”

He couldn’t see anything, hear anything, feel anything; he could only continue hitting that face, throwing punch after punch. In a deep corner of his mind, he knew that if someone wasn’t gonna stop him, he would have killed him.

Someone gripped him by the arms and pulled him away from Lannister, who quickly crawled backward, moving away. Strong fingers took him by his cheeks and made him turn; Stark’s grey eyes were looking directly into his, and he was pulled back to reality.

He shoved the captain away.

“ What the fuck has gotten into you?” Stark demanded.

“ He is crazy!” Lannister whined. “A fucking psychopath”

“ Explain, now!” the captain ordered him.

His jaw tightened. He looked at the two boys hiding behind Stark’s figure, then at the captain again.

“ So?” Stark insisted. “You have three seconds to explain, then you’ll do fifty laps and you’ll clean the pitch every day for a month”

Jace adjusted his jersey and started running laps, without wasting a second more.

The training was strangely silent, after the fight. The only voice he could hear was Stark’s when giving directions. Not that it mattered to him, he ran the all time, not raising his gaze from the ground. For a moment, though, he saw Jon Tarly talking to Stark, and they both looked at him.

When the other players went home, he was still running, he’d still got fifteen laps left. His ankles hurt, and the temperature had dropped since the sun had set, but he still kept going, without a whine, without a word, he kept running.

Stark had entered the locker rooms and still hadn’t gotten out, since the end of the training, and if he was expecting an apology, he was hell wrong.

“ Velaryon!” he heard from behind. He saw the captain at the entrance of the pitch, with a coat on. “Go home, it’s late!”

“ I’ve still fifteen laps to do!” he replied.

“ Go home!”

“ I said I still…” his ankle bent under his weight, making him fall to the ground, on the cold grass of the pitch.

“ Fuck”

Strangely, it wasn’t Jace who said it.

Before he could stand up, Stark was kneeling beside him.

“ Are you okay?” he asked. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“ I don’t know” he hissed.

“ Can you move it?”

He tried to move his foot, it hurt a bit, but he could definitely bend it forward and backward, right and left.

“ It’s just a sprain, I think” Jace admitted.

“ Yeah, probably”

Stark sighed. “Let me see your hand”

Jace hid his bruised knuckles under his sleeve. “It’s nothing”

“ Come with me” Stark stood up, cleaning his sweatpants from the grass, and offered him his hand. “We have to put some disinfectant on it”

Jace looked up at the big hand in front of his face and then at the captain, who was looking at him with his eyebrow arched. In the end, he took the other’s hand and let Stark help him stand up. It was embarrassing how easily the other could lift him.

“ Can you walk?”

“ Yes,” but the first step made him almost lose his balance.

Stark sighed and shook his head, before putting Jace’s arm over his own shoulders and taking him by the hip.

Jace held his breath. “There is no need…”

“ You should keep that ankle to rest” the other interrupted him. “Now let’s go”

He took him to the locker room, empty and silent. They were the only ones still there.

While Jace changed himself, Stark went to the infirmary and came back with some disinfectant and cotton.

He sat beside him on the wooden bench and took his hand.

“ It’s gonna sting a bit” he warned him.

“ I know, I’m not a child”

The captain chuckled. “Then why did you pick a fight like a child at the park?”

Jace clenched his jaw and looked away. Stark was right, it stung.

“ I know you were trying to defend Sarah”

He quickly turned his head toward the captain, that had stopped dabbing his bruises and was just looking at him.

“ Tarly made sure to tell me, during the training”

He nodded and looked away.

“ Why didn’t you tell me?” the captain asked.

Jace chuckled bitterly. “Why would I do that? So that you would think that I did it only to make a good impression on you?”

“ Well, maybe that would have helped me know you better”

“ Oh but you already know me so well!” he commented, rolling his eyes. “I am a guy who gets always drunk, picks fights with everyone he sees, and flirts with girls just to get to their famous brothers, am I?”

“ Why don’t you tell me who you are, since I am so bad at guessing it by myself?” the other challenged him.

“ I don’t have to explain myself to anyone”

Stark nodded. “You could have broken that guy’s nose, today, you know? They could’ve kicked you out of the team. And just between us, if Tarly hadn’t told me that you were defending my sister, I would have reported you to the coach Mormont”

“ Yeah, well, I’d do it again if they’ll say again those things” Jace admitted, turning toward him. “Because this is who I am, how I am, I defend my friends. Happy, now?”

“ Yeah, actually, yes” Stark admitted, taking the bandage and wrapping it against his knuckled. “I’m happy she has a friend who’d defend her, if needed.”

“ So the punishment is canceled?” Jace questioned.

The captain chuckled. It was a nice sound, low and warm. “Nice try, but no”

Jace couldn’t hold a smile, biting his lips. “I had to try”

“ I can help you clean the pitch, though” the offered. “In gratitude”

“ You would?”

Stark laughed, looking down, then he looked up, directly into Jace’s eyes. “I can be harsh, I know, but I am fair. You were trying to defend my family, and I want to repay you”

Jace nodded and looked away, incapable of holding that piercing gaze.

“ But you have to promise to not do it again,” the captain told him. “I know they’re douchebags, but you’ll get yourself kicked out of the team.”

He smiled, turning toward him. “I can’t promise you that. But I’ll try.”

The other chuckled, his smile was as big as it was rare. “I appreciate the sincerity. Now c’mon, I’ll get you home.”

He stood up, offering Jace his arm. Jace took it and almost gasped when Cregan put his arm around his own shoulders like he did when they were on the pitch. Before, he hadn’t noticed the good smell of fresh herbs and burnt wood, like forests when it rained.

“ My car is just outside,” Cregan told him.

Actually, Jace’s ankle was fine, it didn’t even hurt, anymore: keeping it still for a bit had already fixed it. But he kept that to himself.

The captain’s arm was around his waist, now, his hand was gripping his hip while helping him walk toward the car outside the building.

Cregan opened the car for him and helped him sit on the cold seats, before walking toward the other side and entering.

“ In which building do you live?”

He maneuvered the steering wheel with one hand, keeping the other on the gear.

“ Nymeria Building” he replied.

“ Oh,” the captain commented, with a grin.

“ What?” he asked.

Cregan’s smile grew wider. “A modest building for our prince ”

Jace laughed and shook his head. “You read that article, right?”

He nodded, still grinning. “Everyone has. It’s not every day we have a prince in Winterfell”

“ People tend to forget that we live in a democracy” Jace commented.

“ Yeah, well, your mother succeeded your grandfather, who has been president for years . People get confused”

“ Just because my mother is the president, that doesn’t mean I will follow her steps” Jace admitted. He couldn’t think about his future in six months, let alone beyond. “Your father was in politics, too, right?”

“ And I want to follow his steps.” the captain confessed, with a sigh. “My father was the protector of the North and I want to become it too.”

Jace looked at him, who had his eyes on the road, his left arm leaning on the window while driving with his right hand.

“ You’ll make a fine protector,” he told him.

The car stopped right in front of his building, and Jace realized he wasn’t happy to leave the warmth of Cregan’s car.

While he opened his car’s door, the captain walked toward him, helping him get out of the vehicle.

His arm was again around the other’s shoulder, the other’s hands clenched on his hip’s flesh, his smell all around him.

They limped toward his room, Jace giving directions, and Cregan obeying silently until they were at his door.

“ So” Cregan sighed. “Here we are”

“ Here we are” Jace repeated, leaning with his back against his door, the other towering over him. It was strange for him, he was used to be the taller one.

The captain cleared his throat.

“ Keep your ankle at rest, for a day or two.”

Jace nodded.

The other smiled. “Goodnight, then, Jacaerys ”

His name always made him cringe, it was too long, too old, too much , but on Cregan’s lips, it sounded good, with his stern accent, he liked the way his grey eyes lighted up in an amused way when he called him by his full name, how his cheekbones were fighting to not lift up in a smile. Jace looked down, Cregan was pulling back his lips, looking at him.

“ Oh my fucking God” they heard.

They both turned and saw his door neighbor, the guy who wanted to take him to clubs on his first day.

“ You’re Cregan Stark! ” the guys exclaimed.

Cregan licked his lips and nodded. “Guilty”

“ You live here? In this building?”

The other shook his head. “No, I just…” he looked at Jace. “I am accompanying  my friend”

“ You’re the best, mate,” the guy told him giving him a pat on his shoulder while walking away. He turned around and walked backward. “The match with High Garden? Top tier”

“ Thanks, man” Cregan told him, waving. 

When they were alone again, Cregan looked at him and chuckled silently.

“ Seems that here you are the actual prince”

He shrugged. “Don’t worry, I would never take your crown”

Jace nodded. “See you at practice”

“ On time, this time”

He rolled his eyes. “It happened once ”

“ Better safe than sorry.” the captain told him, in a low tone that made his stomach clench. “Goodnight”

Chapter Text

“It was a disaster,” Sarah groaned, sipping her iced coffee, while outside there were not even ten degrees. “He never stopped talking even for a second, I couldn’t say a word that he would interrupt me and talk over me, he ordered for me without asking me if I was fine with it.”

“Red flag” he admitted, without raising his gaze from his laptop. 

“And, oh, the things he said…” she continued while covering her face with his hands. “At one point he said something like: I like you because you’re different from the other girls, you don’t wear those tiny dresses that leave your tits out ” she imitated a manly tone. 

Jace cringed. “Ouch. And what did you do?”

“The only thing a wise girl would have done in a moment like that” Sarah replied, shrugging. “I said had to go the bathroom and I sneaked out from the window”

“What?!” Jace asked, giggling. 

“He was a nightmare!” she yelled, gaining side-eyes from everyone in the cafeteria. 

Jace shook his head and hid behind the screen of his laptop. For being someone who didn’t want to be noticed, he had chosen to be friends with the loudest girl on the campus. Sarah couldn’t seem to contain herself, especially with things she liked. Last week they had been to a local cinema to see the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and she had almost started a fight with a dude who was complaining because Star Wars was getting too woke. 

“This is why I prefer dating girls” she admitted. “Next time you see me batting my eyes for a guy, pick a glass of iced water and throw it at my face” 

“I’d never miss this chance” he promised, chuckling.

That day they were spending the afternoon in the cafeteria, like every afternoon that they didn’t have classes to go to, drinking coffee after coffee, studying for five minutes, and then having thirty minutes breaks, and ending up with nothing done. 

Despite that, sometimes he thought that the only reason he could bring to term his assignments was that Sarah controlled him like a guard dog, making sure he worked on his homework, kicking him every time he got distracted in class, and reminding him when they had classes to go to.   

“Velaryon!” he heard. 

He turned and saw the guy that had the room near his, whose name was still a mystery to him. 

“Hi…” he began. Actually, he didn’t think he had ever known the other’s name. 

“It’s Sam!” announced the guy, smiling. 

“Yeah, hi Sam.” Jace greeted him. “How’s going?” 

“Not bad,” Sam said, shrugging. 

Jace nodded. “Cool” 

“So you’re friends with Cregan Stark, uh?” 

He felt his cheeks burn. Sarah’s eyes flew immediately on him: he didn’t actually tell her about the talk between him and her brother, the other day. “I-I wouldn’t say friends friends. We just play in the same team, that’s it”

“Well, he called you his friend when he was at your door, the other night.” 

“We don’t know each other that well, actually” Jace pointed out. 

Sam smiled. “Yeah, well, maybe you can bring him to our dorm parties, next time…It would be fun”

“Sure” Jace lied. He had no intention to go to any of those parties, least of all with Cregan Stark. 

The boy nodded briefly at Sarah and left them. 

When Jace turned to his friend, she had a sly smile on her face, giggling at him while shaking her head. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.  

Sarah lifted one shoulder, shrugging. “Nothing” she turned to look at her computer, working on her essay about gender equality in the Small Council, without stopping giggling. “I didn’t notice you get all flustered when someone mentions my brother” 

He stayed with his mouth half open for a bit. “What? I don’t get all…” he sneered. “For your…” he squinted, shaking his head. “That’s completely not true” he concluded, still shaking his head. 

Sarah nodded, with a grin. “Your cheeks are still red, dude”

“Shut up, it’s not true” he defended himself, crossing his arms, before lightly touching his cheeks to see if they were warm.

“We have to go to Alysanne’s party, this weekend” Sarah reminded him. “Maybe you can shoot your shot then” 

Jace rolled his eyes. “No one will shoot anything, this weekend. He only accompanied me home”

“Oh, he only accompanied you home” she grinned, nodding. 

“Listen, you’re making it weird.” Jace pointed out. “I sprained my ankle during practice, he felt bad about it and drove me home. That’s it”

“No goodnight kiss, then?” she asked, smirking at her computer. 

“Of course no goodnight k…” he stopped, looking at her. “You’re making fun of me” 

She looked at him. “Yes, I am, partly. But in general, I think it would do you good to just… have some fun, every now and then.” 

“And by fun you mean…” Jace asked.

“... Getting laid, yeah”

He chuckled, looking down. “Yeah, I don’t think it’s gonna happen, honestly”  

It’s been more than a year since the last time he had felt something, down there . 

A guy in the swimming team had hit on him, the other day, a hot guy: curly hair, broad shoulders, big green eyes… One of those guys he would have hooked up with, if they only had met a year before. But now he couldn’t really feel anything, while this greek god was visibly hitting on him, so he took his number, and never called him again. Sarah had told him that he was out of his mind .  

His therapist had told him it was because he was in survival mode or something like that, he just wanted to go back to normal, he mourned the version of himself who was light and happy, but at the same time going back to normal felt like a betrayal. Because there was someone who simply couldn’t just go back to normal. 

“You know that that’s the thing the main character usually says before finding the love of their life?” 

Jace smiled. “You watch too many movies”

After leaving the cafeteria, he walked to the pitch for the daily training. He had missed one or two trainings, to let his ankle recover, but now his ankle was okay, so he had to go back. 

Few of his teammates were already there, even Lannister, who had a white bandage on his nose, while his eye was black. Jace had no intention to apologize, he would have lied if he had told him that he was sorry, or that he regretted hitting him, or that he would never do it again. His teammate ignored him, and he did the same. 

Cregan was there, too, checking his notes with a deep frown between his eyebrows, he browsed a few pages and the frown deepened. It looked nice, on him, though, that severe scowl. 

Those days, he had wondered how the captain would act with him, he wondered if they had really found some common ground or maybe he had just been nice for a night and it didn’t mean anything to him.

As if was aware he was being seen, the captain looked up, and his eyes met Jace’s, and the scowl disappeared, leaving its place for a smirk.

Jace remained still where he was, tightening his fingers around his backpack until the other lifted his hand and waved at him. Only then he smiled back and waved in return; he entered the pitch and started the warm-up with the others, wondering if this time maybe Cregan would let him play with the others. His hopes shattered when he heard the umpteenth Velaryon, bench. 

He wanted to protest, but he and Cregan were just beginning to get along after a bad start, and he didn’t want to lose all that ground. So he sat on the bench, his hands in his jacket, watching his teammates proving their worth, while he still hadn’t touched a ball after a whole month. 

Cregan divided the guys into two teams, and they started a friendly match. Jace tensed up when he saw the captain walking toward him and sitting on the bench, right beside him. 

“How’s your ankle?” he asked, turning toward him, his head leaning on the headrest of the seat. He had Sarah’s eyes, but his were darker, like thunderclouds.    

Jace shrugged, moving his ankle. “It’s fine. It was just a sprain, as you said”

The other nodded, looking away. 

“Is this why you didn’t let me play?” Jace asked, making him turn again toward him. “You thought my ankle was still hurt?” 

Cregan scoffed. His smile showed two dimples on his cheeks. “I didn’t let you play because you almost broke your teammate’s nose, the other day." 

Jace sighed. “He deserved it”

“Yes. But still,” the captain pointed out. “You deserve your punishment. How’s your hand, by the way?”

Jace showed him his hand, without bandages, he still had a few bruises on his knuckles, nothing more. 

Yet, Cregan stretched his arm and took Jace’s hand in his, pulling it closer to his face. Jace held his breath but tried to not make it obvious.  

The other’s hand was bigger than his, but not as rough as he had imagined, his skin was soft and warm, and after a bit, he realized he wasn’t out of breath anymore, it felt comfortable to be touched, to have his hand in his. 

“Where did you learn to punch like that?” Cregan asked, after leaving his hand. 

Jace chuckled. “My stepfather” 

He cut the story extremely short. The whole story would be I made a fool of myself trying to punch my uncle, so my stepfather decided it was the case to teach me how to give a punch. 

“He taught you well” Cregan admitted. 

Jace leaned his head on the headrest, too. “Thank you”

Cregan smiled. “Oh, and Alysanne asked me if you’re still going to the party she had invited you to” 

“Tell Alysanne that if I don’t go, Sarah would probably drag me by my hair” 

The other chuckled. “Yeah, she totally would”

They were silent, for a bit. It felt nice. 

 “Will you ever let me play, before the end of the season?”

Cregan shrugged. “I don’t know… Are you good?” 

He had to gather all his courage to lift his eyes and looked directly into his. Those eyes made him feel exactly like thunderclouds, when you see them getting closer and you know you should hide, but can’t look away. “I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t”   

The captain smiled. “Then maybe one day it will be your chance”

“One day when?” 

The other looked down for a second. 

“Coach!” a voice called. 

Cregan rolled his eyes and stood up. “I’m not your coach! How many times do I have to tell you?!”

After the training was over, his teammates went to the locker rooms to take a shower, while he stayed on the pitch cleaning up, watching the other guys going away while he collected all the items on the pitch. Lannister passed by, and when their eyes met, the blond guy lowered his gaze, walking with his head down, and that made him feel a little better about his punishment. But then he remembered that technically at the end of December Cregan would have had to choose the players that would play in the main team and that he had never seen him play. He had barely two months to prove him that he was actually good. 

“You’re done?” he heard behind his back. He didn’t have to look back to guess who it was. 

“I’m almost over” he replied, picking up an orange cone from the ground. “You can go, if you want” 

“Nah, let me help you” Cregan replied, helping him bring a big bag full of football balls. “I don’t have anything to do, anyway”

It was at that moment Jace realized he had never been to the pitch without seeing Cregan there. 

“How many hours do you spend here?”      

Cregan smiled while collecting the speed ladders, he looked up, counting in his head. “Four or five, more or less” 

“Four or five?!” the other repeated. 

The captain smiled. “This is what it takes to be great. You can't do this as a hobby, not anymore, anyway. If you want to play, seriously play, you have to give everything you have” 

“I’m willing to” Jace promised. 

“You sure?” 

Actually, one month ago he wasn’t even sure he still wanted to play, he had gone to Winterfell to not worry his mother and to spend some time alone, soccer wasn’t his priority, but now that he was there, he realized he cared, he wanted to play, he wanted to be in that team.  

“Let me play, Cregan” Jace plied, moving forward. “I am good, I want to prove you that I’m good but I can’t if you don’t let me” 

“One day” 

“Let’s have a match. Just me and you” Jace proposed, and the other turned to look at him. “Fifteen minutes, who has more goals wins. If I win, I’ll play next time, and if you win, I’ll shut up about it for the rest of the season”

Cregan bit his lip, scoffing. “And if we end even?”  

“The win is still yours and I’ll shut up about it” 

“Oh, it’s tempting” the captain admitted, pulling back his lips. “I’m in” 

They set up a fifteen minutes timer on Cregan’s watch and decided to use the same net.

“You ready?” Cregan asked, putting the ball on the ground. 

Jace nodded. 

Cregan kicked the ball first, using Jace’s distraction at his disadvantage. His play was nothing like Jace had thought it would be: the captain was tall and had large shoulders and a wide chest, so he thought he would be strong, but slow. He couldn’t be more wrong: Cregan was elegant, quick to think, and his ball control was almost unbelievable. After only his first action, he had already scored the first goal, not even one minute into the match. 

He looked at him with a wide smirk. 

“It’s not sporty to gloat” Jace reprised him. 

The other lifted his arms. “You’re right, sorry” 

This time, Cregan was still smiling at him when Jace kicked the ball, the time was running out, and he had to score two goals if he wanted to play, next time. 

He wished he had seen Cregan playing more, to know his play better, now he had to stall, trying to not let the other score, while he was figuring out how he played, and how he could turn it to his advantage. 

The captain was taller than him, and towered over him whenever Jace had the ball, yet Jace had been able to prevent him to score again. Jace was known during high school for being… creative, while playing. His old coach always told him he could have been able to put the ball into the eye of a needle. And that was what he did: he kicked the ball right and left, making the other follow it with his eyes, and then kicked the ball toward the goal, right under his legs.

Cregan looked at the ball in the net, and then at Jace. “Not bad. Not bad at all” 

Jace smiled and went to take back the ball. He looked at his watch. “We have three minutes left” 

Cregan kicked the ball, going directly toward the goal, and again, Jace prevented him to do so. Yet, this time it seemed that Cregan had learned to prevent every one of his moves, stealing the ball from under his nose every time Jace was about to kick. 

Jace took the ball again, and turned around himself, feeling Cregan’s body against his, his chest pressing against his back. He made two turns, and at half of the third, he kicked toward the goal. Even this time Cregan tried to prevent him to kick, but after turning around, he lost his balance and missed the ball. No one that tall could have kept its balance.

While the ball went to the goal, Cregan’s watch rang. 

“I can’t fucking believe it” 

Jace looked at him raising his eyebrow, the other was sitting in the grass, shaking his head in disbelief. “I told you I was good”   

“It’s not sporty to gloat, Jacaerys”

The other grimaced and went sitting beside him, on the cold grass. “Since I’ve won, can I ask you not to call me that way?”

Cregan shook his head. “You should have put that in the victory conditions, I’m sorry”  

Jace smiled. “So will you let me play, next time?” 

“Will you play like this?” 

He squinted. “What do you mean?” 

The captain shook his head. “You know, when I found out you were about to play here, I was… eager to meet you.” 

Jace swallowed. “You? Eager to meet me ?”

The other nodded. “I had seen you playing against King’s Landing” 

“We had lost that match” 

It wasn’t even a loss. It was a whole defeat . 5-1, humiliating. 

Cregan chuckled. “I know but it’s not by those things you know a player. You had lost, because honestly your coach was shit and your other teammates sucked, but you… You had such a light in your eyes, and I thought that I wanted someone like you, on my team. But then you took that gap year, and no one had seen you, and now you’re here but I haven’t seen that light again, yet. Well, not until this match, actually” 

He looked into Cregan’s eyes, and for a moment, he was sure he was about to tell him everything. Why he had taken that gap year, why he had lost that light in his eyes. He even opened his mouth to speak, but there was so much to tell, so many premises to begin with, so much pain he hadn’t even unpacked, yet. 

“If you give me this chance, I won’t waste it” he promised. 

Cregan smiled and stood up, giving him his hand to help him stand up. “You better not. See you this weekend, Jace.”

Sarah waited for him outside his building, and they went taking the bus to the city. 

“This is a bus,” Sarah told him, pointing at the seats. “Us commoners take it to go to places.” 

He gave her the middle finger. “Very funny. Groundbreaking. Never heard before” 

She smiled and sat right in front of him. 

“Why Alysanne doesn’t live on the campus?” he asked.

“A lot of older students decide not to,” Sarah told him. “And since Cregan had this three-room apartment in the city, they decided to go live there”  

“So they live together? Cregan and Alysanne?”

He tried to ask it as casually as he could. But the thing is, the more you try to make something casual, the less casual it becomes. 

“And Sabitha, Aly’s girlfriend ” the girl replied, accentuating girlfriend . 

Jace rolled his eyes and looked away, outside the window, at the city passing by. 

“He’s single, just so you know” Sarah casually dropped. 

He chuckled. “Good for him”  

Sarah raised her hands. “I’m just saying” 

“And why don’t you live with them?” Jace asked. “Don’t tell me that you prefer to live in a dorm”

She scoffed. “Because my brother is a control freak.”

He laughed, shaking his head. “I pretty much noticed that”

“Okay, maybe I was being too mean, he just wants to protect me and all, but… Sometimes it feels like he takes the blame for every bad thing that happens to me, like it’s his fault”  Saraha admitted, serious. 

“I know the feeling” he sighed. 

She smiled at him. “Next stop is ours”

They got off the bus and walked toward a white building, right in the center of Winterfell, it was nice and simple. Buildings in Winterfell were low and vaguely antique, with pointy rooftops to not let the snow pile up. It made him think about Dragonstone, new and ancient at the same time. 

Sarah had the keys to the big wooden door and let them in. 

“Did you put perfume on?” she asked him, while they were walking up the stairs of white stone.

He cleared his throat. “I always put perfume on”

She giggled. “Never this much” 

Okay, fine, maybe he had sprayed two or three times more while putting his perfume on. And maybe, he had changed himself one or two times, before deciding what to wear. And yes, maybe, he had been to the store to buy the old products he used for his hair, when he was still in Dragonstone. But they were going to an older students' party in the city, of course he had put more attention to how he looked.       

“How is it called when people see what they desperately want to see? Like the horoscope”

“Such a Taurus thing to say.” his friend told him, right before knocking at the door.

Jace could already hear the music coming from the inside, echoing in his chest. 

Sabitha opened the door and beamed at Sarah. 

“Hiiii” she greeted her, welcoming her in a hug. 

She then looked at Jace, who shyly smiled at her. 

“Jace, right?” 

He nodded. 

“Get inside, or the neighbors will start protesting about the noise” 

The inside was… crowded. He couldn’t really see anything, in the apartment, because there were people in any corner, the music was so loud it almost hurt his ears, and the air smelled of cheap tobacco and weed. It felt overwhelming. 

“Are you okay?” Sarah asked him, touching his forearm. 

Again, he had never told Sarah about his anxiety, or the fact that he needed medication, but it seemed like she somehow knew it. She never spoke about it, with him, but she had all these precautions, with him: they usually went to quiet, calm, places, without many people, and whenever she proposed something different, she would always say There will be a lot of people, though, as if she wanted him to know, before he decided. 

He nodded. “Yeah” 

She took his arm. “Let’s go leave the coats” 

Jace let his friend drive him through the sea of people, while his breath was coming back to normal. 

“This is my room when I sleep here” she explained, when they entered the room. It was a guest room, with a single-sized bed filled with coats.   

“And she never cleans it” a voice behind their backs muttered. 

Cregan was leaning against the doorframe, with a grin. 

“You always scare your guests like this, weirdo?” Sarah asked her brother. 

“Only the annoying ones” he replied, then lifted his gaze toward Jace. “Hi”

He looked more relaxed than during practice: his posture was softer, his smile wider, showing again those dimples on his cheeks. He was wearing a dark grey sweater, with ripped jeans cuffed around the ankles, right above a pair of black boots. On both his lobes, he had two small, silver hoop earrings, like a hot pirate. Jace supposed he took them off during their training. 

That was a pity.  

“Hi” he replied with a smile. 

“She had convinced you to come, I see” Cregan noted, nodding at his sister. 

Jace shrugged. “She can be convincing” 

“It hasn’t been that hard, this time” Sarah pointed out. 

Cregan’s eyes lingered on him for a while more, before the looked at his sister again. 

“There’s pizza, out there. If you’re hungry.”

The captain left them in the room, and Jace noticed he had been watching the empty spot where he had disappeared only when Sarah snapped her fingers in front of his face. 

“C’mon,” she said, taking him under her arm. “Let’s get you something to drink, maybe you’ll find the courage to talk to him”

“You’re being delusional again” he warned her. 

Sarah giggled. “Dude, you were drooling on the floor. Just admit it already”

He rolled his eyes. “Listen, I’m not blind, and he is hot. But that’s just it. It’s not like I have a crush or something.”

She nodded. “Well, think about it. He’s single, now, but he is still highly requested” 

She pointed at a spot behind his back. He turned around just to see Cregan talking with another boy, he looked younger than Cregan but older than Jace, with blond, curly hair, and a light blue sweater. He had his back against the wall, looking up at Cregan who was leaning over the wall, with his elbow near the boy’s temple.

Cregan had a wolfish grin on his lips, while taking in the figure of the boy with his grey eyes. 

“Wait, your brother is…” he asked Sarah. 

The boy stretched his arm and took Cregan’s necklace from under his sweater, a silver chain with a little pendant, and rolled it between his finger.  

“What?” Sarah provoked him. “You thought you were the only one?”

Had Cregan looked at him like he was looking at that boy, when they were outside his door? 

Jace shook his head. Who cared, he didn’t mind if his captain was making eyes with some random guy, or if he was smiling at him with the half smile he had seen while they were playing on the pitch, or if he was looking at the other’s lips like he was foretasting their taste. 

Not his captain, actually, just the captain.

He turned to Sarah. “As I said,” he began. “Good for him” 

Sarah gave him a pat on his shoulder. “I’ll get us something to drink. You okay waiting here?”       

Jace nodded and followed with his eyes her figure disappearing in the crowd. When he looked at Cregan and his new friend, they both weren’t there, anymore: that was Cregan’s house, he probably had a whole room to seek privacy. 

Again, good for him.

The crowd had increased even more. There were so many people he couldn’t even move properly, and every centimeter of the floor was filled.

Thank God he was tall enough to get some fresh air, but there was too much smoke to breathe properly.

The music was chaotic and clangorous, resonating unpleasantly in his chest and in his ears, he couldn’t tell if it was his heart that was beating faster or if it was the music, but he was panicking either way. 

The lights started flashing in his eyes, the scene was getting blurred and confusing, coming in flashes, photographs he didn’t understand. A familiar, unpleasant sensation started crawling into his chest. 

He concentrated on his breath, trying to force it in being deep and slow, but it felt like he was suffocating. Through the speakers, a loud car honk sound invaded the room. 

He ran away, pushing and shoving people uncaringly, getting insults, but he had to run away. 

Rhaena’s voice was echoing in his ears, her voice broken by the sobs. 

We don’t know what happened. They found his car crashed into a cliff.

It was so impossible, so unthinkable, so unnatural, that he had asked how Luke was. His car was at the bottom of a cliff, and he had asked how he was. 

Rhaena sobbed and hugged him, and he felt Baela’s hand taking his face. 

He’s gone, Jace. 

He stumbled on the corridor, his hand on his chest, gaining bewildered looks from strangers. 

“Freshmen can’t even hold some weed, nowadays” he heard someone say. 

“Jace?” 

That was his name, right? Someone was calling him. 

“Do you know this guy?” 

“He is in my soccer team” the voice came closer. “Jace, are you okay?”

“I…” he replied. “Luke…”

Why there was so little air, there? Why there were so many people?  

“He’s drunk, Cregan,” the guy said. “He’ll survive”

“Shut the fuck up, he can’t breathe, don’t you see it!” he growled at the other guy. “Come with me” he added, with a softer tone, and Jace knew he was talking to him. 

He let Cregan drag him across the corridor, to a room that was locked. Cregan opened it with a key he had in his pocket. 

Just a few moments later, he was sitting on a bed, his back bent forward, his elbows on his knees. 

Cregan kneeled on the floor, right in front of him, his big hands on the side of his thighs. 

“Jace,” he called him, tightening his grip on his thighs. “Can you hear me?” 

He nodded. 

“Okay, listen to me now,” he told him, caressing his skin through the fabric of his jeans. “It’s going to get better, you just have to breathe, okay? Breathe”

Jace tried to breathe deeply and tried his exercise. 

Five things he could see: Cregan’s face just right in front of him, his grey eyes moving frantically to look at him, his Adam’s apple jumping whenever he swallowed, his lean hands on his jeans, his jaw clenching while looking at him. 

By the time he was starting counting four things he could feel, his breath was going back to normal. The room was quiet, and dark, and had a nice smell of pine, and Cregan’s hands on him were warm.

“Better?” he asked. 

He nodded, while noticing his hands were gripping Cregan’s forearm. 

“I’m going to get you some water, okay?” he told him. “It’s just over there”

He moved away, slowly, and took a bottle of water that was next to the bed he was sitting on. Cregan’s bed. 

Jace took the bottle with shaking hands and drank a few sips of water. 

“Fuck, I’m so…” he began, shaking his head. 

“Don’t” the other interrupted him. “Don’t be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for, it’s not your fault.”

He nodded and took another sip. 

“Does it happen often?” Cregan asked. 

He nodded again.  

Cregan sighed and sat on the floor. “I’m…”

“Don’t be sorry” Jace interrupted him. 

The other smiled. “Okay”

Jace fidgeted with his water bottle a little bit. He knew Cregan had to go back to his party, but he didn’t want to go back there, yet. It was so nice, in that room, so quiet. 

“Your date is probably waiting for you.” he told Cregan.  

Cregan chuckled. “He probably has already replaced me”

Jace smiled. “Did I…Did I say something? While I was...” 

The other cleared his throat. “You called someone. Luke”

He nodded, biting his lips. 

“I won’t ask you, if you don’t want to talk.” the captain told him. “But… I’m here, just so you know”

“Luke was my brother” he confessed in a breath. “He… he died in a car accident last year” 

“Jace, that’s terrible. I didn’t know…”

He shrugged, trying to stop the tears. “My mother didn’t want anyone to know. We wanted to mourn in private” 

“How are you now?” the captain asked him. 

He shrugged again, drying a tear with his sleeve. “I’ve started having panic attacks… I take medication, and I go to therapy, but still… This is why I took the gap year, and why you don’t see that light in my eyes, anymore. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t study… I can’t play. And when we first met, I was having an attack”  

“Fuck, Jace…” Cregan whispered. “I feel like shit. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have…”

“It’s fine, really” 

He heard Cregan taking a breath. “I’ve lost my little brother, too, you know?” 

Jace quickly turned to him. The captain was looking at the window behind his back, the moonlight reflecting on his face.

Jace shook his head. “Sarah hadn’t told me” 

Cregan lifted one shoulder. “She knows it’s a weak spot to me, I don’t talk about it with a lot of people”

He doesn’t like when I tell his story.

“How was he? Your brother?” 

The other smiled. “You remind me of him, sometimes, actually. He was called Ben. He had a congenital disease, but oh, he was such a strong, stubborn, adamant boy. He always had to have the last word, and he never never backed down. And I know it’s stupid, and I know I was only seventeen years old, but sometimes I have this voice, inside my head that says…”

“...You could have done so much more” Jace interrupted him. 

Cregan looked at him with wide eyes, before nodding. “Exactly”

“I think I’ve grown a little distant from my brothers, after Luke’s accident,” Jace confessed, feeling his heart tightening in his chest. “I love them, I really do, but… I just feel like I don’t deserve them, anymore. That I should have kept our Luke safe and I didn’t.”

“I think we both have to come to terms with the fact that we can’t control everything” Cregan admitted. “After Ben’s death, I think I’ve become a little protective over Sarah.”      

Jace smiled. “Sarah may have called you a control freak ”

The captain chuckled. “What are you doing tomorrow morning?” 

Jace quickly looked at him, swallowing. “What do you mean by morning ?”  

“Five A.M” 

He gasped. “I…will be sleeping?” 

Cregan bit his lips, chuckling. “I go for a run on the campus every morning at five a.m, you should come” 

“Every morning?”

“Yes.”

“At five a.m.?”

“Exactly” 

“With you?” 

“Precisely” 

Jace pondered the question. “You know what? I’m in”

Chapter Text

He used to do that, too.

He used to wake up a couple of hours before school and go for a run, usually with Daemon, or Laenor when he was in town, but most of the time it was with Luke.

Jace was the one who had to drag his little brother outside the bed and force him to dress and go out in the morning chill.

Now he was struggling to keep Cregan’s pace, carefully measuring his breaths to not faint on the ground. Running felt too much similar to having a panic attack: his heart was beating too fast, his breath was short…

“You okay?” Cregan asked, turning back.

He nodded. “I just need to slow down a bit”

He reduced his pace, and Cregan did it too, and his heartbeat came back to normal, and his breath too. They were slow, other runners ran past them with irritated huffs, or rolling their eyes.

“You can go faster if you want,” Jace told Cregan.

The other smiled, shaking his head. “I’ve slept less than four hours, I can’t go faster than this”

They kept running in silence, Jace couldn’t afford to run and have a conversation, but it was nice: to be surrounded by the morning silence, the sun rising from behind the buildings, their short breaths as the only sound.

Soon, he didn’t feel tired, anymore, he felt more awake than on any other day of the past year. He felt alive.

They ran up a hill, and even though Jace tried to measure his breaths, he arrived at the end breathless and almost nauseous. He leaned on a tree, breathing heavily.

“I need a break”

Cregan laughed and stopped at his side, giving him the water bottle he was carrying. Jace accepted it with a smile and drank like he had just crossed the desert.

“Five minutes break?” Jace asked.

Cregan smiled. “Five minutes break”

They sat on the ground, side by side, under a big tree with red leaves and a white bark, at the top of a hill that let them see all Winterfell. 

He could see the landscape slowly passing from civility to wilderness, he could see the campus, still empty, with students probably still sleeping, recovering from the nights out, he could see the city, with its pointy rooftops and the shops that were opening, he could see acres and acres of red and yellow woods that were already losing their leaves before the winter, and after that, he could see the mountains already full of snow, always full of snow, actually. 

“It’s nice” Jace admitted, all of a sudden. 

“What?” Cregan asked, blinking as if he was distracted by something. 

“Winterfell” the other replied. “It’s nice. No one tells that. Everybody just keeps saying that the North is cold, and the people are…” he turned to his friend who was smiling. “... unfriendly. No one tells you that it’s nice, as well”

Cregan lifted his shoulders. “It’s beautiful in a way that most people can’t comprehend” he explained. “The North is not something you can change, you can bend to your will, it’s you who have to adapt to it. People don’t understand that.”

Jace looked at his friend talking, the way he was looking at his land, how absorbed he was while talking about it. He wished he felt like this about his land, too. 

“That’s why we in the North talk so much about independence” he confessed. “It’s not that we don’t want to be part of the Seven States, it’s just that… you can’t understand the North, if you’ve never lived in it, much less rule it.” 

Cregan stopped, smiling at Jace. “Maybe you’re not the person I should say this to” 

Jace giggled, for a moment, he had forgotten he was the president’s son. 

“I liked your grandfather, and I like your mother. She is a great ruler, and she will do wonders for the Seven States, but…”

“... The North is different” 

Cregan looked down and nodded. 

“So you really want to do that? The North independence?” 

He looked at the landscape again, frowning. 

“Fuck if I know” he admitted. “I… A lot of Starks, before me, have promised that and yet none of them had kept the promise. So I think that maybe it’s not that simple.”

“Or maybe none of them was you” Jace admitted. 

Cregan looked away, scoffing. “I don’t even know if I’ll ever become North protector” 

Jace dared to look at him. He was looking down, his jaw clenched, playing with the grass around his feet, he looked… nervous, almost insecure. Who could imagine that even Cregan Stark, the star of Winterfell Soccer Club, could be insecure about his future, just like he was? He always looked so put together, always with the right word, that he could never know he could have doubts and fears. 

“Why did you ask me to come with you, today?” he asked him. 

Cregan shrugged. “After I lost my brother, I thought the world had stopped turning. I slept all day and spent the night awake, everything was upside down, I was tired all the time, and yet I couldn’t sleep… So one day I went for a walk, it was nighttime, and I walked, and I walked, and I walked until the Sun went up, and I watched the sunrise from here, from this exact same spot. And I realize… that outside me, outside my messy bedroom and my half-life, the world still existed and I was part of it. The Sun was still moving and I should, too. And you should, too.” 

Jace was one of the first to arrive at practice, just to be sure. Cregan had promised to let him play, and he hoped he would keep his promise. Despite seeing each other at dawn every single day, for their morning run, Cregan didn’t treat him differently from the other players. They exchanged a brief nod and Jace went to begin the warm-up with the others, patiently waiting for the training match.

“Okay, guys, come here!” Cregan shouted, clapping his hands. He was holding his notebook and didn’t give Jace a single glance. 

They all lined up in front of the captain. Jace felt his heart beating faster but tried to breathe slowly. 

You got this. 

You got this. 

“Tully, Tyrell, you play defense. Tully, you would be on the right, Tyrell on the left,” he said, pointing at the two guys, who looked at each other and nodded. Then, he looked back at his notebook. “Lannister, Martell, and Baratheon, midfield. 

He kept listing all the members of the first team, and Jace wasn’t one of them. Cregan wouldn’t lie to him, right? He said he would let him play, so he would keep his word… right?

He was calling the players of the second team. 

“And in attack, Tarly, Bolton…” Cregan looked up and glanced at him for the briefest moment. “... And Velaryon” 

His teammates looked at each other with questioning looks, raising their eyebrows while looking at Jace, starting a little chatter, like a buzz of voices. 

“Are we here to chat or to play?” Cregan interrupted them. The chatter immediately stopped, replaced by a dead silence. 

“Sorry, Cregan” they muttered. 

Cregan nodded. “Go, now” 

They all moved, but not Jace. Cregan took him by the forearm before he could move, drawing him closer. The second later, his side was against Cregan’s chest. Jace stopped breathing for a second when the other’s lips brushed against his ear. He felt his skin crawl while his stomach dropped. 

“Don’t make me regret it” he whispered, making his knees feel strangely weak. 

Despite his tone being severe, when he looked at Cregan, he was smiling. 

Jace smiled back, biting the inside of his cheek. “I won’t make you regret it”

And he didn’t. 

The skeptical glances between his teammates turned into surprised looks after a few minutes of playing, and minute by minute, they went from never passing him the ball, even when he was completely free, to looking for him while he was surrounded by players of the other team.

Tarly was guarded by two opponents, so he gave Jace an assist, and Jace scored. 

“Why didn’t you guard him?” Lannister whispered to Martell. 

The other shrugged. “I didn’t know he could do that” 

The game went on, and his team beat the other. It was a training match, he didn’t win anything, except for the approving looks and compliments from the team. But to him, it meant everything. 

“Good job, Velaryon” 

They kept saying, while passing behind him, giving him pats on his shoulder and on his back. And after almost two months since the beginning of the training, he felt like part of the team, he felt like he was a football player, a teammate, he was someone again. 

He remembered why he liked playing so much: because when he was on the pitch, he wasn’t Rhaenyra Targaryen’s son, or someone’s grandson, or brother… he was just a guy with a jersey doing his best. 

“Hey, Jace. Great match!” 

Jace turned around to see Jon Tarly waving at him. 

“Thanks, mate” he replied. “You too, by the way”

Jon nodded. “You don’t come to the locker rooms?”

Jace looked at the locker rooms and shook his head. “I have to clean the pitch, first”

“Oh, yeah” the other chuckled. “The fight”

“Yeah…” Jace looked down. “Actually, I think I have to thank you… for telling Cregan that I was defending his sister”

Jon shrugged. “I didn’t know she was his sister. I only told him you were defending a friend, and that they called her Snow girl. He connected the dots”

“Yeah, well, if you hadn’t told him, I would be out of the team, so… thank you”

The other boy smiled. “I should thank you for punching those fucking bullies”

Jace smiled. “It was worth a month of cleaning the pitch” 

Tarly chuckled while scratching his nape. He looked a little awkward, blushing and fidgeting with his hands. “You know, we should get a pint, sometimes” 

Jace nodded. “Sure”

Tarly smiled and walked away, and he followed him with his gaze until he exited from the pitch. The boy crossed his path with Cregan, who greeted him with a nod, and then his grey stare was on Jace. 

Jace’s smile grew even wider while he shrugged toward him. 

“I told you, haven’t I?” he told him, loud. They were the only ones on the pitch, now.

Cregan rolled his eyes, slowly shaking his head, but his lips couldn’t hold back a smile. 

“Are you kidding me, bro? That’s amazing!” Sarah told him while giving him his cup of coffee. They stopped at their usual coffee shop after class. 

The air was so cold and chilly that he couldn’t wait to put his hands around the steaming hot cup. 

“I mean… I know it was only a training match, but…” he began, shrugging. 

“But it went well and that’s amazing.” She reminded him with a big smile, giving him a punch on his shoulder. “I’m happy for you, really” 

He smiled. “Are you free this Saturday? We can celebrate”

Her smile faded. “Fuck… I have the birthday party of a girl from my statistics class…”

He shrugged. “It's fine, it will be for the next time” 

“You would be invited too if you’d chosen the statistics course, as I told you”

He giggled. “Yeah, I’d prefer a Saturday at home, then going to a single statistics class”  

“You know…” Sarah told him, with a grin. “You don’t have to spend Saturday at home, you could always call my brother”

“Sarah…” he warned her. 

She rose her hands. “I’m just saying” 

“We are not that kind of friends,” Jace replied. 

“You see him more than I do!” she pointed out. “You go running every morning together… What do you talk about?”

“We don’t usually talk” he admitted. “I can barely breathe, much less talk. Don’t think about it too much, we just meet to jog and then go home. That’s it” 

Actually, that wasn’t completely true. They didn’t usually talk while running, that was true: but they always stopped under the white tree with all those red leaves, and they lay there and talked for a bit. It was the best part of his day. And day by day, it felt easier to wake up when it was dark outside, and most of all, it became easier to close his eyes at night and just sleep without having to take his pills. Fixing his sleep schedule was slowly fixing his life: he could pay more attention in class, and finish his homework without an overdose of caffeine. 

“As you want,” Sarah breathed out. “Cregan doesn’t usually date, anyway” 

He frowned. “Why?” 

She shrugged. “Since I was little he had always had only casual relationships, I haven’t seen him with the same person more than four or five times” 

“Why?” he asked again.  

He tried to hide his curiosity. He supposed he wasn’t doing a great job, according to the grin on her lips. 

“I guess people can’t understand how he… takes charge of everything. For all this time he has had to take care of me and train in the team, and he was into politics, and family business… It’s a lot, to handle, for some people. And being so strict doesn’t help with letting people into your life”

He nodded, looking down. “We talked about your brother, at the party. Ben”

Her eyes widened. “He told you about Ben?” 

Jace nodded. 

Sarah blinked, surprised. “I don’t think he had ever told anyone about him. You must be special”

“I’m not special,” he pointed out, sipping his coffee. “I… I told him about my brother, too. I’ve lost him a year ago” 

He didn’t look up, after saying it. He kept looking at the stone floor. 

The second later, though, her hand was around his forearm, caressing him. 

She didn’t tell him she was sorry, or any other shit people usually said to him, she just stayed there, in silence, without saying anything. There wasn’t anything to say, anyway. 

When he looked at her he sighed. “I have had panic attacks, since his death. But I guess you already knew that”

She shrugged. “I’ve noticed you acting strange sometimes, but I’ve preferred not asking. I knew you would have talked about it when you would have been ready”

But that hadn’t stopped her from taking care of him, from dragging him away from crowds when he was overwhelmed, or pushing him outside his comfort zone without making him uncomfortable.  

“His name was Luke,” he told her. “He was just sixteen when…” he stopped and cleared his throat. “I had just left for college, I thought about taking a road trip to Winterfell, and when I was in the Vale, I received a call from my family and… and my life as I knew it ended forever.”

“That’s why you have stopped for a year?”

He nodded. 

“And that’s why I’m weird most of the time” he added. “And why dating someone is… complicated, for me. You really chose the worst candidate for a best friend” 

“First of all,” she began. “You’re weird all of the time. And second, I wouldn’t want you to be anything different from how you are, so…” 

Jace laughed, shaking his head. 

“Let’s go, now,” she announced, standing up. “I have to get ready for that stupid birthday” 

He sighed. “And I have to get ready to be in my room in sweatpants and rewatch Star Wars .” 

Four hours later, he was reading words floating into space, with an empty pizza box by his side. He had showered and wore his most comfortable sweatpants, and now was laying on his bed with the lights turned off, listening to his neighbors having another kind of fun. 

This was his ideal evening. The type of evening he imagined when he was at parties with Sarah, squeezed between people, with strangers touching his ass. 

And yet… 

And yet now all he could think about was to go out. Maybe it was the adrenaline of the past week, maybe it was that he finally was able to play in the team, even if it was for training, and he didn’t want to spend his Saturday looking at a film he has seen too many times. 

He picked up his phone, staring at the screen. For a bit, he really opened Cregan’s chat, lingering on the idea of texting him. It wouldn’t be strange, right? They saw each other every day, he was the first person he talked to every single day. 

Hey, are you free tonight?

The send button was just there, in front of him. But he didn’t dare to touch it. 

He canceled everything and opened the team’s group chat, searching for Jon’s number. 

Are you up for that pint?

The reply arrived almost instantly. 

Absolutely

They met in a pub in the city, full of students sitting on wooden tables, drinking beer, and playing pool or darts. It was a little too loud for Jace, but it was getting too cold to be sitting outside. 

Jon and Sarah had something in common, apparently, they both were more than content to carry the conversation on by themselves. 

“I like playing in the team, but I don’t think it’s the career for me, honestly” Jon confessed. 

Jace widened his eyes. “What? Why are you playing, then?”

Jon shrugged. “My father insisted… College is free for those who make it into the team. And it was football or the Nightwatch, so…”

Jace frowned. “Is the Nightwatch still a thing?” 

Jon nodded, sipping at his beer. “It’s basically the military, but harder. I would prefer a thousand training with Cregan Stark than to join the Nightwatch”

The other laughed. 

“He has a soft spot for you, did you notice it?” Jon casually declared.   

Jace’s heart sank in his stomach while his cheeks started warming up quickly. He quickly rose his eyes toward his friend, who was looking at him with an amused grin. 

“W-what? He hasn’t a…” he stopped and shook his head. “I had to beg him to let me play, and he has stopped hating me only a few weeks ago” 

His friend shook his head. “He was always looking at you while doing all those laps, sometimes I was talking to him and his eyes would wander around, looking for you. I think he was just testing you when he didn’t let you play, I bet he couldn’t wait to see how you played.”

Jace looked down, biting his lips. He tried to imagine Cregan’s grey eyes searching for him on the field, while he wasn’t looking, while he was running, and his skin crawled with pleasure. 

“Don’t feel bad about that,” Jon reassured him. “It’s a good thing you made a good impression with the captain. There’s nothing wrong if he likes the way you play, it’s not like you’re dating or something”

The way he played. Jon was talking about the way he played.

And he read too much into it like an idiot. 

“Plus, you’re dating his sister, right?” Jon asked. 

Jace laughed, before shaking his head. “We’re just friends” 

“Oh, shit, sorry… I thought…” 

He shrugged. “It’s fine… Everyone always asks us that, so…”

A waiter approached his table with a pint they hadn’t asked for. 

“We didn’t ask...” Jace tried to reply. 

“The guy at that table sent this for you,” the waiter told Jace, pointing at a table in the corner of the pub, next to the pool table.  

A guy with dark brown hair and olive skin was slowly waving at him. Jace was already familiar with him. 

The boy had a big, white smile that would melt anyone, but not him. He smiled and waved back, anyway. 

“Do you know him?” Jon asked. 

Jace broke the eye contact with the guy. Somewhere on his phone, he still had his number saved. Dorian, that was his name. “We met at a party, a few weeks ago. He gave me his number but I didn’t call him back” 

“Why? He’s hot…” Jon admitted. “I mean, guys are not my area of expertise, but my eyes still work. Go talk to him”

“What? No!”

“C’mon!” Jon encouraged him. “At least thank him for the drink”

Jace sighed, Dorian was talking to a friend, but he caught him looking at him for a fraction of a second. His eyes were wandering between him and his friend. That made him feel good, though, as if that handsome boy couldn’t just keep his eyes off of him.   

“I’ll be back in a minute” Jace declared, before standing up, holding the beer Dorian had offered him. 

Dorian had clearly seen him walking toward him but didn’t there to look up until he was practically in front of him. 

“Hi,” the boy told him, blinking his big green eyes. 

“Hi,” Jace told him, suddenly forgetting how to move and act. “Thank you for the drink”  

Dorian smiled. “You’re welcome”

Jace smiled, looking down. 

“Do you want to drink it outside?” Dorian proposed, glancing at the door. 

Jace looked at the door, before looking back to Dorian and quickly nodding. 

Dorian smiled, an open, big smile that made his stomach turn, and gestured him to follow him. He followed, looking at Jon, who raised his thumbs at him, encouraging. 

Outside it was still cold, maybe too much to be standing outside, but it was so quiet, out there, without the buzz and the music, and the tinkling of the glasses. Out there, there were just the two of them, no one was so crazy to adventure outside. 

“So…” Dorian began, leaning with his back against a wall, sipping at his beer. “Let me guess, you didn’t text me because you were too busy, right? Practice, and the classes… A very busy week…”

Jace looked down, shaking his head. “The reason is easier, I think I simply couldn’t find the courage. I’m sorry, though…” 

Dorian seemed impressed by his courage, he looked at Jace with his head tilted sideways.

“You couldn’t find the courage…” the boy repeated. “Am I that scary?”

Jace giggled. “You know what I mean” 

Dorian nodded, slowly. “Am I the first guy that… offers you to drink?”

He wondered what to reply. Guys had offered him to drink, back in Dragonstone, and he had flirted with one or two of them, but never got further than that. He had peeked over any of his teammates, in the locker rooms, but always looked away. And he had definitely thought about texting the hot swimmer in front of him, but never found the courage.

So he didn’t reply, he simply put his hands on the other’s cheeks and drew him closer. 

His lips were soft, and oddly warm, considering the weather. He felt the other boy smile against his lips, before passing his tongue on Jace’s lips, making him open his mouth to slip his tongue inside. 

Jace moved closer to him, so close that their bodies were completely against each other, now. He could feel Dorian’s body under his palms, and it felt… strange. Not bad, nor good, but strange. His muscles were firm and strong, and his body kept moving in waves against his, and he knew it should have felt different, he should have felt more… involved. 

“You okay?” Dorian asked, taking a break from his lips. His green eyes were semi-closed, while he looked at him, drunk in pleasure. “Is this okay?”

Jace nodded briefly, before diving back on his lips. 

He tried to concentrate, to stay in the moment, to feel Dorian’s confident hands that had now found their way under his sweater. But nothing felt like it should have felt. 

“Fuck, you’re so hot,” Dorian told him, before licking Jace’s lips. 

Dorian’s hands stopped right above his groin, when he didn’t feel what he expected. 

“Oh” was the guy’s reply, while his arms dropped and his lips stopped moving. 

“I-I’m sorry” Jace muttered, taking a step back. 

The other guy shook his head, fixing his hair. 

“Don't worry,” he said, looking away. “Next time let me know, though, if you simply don’t like me” 

“It’s not…” Jace began but stopped. It’s not like he would have talked to this complete stranger about his problems. 

The guy turned away. 

“As you want” he muttered while he entered the pub again.   

Jace remained outside, in the breezy air, with his back leaned on the wall and his head tilted back. 

“Fucking idiot” he mumbled through his teeth. 

He returned to the pub, with his shoulders slumped and his hands in his pocket, looking for Jon. And when he saw it, he stopped. 

His friend wasn’t alone, anymore. He was talking to a bunch of guys Jace had only seen in pictures, on the campus’ website. 

The Winterfell soccer team. 

And their captain, obviously. 

He walked slowly toward them, with a shy smile. It wasn’t the complete team, of course, just five or six members… Jon was the first one to see him. 

“There you are!” he greeted him. 

All the eyes were suddenly on him. He smiled at the guys, waving his hand. 

When he dared to lift up his eyes, Cregan was looking at him with a half smile. 

“Hi,” he said to him.

“Hi,” Jace replied.  

“You’re in the team, too?” a guy next to Cregan asked. He was tall, with blonde hair that almost touched his shoulders. 

Jace nodded.

Cregan smiled. “Rickard Karstark, Jace Velaryon.” 

The guy smiled while shaking Jace’s hand. 

“You are the famous Jace Velaryon, then,” he said, while briefly looking at Cregan. 

“Why famous?” Jace asked. 

Rickard lifted his shoulders, shaking his head. “Nothing… The captain here says that you gave him a hard time”

“It takes worse to give me a hard time” Cregan quickly replied, cutting the conversation. 

“Hey,” Rickard told, talking to Jon and Jace. “Why don’t you sit with us? It would be nice to meet the new recruits” 

Jace looked at Jon, but the guy replied without having to be asked twice. 

“Sure!”

They sat on one of the green couches near the wall, ordering other beers and talking about soccer.  

“If you think Lord Stark is harsh wait to meet coach Mormont” a guy was saying to Jace and Jon. 

Cregan was sitting right next to him, but he never talked to him directly. When he stretched his hand to take his beer, Jace noticed the black ink of a tattoo on his wrist and promised himself to ask about it, the next time they would see each other. For now, he was only hypnotized by Cregan's fingers around his cup, tracing circles with his fingertips on the brim. His fingers were decorated with a few silver rings, that he was using to rhythmically clink on the glass. 

Dorian walked in front of them one last time, before going out and never coming back. Jace tried to wave at him, but the other ignored him. 

“The date didn’t go as predicted?” 

Jace turned and saw Cregan looking at him. He looked away. 

“It went exactly how predicted… That’s the problem” Jace replied. 

“I’m sorry” Cregan murmured. 

The other smiled, before shaking his head. “I didn’t even like him that much…” 

“Why?” 

He lifted his shoulder. “I don’t know, actually. Sometimes I wonder if there isn’t simply something wrong with me.”

“There’s not” was the captain’s quick response. “There’s nothing wrong about you” 

Jace smiled. “You don’t even know what happened” 

“I don’t need to. I just know that there isn’t anything wrong with you”

Jace looked at him, blinking. Cregan was looking at him with his usual half grin.   

“Hey, Cregan” one of the guys on the team called him. “Tell them about that match against Casterly Rock!” 

The conversation about soccer went on, and on, and on. Too long for Jace to follow it, anymore, so he gradually spaced out, nodding every now and then, laughing when the other laughed. 

That’s why he didn’t notice Cregan’s arm around the headrest of the couch, just behind his shoulder, and suddenly, he felt very aware of everything. 

“Believe me, mate,” Rickard said to Jon. “Once the team starts winning, girls start to rain like water. Mark my words”

“No one wants to fuck someone called Jon ” Jon whined, visibly drunk, making everyone at the table giggle. “It’s a terrible name to moan”

“Try to be called Jacaerys ” Jace commented, sipping at his beer. 

Cregan wasn’t even touching him, he was just resting his arm on the couch, casually gesturing while he talked, and sometimes, his fingers would move so close to his hair that he could feel the air moving. 

How could something feel so calming yet make his breath short? 

He felt safe, there, next to him, yet his heart seemed to go faster every time he caught a whiff of his cologne, or that Cregan leaned close to him to talk to someone, or to take his glass of beer. 

Cregan laughed at something Rickard said, and his low laugh resonated in Jace’s chest in an echo. 

“Are you okay?” Cregan asked, looking down.

Jace followed Cregan’s gaze and saw his watch flashing.

His heartbeat alarm.

He wasn’t having a panic attack, though, he was sure of that. 

“I think it’s bugged,” he admitted, looking at Cregan. “I am perfectly fine”

Cregan nodded. “I think I’m going home, though… If you want a lift”

Jace nodded.

Jon decided to stay with the guys, so Cregan and Jace were the only ones leaving. They went outside and Jace hid his neck in the jacket.

“It’s too light for Winterfell” Cregan told him, while entering in his car.

“It’s the heaviest I own,” Jace admitted. 

“Then we should go and buy a new one” 

Jace giggled. “The guys on the team seem cool. Especially Rickard… You two seem good friends”

Cregan smiled. “You know how it goes… You’re nice to the kid that talks too much during elementary school and you’re stuck with him forever…”

“Every kid that never talks needs the kid that talks too much”

They entered the lane where his building was. 

“That’s how it goes between you and Tarly?” 

Jace looked down. “He’s weird, but he’s nice”

Cregan’s car stopped in front of his building. 

“Here we are”

Jace unlocked the seatbelt. “Thank you for the lift”

Cregan shrugged, looking at him with his head against the headrest. “You know, I think that your name would sound pretty good to moan… Jacaerys”

And gods above. 

The way he pronounced his name.

He shamelessly moaned his fucking name. 

Jace was sure his brain had stopped functioning for a few seconds, and his stomach felt like someone had twisted it in a knot.

He chuckled, like a schoolgirl. “You idiot” 

He felt Cregan’s eyes on him until he disappeared behind the doors of his building, and when he was inside, he walked toward his room with his head low, counting the seconds that separated him from his room. 

When he was inside his room, looking at his unmade bed, his desk, and all his clothes on the floor, he heard Cregan’s voice saying his name. 

Jacaerys .

Had his name always sounded that good? 

A shiver crawled from his back right between his legs, where he felt a familiar warmth. Not so familiar actually, since he couldn’t remember the last time he had felt it. 

Did his friend sound like that when he talked to his lovers? Was his voice always that raspy and hoars… and hot?

Jace imagined him sitting in his room, on his bed, the bed he was looking at that moment, he imagined his friend leaning toward his ear and whispering to him in that same voice. 

Without thinking, his hand found its way between his legs, unbuttoning his jeans and slipping his hand inside, relieving that new ache.

His mind wandered to the other day, to the pitch, when Cregan had stopped him by his forearm and brought him closer to him, whispering in his ear. The memories overlapped, and he imagined his friend's voice from before whispering directly in his ear, his tongue lapping at his skin, his lips brushing his temples.

He imagined having taken his friend outside, instead of Dorian, that evening, and the waves of pleasure between his legs became more intense, so intense that he had to close his eyes and bit his lips to not make any sound. He imagined himself biting Cregan’s lips, imagined his smile on his lips, and his voice, again and again, until the pleasure growing in his stomach reached its peak, leaving him tired and weary on his bed. 

Chapter Text

It has been almost two months since the first fall of snow, on the first of November.

Jace really thought that he loved snow. 

He loved building snowmen, skiing, and snowboarding… but that was because the snow was a holiday, to him: a week to the Wall at the beginning of the year, before coming back to Dragonstone, where the wind was cold, but never enough to make snow. 

Now he had to get out of bed with a few degrees below zero, get dressed up and go to class, or, worst of all, go to practice.

It wasn’t surprising at all that Winterfell had never had a soccer team, before Cregan. What fool would play outside in the snow with shorts? 

“I don’t know what has gotten into you when you decided to go into that ice hell,” Baela had said to him when he sent a picture of the courtyard covered in white.

Truth was, it was starting to feel like home. 

His days were starting to feel like a routine that soothed him: going to class with Sarah, studying with her, going to practice, playing video games with Jon in the evening… 

And then there was Cregan. 

There was Cregan and their morning runs, followed by their morning breakfasts, their talks, and the way he made him smile.

Was it embarrassing to look at him, after what he had done? 

Yes. At first.

But then their routine started feeling like friendship again, and everything came back to normal. He was his best friend, a hot best friend, but just a friend. 

He and Jace were always the last ones to leave the training: they worked out together in the gym, counting each other reps, and mocking each other, they met in pubs to watch football together on the weekends, bickering about the match.

Yet, lately, a deadline was looming over them, while they talked during their jogs, or at the gym, or while watching movies at Cregan’s house with Alysanne, Sabitha, and Sarah.

In just a few weeks, Cregan would have chosen the players who would have joined the main team. 

He never talked about it, and Jace never asked, but wondering was inevitable: would he make it? Would he be part of the team? He was doing well during the training, but he didn’t dare lift his hopes, after his rough start. 

“Jace?” 

He lifted his chin towards Cregan, in front of him. They hit the gym together for the last time before the Christmas holidays. 

“Mmh?” he asked. 

His friend smiled, biting his lips. “You seem distracted, today.”

Here’s another thing about Cregan: he knew him.

Jace could simply enter a room, take off his coat, and Cregan would look at him and say. “What’s wrong?”

He didn’t need to hide, when he was with him, or pretend. He could be true. 

“Tomorrow I’ll be going home for Christmas,” he simply said, shrugging.

“Is it the first Christmas without Luke?” 

Jace shook his head, looking down. 

It wasn’t technically the first Christmas, but it would have been the first time they would celebrate it without him.

The first Christmas passed like an ordinary day, with his mother crying in her room, Laenor hiding in Essos, and Daemon punching things.

That year, though, his mother had invited his grandparents from Driftmark, and Laenor would have been there, too, with Qarl.

A normal, regular Christmas.

He was happy his mother felt better enough to plan a whole Christmas family holiday, and he was happy that his family was reunited again, after all that had happened.

Then why couldn’t he sleep at night? Why was he sick in his stomach at the idea of going back? 

Luke was a Christmas fan. He was the one who woke up early and slammed to his door insisting that they would go downstairs and open the Christmas presents. He liked eggnog and ice-skating, and candy canes…

“It feels like we are leaving him behind,” he whispered.

Cregan nodded. “I know…”

He never tried to fix him, never said some cheesy shit like He would want you to, or Everything happens for a reason, Cregan would always just nod and tell him that he understood, and Jace felt like he genuinely did, and always felt less alone. Talking with him didn’t make him feel alone, or crazy, he felt normal. Seen and heard. 

“You’re going home for Christmas, as well?” Jace asked him.

Cregan chuckled.

Jace nodded. “Right, you are at home. I meant… are you going to see your family?”

He shrugged. “Me and Sarah… we don’t have a really big family. We have an uncle, but we’re not on good terms… we’ll probably be with Alysanne’s family. Her parents basically adopted me, Sarah, and Sabitha, years ago.”

Jace wished he could talk to him about his family, too. They talked about everything while sitting under the white tree with red leaves, but he never told him what really happened to Luke. He never told him how much his family was involved. 

You don’t recover from that shit. 

Opening that lid was too painful. He was getting better, was sleeping without taking his pills, and his panic attacks were fewer, but saying that thing out loud… 

His watch started beeping and vibrating on his wrist. 

“Jace…” Cregan stood up and walked to him. 

“It’s fine, I’m fine,” he reassured him. “I’m just… I was starting to get better, here. And I’m afraid going there would trigger something and make me feel worse. That’s stupid, I know…”

“It’s not stupid. Everyone would think that,” Cregan told him, looking at him so intensely, that it was difficult to not look away. “Just know that… What you feel is not something that happens to you. You can control it. Where you are is not important. It’s not this place that makes you feel better. It’s you.”

It’s you. Jace wanted to correct him. 

Sometimes, some non-friendly thoughts still slipped out of his mind, when he was with Cregan. Occasionally, he still caught himself staring at his friend’s shoulders, at the gym, at his calves, during practice, or at his ass, while running. His throat usually got dry when he distractedly looked at his forearms, or at his grey eyes. 

But he was far from deluding himself: they were friends, good friends, best friends. That’s it.  

Jace chuckled. “I was so anxious that I didn’t even take the Christmas presents for my family.” 

Cregan smiled. “We should have a trip to the mall, then.” 

The mall on the last week before Christmas was his personal idea of hell, and just a few weeks before he would have run away at the sight of all those people. 

The music was chaotic and too loud, every shop was playing its jingle, and the people were raising their voices to talk over the noise. Children were screaming and running between their legs, a kid with a cotton candy smashed onto his legs, and he had to grasp Cregan’s forearm to not fall, his fingers tightened around his firm muscle.  

“The Christmas magic,” Cregan told him, chuckling while holding him, his arm around his waist. 

When he let him go, Jace realized how much more comfortable he felt while he was touching him. 

“See something you like?” Cregan asked while looking directly into his eyes.

Jace panted. “W-what?” 

“For the presents,” the other replied while looking at him.   

“Ooh,” Jace cleared his throat. “I don’t know, I have a lot of presents to do.”

It was only on those occasions that he realized how big his family was.

“I can’t imagine how it would be,” Cregan admitted while walking in the alleys of that overcrowded mall, so full that they had to walk shoulder by shoulder. 

“Loud,” Jace giggled. “But funny. My brother Joffrey had this phase where he kept filming these pranks with fake snakes and spiders. He stopped when my cousin Rhaena left a real snake on his desk.” 

When he looked up at Cregan he was quietly chuckling. 

“You get along with your half-brothers as well?” 

He shrugged. “I don’t see Aegon and Viserys as half brothers, our parents raised us as a family, they are my brothers, like Joffrey or…” 

His brothers used to be his whole world: the trash horror movies that Joffrey made them watch during summer, video games played until the sun was up, or until their mother yelled at them. 

And they loved him: Luke, Joffrey, Aegon, and Viserys, used to see him as the coolest person on earth. And he failed them. “Maybe lately I haven’t been a good brother to them.”

“Well,” Cregan told him, glancing at him. “You better give them really good presents, then.”

He spent an absolute fortune on video games for his brothers and Rhaena: she was more of a fan of arcade vintage video games, while Joffrey was more into shooter games. He took a watch for Daemon, a tie for Laenor, and vinyls for Baela. Cregan helped him with that.

“Your cousin has taste,” he admitted. 

Jace had thought about taking something for him, as well, before realizing it would have been weird. 

The last thing on his bucket list was to get a warmer coat for himself.

He was just ogling a black coat on sale. He touched the soft black fabric, wondering if it was heavy enough. 

“It should be your size.”

Cregan’s voice came from behind him, quiet and warm like honey, so different from the loud noise in the mall.

Jace smiled, turning slightly. “Do you think?”

The other nodded and took the coat off the shelf. “There’s only one way to know.”

Jace would have argued, but Cregan had that resolute look in his eyes, and his best charming grin, and he caved.

He wore the coat, it fell right on his shoulders and on his arms. 

Cregan gave him a long, slow, attentive look, his gray eyes moving slowly on his figure.

And in that moment, Jace felt bare under his gaze. 

“Wait a second,” his friend told him, before coming toward him.

Jace held his breath, biting his lips to not make any sound while Cregan’s hands slipped under the collar of his coat, at the base of his neck, fixing the collar. He cleared his throat, and Cregan looked at him, smirking. 

“Stay still,” he whispered, before returning to fix his collar. 

Jace closed his eyes while Cregan’s fingertips touched the sensitive skin on his nape, buried in his curly hair. He bit his lips, trying to not make any sound. 

When Cregan stepped back, he did his best to look collected.

“It suits you well,” he admitted.

Jace couldn’t tell how long it took to reply. But a few minutes later he was in the queue, buying the coat, and his cheeks were burning. 

Gods, he hoped he wouldn’t think about that before going to sleep. 

When they were walking outside the mall, going toward Cregan’s car, with their hands in their pockets, and their shoulders clenched for the cold, Jace realized he didn’t want to part from him. He didn’t want to return to his dorm and then not see him for weeks, after spending every day together. 

Cregan checked his phone, his bony face lightened by the blue screen of his phone.

“It’s Alysanne,” he told him. “She said she’s inviting Sarah and Rickard over for dinner and a movie, if you want to come.”

Jace counted to five, before saying yes . 

Cregan’s house looked better, without all those people in it. 

The last time he had been there, he had one of the most terrible panic attacks he had ever had: but now, with just Alysanne, Sabitha, and Sarah taking out the groceries, soft rock music playing in the background, the smell of something cooking, it felt like a place he would spend his evenings at. 

Jace hugged Sabitha and Alysanne the moment he stepped into the apartment, and went directly to Sarah in the kitchen, she was peeling potatoes with her blonde hair up in a tie. 

“Have you ever been in a kitchen?” Sarah told him while smirking at him. 

“Potatoes have a peel?!” he asked, pretending to be shocked. 

They stayed together in the kitchen, peeling potatoes while talking about the exams, while the doorbell rang.

“Hi, Jace,” Rickard waved at him, while taking off his coat.

Jace nodded to him in a greeting and noticed how the other’s eyes flew immediately over Sarah. 

“Hi,” he said, gently. His voice suddenly deepened and warmed.

Sarah smiled. “Hi.”

“I was starting to think your brother had lied when he said you were studying here,” Rickard admitted, serving himself a glass of beer.

“My brother has never lied in his life,” Sarah admitted, shrugging.

The boy smiled. “How is it going without soccer? Do you miss it?”

Jace looked at his friend. “Wait, you play soccer?”

Sarah lifted one shoulder. “I did, for a bit.”

“She was the best player of her year,” Rickard told him.

“They gave me the award just because Cregan is my brother. I’m not that good,” Sarah admitted, shaking her head.

“She is,” the boy told him, before leaving the room, glancing one more time at her.

Sarah was keeping her gaze fixed on a potato, her cheeks red and her lips lifted in a smile.

“What was that?” 

She looked at him, blinking. “What?”

Jace chuckled. “That thing with Rickard… you like him!”

She rolled her eyes. “I don’t like him, I’m not five.”

“I think you do,” Jace bit his lips, enjoying that for once he was the one teasing her about guys, and not the contrary. 

She bit the inside of her cheek. “Okay, fine, maybe I’ve some sort of… admiration for him, and maybe I’ve had it for years. But it’s not like I like him or something. He’s my brother’s best friend, everybody fancies their brother’s best friend.”

“Yeah, well, consider doing something because I think he likes you too,” Jace told her, taking a potato and starting to cut it into slices.

“Yeah, well, that is not going to happen,” Sarah replied drily.

“Why?” 

She sighed. “Because… I’m not good with relationships, or boyfriends, and Rickard… I’ve known him since I was six, he has always been in my life and I… I don’t want to ruin it. I prefer staying like this and…”

“Flirting with each other without complications?” asked Jace, smirking at her. 

Sarah smiled. “Yeah, and you know about it, don’t you?”

She glanced at the kitchen door the moment Cregan entered. 

“Are you two working or just talking?” he asked, glancing at the potatoes on the counter. 

Sarah passed the knife to her brother, raising her arms. “Our prince here has never cut a potato in his life, teach him yourself if you're able.” 

She left them alone in the kitchen, with the music still coming from the living room. 

“I know how to cut a potato,” Jace defended himself. 

Actually, no, he didn’t. For all his life he had always had personal chefs, cooking for him. 

It wasn’t until he had started living in Winterfell that he understood how spoiled he was. Cregan and Sarah were the children of the Protector of the North, and yet, they knew how to cook, or clean, while he had risked cutting his fingers off once or twice. 

“You sure you don’t want a quick lesson?” Cregan asked, a half smirk on his face while he was leaning on the counter. 

“Just a quick guidance, maybe,” he admitted, quietly.

The captain smiled and moved slowly towards him, he stopped right behind him, circling Jace with his arms. His hand covered Jace’s. 

“Soft with your wrist,” he suggested, talking in his ear. 

Jace breathed out, relaxing immediately against his body, so that his back touched Cregan’s chest covered in a grey sweatshirt. 

“Put the end first,” he told him, his breath tickling the skin on his temples. “And then bend your wrist like this.” 

Or something like that, because he wasn’t listening. All he could hear was the sound of his own heartbeat loud in his ear, and his broken gasps, while gathering the courage to just turn around and kiss him, and fuck everything else. 

But what if he was misinterpreting? What if he turned around to kiss him only to be rejected? 

Maybe that touch, their hands on each other, his breath in his ear, meant something else to Cregan.

His friend was tactile by nature: he patted his teammates’ shoulders during practice, gave high five, and ruffled their hair when they scored.

One time, a few weeks before, they were sitting on the bench during practice, and Cregan was explaining a scheme to him: Jace was listening, hanging from his lips, when Cregan’s finger started drawing the scheme on the bare skin of his thigh, only half covered by the shorts. Jace could still recall the soft touch of that cold finger, goosebumps all over his skin.

Right now, in that kitchen, he was just about to drop his head to the back onto Cregan’s chest. 

“Jace...”

Cregan’s voice woke him up. Jace turned around, his back pushed against the counter.

“Yeah?”

The other cleared his throat. “Just… next week, pretend to be surprised when you’ll find out you made it to the main team.” 

He opened his mouth, surprised. “What? Why?” 

Cregan chuckled. “What does it mean why? Because you deserve it.” 

He knew he was good. But he thought that maybe…

“You’re not doing it because we’re friends, right?”

Another chuckle, a deep, low chuckle.

“This team is one of the most important things I have,” he explained. “I wouldn’t risk it, even for a friend.”

Jace nodded, looking down. 

During last year, he had ruined everything he had in his hands, he could have ruined the most important thing in Cregan’s life, too, now. 

And maybe he wasn’t even good enough for it. Cregan had probably taken pity on him, the poor guy who had a panic attack in front of him. Twice .  

Two fingers held his chin, forcing him to look up. 

“Hey…”

He met Cregan’s grey eyes and bit his lips, his chin still held up by his fingers. 

“This is not a gift,” he stated, slowly, his eyes into his. “I trust you. When we talked on the pitch you said that you were willing to give everything you had, and I didn’t believe you. But now… Jace, you’ve spent every single day of the last months on the pitch with me: no one has ever done that. You are not only good, you work hard, and you’ve spent the past year in hell and you’re still… you. This team needs you, I need you.”

Jace looked at him, his mind empty, his lips open, his eyes fleeing over the other’s face. 

“Guys…”

Sabitha was looking at them with an embarrassed look on his face. 

“Sorry, I didn’t want…” she began, before shaking her head. “I just wanted to check the pizza in the oven, it should be ready, by now.” 

They ate dinner together, the potatoes were good, after all, even though they weren’t all perfectly cooked. 

Jace laughed so hard his chest hurt while Alysanne, Cregan, and Rickard told them about their childhood stories. After a year of being scared of being with people, he had forgotten how nice it was to sit with friends and chat.

He still hadn’t replied to Cregan, he was still in shock, somehow.

This team needs you. 

I need you.

This team needs you. 

I need you.

I need you.

I need you.

Alysanne was telling Rick about their plans for the winter holidays, and no one was looking at him. So he leaned over Cregan’s ear and whispered. 

“Don’t be surprised when I’ll accept the offer to join the main team.”

Cregan didn’t turn around, like Jace had expected, he didn’t even move, and if it wasn’t for the smirk on his lips, he would swear the captain hadn’t even heard him.  

After dinner they decided to watch a movie together, Cregan was sitting right beside him, his arm around the headrest but without touching him.

Jace had all the intentions to watch the movie, but soon he felt a shiver down his spine. Something was touching the soft skin on his nape.

Cregan’s fingers. 

At first, he thought it was a mistake, but then the touch happened again, and decisive fingertips were distractedly playing with his hair. 

Jace closed his eyes: no one was aware of that contact, but those fingers were lighting his nerves like a Christmas Tree, while drawing silhouettes on his skin.

Cregan twirled a strand of curly hair around his index fingers, while the other fingertips kept caressing the skin of his nape.

And Jace was in total heaven. 

He pulled back his lips, wetting them with his tongue when Cregan gently pulled a strand of his hair. 

He turned to look at Cregan, scared that if he had met his gaze, nothing would have stopped him from taking his face in his hands and slipping his tongue inside his mouth. Cregan was still looking at the screen, the blue light projecting on his face, but he didn’t seem to be bothered by that touch, while he kept stroking his skin: he was just casually touching a friend, after all, while Jace was doing his best not to groan with pleasure. 

And in that moment, he couldn’t lie anymore: he wasn’t looking at him as someone would look at his best friend. 

And he was fucked. 

Jace walked Sarah to her dorm. The freezy cold air was exactly what he needed, after spending half an hour biting his lips to not make any sound. 

“You’re quiet, today.” 

He looked at his friend, they were walking arm in arm in the lane full of snow, the streets white and silent. 

He shrugged. “I’m just thinking, I guess…” 

“You’re worried about going home for Christmas?” 

His head had lost count of the things he worried about.

He was worried that going to Dragonstone would drag him back to the darkness, after fighting all those months to come out of it. He was worried at the idea of seeing his brothers, after neglecting them for months. He was worried to see his mother, who used to hide in her room to cry. 

He was worried because he had found his place there, in Winterfell, with Sarah, with Cregan, and now he could ruin everything. 

He should shut up, and keep it by himself, but there had always been something, in Sarah, that made him feel safe enough to tell her everything.  

“I think you were right,” he muttered. 

She frowned. “Darling, you need to be more specific.” 

He took a deep breath. “About me and Cregan. I think I like him.”

Sarah opened her mouth in a wide smile and jumped on his shoulders. 

“I knew it!” she screamed in his ear. “I fucking knew it!”

“Ok, you knew it, now get off me,” he giggled. 

“So?” she asked, with a smirk. “What will you do, now?”

“What am I supposed to do?” he replied, shrugging. “He is my best friend…”

She raised an eyebrow. 

“Fine, you are my best friend. But… he is a good friend of mine and the captain of the team I’m going to play in. And I won’t allow myself to ruin this.” 

He had lost every single thing he had always held, this time would have been different.

Seeing Dragonstone from the window of the airplane was… strange. Like he was surprised to see the same city he had left months before. 

He still remembered the first time he had seen the city from the window of a plane: King’s Landing was the only thing he knew, the place he had been born in, where he had kicked his first ball, joined his first team; leaving King’s Landing had been like leaving a part of him. But in Dragonstone another part of him had been born, he wasn’t just a son, a grandson, a nephew , anymore. He was someone. 

His mother had to spend a lot of time in King’s Landing, for her work, but the rest of the family stayed there, while she came back every weekend and any time she could. 

The private jet landed gently on the pit, and when he stepped out of the plane, his family was waiting there for him: his mother, Daemon, Laenor, and Qarl.  

When you come from a big family, you understand how differently people show love: his mother smiled openly and ran to him, hugging him tight, Laenor took his head in his hands and kissed him on his hair, and Qarl shook his hand with a friendly smile and Daemon gave him a quick glance and a nod. In his language, it meant I’m so happy to see you. 

Apparently, he was the last one to arrive, the rest of the family was already there: his grandparents were sitting outside, almost as if they were waiting for him outside.

Corlys hugged him so tight you would have doubted he was almost seventy years old, Rhaenys instead caressed his cheek with her soft palm. 

He knew Rhaenys loved him and his brothers, but let’s say she was the one who had the hardest time showing it. All that changed after Luke’s accident: after that, Rhaenys was at their house almost every week, and Jace hadn’t spent a single day without her morning text, while he was in Winterfell. 

When he stepped inside, it was like coming back in time. A time in which his family was complete, in which nothing bad had happened to them. 

Screams and laughter were coming from Joffrey’s bedroom, he peeked and saw Joffrey and Rhaena sitting on the floor playing video games, insulting each other, while Aegon and Viserys were watching them playing, and Baela was scrolling through her phone. 

“Take this, you piece of shit,” Rhaena told Joffrey, biting her lip while violently pressing on the joystick’s button. 

When did things come back to that? At which point, since he left for Winterfell, they switched from a silent house with the windows closed to laughter and jokes? 

He was happy to be in Winterfell, he loved university, he loved his friends, but he wished he had been there to see things getting better. 

“Jace!” he heard through the closed door. “Wake up!” 

He rubbed his eyes, he could feel his hair falling disorderly around his head. 

The watch on his wrist showed 11 am, later than his usual wake-up time, but last night it had been so nice to just be with his family, telling them about football, listening to Baela and Rhaena talking about their new life, laughing until his eyes watered and his chest hurt. 

“Jace?”

Baela’s voice woke him up, she seemed urged. He jumped out of bed, imagining all the kinds of tragedies, running towards the door. 

His heart was beating achingly in his chest, and his stomach was twisted, making him almost nauseous. 

“What happened? Everything’s fine?” he asked, the moment he opened the door to see Baela in her pajama, her hand up, ready to knock again. 

She looked at him with a confused scowl, and he wondered how would he look. 

“Yeah, of course,” she told him, her look softened. “You… You didn’t hear me so I knocked louder…”

She was almost apologizing. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes again. 

“Oh, ok…” his heart slowed down, and his breath became normal again. “What did you need?”

“The kids wanted to go ice skating,” she said, glancing at her back. “Are you coming?”   

He blinked. 

Everything was fine. 

Nothing had happened. 

The kids just wanted to go ice skating.  

His chest tried to take a few deep breaths, but something was already crawling under his skin. 

“So…?” Baela asked. 

He shook his head. “Yeah, yeah, sure. I’m… I’m coming.”

After quickly shutting the door closed, he leaned with his back on the wooden surface, closing his eyes. 

His watch beeped, his heartbeat was getting too fast, a feeling that he had almost forgotten.  

What you feel is not something that happens to you. 

You can control it. 

Where you are is not important.

A few deep breaths, and the weight on his chest eased enough so that air entered his lungs normally again.

He got dressed and drove them all to the skating park. It was pretty early, so it wasn’t too much crowded, yet. 

Aegon was skating quickly ahead of them, while Viserys was tightly holding the fabric of his sleeve. 

Jace chuckled. “Are you scared?” 

His youngest brother looked around. “No…”

He couldn’t hold a giggle. 

“You don’t need to worry,” he told him. “Here…”

He took his little hand and put it on the wooden handrail. 

“Hold tight,” he warned him. 

“Jace, I’m afraid,” he whined, turning back to him. 

“I know, but I’m right here.” 

Viserys was holding onto the handrail, and after every skate, his hold was less tight and he became faster and faster. 

“Aegon! Joff!” Viserys called their brothers. “Look!” 

The kids opened their mouths in surprise. 

“Woah!” Aegon screamed. 

Jace smiled, watching the three kids skating together. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and when he looked at the screen, he couldn't hold a smile.

A view of Winterfell, taken from the highest hill of the campus. 

Their place. 

The place where they usually rested after their run. 

Hope you’re not stalling too much. 

Jace took a picture of the ice rink and hit send. 

The reply was quick. 

Couldn’t stay away from the ice, couldn’t you?

Cregan always had a funny way of texting: brief phrases, no emoji, and always correct precise punctuation. Jace always joked that he texted like an old man. 

I’m more comfortable on the grass, but my brothers insisted.

That would probably have been their longest exchange. Cregan wasn’t a big fan of texting, so he usually communicated only brief arrangements, via texting. 

I see two blond heads, actually. The other kid is Joffrey? 

Jace was still typing, his eyes glued to the screen, when a scream made him divert his gaze. 

Viserys was sitting on the ground, crying out loud, his face red and his eyes full of tears. 

He immediately put his phone in his pocket and skated toward his brother, while a little crowd gathered around the kid.

“What happened?” he asked Joffrey.

“He slipped and fell on the ice,” Joffrey told him. 

They brought him to the side, back on the ground and not on the slippery ice anymore. 

Jace kept checking him to see if he was bleeding, or had something broken, but the crying was too distracting. 

Baela and Rhaena were there next to him, trying to calm down Viserys, while the only thing Jace could do was stare, paralyzed. 

A lady knelt in front of Viserys, checking his hands and his legs. Jace just barely registered her asking Viserys his name and his age, he wasn’t crying anymore, his eyes were red and filled with tears, but he was listening to the lady. 

“Looks like someone just got a big scare, nothing more,” she said, touching his nose. She then turned to Jace. “He’s completely fine. Don’t need to worry.”

He didn’t reply, so Baela stepped in. “Thanks.” 

The lady nodded and walked away with the first aid kit suitcase in her hand. 

“Jace?” 

“Hmm?” 

Baela was in front of him, scanning him with her deep brown eyes. 

“Are you okay?” 

The loud thunder in his ears made it impossible to reply. He just wanted to puke. 

“Yeah,” he shook his head. “M-maybe it’s better if we head home, though.” 

The trip home was silent, no talk, no music, not even the sound of the engine, since the car was electric. 

Jace paced quickly toward his room, closed the door behind him, and let himself tumble on the cold wooden floor of his room, his hand on his mouth to prevent him from any sound.

He wasn’t crying, he couldn’t, somehow, only sobs, his chest shaking uncontrollably.

He did it again.

He failed to protect his family again.

He couldn’t take care of himself, how could he take care of his brothers? 

When he noticed a buzzing pain on his nape, he realized he had been bumping it against the door.

“Jace?” 

A voice from the outside of the door startled him.

“The children are in the backyard playing soccer, if you want to come.” 

Baela sounded concerned, her voice so close that he assumed she had her forehead on the door.

He took a deep breath. 

“Uhm, I think I’ll study for a bit. Thanks.”

Not very convincing.

His breath was short, and his voice rasped.

“Jace...” she called him from outside. “Viserys is fine. Not even a scratch. He just got scared.”

Jace closed his eyes, squeezing them as if he was in pain. 

“I was distracted.” He muttered. 

“What?” 

He shook his head. 

“When he…” he whispered. “I was distracted when he got hurt. I wasn’t there for Luke… and I wasn’t even watching Viserys when he fell. I can’t protect them… Why I can’t protect them?”

“Jace, it wasn’t…”

“He was scared.” He interrupted her. “I should have stayed by his side, maybe he wouldn’t have fallen…”

“Jace, Viserys is a kid. He falls one day and the other.” she let got a little laugh when she told him so. 

He sighed. 

“He doesn’t need to be protected, it’s impossible to keep him protected from everything. He needs… he wants to be loved.” 

He didn’t reply, so she continued.

“Listen, I didn’t want to put it that way, but… they miss you. Your brothers. They miss you. And they don’t miss you because you can protect them, they miss their big brother, the idiot who covered them when they did dumb shit, the one who did dumb shit with them.”

He stood up slowly, his legs shaking, and opened the door.

Baela was standing in front of him, a little encouraging smile on her lips.

He sighed and she stretched her hand toward him.

“Let’s go. They’re waiting for you.” She told him, dragging him gently.

Joffrey, Rhaena, Aegon, and Viserys were playing soccer in the backyard. Rhaena was playing goalkeeper against Joffrey. 

“What are you doing?” Baela asked while she and Jace joined Aegon and Viserys on the bench.

Joffrey turned around, his gaze on Jace. He looked away quickly. 

“Joffrey needs to practice his free-kicks,” 

It was only at that moment that Jace read what was written on his brother’s jersey. 

Dragonstone High. 

“You’re on the soccer team?”

Joffrey shrugged. 

The question was on his lips. 

Why didn’t you tell me?

He knew why he didn’t tell him. 

They’re missing you.

He smiled and took off his jacket. “Let me see those free kicks.”

Joff blinked, before shaking his head. He put the ball firmly on the grass, took a little run-up, and kicked the ball, which slammed on the line of plastic human figures they used to practice. 

“See? It doesn’t go higher than that.”

Jace chuckled. “It’s the foot…”

He showed him the right position, a thing that Cregan taught him a few months before. Joffrey tried again.

And again.

And again.

It took a while, but after a few tries, the ball hit the net with a soft sound. 

“Yeeeeeeee,” Aegon shouted, standing up with his little arms stretched over his head. 

“Wooooooo,” Rhaena shouted, with her hands around her mouth, while Baela was clapping beside her. 

“My turn, my turn,” Aegon said, running toward the ball. 

Jace showed him how to do it, and Aegon tried a little run-up, but the moment his foot touched the ball, he fell on the ground. 

Jace’s heart sank, leaving him breathless for a bit. But then Aegon looked at him with his big blue eyes wide open. 

“Oops,” he said, innocently. 

Without even realizing it, he was laughing. They were all laughing. 

Through the laughs, he glanced at Joffrey. 

"Thank you, for helping me," he muttered. "I-I'm glad you're home." 

Jace nodded.

He had missed them, too. 

“Five minutes to midnight, guys.” the deejay announced, through his microphone. 

Five minutes to midnight.

Five minutes to the end of a year that had him crawling, but that he was somehow sad to leave behind. 

The days all identical. 

His mother crying. 

Hours on a therapist chair. 

Cregan. 

If he looked back at the beginning of the year, it was hard to recognize himself. 

Is it good, right?

He had let Baela and Rhaena drag him to a club without even opposing so much resistance.  

A light buzz against his thigh made his skin shiver in excitement, and a smile appeared on his lips when he read the name on the screen. 

The smile grew wider when he saw the picture of Sarah, Aly, and Sabitha doing karaoke. 

I wonder which song you’re going to sing. Jace quickly typed back. 

None, of course. Cregan replied. 

“Uuuuh,” a whistle made him raise his eyes from the screen. Baela and Rhaena were looking at him wiggling their brows. 

“You’re making Shining all over again,” he muttered, with a smile. 

“And you’re smiling while texting,” Baela glanced at the screen, and he quickly put it in his pocket. 

“Oh, come on!” Rhaena rolled her eyes. “Like we don’t know that you have a thing for that Sarah…”

Jace scoffed. Every day he had to explain to someone that he and Sarah were just friends. 

“It’s not like that between us,” he clarified. 

“But…” he took a breath. Baela and Rhaena were his family, they were almost sisters to him. “Th-there is someone that I like, actually. It’s her… it’s her brother.” 

They blinked, their eyes big and filled with surprise.

“Cregan Stark?” Rhaena asked. 

He nodded. 

Baela chuckled, glancing at his phone. “Photo.”

Jace was surprised to notice that he and Cregan didn’t have any pictures together, maybe because when he was with him, his phone was the last thing on his mind. 

He showed a picture from the team website. 

“The captain,” Baela commented, scrolling through a site that was composed almost only by Cregan. “Jace, this guy is hot.” 

Jace snatched the device from her hands, chuckling. “Yeah, well, he is taken, so…”

“Taken?” Rhaena asked. “That means that you two…”

He shook his head. “Nah, he doesn’t see me that way. We’re just friends.”

Baela opened her mouth to reply, but her gaze remained fixed on a spot behind Jace, her eyes filled with horror. 

Jace turned around slowly, his fingers tightened around the plastic glass he was holding.

The guy in front of him opened his mouth but Jace didn’t let him speak. He turned around and dived into the sea of people, walking toward the exit. 

He had been glancing at the green signals all night, in case he had to run, so it wasn’t hard to follow the road he had imagined in his mind. 

He was outside when a hand closed around his sleeve. 

“Jace, wait.” 

He flinched, pushing the guy back. 

“Don’t fucking touch me, Daeron.” 

White, thin hair, unnatural light eyes, long, slender figure. 

Features he had learned to love: his mother, Daemon, Aegon, Viserys… Features he had long desired, hating his image in the mirror, his curls, his brown hair, brown eyes.    

Daeron was looking at him with the puppy eyes he had mastered in the years. 

“I already told you,” Jace pointed his finger at him. “Leave me alone.”

“I just want to talk…” the other said, his breath coming out in circles of icy smoke. 

“Well, I don’t!” Jace snapped. “I don’t want to talk to you. Ever.” 

Daeron moved closer and he took a step back. 

“Jace, this is not our fight,” he pleaded. “We promised not to get into this feud, remember?”   

Jace scoffed, incredulous. “Yeah, that was before your brother killed Luke.” 

His uncle stopped, maybe surprised that Jace had used those words.

They were born in the same year. They grew together, and while they grew up, the hate between their families grew as well.  

“Aemond…” Daeron blabbed. “He didn’t do it on purpose.”

“Of course he did.” 

“He only wanted to scare him, but he lost control of the car and…”

“By saying shit like this, you’re offending my intelligence and yours, too,” Jace interrupted him. “I’ve read that story many times. He didn’t want to do it, it was a tragic mistake … bullshit. Aemond had wanted that, he has had his eye on Luke for years, and he will probably come for me, as well.” 

Daeron clenched his jaw, slowly shaking his head. “I won’t let him.” 

“Don’t bother, I have who defends me.”

“I know that my brother took away so much from you… and I resent him for what he did to Luke. I’m not here to justify him or ask you to forgive him , I didn’t even know you were here, but then I saw you and I realized I don’t know anything about you, anymore. You were my best friend and now we’re strangers… I wished we could be different from the rest of our family.” 

Jace shook his head, scoffing. “ I am different from the rest of our family, and I know it because I would have never done what your brother did. Y ou don’t know how many times I’ve wanted to make all of you pay, for what happened to Luke. Your brothers have taunted me all my life for not being a true Targaryen, and guess what? I’m fucking happy that I’m not. And you should, too, because a Targaryen would send you in pieces to your mother. A Targaryen wouldn't let it slide.”

Baela and Rhaena appeared outside, their breath short as if they had run to find him. He gestured for them to wait there. 

“Goodbye, Daeron. For real, this time,” he said as he walked by, to join the girls. 

Chapter Text

Jace rolled his eyes the moment he clicked on the link Baela sent him and heard Mushroom’s voice.

“Right when our hopes were getting high, our favorite prince got taken!

Apparently, he was seen in the middle of the night, hugging a blonde girl just before the start of winter break.”

Mushroom’s tone was exaggeratingly high while describing the picture of him and Sarah hugging in front of her dorm.

And of course, people had misunderstood.  

“This is the first time the couple has been seen together in public, they were probably saying goodbye before the prince went back to Dragonstone, where he spent his holidays with his family. Isn’t that cute?” 

Mushroom tilted his head to the side, and Jace rolled his eyes again. 

“We don’t know anything about this mysterious girl, yet. The prince likely wants to keep his life private, but this passionate hug in the middle of the streets clearly means he is ready to show a little more of his life with us, so for updates, read the article linked in my bio. See you!”

The guy winked at the camera and Jace threw his phone in his duffel bag and started walking, he was already late for his first training with the main team. 

Truth be told, he wasn’t late. At all. 

He had plenty of time to reach the pitch, change himself, and join the training. But Cregan would be there at least half an hour before the training, and he didn’t want to miss the chance to talk to him. 

They hadn’t seen each other, yet, since he came back to Winterfell. The plan was to come back a week before the beginning of lessons, but he had decided to stay a little longer in Dragonstone, to see Joffrey’s match with the football team. 

That’s why he was a little disappointed when he glanced at the parking lot and Cregan’s car wasn’t there. 

“Velaryon!” 

Jon was waving at him, walking fast while holding his bag. They hugged and he gave Jace a few slaps on their backs. 

“How were your holidays?” Jon asked. 

Jace nodded. “Good, actually. Yours?”

His friend grimaced. “I ran away as soon as I could. Told my father Stark had organized a special training for the players who made it into the main team.”  

“Sounds like a thing he would totally do.” 

His friend scoffed. 

“So…” he said to him, with a sigh. “The main team.”

Jace looked at the pitch. “Yeah…” 

The announcement came when he was in Dragonstone. As Cregan asked, he pretended to be surprised, and somehow he actually was. He almost couldn’t believe it was real. 

He and Jon reached the locker rooms, getting changed, while little by little, other guys from the team arrived and greeted them.

Jon was more at ease, talking to them like they had known each other for years, while Jace checked the door obsessively, his breath stopping every time it would open. Never for Cregan. 

His hopes got high when at some point Rickard made it in the locker room, with his bag around his shoulder. After a round of high fives and gentle slaps on the face, his eyes met Jace’s.   

“Jace,” he greeted him, taking off his sweater. “Everything’s fine?” 

Jace shrugged. He liked Rickard, but right now there was only one thing he wanted to ask, and he didn’t know when it was opportune.

Rickard smirked, his face pointing at the pitch. “Cregan’s already outside, warming up.” 

Jace blinked. Already outside? 

“The first one to arrive at the pitch, the last to go away,” Rickard shrugged, in an explanation. 

Yeah, he gathered that. He just wished he would have told him. 

“There are  a few new faces, I see.”

Coach Mormont was looking at them with his hands behind his back, his back tight, his gaze scanning towards the new players. 

“Many of you may come from unknown families. Others may come from families as old as the world,” his eyes stopped briefly on Jace, who swallowed and held his gaze high. “Here, to me, you’re all the same. You make bullshit, you get the bench. You send to me your parents to complain, you get the bench for the foreseeable future. This is a team, and I am the coach: now run thirty laps.”

The round of complaints and the coach's quiet laugh made him understand that he wasn’t as severe as he appeared. 

Cregan was running ahead of him, alone. 

Jace quickened his pace to reach him.

“Hey.”

Cregan smiled briefly, before turning to look ahead. “Hi.”

Okay, strange.

He bit the inside of his cheek. “So… how were your holidays?” 

The other nodded. “Fine… Yours?” 

Stranger.

It was embarrassing. They usually talked for hours, sitting under their tree, or outside Jace’s dorm, or in the pitch, and now they couldn’t go past small talk. 

“Joffrey joined the football team, I went to see his first game.”

Cregan smiled. “Yeah, I know, you sent me the pictures.”

And he had replied. He made a joke about kicking Jace off the team and taking Joffrey in his place. They were still cool, then, so what happened? 

Maybe now that they were officially teammates he wanted to be more professional and less friendly, but he and Rickard had always been teammates and he wasn’t so cold with him at all.

Or maybe it was Jace who was overreacting.

“I think I’ll go forward.”

Cregan didn’t wait to end his phrase, before leaving Jace behind.

The days didn’t get any better.

After an afternoon spent pacing in his room, Jace texted Cregan to see if they would go to their morning run.

The weather is getting too cold. I think I’ll use the treadmill for a while.

It didn’t sound like an invitation. 

“Aly asks if she can join us,” Sarah asked him while looking up from her phone. “Is it okay for you?”

He shrugged. “Of course.”

He didn’t tell Sarah about what was happening with Cregan. They trained together twice, and he didn’t even look at him. It seemed he was even avoiding the locker room.

When one of the guys asked if they all wanted to have a beer after a rough training, Cregan waited for Jace to accept, before saying he had to study for a test.

When Jace was alone, his throat itched from wanting to ask him what was wrong, but when they were together, his lips were glued.

Something was wrong. And he was too scared to ask because he didn’t know what he would do with himself if he had the proof he had done something to him.

He had one thing right. And he ruined it. Even if he didn’t know how.

“Hi!”

Aly dropped her books on the wooden table of the library and sat in front of him.

When he first met her he was a little threatened by her: she and Cregan were best friends since they could remember, and everybody mistook them for a couple, just like him and Sarah. 

It took him just an evening with her and Sabitha to see that her eyes were only for her girlfriend. 

“I think I’ll have some coffee,” Sarah stood up, rubbing her eyes. “Do you want some?”

Jace shook his head. Aly showed her a cup of iced coffee. 

He and Aly remained in silence for a bit: they had never talked much. When they were together, Jace was usually too taken with Cregan.

“Ready for your first away game?” 

The question almost startled him. 

In a few days, he had to leave with the team for the match against Harrenal, and he had been so obsessed with Cregan’s mood that he had almost forgotten about it. 

Another thing to worry about. 

“Yeah, a bit.” 

Aly giggled. “Don’t need to worry, Cregan told him you’re the best rookie he has ever seen.”

Aly looked confused over her textbook. “Uhm… yeah of course.”

“Has Cregan told something about me?”

She blinked, frowning her dark eyebrows. 

Maybe his question could sound a little ambiguous. 

“I-I mean,” Jace shook his head, with his eyes closed. “Is he… mad at me or something?”

Her features softened. “Mad at you? He basically adores you.”

He nodded, unsatisfied. 

“Why are you asking this?” 

He shrugged. “He’s been a little colder, lately. B-but maybe he’s just a little stressed.”

“He has a lot of pressure,” Aly agreed. “And he handles it worse than it seems.” 

“Why?” 

She sighed. “He has the team, the school, and… well, the North : assemblies, meetings, problems… It’s almost like everyone expects him to become a second version of his father. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that he is only twenty-one.”

Jace couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. Cregan had been there for him for months, and he didn’t even notice he was struggling. 

“Cregan’s far from perfect,” Aly told him. “But he is sincere. If he has a problem with you, he will tell you.” 

That was true. 

His Cregan wasn’t the type to use the silent treatment. 

His Cregan. 

Sounded good. 

The match against Harrenhal was in the evening, but they left early in the morning. Jon took his place next to Jace with a sigh. 

“I’m gonna puke,” he admitted. 

“Motion sickness?” Jace asked. 

“Performance sickness,” the other explained. “My father is going to watch the game and pick on everything I do wrong.” 

“No offense,” Jace began. “But your father doesn’t know shit.”

Jon widened his brown eyes, blinking at him. 

Jace shrugged. “What? It’s his problem if he doesn’t see how good you play, how hard you train.”

“Wow,” his friend nodded. “Thank you, Doctor Velaryon.”

He laughed, but his good mood disappeared when Cregan got on the bus. Their eyes met briefly, and Jace smiled, waving at him. 

Cregan looked away. 

“Did you fight or something?” 

The question arrived at his ears like he was underwater. 

One thing was that he noticed something wrong, but others noticing it made it real. It wasn’t his anxious, catastrophist brain, it was someone’s logical one who also noticed it. 

“I don’t know. We were normal, during the holidays.”

Jon nodded. 

“Listen, don’t… don’t take this the wrong way, but…” his teammate glanced around. “Are you…I mean, is there something between you?”

Jace turned so quickly that his neck hurt. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.”

Swallowing was hard, and so was keeping calm. 

“Jace, it’s okay…” Jon shrugged. “I don’t mind if you two are together. I don’t even mind if you don’t want to tell me.”

“It’s complicated,” Jace admitted, finally. “We’re just friends, but I…”

“You want more.”

He nodded.

“And he…?” 

“Fuck if I know,” Jace sighed and tilted his head on the headrest. “For now he barely looks at me.”

“Try to talk to him, maybe?” 

Cregan was sitting a few seats behind him, next to Rickard. He was looking outside the window with his headphones on, a muscle pulsating on his jaw.

Talking to him was a good idea, but hard to execute, since the captain was so evasive.

Jace took out his phone, and quickly typed.

Hey, everything’s fine?

He turned around. Cregan read the text almost immediately but didn’t glance up at him. His jaw tightened while he stared at the screen, and Jace thought he wouldn’t reply until he saw his fingers tapping.

Yeah, why?

You seem strange, that’s it

The reply was so quick, he didn’t have time to turn around and see his reaction.

Just busy.

This time Jace looked at him, before replying. He had his forehead leaning forward against the headrest ahead of him.

You know you can always talk to me, right? 

He could be wrong, but he had the impression that Cregan pressed his head against the headrest a little bit more. But didn’t reply.

“We are in the room together,” Jon told him, with a slap on his back.

Coach Mormont gave them three hours to get settled in their room, maybe do some light exercise to wake the legs, rest a bit, and then they would meet at the campus. 

“I think I’ll go for a walk,” he muttered while wearing a black hoodie without the Winterfell logo.

“Looking for Cregan?”

He shook his head.

The moment the bus crossed the Welcome to Harrenhal signal, something changed inside him, and for the first time in a few days, the thing with Cregan wasn’t what worried him the most. 

Harrenhal.

In another life, this would be his city. He would have been raised there, or at least he would have been there more.

The day they told him Harwin Strong was dead in an accident, he desperately begged his mother to bring him there, and after hours of pleading and crying, he searched Harrhenal in the map he found in his geography book. 

And for years, he had been mad at that city: Harwin had been fine until he had gone there. Nothing ever happened to him while he was in King’s Landing, so to his eyes it was all Harrhenal’s fault. The haunted, cursed Harrhenal.

That resentment followed even when he was walking the streets alone, a hoodie to cover his hair and face. He walked with his headphones on, hands twitching in the big pocket of his hoodie. 

Harrhenal was smaller than Winterfell, so it didn’t take a lot before he was crossing the imponent black gates with his head down, turning the music off in respect of the dead. 

Asking for direction in a cemetery was… strange. He didn’t even know if it was something people did; surprisingly, he hadn’t been to a lot of cemeteries.

He paced aimlessly until he glanced at a big chapel. 

Strong’s Family Chapel. 

The doors to the chapel were closed, but he could see the inside through the glass. 

Strong.

Strong.

Harwin Strong. 

Disappointment filled his chest. For all those years, there had always been a tiny hope that Harwin could still be alive.

That his father would still be alive.

His mother had forbidden him to use that word, even to his brothers, Luke was big enough to remember him, but Joffrey was barely a newborn boy when their father died in that gas escape, and with the years, nobody remembered him anymore. Joffrey not only didn’t know who their father was, he didn’t even know there had been a Harwin Strong in their lives. 

Looking at the picture next to his name almost made him laugh: he understood why the people barely needed to look at him to guess who his father was. They were identical.

His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he was about to turn it off, until he saw the name on the screen.

“Hello?” He replied.

Only a deep sigh came from the other side of the line.

“Hi,” Cregan’s voice sounded strained. “Uhm…Where are you?”

Jace looked around. “Out for a walk. I’ll see you at the game.” 

“Can I join you?”

 He was tempted to say no. But the only thing he said was:

“I’ll send you the location.”

Cregan arrived so soon that someone would think he had already been looking for him.

“Strange place to meet.” 

He walked slowly toward him until they were standing side by side, with their hands in their pockets. 

Jace shrugged.

“Why are you here?” Cregan asked.

Jace wanted to reply that he could ask the same thing, yet he simply pointed at Harwin’s grave. 

Cregan looked at the grave, then at Jace. Then at the grave again, and then back at him.

“Did you know him?” The captain asked.

Jace bit his lip, looking down. 

“He was our bodyguard, when we were little,” Jace briefly glanced at Cregan, at how he was looking at Harwin’s picture, putting the pieces together. “He was also my father.”

He made sure to look at him, while saying it, to pick every little change in his look. His gray eyes widened a bit in shock. 

“I know you know,” Jace muttered, looking away. “I bet the rumor arrived at Winterfell.”

The response was quick.

“I never cared about rumors,” Cregan’s voice was firm. “And I’ve never cared about names.” 

Jace smiled but didn’t look at him.

“You look very much alike,” the captain admitted, coming closer. 

Jace smiled.

“He took me to my first soccer match, taught me how to play…” 

“He taught you well. He must be proud.”

He turned to look at him and found him smiling. And for the first time since the holidays, their eyes met. 

Fuck, he missed him.

“I’m not so sure, sometimes.”

His father would have protected Luke, his father would have never let Aemond walk away from what he did, he would have hunted him, and killed him. 

“Of course he would,” Cregan gently took his arm and forced him to look at him. “Why wouldn’t he? You’re kind, you love your family, you’re loyal to your friends…”

He stopped for a bit.

“Speaking about that,” he continued. “Remember when we first met?” 

Jace chuckled. “Yeah.”

“I know I’ve gone all crazy about you and my sister, and I’ve said a lot of bullshit…” he closed his eyes and shook his head. “I just want you to know that it’s okay to me if you two are together, you don’t have to hide from me.” 

Jace scoffed. “What?”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Cregan’s gaze was severe.

“We’re not hiding anything, from anyone . We’re not together, you know that.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Cregan’s eyes got colder. “I’ve seen the photos, and the videos, and the articles…”

“Everyone did, probably,” Jace shrugged. “But that does not mean we’re together.”

“You two were hugging.” Cregan almost growled. 

Was that why he had been acting strange? He thought he and Sarah were dating? Was he jealous?

For a fraction of a second, he let himself think that maybe he wasn’t alone in this, that maybe Cregan wanted more, too. 

“Is this why you’ve been avoiding me all week?” 

Cregan looked away. “Among other reasons.” 

“Sarah is my best friend,” Jace stated, firmly. “And I know what those pictures showed, but that does not change that she is my best friend. Nothing more.”

“You promise to tell me if you start dating?”

He nodded. “You promise to talk to me next time instead of always assuming?”

Cregan smiled. “I promise.” 

Jace looked away before he’d do something stupid.

The buzzing of the stadium was deafening.

Thank gods he wasn’t playing, he was sitting on the bench near Jon. The game wasn’t going particularly bad, it was just… boring. Boring as fuck . 

He imagined this match either as a triumph or as a defeat. He didn’t expect a 0-0. 

Cregan was playing, his captain band around his lean arm, a light veil of sweat on his body that made Jace’s stomach do funny things.

Coach Mormont was purple, screaming at the players. 

The other striker was slow, almost limping, he reached Cregan and talked in his ear, pointing at his thigh. 

Cregan looked at his teammate and ran toward the coach.

Jace followed the scene with his eyes glued to Cregan, he couldn’t hear anything of what Cregan and the coach were saying.

The two were talking, and Cregan pointed at his thigh.

Coach Mormont looked around, his hands on his hips, and for a moment, he looked at Jace.

He asked Cregan something, and now Jace was sure that Cregan looked at him, even for a second, before nodding. It wasn’t hard to read his lips.

“Yeah,” the captain said.

Another question from the coach. 

“I’m sure.”

The coach nodded and dismissed him with a slap on his back, and then walked to him.

“Velaryon, warm up.” 

He didn’t even look at him, he just resumed screaming at the other guys in the pitch.

Jace blinked.

“Dude, go!” Jon pushed him.

He stood up, and rapidly ran to the side of the field, warming up.

He didn’t know if the stadium got louder or if it was his own thoughts, but his ears we’re ringing and everything felt suddenly too surreal to be true. 

The referee whistled, and Tyrell, the striker he was substituting, limped toward him and gave him a nod, before exiting the field. 

His eyes found Cregan’s. The captain gave him a nod.

The referee whistled again. 

Rickard took the ball and ran toward their area, a minute later, Cregan had the ball but was getting hunted by two of the Harrhenal’s defenders. 

With a spin, he made it in kicking the ball to Jace, who in a fraction of a second, had all the eyes on his. 

There wasn’t time to be surprised, because three defenders were already heading toward him. 

He took the ball and ran toward the goal, alone, but could hear the footsteps behind him.

Cregan was still marked by a player, sending him the ball would have been risky, but he couldn’t make it to the goal before the other players would reach him.

So he made a desperate attempt. 

He glanced at the goal, at the players on the back, at the people in the stands. And kicked. 

The ball rolled quickly and low, so low that it crawled under the goalkeeper while he was jumping to catch it. 

The stadium was so silent that everybody heard the rustle of the net. 

And then the roar. 

Jace blinked, and for a moment everything felt unreal. If it wasn’t for his teammates running towards him, he wouldn’t believe it was true. 

He was still stunned when strong hands took his face and he met Cregan’s grey gaze.

The other players joined them, someone jumped on his back, and others ruffled his hair. Cregan didn’t say anything, he just smiled at him, and when the others went away, he kissed the top of his head, before letting him go. 

They won the game, thanks to his last-minute goal. 

He lost count of the handshakes, the high five, and the pats on his back that he had received.

The coach nodded at him without a word, but his lips hid a smile. 

The locker rooms were loud, people singing, people shouting, people waving their jerseys… 

“Guess you’re the hero, tonight,” Jon told him. 

He shrugged, smiling. “It was just luck.”

Jon shoved him, with a laugh. “Oh come on! You were good, you can say it. And I’m not the only one thinking it.” 

Jon moved his eyes to the side, and Jace followed his gaze until he met Cregan’s eyes. 

He was talking with Rickard and Tyrell, the striker he had replaced, but his eyes were on him. 

“The mood is better between you…” his friend noticed.

Jace nodded. 

“You two talked through it?”

He looked up again: Cregan wasn’t talking with his friends, anymore, and was now heading to the showers. 

Naked. 

Well, with his towel on, but Jace still couldn’t tear his eyes off his lean body covered in sweats, the white towel falling tightly on his hips, outlining the curve of his ass. 

There is a silent agreement, between people sharing a locker room: you keep your eyes down and don’t be a creep. Yet, how could he look away from that? Or from his muscular shoulders and the veins on his forearm?

Cregan had him almost hypnotized, made him follow his figure in awe, his mouth so dry it took a bit of an effort to swallow. 

Being friends with him would have been easier if he wasn’t the hottest person in the world. 

He saw him untie the knot that kept his towel on and quickly looked away, eager to put himself under the nearest cold shower. 

As much as he wanted to just go into his hotel room and faint over the blankets with his clothes still on, his teammates had other plans, so he found himself in a club with neon lights flashing in his eyes. 

He had somehow forgotten about how easy it was to get into a club as a sports team, even if you scored the goal against the home team.

The club was full. The music was thumping in his ears, resonating in his chest, while he looked around at the bodies dancing and grinding against each other. 

“You’re okay?” 

Cregan was looking at him with his neck lightly twisted. Jace nodded, surprised that he actually was okay. 

For a moment, though, he caressed the idea of holding onto the other’s arm but held back. 

After those days apart, he didn’t want to overstep. 

His mind still couldn’t wrap around their talk at the cemetery. Was it jealousy? 

Or maybe he really had believed that article and was trying to give him and Sarah their privacy, which was hilarious.

But could it be jealousy?

They got into the privè and ordered their drinks, toasting to the new season. Cregan seemed a lot happier than the last days: he joked, laughed, teased his teammates, and every now and then he stopped to look at him.  

The last time he had been in a similar club, it was on New Year’s Day. 

You were my best friend and now we’re strangers… I wished we could be different from the rest of our family.

He didn’t tell his mother about Daeron: she was finally happy after a long time, and he had no intention of being the one who dragged her back into that mess. 

Yet after meeting his uncle, a rage had been burning in his chest. How could he let him go that way? Why didn’t he avenge Luke? 

A warm hand brought him to reality. He looked down to see Cregan’s palm on his knee, stopping him from shaking nervously. 

He looked up, and was welcomed by a warm smile and two curious eyes indagating him. When Cregan was looking at him, it never felt strange, he never felt uneasy. He felt protected. 

Maybe that was the thing he liked the most about him, about their friendship: he would have handed him his entire life, and would have trusted him with it.

The night went on and on, and he followed what the guys were saying while Cregan’s hand was casually resting on his thigh, his thumb caressing his knee.

After a while, every now and then, his teammates left the table, whenever they eyed a girl remotely interested in them. Even Jon followed a blonde girl to her table, and was now all over her on the privè’s red leather sofa. 

“Told you,” Rickard leaned forward, talking to Jace. “Once you start playing, the girls start raining.”

“Speaking of that…That girl is begging you to offer her to drink,” Tyrell told him, pointing at a redhead on the table behind theirs. The girl lifted a shoulder and smiled at him. 

Cregan’s hand tightened his grip on Jace’s thigh.

He chuckled. “I’m good, thanks.” 

“You got a girl at home?” 

He shook his head. “No.”

“Wait, haven’t I seen some photos of you with a blonde girl?” 

Both Cregan and Rickard stiffened in their seats. 

He shook his head again. “She’s my best friend.” 

… And I’m obsessed with her brother. 

“Then listen to me,” He leaned toward him and put a hand on the back of his chair. “Go to that girl and offer her to drink.”

“He said he’s good.” Cregan basically growled, his teeth clenched and his gaze firm and severe. 

Tyrell looked at him with his mouth open in surprise, then closed it with a smile. 

“Fine, Lord Stark, calm down,” he lifted his hands, then looked at Rickard. “Carstark, can I offer you a drink?”

Rickard smiled. “It depends… Are you trying to take advantage of me?” 

“Of course, duh.” 

Rickard stood up. “Then I’m in.” 

The two left the table, and Jace and Cregan were alone. 

And that was jealousy. 

“It’s getting a little loud,” Jace admitted. “Do you want to get out?”

Cregan looked at him with eyes wide open. “Good idea.”

Harrhenal wasn’t colder than Winterfell, nothing was. It was more humid, though, and Jace closed his jacket around his neck.

Cregan walked beside him, with his jaw clenched.

“Everything’s fine?”

The captain turned his head, almost surprised that he wasn’t alone. He nodded quickly.

“It’s been a rough week, that’s it.”

“Why?”

The other sighed. 

“Nothing… and everything. It’s just that… sometimes I think I’ve dreamed too much. I’ve always wanted to continue my ancestors' legacy, and build something on my own…” he sighed. They were still walking, and Cregan kept his gaze glued to the ground. “Everyone expects something of me, and it’s my fault because I made them think so, I wanted them to think so, but now it’s getting too much. I think the time I will let everyone down is near, and I’m trying to prevent it but it’s getting overwhelming. I know I have to give up on something, but I can’t…”

In the distance, they could see the sign of the hotel flashing before them. 

Jace looked at him, hoping that Cregan would turn, but didn’t. He wondered how many people had ever seen him like that. 

“You haven’t dreamed too much. Nothing is too much, for you.”

Cregan scoffed, so Jace took it gently by the forearm and made it stop. 

“But you shouldn’t do all of this on your own. You have to share this with someone.”

Finally, a pair of gray eyes looked into his. And a smirk took his breath away. 

“Someone like…?” 

Cregan had a clever face while asking him that, and thank gods it was dark, so nobody could see Jace’s cheeks coloring. They were close, too close, so close that he had to lift his chin to look into his eyes. 

“I don’t know…Sarah, Alysanne, Rickard…”

The captain bit his lips, nodding. “Or You...” 

Jace giggled. “I mean, yeah, if you run out of options…”

Cregan laughed, a deep sound that carried something…sensual, and his eyes dropped to Jace’s lips. 

“You know,” Cregan whispered, and his tongue wiped his lips before he swallowed. “I missed you, this week.”

He fixed the lapel of Jace’s jacket with his hands, his fingers lingering on his chest, and Jace held his breath.

There must have been a point when they had stepped close to each other, the closest they had ever been. Jace only needed to raise his head a little bit more and their noses would have touched. 

He whiffed. “I missed you, too.” 

Cregan's fingers tightened the grip around the fabric of his jacket, and the following second, their lips were on each other. 

That kiss was a lot of things all together: strong, decisive, unexpected . Jace welcomed it with his lips half open, and despite being surprised for the first instant, his hands found Cregan’s face and held it like he was afraid he could slip away.

Cregan slid his hands down Jace’s side, nestling on his hips, and with a low groan, he pushed his tongue inside the other’s mouth, exploring it with careful impatience. 

And Jace understood what it meant to be being turned on: his body was on fire, electrified like a thunderstorm. 

They walked to the nearest wall, Jace walking backward until his back was pushed against the cold bricks. 

It was all absurd, they kissed like it was something they had done a million times, and they kissed like this would have been the last time.

Cregan’s hands moved downward until they found the soft flesh of his ass, and he gripped it rubbing their groins. 

He had never felt so wanted. No, actually, he had never felt so needed . 

Cregan rolled his hips again, and this time, Jace felt distinctly the shape of his cock against his, and couldn’t hold the whimper that came from his mouth.

Cregan stepped back abruptly, putting as much distance as the sidewalk allowed. He looked wrecked, with his hair messed up and his lips swollen, his gray eyes were wide open in shock while looking at him.

Jace tried to come closer but the other stepped back, shaking his head.

“Sorry, this was a mistake,” He simply whispered. “Sorry.”

That was the last thing he said before turning around and leaving him alone.

Chapter Text

The week after his first match, the snow covered Winterfell completely, reducing the city to a white, soft sea. 

The good thing was, the lessons were interrupted, and the trainings, too, so he didn’t get to meet Cregan and the silent treatment he was surely going to give him. 

The bad thing was that Sarah had invited him to her holiday house in The Wall, the big mountain in the North, and he had to find an excuse to not go, supposing Cregan would be there, too.

So there he was, spending his days in bed, without changing his pajamas, and getting out of his room only to go to the dining hall or to get groceries to cook in the microwave in the common rooms. 

More than once, more than a dozen times, actually, he had taken out his phone and opened Cregan’s chat. He had looked at the last texts, from when they were on the bus to Harrenhal: 

You know you can always talk to me, right?

He wished he would actually do it. He wished Cregan would open his chat and read it as a reminder.

He wasn’t the one who had to take the first step, though, he wasn’t the one who had gotten jealous twice and then kissed him just to run away without any explanation. 

Maybe it would be easier if he only could get that kiss out of his mind, but no, he kept reliving it in his mind before going to sleep, while studying, in the shower…  But then he remembered Cregan was probably out there regretting it. 

As always, when the thoughts were getting too much, he had taken the habit of going for a walk, so he got dressed with as many layers as he could, put his heaviest raincoat on, and got out of the building. 

No one was daring enough to go out for something that wasn’t necessary, so he usually found himself alone on the campus. 

His feet made a funny sound when he stepped on the snow, and having to pay attention to his footsteps to not slip helped him get out of his head a bit. 

Soon enough, he arrived at the pitch. It was strange to see it covered with white snow, and not green grass, it didn’t even seem the same pitch he and Cregan had played on countless times. On that same place, he had promised Cregan to be dedicated to the team, that year, to give his all to football.

And now they didn’t even talk anymore, because of a kiss that would have haunted them for the rest of his life. 

He shook his head. No, it wasn’t his fault, this time: he was being good, he was training, and concentrating on the team, and yes, he was spending every waking moment thinking about Cregan but was keeping his hands to himself. That kiss changed everything. 

With a sigh, he turned around, slowly, trying not to slip. When the pitch was behind him, he raised his eyes and stopped walking. 

He was used to walking around completely alone around the campus, those days. 

But that time, he wasn’t alone, apparently.

“Oh,” he stopped, blinking to be sure it was real. “Hi.”

Cregan clenched his jaw, tense.

“Hi, Jace.”

Jace cleared his throat. “I-I thought you were with Sarah, Aly, and Sabitha.”

He nodded. “I thought you were, too.” 

Perfect. Their attempt to avoid each other had gone so far that they actually bumped into each other.

It was so ironic he couldn’t hold a bitter laugh. He shook his head. 

“Goodbye, Cregan.” 

He tried to surpass him, his steps slow and careful, but stopped when a gentle hand closed lightly around his elbow.

“Jace, Wait…”

Jace stopped, Cregan’s hand still around his elbow, he turned around, the silent question in his brown eyes. 

“I was hoping we could talk,” Cregan's voice was low, tentative. The confident captain looked almost nervous while clenching his jaw and trying to find words. 

Jace laughed, shaking his head. “You were hoping we could talk while avoiding me? Clever strategy, captain.”

“I was avoiding you, yes,” the other admitted, lowering his gaze. “But then I saw you and… and now I was hoping we could talk.” 

Cregan’s gray eyes were on him, and he had to look away.

The phone in his pocket rang, he picked it up and read Baela on the screen. He closed the call and put it back in his pocket.

“Let me at least drive you home.” 

He was dying to talk to him, he had been for the last few days. But now the thought of Cregan telling him they couldn’t be friends anymore because of that kiss made him want to never talk to him ever again. In any case, he would lose him.

Another ring from his phone, a text this time.

Please, Jace, pick up. 

While his phone was still in his hands, Baela’s name appeared again on the screen.

“Sorry, I have to pick up.”

He put the device against his ear. “Baela?” 

“Jace!” she gasped at the phone. “Where are you? Are you okay?” 

He knew that tone, he had already heard her talking like that.

His pulse quickened, his breath was short, and his chest was hurting. 

A hand closed around his forearm and he met Cregan’s eyes. 

“W-what happened?” Jace asked Baela, unable to keep down the trembling in his voice.

“We’re fine… I mean, no one is harmed, but… Aemond came back.”

The words hit him like a punch in the stomach. His legs faltered, and Cregan came even closer.

Baela was still talking, but her words didn’t reach his mind. Only one thing could. Three words.

Aemond came back.

He had been waiting for that, hating him for hiding, imagining all the things he could do to get revenge. 

So why was he scared, now? Why did he feel watched? 

“Jace, are you listening?” 

“Y-yes. But…how? Does the police know?” 

“That’s why I’m calling you,” her voice broke a bit. “They say they can’t do anything, that the proof against him isn't enough. He is free to go anywhere he wants, including Winterfell.” 

He looked around. The campus was quiet and white, just like it had been before that call, but it felt less safe. Everything felt less safe, now.

“Our front yard is filled with journalists. Do you have a safe place to go?”

The only place he could think about was his dorm. 

“Yes.”

“Go there and wait until we manage to get you a car, okay?” 

“Okay.” 

“Jace?” Baela called him again.

“Yes?” 

“Be safe.” 

He closed the call and put his phone back into his pocket. For a moment, he stayed still, not knowing what to do next. 

“Everything is fine?”

Soft fingers closed around his forearm, taking him out of his mind, even if just for a bit. 

Jace could feel his heartbeat going faster, an attack approaching. He wanted to stay there with him, but he didn’t feel safe. 

“C-can you take me to my dorm?” He asked, his voice trembling. “I-I will explain everything in the car.”

Cregan nodded. “Of course.” 

They got in the car and drove around the empty streets.

The car was warm, and the seats were heated. The warmth was calming him, like an embrace.

“It was Baela, on the phone,” Jace explained. “She told me that my uncle Aemond is back and he is now free to go anywhere in the country. He… he was the one who killed Luke.”

Cregan’s eyes flew on him, leaving the road for a bit.

“Your brother was killed?”

He nodded. “Our uncle hunted him with his car until he fell from a cliff. But apparently, they don't have enough proof to prove it.” 

Cregan was trying to look at the road and at him at the same time. 

“Jace I’m…”

He stopped talking the moment the car turned into his lane. And both of them looked with horror at the courtyard filled with journalists, photographers, and cameras. Jace assumed they were all for him.

One of the photographers turned around and his eyes met Jace’s.

The photographer didn’t hesitate to take his camera and point at him, blinding him with its flash.

The others in his courtyard turned around and saw him, all of them coming toward him. 

“Jace!” One of them shouted.

“Fuck.” Cregan hissed. 

He managed to turn the car around, but a few journalists had reached them. 

“Do you know about your uncle's comeback?”

“How is your mother able to protect our country if she isn’t able to protect her own family?”

“Stay down,” Cregan told him while finally speeding up. Leaving the photographers behind. 

Jace saw all those people racing to their cars.  

“They’re going to follow us.”

“I know a shortcut.”

The car’s tires squealed on the concrete, and the car completely turned around before coming back onto the main road. 

A few cars followed them. 

“They’re behind us,” Jace advised him. 

“Not for long.”

Cregan turned abruptly toward a secondary road, so quickly Jace had to brace himself. Before he could settle again, the car made another abrupt steering, this time, the back of Cregan’s car slipped on the icy road.

Jace turned around, but this time, no one was following them. 

Whe the door of Cregan’s apartment was finally locked behind him, he felt heavy. Since Baela’s call, everything happened so quickly that his mind was too involved to panic, now that the quiet and empty atmosphere of the house had welcomed him, it all fell onto him altogether. Everything was so heavy that he crumbled on the floor. 

 “Jace?” 

Had Luke been that scared while Aemond was chasing him? 

Jace was with Cregan, and it had been absolutely terrifying. His little brother was alone. Alone and scared in his car that he had been driving for just a few months, at the moment of the car crash. 

Would Luke blame him for not protecting him? Would Luke resent him for not avenging him? For not dying in his place? 

It didn’t matter, now. He was about to die, anyway. Even if he survived that attack, Aemond would find him and finish what he had started. 

“I don’t want to die,” he whispered, in a strangled whine. 

Soft hands touched his cheeks.

“You’re not going to die, Jace. I promise.” 

Cregan was kneeling in front of him, his knees between his legs. 

“This war is going to kill me, I know.” 

It’s something he had always known, like a knowledge he had in his bones, in his soul. He would have died by the hands of his own family. And Luke’s death did nothing but cement that knowledge in him. 

“No one is going to kill you. You’re safe.” 

He sobbed. 

If he had a little courage, he would avenge his brother, without caring if he died. 

But he cared, he didn’t want to die. 

Cregan shifted beside him, his back against the wooden door. His hand buried in his curls and held him close. 

“Breath deep,” he whispered in his ear. “We’re gonna fix everything. You’re going to be fine.” 

He shook his head against Cregan’s shoulder.  

Who did he think he was? Why would he be the only Targaryen who lived a long, happy life?

“It’s in my blood,” Jace explained. “I won’t live long.” 

Cregan held him even tighter. 

“Our blood can only tell us our past, not our future.”

They stayed in silence, sitting on the cold tiles of Cregan’s living room, with his fingers caressing his hair, holding him whenever he trembled, or sobbed, or sighed. 

In his arms, it was easier to believe he would be safe. It was like the muscles of his shoulder were made for his head to lean on it. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. 

Cregan chuckled. “Sorry for what?” 

“For being difficult.” 

He chuckled again. “I wish everything was as easy as being with you.” 

Jace would have asked what it meant, but his phone rang again and this time it was his mother. 

“Mom?”  

“Jace, are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” he replied. “I tried to go back to my dorm but it’s already filled with journalists.” 

“Really? Already?” 

He nodded, as if she could see him. “Yes.” 

She sighed, and he could imagine her passing her hand through her white hair. 

“I’m sending someone to pick you up. Maybe the jet, or a car…”

“Not with this snow.” 

Jace turned to Cregan, he didn’t even know he was listening until he spoke. 

“Who is it?” her mother asked. 

Jace swallowed. “I-I’m with Cregan Stark. I’m at his house.”

He didn’t know why he did it, but he put his phone on speaker. 

“Nice to meet you, Lady Targaryen,” Cregan said on the phone. 

“Hi, Cregan,” his mother sounded relieved. “Thank you for helping Jace.” 

Cregan turned to him and looked him in his eyes. He smiled. 

“Jace is a dear friend to me. I would do anything for… to help him. But regarding what I was telling you before, there is a storm right now in Winterfell. And Winterfell storms are… unpredictable.” 

“What would you suggest, then?” 

“If he’s fine with it, he can stay here, at least for now. I have a spare room he can use.”

“You’re kind, Cregan, but right now he is not completely safe there.” 

“I know you’re worried about his safety,” Cregan replied, his voice firm. “And I am, too. Just know that until he is in my city, he is as safe as he’d be in Dragonstone. You have my word.” 

Surprisingly, his mother chuckled. 

“You know, you talk like just your father. It’s impressive.” 

Cregan smiled. “Everybody tells me so.” 

“It’s a good thing, your father was one of the most honorable men I’ve ever encountered.”

Cregan’s smile grew even wider, his eyes filled with pride. 

“Jace, what do you think? Are you okay staying in Winterfell?” 

Good question. 

He didn’t want to leave Winterfell, to leave Sarah, to leave Cregan, but living under Cregan’s roof… was dangerous, to say the least. 

“I think it’s okay,” he diverged his gaze from him. “At least for now.” 

They closed the call a little later, and when Jace lifted his gaze, Cregan was looking at him with a half smile. 

“I like your mother,” he admitted. “She cares a lot about you.” 

Jace chuckled. “I think she likes you, too. It’s rare for her to like people external to the family.”

Cregan smiled. “Do you feel better?” 

He nodded. “Are you sure it isn’t a problem, for you, to have me here?”

“Wouldn’t you help me, if I was the one in trouble?” the other interrupted him. 

“Of course I would.”

He lifted his shoulder. “Then we have the answer, I guess.”

Cregan patted his thigh getting up, then helped him stand up as well. 

“Do you want to take a shower and get changed? Your clothes are wet.” 

The snow on his clothes was melting in freezing rivulets on his skin, making him shiver. 

“Yeah, it would be amazing.” 

“Come with me, I’ll give you clean clothes.” 

Jace had already been in Cregan’s room, the night at the party. But at the time he wasn’t so… involved with him, now being in his room made him antsy and almost breathless. 

The bed at the center of the room, with Cregan's figure impressed on it, was making his stomach twirl. 

Maybe accepting his invitation wasn’t wise. 

“This may be a little bigger, but I think they’ll suit you.” 

Cregan gave him a sweater and a pair of trousers to wear, then showed him the bathroom and where to get clean towels.

“I’ll leave you alone, then.”  

Jace hoped the warm spray of the shower would calm him. He was wrong. 

The lukewarm water embraced his tender skin and relaxed him, yes, but soon enough his mind started wandering, remembering firm lips and an exigent tongue prying at his mouth, while hands touched as much skin they could get. 

Was Cregan bothered like him by his presence? Did the memories haunt him, too? 

Probably not. Especially after having another attack in front of him. 

He got out of the shower and put on the clothes Cregan gave him, and seven hells if they smelled good. Seeing himself in the mirror with Cregan’s clothes on was thrilling, he felt his . 

He looked for a hairdryer, unsuccessfully. 

With his hair still damp, he got out to ask Cregan. But didn’t find him alone.

A middle-aged man was in the living room with him, all dressed in black, from the hat on his head to the coat that looked a lot like a uniform. It was only when his eyes fell on the gun hanging by his belt that Jace realized what he was. 

Nightwatch. 

“Cregan,” the man told him. “You didn’t tell me you were having guests.” 

Cregan clenched his jaw. “I was about to. Jace, this is my uncle, Bennard. Uncle, this is Jace. He plays in the team.”

Uncle? 

“Nice to meet you, sir.”

The man smiled and Jace stretched his hand to Cregan’s uncle. He took it and gripped it tightly. 

“Nice to meet you…My nephew didn’t tell me he was friends with a prince, nonetheless.”

Jace looked at Cregan, the north boy’s hands were clenched on his thighs. 

“I know a Targaryen when I see one. Must be the nose,” Cregan’s uncle chuckled and touched his own nose. 

“Uncle.”

Cregan’s tone was severe. His uncle looked at him and chuckled. 

“Sorry Jace, I’ve been told North’s humor is not appreciated in the South.” 

Jace smiled. “Don’t worry, sir. We do appreciate some humor even in the South.” 

Bennard looked at him with his head tilted to the side, maybe waiting for Jace to diverge his gaze. Jace stood in front of him without lowering his gaze of an inch. 

If this man was somehow hoping to scare him, he probably didn't know Jace had been raised by Daemon Targaryen. 

“I’ll get you to the car, uncle.” 

The man looked away with a sly smile and nodded. 

“Goodbye, Jace. It was a pleasure to meet you.” 

Jace smiled briefly. “The pleasure is all mine.” 

The two disappeared behind the wooden door. He waited to hear their footsteps and ran towards the window of the guest room. Sarah always complained that the room was too close to the street and that she couldn’t sleep because of the noises. He opened the window and hid behind the glass. And waited. 

“It must be serious, to make you call me .”

Bennard’s voice wasn’t less derogatory, now that he was talking to his nephew. 

“You can’t talk like that to a guest in my house.” 

“Please tell me he isn’t Sarah’s boyfriend,” his uncle commented. 

“What?! No!” Cregan replied quickly. “Sarah isn’t even here.” 

The man sounded relieved. “Thank gods. I wouldn’t stand to see a Stark with a Targaryen.” 

Cregan shook his head, scoffing. “So you consider Sarah a Stark, now? That wasn’t what you told her last time you talked to her.” 

“Well, you consider her so, that means that now all the North does. I guess I can’t do much about it,” the man shrugged. “What is he doing here, by the way?”

Cregan looked around. “He needs help.”

Bennard scoffed. “Who cares if a Targaryen needs help?” 

“I do.”

Bennard pointed his finger at his nephew. “You would really help a family who doesn’t even respect you, your land, your birthright? And for what?”

“Jace is my friend.” 

“Targaryens don’t make friends.” 

“Starks do,” he replied. “ I do.”  

“You’re foolish just like your father,” Bennard spat like an insult. 

Cregan glared at him and stepped closer to him. His uncle, once presumptuous, moved back, swallowing. 

“You seem to forget that it is in the name of my father’s kindness that you’re not in Winterfell’s prison.” 

Jace thought that he had seen the worst of Cregan when they first met. Now he realized it was nothing, compared to that: his friend was growling at his uncle, his teeth clenched, his lips tight. 

“Now,” Cregan continued. “Do you want to help me or should I do it on my own?”

The man nodded. “What do you need?” 

“I need your men to control every access to Winterfell, to the North in general. You have to look for this man.” 

Cregan took his phone and showed his uncle a photo Jace couldn’t see, but he supposed he knew who was in that photo. 

“Aemond Targaryen? He is easy to recognize.” 

“If he comes close to the northern border, I want to know it. And I want you to stop him.”

The man nodded. “Consider it done. Anything else?”

“A few more men on the campus, especially near the football pitch.”

“That’s a lot of effort,” his uncle considered. “What do I get in exchange?” 

“What do you want?” 

He replied without missing a bit. “Maybe to be included in the family business again. Everybody considers me a renegade.” 

Cregan nodded. “Fine. I’m telling you about this, so you’re being included. Happy, now?” 

Without waiting for a response, Cregan turned around and walked away. 

“Cregan?” his uncle called him. Jace couldn’t see him, anymore, but he guessed Cregan had stopped. 

“Is he worth it?” the man asked. “The Targaryen prince?”

“If something happens to him,” Cregan advised him. “Not even my father's name will keep you alive.”  

Jace heard the door of the building close. He looked around the room: the hairdryer was ironically on the bed.

When his hair was finally dry, he went to look for Cregan. He found him in the kitchen, alone, chopping some vegetables, while a good smell invaded the room. 

The Sun was already set, too early for his liking, but it was nice to have the warm lights of the house, it was cozy. 

“Hi,” he greeted him. 

Cregan lifted his gaze and looked at him. 

“Hi,” He smiled, with no trace of the acrimony with his uncle. “Sorry for what my uncle said before. He is an asshole.” 

Jace sat on the counter and shrugged. “Yeah, I know a thing or two about asshole uncles.” 

“I’m making dinner. I hope soup is okay.” 

Jace nodded. “More than okay. You need help?”

Cregan scoffed. “Gods, no. I still remember your potatoes from the Christmas dinner.” 

Jace widened his mouth in shock. “You helped me with those! You’re responsible as much as I am.” 

“Okay, fine,” he raised his arms. “I still won’t let you come closer to the food, though. You can set the table. I think there are tutorials on YouTube.”

Jace faked a laugh and started setting the table. He knew how to do it, of course, yet doing it with Cregan’s eyes constantly on him made it ten times more difficult. 

“Once you told me you had an uncle, but you weren’t on good terms. Is he…”

“Yes.” 

He nodded. “Can I ask you what happened?” 

Cregan had his eyes fixed on the vegetables cooking, stirring clockwise. 

“I was thirteen when my father died,” Cregan began, biting his lips. “And my entire world fell upon me. I was alone, and Sarah was still a child, but I was a child, too, and I desperately needed someone to tell me what to do, because I had no idea. I thought - I hoped - my uncle would be that person, so I trusted him. Bad idea.” 

He sighed and shook his head, and Jace had to stop himself from going to him and hug him, just like he had done with him before. His friend seemed so fragile, while telling that story, and Jace wondered how many people had seen him like that. 

“My uncle promised he would take care of me and Sarah and complete my father's mandate in the North, a regency he called it. But he was mean to Sarah, didn’t even want her in his house, he only accepted her because he knew I wouldn’t have gone without her,” while he talked, Jace couldn’t tell if he was angrier with his uncle or with himself. “And when I was old enough to get into the family business, I discovered that he was trying to exclude me from everything. We are not a kingdom, anymore, but some things always stay the same, and he knew I would’ve wanted to take my father's place, one day. And he had the courage to take that from me.” 

He stopped for a bit, looking down. “I ran away and took Sarah with me. Alysanne’s parents welcomed us for a year, until I was eighteen, and could kick him out of my father’s business. Now he serves in the Nightwatch to avoid prison for fraud. And every day, I feel more stupid for believing in him.”

“He should feel bad for what he did to you.” 

He shrugged. “Well, you’ve seen him. He doesn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Jace looked down. “Family should be a safe place.” 

Cregan shook his head. “Fuck, Jace. I can’t believe I’m complaining about my life when…”

He scoffed. “… when my uncle is planning how to take me out?” 

The other twitched. “Yeah.” 

Jace shrugged. “Every family has their issues. It’s the curse of power, I think.” 

Cregan smiled. “That’s very wise, Jacaerys .” 

He rolled his eyes and shook his head, but was secretly getting used to his friend using his complete name. It was something only he did, something that was only theirs. 

“I have an idea,” Cregan suggested. “Why don’t we put aside our family issues for a night? We can have dinner and watch the match. Harrenhal against High Garden.” 

“Great idea.” 

And so they did. 

Jace finished setting the table and Cregan cooked, the smell of the soup soon invaded the kitchen and the living room, the anchormen were announcing the players and interviewing the coaches. 

They ate on the ground, in front of the TV, commenting on the players and the teams. Jace had a soft spot for Harrenhal's team: Harwin always brought him and Luke to the stadium, when they played in King’s Landing. 

After dinner, they snuggled on the couch, while the match was still going on, close, but not enough to touch. 

Outside, the snow was falling, silent, slow, calm… 

In moments like that, it was easy to believe nothing bad would ever happen.

“One day,” Cregan commented. “I’m gonna watch you from there.” 

He pointed at the stadium. 

Jace scoffed. 

“I will publicly tell everyone about the fact that the Lord Protector of Winterfell made me run laps for months .”

The other sneered. “I will ask your teammates if you still arrive late.” 

He hit him with a punch on his arm. “It happened once !” 

Cregan smirked, the corner of his mouth lifting. He looked at him with eyes full of amusement. “Once too oft…” 

Jace leaned on the headrest of the couch and shook his head to get rid of a few strands of hair that went on his eyes. He felt Cregan stiffing and sighing immediately after, interrupting his phrase. 

“You okay?” he asked his friend. He was still stiff, his lips pulled back. 

“Yeah,” he cleared his throat. “I was… distracted.” 

He frowned. “By what?” 

Cregan sighed again, his tongue licking his lips. “You’re wearing my shampoo.” 

Jace’s heart stopped for a bit: for every step Cregan had made toward him, he had always made three away from him. He cleared his throat. 

Until that moment, Jace was really beginning to think the kiss would have been only a one-time thing, and that Cregan had already forgotten about it. 

“Have you…” he began, tentative. “Have you thought about…”

“Yes.” 

It was impossible to get his expressions right, Cregan’s gaze was fixed on the TV transmitting a spot for a perfume. 

“You don’t even know what I was…”

“The kiss,” Cregan this time looked away from the screen and looked at him. “You’re asking me if I’ve thought about the kiss.” 

Jace nodded. 

The other turned to look at the TV, his jaw clenched. “I’ve thought about it. A lot.”   

“And…” Jace tried to make him continue. 

“And it was good,” he finally admitted, looking at him. “But it can’t happen again.”

 He blinked, surprised and a little disappointed.

“Why?” 

Cregan sighed, shaking his head. “For a lot of reasons. My life is complicated, I can’t have a relationship now. It wouldn’t be fair to you. Sorr…” 

He attempted to stand up from the couch, walking away again. Jace circled Cregan’s wrist with his fingers, stopping him.

Cregan looked at him with an interrogative look. 

Jace withdrew his hand from the other’s wrist. “And what you did is fair? If you knew this wasn’t going anywhere, why did you kiss me?”

He swallowed, his grey eyes fixed on Jace’s lips, before continuing. 

“Because when it’s about you I can never do the right thing. You’re my friend, my teammate, my sister’s best friend, and I don’t do relationships. I knew you were off-limits. But when you’re around… I forget everything: my name, your name, everything . The things I want to do to you…” he stopped, looking again at Jace’s lips. “You make me want to forget my honor.”

Jace put his hand on the back of the other’s nape and pulled him toward him. Cregan groaned in pleasure when their lips met for the second time. 

He could have pushed him away at any time, and Jace held his breath waiting for it; waiting for a rejection that didn’t come. Instead, Cregan opened his mouth and let him slip his tongue inside it, while his fingers dived into Jace’s hair, gripping a few strands of hair and breathing soundly. His other hand gripped him by the hip and pulled him closer until their chests were against each other. 

The kiss became breathless, whispers and gasps the only sound in the room, but Jace didn’t stop, worried that interrupting the kiss even for a breath would push him away. 

Jace took Cregan’s face in his hands and licked his lips, greedy. The other groaned and gripped the flesh of his hips with his fingers, pulling him close until Jace was straddling him. Cregan lifted his hips, and their groins touched and rubbed against each other. Jace's eyes rolled inside his skull, his vision blanked by the pleasure, and couldn’t hold a whimper that made the other repeat the movement, again and again. He tilted his head back, closing his eyes; when he looked at Cregan again, he was watching him in awe, his mouth open, lips swollen and wet. 

“So fucking beautiful,” he muttered, before Jace resumed the kisses. 

He kissed his lips, the corner of his mouth, his cheeks, the sharp angle of his perfect jaw, biting the flesh of his throat. 

“Fuck,” Cregan grunted and slid his hands under Jace’s sweater. “Can I take it off?”

Jace didn’t reply, he didn’t even nod, simply lifted his hands in the air, in a silent invitation that the other didn’t wait to take, or ask twice. 

Their sweatpants made him feel the other’s body deliciously, he could feel every angle, every movement, every shiver… 

Cregan took off his own sweatshirt and Jace didn’t wait a second before reaching out and feeling the other’s skin with his fingers. He couldn’t believe he was finally able to touch him, to pass his fingertips over his sharp muscles, gloating when hearing how he had him panting and breathing hard for him. Being so desired was intoxicating. 

“You want to come like this?” he asked Jace, tilting up his hips. 

He shook his head. “Touch me.” 

The other sneered at the quickness of his reply, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care to hide his want. 

He went blind for a brief second when Cregan’s hand slid under the hem of his sweatpants and touched him, his hips thrust shamelessly to meet his touch. But it wasn’t enough. 

“I want to touch you, too.”

His desperation made it sound more like a plea than a request.

Jace’s right hand was still on the other’s chest, Cregan took it and pushed it down, making it slide on his stomach until it was in his pants.

When his fingers closed around his hardness, they both moaned. Jace’s fingers pulsed around Cregan’s cock, tightening and releasing, he usually liked it when someone did it to him.

Cregan tilted his head back, his bare neck wet with sweat, groaning in pleasure. 

“So good,” his voice was hoarse, while teeth were biting the flesh of his lips.  “This is not going to last as much as I wanted to.”

Jace smiled, slowing up just a bit. Seeing him like that for him was getting him close, as well. 

“We can take it slower next time,” Jace whispered in his ear, before biting his lobe, then passing at the other ear. “Because there will be a next time, won’t it?”

Cregan groaned and rotated his wrist, quickening the pace.

As amazing as it was, and as Jace wanted desperately to come, he still needed an answer. He needed to come knowing that it wouldn’t be for the last time. 

“Say it,” Jace commanded. “Say this won’t be the last time. Say that this will happen again.” 

Cregan lifted his hips again and held him close, pushing away Jace’s hand from his cock, and for a moment Jace got scared he would have left him like that until he closed his big hand around both. 

“Ooh,” Jace moaned and put his forehead on the other’s shoulder. His fingers holding the other’s arm so tight they were leaving bruises. 

“There will be a second time,” Cregan replied, directly in his ear. “And a third, and many others more…”
“Oh gods,” he couldn’t think, anymore. He was reduced to a moaning mess. “I a-am… D-don’t stop…”

The other shook his head. “I won’t stop. Not now. Not ever. Come for me, now.” 

He obeyed, coming on his hands, his chest, moaning maybe too loud, but, again, he didn’t care. He didn’t care because a few hours before he felt like he was dying, and now he had never felt more alive. With a groan, the other’s body stilled.

Jace might have passed out for a few seconds, because when he heard Cregan’s voice it felt like falling from clouds. 

“You okay?” 

His lips were against Jace’s ear, who was still on top of him, straddling, both of them lying on the couch: Cregan’s back against the headboard, and Jace leaning on his chest. 

He nodded, his eyes still closed. “Never been better.”

The other chuckled briefly and caressed his hair with his fingers. 

“Maybe a little cold…” Jace added, shivering. The sweat on his chest and his body was getting cold. 

Cregan reached for the blanket under their bodies and covered both. 

“Better?” 

He nodded and fell asleep without even realizing it. 

He opened his eyes after what felt like a moment later, but he was alone, lying on the couch with the blanket on. 

It was dark outside, but it wasn’t night, anymore. The snow simply covered the sky. 

He sat, his body heavy and his limbs numb. 

The sound of the shower relaxed him. Cregan was still there, he simply let him sleep a bit more. 

His phone buzzed on the table next to the couch. Jace looked at the notifications. 

“Fuck.” 

Four missed calls from his mother and countless texts from his friends. 

Honey, how are you? 

His mother asked. 

I'm fine. I was asleep because I stayed up til late.   

The guy who lived in his dorm also texted. 

Dude, journalists are asking for you all around the dorm.

Thoughtful, but he ignored him and opened Sarah’s chat. 

Jace I read about Luke. Everything’s fine? I’ve seen the pictures of your dorm, it’s insane. Be careful. 

He smiled. 

Everything’s fine, more or less. I’m not at my dorm, I’m with your brother. 

He canceled the last part. 

I’m at your brother’s. He wrote, instead, and pressed send . 

A thrill on his skin reminded him that he was still half-naked. He wore the sweatshirt that Cregan had taken off of him the night before. 

The sound of the shower had stopped, now, and he heard the sound of the bathroom door open up. 

Cregan stopped when he saw Jace awake, his grey eyes so wide that it seemed almost he had forgotten the other was there, as well. He was wearing a black t-shirt and a white towel around his shoulder, wiping his slightly damp hair.  

Jace could feel his cheek heat up a bit. 

“Good morning.”

The other cleared his throat. “Good morning. Hungry?”

He nodded. “Yeah, a bit.”

Okay, that was awkward. 

Cregan walked to the kitchen and took two mugs from the cupboard, putting them under the coffee machine. Jace tried to not look at the way his arm’s muscles clenched while doing it. 

His friend was doing his best not to look at him at all, instead. 

“Toasts?” Cregan asked without looking up. 

“Okay:” 

They ate in silence and Jace’s head was getting louder and louder. 

Was Cregan regretting what they had done? Because Jace wasn’t. 

Maybe sleeping together would be the final blow to their friendship, but right now he still thought it was somehow inevitable, that the attraction between them had become too much to be ignored. 

“I’m not regretting what happened yesterday,” Cregan broke the silence, still without looking at him, though.

Jace gaped at him. “Do you read minds, now?”

The other finally lifted his gaze and chuckled. He shook his head. 

“No,” he admitted, still chuckling. “But one thing I like about you is how transparent you are, sometimes. To me, at least.” 

Now he was blushing for real. He looked away and tried to hide a smile. 

“I still think we are not a good match, though.”

Jace kept his eyes on the mug on the kitchen table. “It seemed to me that we matched perfectly, yesterday.” 

Cregan sighed. “You know what I mean.”

“I actually don’t. Why don’t you tell me?” Jace challenged him. 

“Being together would put the team at risk,” Cregan began explaining. “And don’t let me begin with how Sarah would take it if me and you…”

“Your sister would be thrilled, actually,” Jace interrupted him. 

The other stopped, blinking. “What? How do you know?” 

He shrugged. “She seems to think we would be good for each other. The photos you saw of us hugging were from when I told her I liked you.” 

“You… what?” 

Cregan’s surprised face was almost comical, for how clueless it looked. Like what they had done the night before didn’t give a clue Jace might like him. 

“And you claim I’m transparent to you,” Jace commented, crossing his arms with a smug smile on his face. 

The other didn’t reply, he walked to him with long steps and took his face in his hands, sealing his lips with a searing kiss that tasted like coffee. 

Jace pulled away. 

“I know you want to win your last championship before graduating, that next year you’ll be North Protector, that your life is complicated already as it is and the last thing you need is a relationship with a Targaryen. But this doesn’t have to be complicated,” Jace promised pointing at the distance between them. “At all. We can stay friends and add… well, what we want to our friendship.” 

Cregan chuckled. “You’d be my fuck buddy?”

Jace shrugged. “I want you so much that you can have me as you want.” 

Chapter Text

“I can’t believe you survived your first winter,” Sarah turned around and lay on her belly on the green grass. 

Oh, he did way more than survive.

He was expecting a dark, lonely winter. He was expecting gloomy days, and hours spent in his room, alone. What he got, instead, were long, cozy nights, under heavy covers, warmed by searing kisses.

“Good morning, my prince.” 

“Mmh,” he moaned in his sleep and put his arm on his face to protect his eyes from the sun. “Good morning.” 

It was the first day of sun since the beginning of winter. 

The snow had melted, and the winter had left his place to spring, finally. 

In Dragonstone, life in winter was not different from life in spring or summer. In the North, people spent winter hidden in their homes. He has gone out only for classes, practice, and important errands. 

Now that the snow wasn't covering everything, the city was waking up. And the campus was now filled with students walking, running, and playing with dogs. 

After class, Jace and Sarah took their lunch and ate it outside, on the lawn, their backpacks as pillows.

“I have classes in an hour,” Cregan moaned. His throat vibrated under Jace’s lips. 

But his fingers slipped between Jace’s hair and kissed him with his mouth open. 

“I’m going to be late,” Cregan whispered, tightening his grip on his hair. Jace kissed his way from his lips to his groin.  “You’re a bad influence.” 

Jace raised his head. “I can stop and let you get dressed if you want.” 

Cregan shook his head. “Don’t you dare stop.” 

"Yes, my Lord," he replied with a smirk, before resuming.

They both arrived late. 

He checked the time. 

“I gotta go.”

Standing up, he slapped away the leaves of grass from his pants. 

“Already?” Sarah looked at her watch. “Practice won’t start until an hour.” 

“Yeah, but I can’t wait to start with the outdoor practice again.” 

Practice didn’t stop in winter. They trained indoors, in the gym, and traveled for the away games. 

It was cool but it wasn’t the same, it didn’t have the smell of grass or the tan lines left by the Sun.

Sarah scoffed and put her sunglasses on. “I’m sure you can’t wait to go to  practice.”

Jace smiled. His friend wasn’t supposed to know about him and Cregan, especially since it was her brother, and Cregan wanted to keep it as simple as possible. But the moment she came back from The Wall, it only took her one glance to figure out everything. 

“You fuckers,” she had said with her hands on her hips. “You did it!”

So now she knew, which meant that Alysanne and Sabitha knew. 

That didn’t make things less simple, because being with him has been the simplest thing in his life. 

“Say hello to my brother,” Sarah winked and lay on the grass, sunbathing. 

She saw the thing between them as more than it actually was. 

He and Cregan were still only friends. Friends who had slept in the same bed for months. That's it.

We can stay friends and add what we want to our friendship. 

And so they did. 

They had laughed naked in bed until dawn, falling asleep exhausted after sex. That’s how his winter went. 

He giggled. “I will, thanks.”

The pitch was finally green again, thank gods. 

Jace could smell the fresh-cut grass, again, not the artificial one they had used during Winter. 

The last time he had been there, he had discovered that his brother’s killer was free to walk everywhere he wanted. Even to him in Winterfell. 

With a sigh, he walked inside, his backpack hanging from one shoulder, and went directly to his locker. 

The locker rooms were still empty. He had half an hour to enjoy that silence, before a bunch of males would invade it with their screams and their loud laughs. 

His teammates called him prince to taunt him, but for the first time in his life, he wasn’t a Targaryen. He wasn’t the heir of a powerful family, he was just a good striker. Well, a medium one.

Sure, a good striker that slept every night with the captain, but they didn’t know that part. And should never know.

Relationships between players were a big no. 

But maybe theirs wasn’t even a relationship. 

Jace took off his watch. It's been months since his last panic attack, but lately he has been having weird dreams: him getting shot, stabbed, hunted by a car just like Luke. Every time, he woke up covered in sweat, his heart racing. But all it took was to look at the body lying beside him, and everything was fine again. 

He took off his t-shirt, too, and big arms closed around his waist. Warm lips kissed the top of his ear. 

“Hello, my prince.”

He smiled. “Lord Stark.”

Cregan made him turn around, his back against the cold locker room. 

“You’re late,” he whispered against Jace’s lips. 

“I’m an hour early!” 

The other nodded and adjusted a strand of hair from his forehead. “You're early for practice. Not for meeting me.” 

Despite sleeping in the same room every night, they couldn't see each other during the day. Cregan's life was too full of commitments, so they usually went to practice an hour early to steal some time. 

“I thought that now that we're training here it’s more difficult to be discrete,” Jace glanced at the door. 

The indoor facility had a long corridor, before the locker room. They could hear their teammates minutes before they would enter. Now there was only a room separating them from getting caught. 

“I have a good sense of ear,” Cregan whispered, blowing in Jace’s ear. 

Because you brought other people, here? 

That's what he had been wanting to ask for all the months before. But every time he opened his mouth, he asked something else.

Was it cold outside?

Do you want to watch a movie? 

How was class? 

Cregan licked his neck. 

“I still have a favor to return from this morning,” the captain said between kisses. “Even if it made me arrive late to class.” 

Cregan was very serious about his efforts at school. He spent all his morning in class, and all his afternoon and most evening studying. A lot of the time they spent together was with him studying in his living room table. Jace had used those moments to shamelessly look at Cregan's concentrated frown, or his fingers torturing his lips.

“Baratheon, you’ll have to shower more, now that it’s spring,” Rickard’s voice came from the outside. A loud laugh followed.

Cregan glanced at the door and let him go only seconds before it opened. A bunch of football players entered the room laughing and shoving each other. 

Their time together was over, they were teammates again.

And what were they, few seconds before?

“Five laps,” Coach Mormont muttered. “Come on.”

“Finally on real grass, again,” Sam was running next to him. “I can’t stand fake one.” 

“Yeah, me neither,” Jace chuckled. 

“Are you joking?” Sam opened his mouth. “You had the best rookie year in ages.” 

Jace smiled. It was true, it has been a good year, so far. And now Winterfell was near to winning the second title since… well, Cregan's first year. 

“Hey, are you coming to the party, tonight?” Sam prompted out of the blue. 

“Which party?”

Sam giggled. “The one at your dorm. Didn’t you know about it?”

Jace shook his head. “I haven’t been to the dorm since January.”

“You what?!” his friend was looking at him with his mouth open. “You still live with STark?”

“Yes,” Jace looked down. “Cregan thinks is more prudent, this way.” 

“For the thing with your uncle?” 

If the thing was the mortal feud between the two branches of his family, that had already cost his brother’s life, yes, it was for the thing. 

“But he hasn’t showed up in months, no?” Sam pointed out. 

Funny enough, Cregan’s uncle thought the same thing. Not that the man had ever said it in front of Jace, but Jace had listened to him from his room. 

“It’s been four months,” the man had said. “And no news from One-Eye.”

“He wouldn’t strike now,” Cregan explained with a sigh. “Everyone is expecting him and it’s winter. Foreigners can’t manage Winterfell’s winter.”

“Yeah, well,” Cregan’s uncle shrugged. “I can’t waste any other resource to protect a foreign prince.” 

“He’s not foreign,” he spat. “He’s the son of our president.”

His uncle laughed. “Oh, so you consider the North part of the Seven States, now? What happened to independence?” 

“It will happen, as planned,” Cregan nodded, but his jaw tensed. “But for now we have to protect him either way. Imagine if something happens to him while he’s here. North’s reputation…”

“You don’t give a fuck about North’s reputation. You only care that your prince is safe and sound,” the man came closer to his nephew. “You took a liking of him, haven’t you?” 

“He’s my friend,” Cregan lifted his head. “Of course I like him.” 

"Is this what he is?" he asked. "A friend?"

Cregan clenched his jaw. "Yes."

The man laughed. "You lie to your own blood?"

"You've forfeited the chance to be called my kin," Cregan spit with a disgusted expression on his face.

"And you're forfeiting the chance to be North's Protector if you keep fucking that foreigner," the man shook his head. “Ice and fire don’t go well together, nephew.” 

“I haven’t called you to get your opinion on my acquaintances, uncle,” Cregan hissed. “Do your job and protect him, or I’m gonna find someone else to do it.” 

Cregan turned around and opened the door of the building. 

“He’ll be your ruin, Cregan.”

The other turned around. “Then so be it.” 

“You and Sarah are coming?”

Jace shook his head. 

“Uh?”

"To the party," Jon looked at him like he was crazy.

“Yeah, I think so."

The last gossip before Winter started was that he and Sarah had a fling, and the fact that he hung out with her all the time did nothing but cement that thought.

"Warm up is over!" the coach clapped to gain their attention. 

The party was in his old dorm, which he didn’t miss at all. 

Nothing could beat living in a real house, with proper heating and without loud music and people fucking in the next room. 

“Any news from Cregan, Aly, and Sabitha?” Sarah had to talk in his ear, for the loud noise. 

He wasn’t used to all these people, anymore, but he managed crowds better than he did at the beginning of that year. 

He nodded. “Yeah, Cregan told him they’re already here.”

Sarah raised her dark eyebrows, with a smirk. 

“How is it going, between you two?” 

He shrugged. “It’s more casual than you think. We’re both messed up enough."

That was the standard, automatic response. 

The deeper one involved the fact that he stayed awake to watch him sleep. Or that he thought about him all the time during class, and that he fought to not constantly talk about him. But he couldn't tell her that; it was something to keep to himself. 

“Men,” Sarah sighed, her eyes rolling inside her head.

They were both messed up, that was true. But somehow, that thing between them, for casual as it was, had healed him, even if just a little bit. 

He had Aemond looking for him, and weird, realistic dreams about his death. Yet, he still felt safer than he ever did in Dragonstone after the death of his grandfather. 

“Here they are,” Sarah pointed at his left. 

Cregan and some of his classmates were chatting in a corner, holding transparent paper glasses of beer.

"Let's go to them!"

Sarah took his wrist and dragged him. His heart started racing a bit. 

What if Cregan didn't want him to meet his friends? It had been just the two of them all winter, would it have been different with other people?

“Hi!” Sarah greeted everyone. 

“Hi,” Jace's greeting was more timid, and his eyes fell on Cregan. 

“Hi…” repeated, only for him. 

Cregan smiled. “Hi.”

“Hey, I know you!” a girl said to him. “You’re that Targaryen prince, right?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“You are a Targaryen?” another guy asked, his mouth open wide.

He nodded again. 

“But like… an important one or…”

The girl slapped his friend’s arm. “He’s Rhaenyra Targaryen’s son.”

The guy’s mouth opened even more. “You’re… what?!”

He shrugged. 

“Then why have you dark hair? And curly as well.”

“Jon,” Cregan simply stated, as a warning. 

In his personal experience, dodging questions did nothing good. On the contrary, it pushed people to seek responses on their own. 

“I have Arryn and Baratheon blood, they have dark hair,” he explained with a shrug. “And my father’s sister had curly hair, as well. Now we can discuss your lineage, if you want.”

Jon lowered his gaze. “No, better not.” 

“Yeah, imagine asking a stranger why they have certain hair," Jace tilted his head a bit to the side. "That would be weird, wouldn’t it?”

Jon nod. “Yeah. I’ll get something to drink, who wants something?”

After he walked away, the girl smiled at Cregan. 

“I’m starting to understand why you like him so much, Cre."

Cregan turned to him and smiled. Then he looked at his friend. 

“I told you he was cool.” 

They sat on a sofa, and talked for a bit, he was sitting next to Cregan, their thighs brushing against each other. 

“So you’re from Dragonstone?” the girl, Arya, asked him. 

“Yes,” he took a sip from his drink. “But I was born and raised in King’s Landing. We moved to Dragonstone after…”

…After a fight in which his uncle lost an eye?

…After the death of his father?

“... After my mother’s wedding,” he declared at the end. 

“And you’re studying politics, too?” she asked. 

“Law, for now. Politics is not my thing,” he said in a room full of political science students. “No offense.”

Politics destroyed his family from the inside. It ripped them apart and made them what they were now, murderers and backstabbers. 

They giggled. 

“Dragonstone is amazing,” Arya admitted. “I bet you miss it.” 

He shrugged. “I’ll be going home in a few weeks.” 

Cregan tensed, and his palm twitched a bit. He closed his fist and put it in his pocket.   

“Was it hard, your first winter here?” Arya asked.

The best season of his life. But how could he tell that without confessing something uncofessable? 

“Better than I expected,” he confessed and looked at Cregan. He moved his thigh closer to his. “I wouldn’t have survived without them.” 

He glanced at Sarah, Sabitha, Aly, and Cregan, his family far away from his family. 

“Aaw,” Aly hugged him and kissed him on the forehead. “Our sweet prince.”

The conversation moved, and soon it wasn't about him anymore, thank gods. He relaxed while Aly and Sabitha were talking about their next holiday.

After a while, he stood up to go to the bathroom. 

In the queue, he shivered thinking that if he hadn’t met Cregan, he would have had to shower in those common bathrooms. Eew. 

“Look who we have here,” a soft voice murmured at his back. “Football star Jacaerys Velaryon.”

He turned around and smiled when his eyes met green ones. “Dorian.” 

The dornish swimmer smiled and lay on the wall next to him. “Where have you been? It’s been months since the last time I saw you in the dorm.” 

Jace shrugged. “I spent the winter at some friends’ house.” 

Dorian looked at him from head to toe, a hungry smile on his face. 

“Winter did you good,” he considered. “Who would have thought that a dragon could flourish so well in the ice?” 

“You met me in a bad moment, that’s all,” Jace shrugged. 

“Yeah, now I know,” he nodded, biting his lip. “Maybe I can offer you a drink and we can remedy?”

Jace smiled and looked down. He shook his head. 

“You’re kind,” he admitted. “But it’s better not.” 

“You have someone?” 

He nodded. “Kind of.” 

“Is it, by chance, Cregan Stark?” 

Jace swallowed. “W-why do you…”

Dorian glanced beyond his back. 

He turned around and his heart sank. Cregan was standing next to Rickard with a drink in his hand, and a scowl that could burn more than dragonfire.  

“Let me guess,” Dorian’s voice made him turn around. "You've fucked all winter and never talked about being together, right?"

Jace looked down, but didn’t reply. 

“It’s a tradition, for guys in the North,” Dorian casually lifted his muscular shoulders. “They find someone to spend winter with, but when the weather gets warmer… bye, bye.” 

Cregan was not like this… right? He was honorable and loyal, he wouldn’t play with him like that. Right? 

Loyalty. 

There was a time in which his family was loyal, in which his mother and Alicent were best friends. At his expense, he learned that loyalty was temporary. 

“I better go,” Dorian slapped him on the shoulder. “Before Lord Stark will have me beheaded.” 

He walked away, and Jace came back to the sofa, sitting again next to Cregan. 

Arya and Alysanne were talking about politics, carrying the conversation. 

Suddenly, the room was too small, the people too many. There had been a time in which he had adored his uncles… Was he trusting the wrong person, again? Was he about to be the fool, again?

“Come with me,” Cregan spoke in his ear, his lips caressing his earlobe. 

Without waiting for the response, the captain took him gently by the hand and made him follow him. 

“Where are we going?

Cregan didn’t reply, but when they arrived outside, he pushed him against a wall and kissed him. 

The kiss was fierce and almost needy. Cregan breathed deeply and pushed against his body, pushing him onto the wall behind his back. 

His tongue was hungrily exploring his mouth, his lips, his teeth.

Jace had a lot to ask. 

What are we? 

What does it mean, to you? 

But his mouth was busy defending itself from the hottest attack. 

“I want to go home,” Cregan muttered in his mouth. 

“Me too.”

They kissed on the stairs, on their way to the apartment, even while opening the door. 

Jace’s jacket fell on the floor the moment the door closed, and Cregan’s hands circled his face, taking him by the cheeks. He was gentler, now, slower, but not less passionate.

“Who was that guy?” he asked between kisses.

“A guy…I met… a few months ago.”

It was hard to respond when his mouth was elsewhere occupied.

“Isn’t he the guy you were with at the pub?”

So he remembered? 

Jace nodded. “Nothing happened.” 

“I saw you kissing, once. I remember it.” 

Cregan nibbled at his lips and pulled his bottom lip.

Jace smiled and took off the other’s shirt. He turned them around and switched places, now Cregan was the one with his back against the door. 

"We kissed, yes," he whispered, and his tongue licked Cregan's lips. “ And I didn’t like it. At all."

“He wanted you, before,” Cregan growled, his breath short while Jace was kissing along his jaw. "I could see it."

Jace stopped and put his forehead against the other’s. “Is this jealousy?”

“Yes,” Cregan tried to kiss him and Jace backed up a bit. 

“So this means that I’m only yours?”

“Yes, my prince,” Cregan pulled him closer. “And I’m yours.” 

He raised an eyebrow. “Only mine?” 

Cregan took off Jace’s shirt and kneeled in front of him. He unbuttoned his pants and lowered them to his ankles.  

“Only,” he breathed before taking him in his mouth. 

Jace’s knees felt weak, and he had to hold onto the door to not crumble. His hips rocked gently into the other’s mouth, and the room was filled with his brief gasps. 

“Cregan,” he moaned.  

“You like it?” 

What an understatement. 

He nodded quickly. 

“Kiss me,” he pleaded. 

Cregan stood up and they switched again and now Jace was against the door. Cregan obeyed and melted their lips together, while his hands touched his bare chest and then his groin.

Jace gasped and held onto his forearm. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Cregan whispered in his ear. “You consume my every thought. I can’t stop thinking about you when you’re not with me…”

Jace could do nothing more than whine and roll his hips desperately into Cregan’s palms, while Cregan’s soft words were undoing him. 

“I think about you in class, during practice, during meetings,” he bit his neck. “All I think about is my prince from the south.” 

Jace took the other’s hand and stopped him to catch his breath. 

Cregan’s forehead lay on his, their noses touching. 

“You okay?” he asked. 

Jace nodded, his breath short. “I want…I want you to fuck me.” 

In those months, they had done everything but that. It was still scary to him, and Cregan must have sensed that, because he never asked. 

“Are you sure?”

He nodded. “You?”

“Of course I am,” he chuckled. “I only want to be sure you’re ready.” 

A brief peck on his lips “I am.”  

They walked towards Cregan’s room, their room actually, leaving a trail of clothes behind them. They were already naked when they laid on the bed, Cregan on top of him, rocking his hips into his body. 

Cregan opened a drawer and took off a plastic bottle. Jace shivered in anticipation. 

“You okay?” Cregan asked, his big hand caressing the side of his face.   

Jace nodded. “I trust you.”

And it was overwhelming how true it was. He trusted him. For the first time in his life after all that happened in his family, he trusted someone. 

“And I trust you,” Cregan whispered. 

They kissed languidly on the bed, without rush, and Jace’s body melted under Cregan’s hands until his hands slid under his body and between his legs. Jace tensed. 

“I got you,” Cregan whispered. “I would never hurt you.” 

Jace caressed his jaw and resumed the kiss. 

He exposed his neck for Cregan to kiss and lick it, and kiss after kiss, it became easier to relax in his arms. 

“Yeah, just like that,” Cregan rewarded him with a stroke on his dick. “You’re doing amazing.” 

Jace arched his back whining. In those months, he understood how compliments were a big turn-on, for him, and Cregan loved to indulge in that. 

He was completely relaxed now, with the other’s fingers inside him.

“Please,” he whined. “I need you inside me. Please.”

Cregan smiled. 

“Turn on your side,” he told him in his ear. “It’s easier.”

Jace obeyed and turned around on his side, Cregan behind him. 

“Have you already done this?” Jace asked while the other caressed the flesh of his hips. 

Cregan nodded.

Of course he did. What did he expect? 

“You’re in good hands,” Cregan added, drawing him closer. 

“I know-oh,” Jace moaned and closed his eyes when Cregan pushed slowly inside him.  

“You okay?”

Jace breathed deeply. “Yes. Keep going.” 

With his hand on Jace’s hip, Cregan pushed again. 

“F-fuck,” Jace closed his eyes. “It’s so strange.” 

“Strange good or strange bad?” Cregan kissed him on the cheek, his hand stroking him with slow movements. 

“Strange good,” Jace gasped. “So fucking good.”  

Cregan chuckled. 

“Is it good for you?” Jace turned around to look at his friend’s face. 

“Good doesn’t give the idea,” he confessed, putting his forehead against his. “Sometimes I can’t believe you’re real.”

Jace pulled him in a searing kiss. “Can you go a bit harder, now?”

The other obeyed. And none of them was able to talk, or to say something sensed. 

Cregan moaned at every thrust, and Jace’s eyes rolled into his skull. His hand wandered behind him and grabbed Cregan’s ass to pull him against him. 

Nothing could beat the sensation of Cregan's body next to his. It was like their figures collided perfectly, like they were made for each other.

“Harder,” Jace pleaded. “I’m coming.”

The hand between his legs quickened, like Cregan’s desperate thrusts. He was usually calm and collected even during sex, but while he pushed inside Jace, a few sounds escaped his mouth.

"Uh uh uh," he moaned in Jace's ear. "I'm close, too."

Jace was the first to come, pleasure blurring his vision. He came so hard that he shouted, shivering against the other’s body. 

Cregan followed him shortly after, stilling inside him, while his teeth nibbled at his ear. 

They lay against each other in silence, catching their breaths.

“Are you awake?” Cregan asked him while caressing his hair. 

Jace smiled. “Yes. Just very relaxed.” 

Cregan pulled him closer and made him rest his head on his chest. “You're really going home in a few weeks?"

He nodded. “Yes. It's for my birthday."

"I knew you were a child of spring," the other chuckled. "But... are you sure is it safe to travel?"

Jace caressed his chest with the tip of his index. "I will probably have half a dozen security guards."

"Right."

Jace raised his head and frowned. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," Cregan replied quickly. "Just... Will you come back?"

He giggled. "Of course I will come back."

"Oh," Cregan licked his lips and released a deep exhale. "Ok."

"Why would you think I wouldn't come back?"

He shrugged and started playing with a strand of his curly hair. "I don't know... Your mother may think that you're safer at home."

Jace remembered the phone call with his mother, when they found out Aemond was free. 

I'm sending someone to pick you up. 

Cregan was there, too. Was he thinking about that? 

"She probably does," Jace replied, lifting one shoulder. "And will probably ask me to stay. But I... I like it, here."

"You swear?" Cregan asked. And gods, he looked almost... fragile, while doing it. His grey eyes, usually so fierce, were glancing at him with worry. "You swear you will come back to me?"

Jace kissed him, and leaned his forehead over the other's.

"I swear," Jace whispered and caressed his jaw until he relaxed. "I swear I will always come back to you."