fic: the willing (Daenerys/Robb, Game of Thrones)
Title: the willingC
Characters: Dany/Robb
Rating: PG13
Summary: When the Lords tell him that he must marry, it's his fifth cousin that is chosen.
Author's Notes: This is for summerstorm who requested this whole little world. :) A modern royalty AU. I own nothing here.
The pub is loud, filled with the voices of patrons that float in and out of the cigarette smoke that makes the lights seem foggy and unnatural, but he only has eyes for the woman in front of him. He’s been flirting with her for an hour now. There’s a twist to her red mouth he likes, a slyness in her eyes that’s intriguing. And the fact that she’s thrown every line of his back in his face.
Robb can feel the disapproving look from Jon behind him and the watchful gaze of Jory from the corner. Being the crown prince really does suck sometimes. Especially when you live in the twenty-first century and are still being expected to marry your fifth or sixth cousin or something like that.
He leans closer to her, breathing in her flowery scent that’s much better than the smoke. She’s a much better distraction for his angry thoughts; he’s already talked to her of them, of the annoying cousin that’s coming soon. “You still haven’t told me your name.”
She laughs and licks her lips, drawing his gaze there. “Does it matter?”
No, it doesn’t. Not yet at least, though he’s determined to get it from her at some point. He leans forward and kisses her, surprised when she surges forward to press her lips more firmly against his.
At the end of the night, when he asks her again, she says, walking backwards in the street towards a black car, “Dany.”
He’s drunk and the name doesn’t register, though it should, and he calls after her, “But how will I find you again?”
They’ve entered teenage drama movie levels here.
She shakes her head, pale hair twisting around her face. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
-
Days later and he’s still angry.
“It’s to please the Lords, Robb,” his mother tells him, a pleading look on her face for him to understand even though she likes it less than him.
“Say nothing that I don’t want this, what if she doesn’t?” he asks over the breakfast table. “I’ve never even met her, and I won’t force her into this. It’s barbaric.”
His mother sighs and tries to say something on duty. He leaves the room.
Now, he stands in the study on the third floor of the palace, back turned to everyone else in the room, waiting for the arrival of his future bride. Voices come from outside the doors, and he freezes.
Robb hears the voice and his fingers tighten on the tumbler glass in his hand. He knows that voice, knows it from last night despite the loud voices and music that had tried to drown them out. He turns around, scotch sloshing in the glass over his hand to fall onto the fine carpet on the study floor.
It’s the girl from the pub staring at him. Dany, he remembers, and then makes the connection. Daenerys, such an old name, Dany. She’s different now, wearing a purple dress with a white cardigan, low heels on her feet, instead of the straight jeans and shirt and scarf she’d had on last night. Her hair is just as bright, a silver sheet that falls down her shoulders, in the mid morning light.
She’s staring at him with wide eyes and a little grin at the corner of her mouth. They ignore the introductions and low voices of the others around them. His mother is off talking with someone he doesn’t recognize, some dark haired fellow of the new retinue.
Dany sidles up next to him, whispers low up towards his face. She’s shorter than him. “Annoying cousin from somewhere else, right?”
Robb can feel his face flush, and he hasn’t done that since he was eight and Jon had embarrassed him in front of one of the cooking girls. “You knew who I was,” he hisses.
She laughs. “Of course I did.”
He watches as his fifth cousin, and potential bride, shuffles off to entertain his family, all smiles and good graces. She’s resembles nothing of the red mouthed girl from last night who’d boldly laughed in his face at his come-ons and then aggressively kissed him.
She ignores him through dinner, and he can’t tell if she’s just amused at him or angry, and then retreats to her rooms before he can do anything.
-
Robb finds her in the gardens the next day with his two sisters. Sansa is home from college and sits next to her on the grass, and Arya has climbed into the tall tree some feet away.
Sansa’s face is horrified, and he knows that something must have happened to make her face that angry looking. “Arya,” she snaps, “Get down from there. You’re being really rude.”
Dany, or is it Daenerys, which does she like being called, he wonders, laughs. He’s beginning to like that sound. The newcomer to the palace waves Sansa off, and then turns to the tree. “Oh, don’t worry about it. I used to climb trees all the time back home.”
That captures Arya’s attention. He can see her, from where he stands at the edge of the walkway to where they are, cast a critical eye to the skirt and blouse the other girl is wearing.“You did?”
She nods, as if it’s the most serious thing. “I did. I used to climb them to get away from having to meet people. I was a shy kid.”
Arya climbs down as if she finds her acceptable now.
“My brother was often sent to get me,” Dany continues on.
There’s a frown on her face at the mention of her sibling, and Robb decides then to interrupt. “Sisters,” he says as he walks forward, watching as all three turn their heads to him. “Might I have Daenerys alone for a minute?”
Sansa and Arya look put out, but leave. He sits down on the bench next to her, suddenly unsure of his words. He goes with a lead in, curious about the expression that had been on her face. “Your brother, you said?”
Her jaw tightens, and she seems to force out her next statement. “He’s dead. He wasn’t the kindest of brothers. It’s been me for some time.”
Robb thinks on that, how odd it would be to be alone. He’s had five other siblings for so long that it seems inconceivable to think of not having them. He clears his throat, “I didn’t mean to offend you, and if I did I apologize. I’m not happy about this arrangement either.”
She plucks at the fabric of her skirt, a bright orange amongst the green of the garden. “At least you aren’t the one being sold off.”
He frowns. “I’m being forced just as much as you in this.”
She shakes her head, says, “It’s not the same.”
No, it is and it isn’t.
“I am sorry,” Robb says, meaning everything.
Her smile seems to be stuck between sadness and amusement. “Yes, well.” She stands to walk back inside.
“Would you like to do something?”
Dany turns around, walking backwards again, and he’s amazed at her grace that keeps her from falling. “Like make out in a pub again?”
-
They don’t make out in a bar again.
Instead, Robb saves her from a boring session with her own people she brought with her and his people. He ducks his head into the room, and says, most charming smile in place, “Daenerys and I made plans for today.”
In the car, sitting next to him, she turns and says, “Does that always work then? Just telling them you have things to do?”
Robb grins. “Most of the time.”
“So you’re spoiled then?”
He’d be affronted except he can see from her wide eyes and raised eyebrows that she’s teasing him. “Terribly so. I never have to do anything.” Which is a horrible lie. He’s been doing things, state things, dealing with the Lords, being groomed, since he turned twelve.
When the car stops at the stables out in the countryside, he helps her out.
And when she sees the large bird waiting on the stand, yellow eyes turned towards them, head cocked as if judging them to be worthy, she laughs. “Falconry?”
Robb’s already got the glove on his hand and arm, and helps her with one. “I like it. It’s relaxing, and this is one place where I don’t get hounded by the press for being out in public.”
Dany, Daenerys he still calls her, watches as the falcon moves quicker than can be seen, in flight one minute and the next on his arm. The bird is beautiful, fierce and elegant, like her.
She laughs, eyes bright, face flushed. “I feel like I should be wearing something fancier. With a hat.”
He thinks she looks fine, but finds the thought of her with a hat and feathers amusing. The falcon takes flight, wheeling high up into the sky. He moves closer to teach her, adjusts her arm to be held out. “Don’t be scared. They don’t like that.”
“I’m not afraid.”
She isn’t, not even when the bird drops from the sky to alight on her arm, talons digging into the glove. Her face is so open it’s hard to look at or look away.
-
They do other things.
Not just falconry, but he learns she likes swimming, likes the horses on the grounds, and is a daredevil with Jon’s motorcycle. He enjoys making her smile, not for the least that it eases the guilt inside of him that she’s really nothing more than a captive here.
He likes her, even more so than when she’d been a stranger who wouldn’t give him her name at a pub.
-
They’re at breakfast, the two of them down at the other end of the table away from everyone else. The paper lies before them, the press having gotten wind of her arrival and playing it up in every headline. She eyes it distastefully, mouth pursed and gaze narrowed.
Robb clears his throat, and taps the paper, drawing her attention away. “So tell me more of you.”
She looks up at him, eyebrow cocked. “Like what?”
He shrugs. “Anything. I don’t know much about you. You’re some exotic distant cousin from across the sea in the mainland. I think you know more about me.”
She takes a bite of her eggs, thinking. “I was born in the worst storm to ever hit my country. All sorts of horrible things but I lived.”
“See, that’s interesting!” Storm born and now here. “Tell me more.”
With prompting, he gets more out of her, finding her even more fascinating than before.
-
He cracks when Lord Baelish gives a comment to a reporter about how opportunistic this Targaryen girl must feel at becoming a princess from being so low on the inheritance chain.
“I won’t have this, mother,” he says, and stalks from the room.
Robb finds her in the gardens again, leaning over the fountain to see the fish in it. He knows that she must have seen the paper, seen the remarks about her. “We don’t have to do this.”
“Robb,” Dany turns to face him, calm where he’s angry.
It’s a resigned-ness, and he thinks it’s unfair and wrong to tie her to him against her will. He should have said no at the very beginning when the Lords had first mentioned this idea that he must marry or forfeit his rights.
“No,” he stands firm. “I should never have agreed to this.”
“I didn’t say no. You think I don’t have things to gain from this? That my home doesn’t have things to gain from this? Besides, the Lords won’t allow you to not marry.”
Doing the honorable and right thing isn’t so easy for them no matter how hard he wants it to be. “Then I marry someone else.”
“And do the same to some other girl that you would do to me?” She holds a hand out and gestures him to sit next to her.
He does. Still, he continues. “Then I’ll tell them to forget it. It won’t be the first time I tell them no, I’ve been doing it since my father’s death.”
Dany shakes her head, a smile on her face. “That’s what they want you to do.”
Robb wants to scream. He’s giving her a way out and she obstinately refuses to take it. “Daenerys-”
Putting a hand over his, drawing it closer to her, she runs her fingers over his palm. “I have a better idea. Why not make them pay for their scheming? I’m not adverse to you, and I don’t think you’re adverse to me. Why not continue with what we’re doing and see what happens? There’s no reason we can’t make this work against them.”
She’s stunning. Clever and intelligent and funny and loving and many other things. But clever here. “If you are sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Robb nods, “Okay then. Now what?”
Red lips curve upwards, white teeth all exposed. “Now we seal it with a kiss.”
He can’t find it in himself to argue that.
Characters: Dany/Robb
Rating: PG13
Summary: When the Lords tell him that he must marry, it's his fifth cousin that is chosen.
Author's Notes: This is for summerstorm who requested this whole little world. :) A modern royalty AU. I own nothing here.
The pub is loud, filled with the voices of patrons that float in and out of the cigarette smoke that makes the lights seem foggy and unnatural, but he only has eyes for the woman in front of him. He’s been flirting with her for an hour now. There’s a twist to her red mouth he likes, a slyness in her eyes that’s intriguing. And the fact that she’s thrown every line of his back in his face.
Robb can feel the disapproving look from Jon behind him and the watchful gaze of Jory from the corner. Being the crown prince really does suck sometimes. Especially when you live in the twenty-first century and are still being expected to marry your fifth or sixth cousin or something like that.
He leans closer to her, breathing in her flowery scent that’s much better than the smoke. She’s a much better distraction for his angry thoughts; he’s already talked to her of them, of the annoying cousin that’s coming soon. “You still haven’t told me your name.”
She laughs and licks her lips, drawing his gaze there. “Does it matter?”
No, it doesn’t. Not yet at least, though he’s determined to get it from her at some point. He leans forward and kisses her, surprised when she surges forward to press her lips more firmly against his.
At the end of the night, when he asks her again, she says, walking backwards in the street towards a black car, “Dany.”
He’s drunk and the name doesn’t register, though it should, and he calls after her, “But how will I find you again?”
They’ve entered teenage drama movie levels here.
She shakes her head, pale hair twisting around her face. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
-
Days later and he’s still angry.
“It’s to please the Lords, Robb,” his mother tells him, a pleading look on her face for him to understand even though she likes it less than him.
“Say nothing that I don’t want this, what if she doesn’t?” he asks over the breakfast table. “I’ve never even met her, and I won’t force her into this. It’s barbaric.”
His mother sighs and tries to say something on duty. He leaves the room.
Now, he stands in the study on the third floor of the palace, back turned to everyone else in the room, waiting for the arrival of his future bride. Voices come from outside the doors, and he freezes.
Robb hears the voice and his fingers tighten on the tumbler glass in his hand. He knows that voice, knows it from last night despite the loud voices and music that had tried to drown them out. He turns around, scotch sloshing in the glass over his hand to fall onto the fine carpet on the study floor.
It’s the girl from the pub staring at him. Dany, he remembers, and then makes the connection. Daenerys, such an old name, Dany. She’s different now, wearing a purple dress with a white cardigan, low heels on her feet, instead of the straight jeans and shirt and scarf she’d had on last night. Her hair is just as bright, a silver sheet that falls down her shoulders, in the mid morning light.
She’s staring at him with wide eyes and a little grin at the corner of her mouth. They ignore the introductions and low voices of the others around them. His mother is off talking with someone he doesn’t recognize, some dark haired fellow of the new retinue.
Dany sidles up next to him, whispers low up towards his face. She’s shorter than him. “Annoying cousin from somewhere else, right?”
Robb can feel his face flush, and he hasn’t done that since he was eight and Jon had embarrassed him in front of one of the cooking girls. “You knew who I was,” he hisses.
She laughs. “Of course I did.”
He watches as his fifth cousin, and potential bride, shuffles off to entertain his family, all smiles and good graces. She’s resembles nothing of the red mouthed girl from last night who’d boldly laughed in his face at his come-ons and then aggressively kissed him.
She ignores him through dinner, and he can’t tell if she’s just amused at him or angry, and then retreats to her rooms before he can do anything.
-
Robb finds her in the gardens the next day with his two sisters. Sansa is home from college and sits next to her on the grass, and Arya has climbed into the tall tree some feet away.
Sansa’s face is horrified, and he knows that something must have happened to make her face that angry looking. “Arya,” she snaps, “Get down from there. You’re being really rude.”
Dany, or is it Daenerys, which does she like being called, he wonders, laughs. He’s beginning to like that sound. The newcomer to the palace waves Sansa off, and then turns to the tree. “Oh, don’t worry about it. I used to climb trees all the time back home.”
That captures Arya’s attention. He can see her, from where he stands at the edge of the walkway to where they are, cast a critical eye to the skirt and blouse the other girl is wearing.“You did?”
She nods, as if it’s the most serious thing. “I did. I used to climb them to get away from having to meet people. I was a shy kid.”
Arya climbs down as if she finds her acceptable now.
“My brother was often sent to get me,” Dany continues on.
There’s a frown on her face at the mention of her sibling, and Robb decides then to interrupt. “Sisters,” he says as he walks forward, watching as all three turn their heads to him. “Might I have Daenerys alone for a minute?”
Sansa and Arya look put out, but leave. He sits down on the bench next to her, suddenly unsure of his words. He goes with a lead in, curious about the expression that had been on her face. “Your brother, you said?”
Her jaw tightens, and she seems to force out her next statement. “He’s dead. He wasn’t the kindest of brothers. It’s been me for some time.”
Robb thinks on that, how odd it would be to be alone. He’s had five other siblings for so long that it seems inconceivable to think of not having them. He clears his throat, “I didn’t mean to offend you, and if I did I apologize. I’m not happy about this arrangement either.”
She plucks at the fabric of her skirt, a bright orange amongst the green of the garden. “At least you aren’t the one being sold off.”
He frowns. “I’m being forced just as much as you in this.”
She shakes her head, says, “It’s not the same.”
No, it is and it isn’t.
“I am sorry,” Robb says, meaning everything.
Her smile seems to be stuck between sadness and amusement. “Yes, well.” She stands to walk back inside.
“Would you like to do something?”
Dany turns around, walking backwards again, and he’s amazed at her grace that keeps her from falling. “Like make out in a pub again?”
-
They don’t make out in a bar again.
Instead, Robb saves her from a boring session with her own people she brought with her and his people. He ducks his head into the room, and says, most charming smile in place, “Daenerys and I made plans for today.”
In the car, sitting next to him, she turns and says, “Does that always work then? Just telling them you have things to do?”
Robb grins. “Most of the time.”
“So you’re spoiled then?”
He’d be affronted except he can see from her wide eyes and raised eyebrows that she’s teasing him. “Terribly so. I never have to do anything.” Which is a horrible lie. He’s been doing things, state things, dealing with the Lords, being groomed, since he turned twelve.
When the car stops at the stables out in the countryside, he helps her out.
And when she sees the large bird waiting on the stand, yellow eyes turned towards them, head cocked as if judging them to be worthy, she laughs. “Falconry?”
Robb’s already got the glove on his hand and arm, and helps her with one. “I like it. It’s relaxing, and this is one place where I don’t get hounded by the press for being out in public.”
Dany, Daenerys he still calls her, watches as the falcon moves quicker than can be seen, in flight one minute and the next on his arm. The bird is beautiful, fierce and elegant, like her.
She laughs, eyes bright, face flushed. “I feel like I should be wearing something fancier. With a hat.”
He thinks she looks fine, but finds the thought of her with a hat and feathers amusing. The falcon takes flight, wheeling high up into the sky. He moves closer to teach her, adjusts her arm to be held out. “Don’t be scared. They don’t like that.”
“I’m not afraid.”
She isn’t, not even when the bird drops from the sky to alight on her arm, talons digging into the glove. Her face is so open it’s hard to look at or look away.
-
They do other things.
Not just falconry, but he learns she likes swimming, likes the horses on the grounds, and is a daredevil with Jon’s motorcycle. He enjoys making her smile, not for the least that it eases the guilt inside of him that she’s really nothing more than a captive here.
He likes her, even more so than when she’d been a stranger who wouldn’t give him her name at a pub.
-
They’re at breakfast, the two of them down at the other end of the table away from everyone else. The paper lies before them, the press having gotten wind of her arrival and playing it up in every headline. She eyes it distastefully, mouth pursed and gaze narrowed.
Robb clears his throat, and taps the paper, drawing her attention away. “So tell me more of you.”
She looks up at him, eyebrow cocked. “Like what?”
He shrugs. “Anything. I don’t know much about you. You’re some exotic distant cousin from across the sea in the mainland. I think you know more about me.”
She takes a bite of her eggs, thinking. “I was born in the worst storm to ever hit my country. All sorts of horrible things but I lived.”
“See, that’s interesting!” Storm born and now here. “Tell me more.”
With prompting, he gets more out of her, finding her even more fascinating than before.
-
He cracks when Lord Baelish gives a comment to a reporter about how opportunistic this Targaryen girl must feel at becoming a princess from being so low on the inheritance chain.
“I won’t have this, mother,” he says, and stalks from the room.
Robb finds her in the gardens again, leaning over the fountain to see the fish in it. He knows that she must have seen the paper, seen the remarks about her. “We don’t have to do this.”
“Robb,” Dany turns to face him, calm where he’s angry.
It’s a resigned-ness, and he thinks it’s unfair and wrong to tie her to him against her will. He should have said no at the very beginning when the Lords had first mentioned this idea that he must marry or forfeit his rights.
“No,” he stands firm. “I should never have agreed to this.”
“I didn’t say no. You think I don’t have things to gain from this? That my home doesn’t have things to gain from this? Besides, the Lords won’t allow you to not marry.”
Doing the honorable and right thing isn’t so easy for them no matter how hard he wants it to be. “Then I marry someone else.”
“And do the same to some other girl that you would do to me?” She holds a hand out and gestures him to sit next to her.
He does. Still, he continues. “Then I’ll tell them to forget it. It won’t be the first time I tell them no, I’ve been doing it since my father’s death.”
Dany shakes her head, a smile on her face. “That’s what they want you to do.”
Robb wants to scream. He’s giving her a way out and she obstinately refuses to take it. “Daenerys-”
Putting a hand over his, drawing it closer to her, she runs her fingers over his palm. “I have a better idea. Why not make them pay for their scheming? I’m not adverse to you, and I don’t think you’re adverse to me. Why not continue with what we’re doing and see what happens? There’s no reason we can’t make this work against them.”
She’s stunning. Clever and intelligent and funny and loving and many other things. But clever here. “If you are sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Robb nods, “Okay then. Now what?”
Red lips curve upwards, white teeth all exposed. “Now we seal it with a kiss.”
He can’t find it in himself to argue that.