Crack!fic: A Practical Solution (Stannis/Ned)
For zweihand, who wanted an AU where Stannis went to the Vale instead of Robert and became BFFs with Ned.
Title: A Practical Solution
Rating: R
Pairing: Stannis/Ned
Word Count: 2,215
Summary: Teenage best friends Stannis and Ned embark on a quest to lose their virginity. AU crack!fic.
Stannis didn't drink wine or ale or spirits of any kind. He never wanted to become the drunken fool so many men - lords and common men alike - became as they grew older. He also disliked the thought of not being in control of his tongue and his other parts. But he didn't think he could bear to have this conversation without fortification.
"No," he said, when the serving boy poured his customary cup of water and prepared to add salt. "I'll have wine tonight. Just half a cup."
Lord Jon looked astonished, but he didn't say anything. Stannis's fellow squire Ned Stark, however, did. "Wine, Stannis? Are we celebrating something?"
"No." I'll tell you later, he mouthed to him. The Dornish red was sour, but the effect was not unpleasant. Stannis permitted his cup to be refilled.
When they had finished their dinner and Lord Jon had given them leave to go, Stannis led his best friend for a walk in the garden that passed as a godswood in this mountaintop stronghold. "My brother said something that made sense." Although Stannis had been unsurprised to find half the serving women at Storm's End with Baratheon bastards in their bellies, he had still taken it upon himself to remind Robert to conduct himself with more propriety and to set a better example for their younger brother Renly.
Ned continued walking beside him in silence, waiting for him to continue.
"He said it was my duty to my future lady wife to learn what I am supposed to do in the bed chamber." Robert hadn't put in such delicate terms. And he'd been quite insulting. But he had made an impression on Stannis. "It's not honorable to father bastards, of course, but he did say I...er, a man could make sure he didn't." Stannis knew he was blushing, but Ned was too courteous to laugh at him. He didn't ask why Robert didn't make sure he didn't father bastards either.
Stannis had. "I forgot," Robert had replied, and then he had roared with that booming laughter of his.
"I've been thinking, Ned. We should...we should do our duties by our future wives."
"Stannis, I've never even kissed a girl. Who am I going to, you know." He knew Ned was blushing too.
Stannis had never kissed anyone either. "Maybe we should learn to kiss first," he suggested uncertainly.
"The chamber maid does give me this look when she asks if there's anything she can do for me."
Stannis knew the girl Ned spoke of. "She's betrothed to one of the stableboys." There was nothing honorable in kissing another man's woman.
"Well, there's..." Ned hesitated. He stopped and examined the statue of Alyssa Arryn as if seeing it for the first time.
"Yes?" Stannis prompted him impatiently.
"There are whores down in the village."
He knew that. He'd seen them; had even been accosted by a couple of them. Stannis hadn't liked the way they looked at him, the insolence as they'd made their lewd propositions. "I will not consort with whores," he declared. It was a waste of good money to pay such women for a kiss too. Really, he'd thought better of Ned.
"You know," Ned pointed out, "There aren't like to be many women who would do it who don't already belong to other men or are whores."
"Lord Royce's daughter tried to kiss me once."
Ned smiled. "She tried to kiss me too. But, Stannis, we were ten years old then. And a lord's daughter certainly won't give you more than a kiss."
Stannis frowned. He hoped Ned hadn't been corrupted by his brother Brandon on his visit home. "Of course not," he said. "But we could find some maiden eager for a kiss and a widow to offer us her bed." He knew Robert had bedded one of his lords' widows when the lady had come to him to settle a land dispute with a neighbor. It seemed to him the least dishonorable option, outside of marriage.
"All right," Ned agreed. He offered Stannis his hand. "I'll try, and I'll tell you if anything happens."
They shook hands and finished their walk.
It was a moon before any highborn maidens presented themselves. Lord Grafton came to present the taxes he'd collected the past year and accompanying him was his daughter. She was thirteen and pretty enough. When Lord Jon ordered him and Ned to escort her about the Eyrie, Stannis didn't mind as much as he usually did. At least not until they were alone.
"The view is so pretty," the girl sighed. She rested her head on his shoulder.
Stannis was shocked. They had just met!
"It is very pretty, my lady," Ned said. He looked at Stannis meaningfully. "Pray excuse me, I have to...do things." He was gone before Stannis could stop him.
"Do you think they're really tears shed by Lady Alyssa?"
That was silly. The waterfall was fed by snow melting at the top of the mountains. "Of course not," Stannis started to explain.
She talked right over him. "It would be so tragic to mourn your family for thousands and thousands of years. It was very cruel of the gods, don't you agree?"
Stannis knew all about the gods and their cruelty. They had thrown his parents' ship against the rocks and sent them to their deaths as he watched from the walls of Storm's End. "It would be, but that's water, not tears. Tears are salty and salt water is harmful to crops, yet the smallfolk use water from that waterfall to irrigate their farms. So clearly the water is not truly tears shed by some long dead woman."
The girl removed her head from his shoulder and dropped the arm he'd offered her out of courtesy. "Thank you for the lesson, Maester Stannis."
Stannis was speechless. All he'd done was answer her question! Girls were so strange.
"It was kind of you to show me around, but I'm tired from the climb up. If you'll excuse me, I need to rest." She stalked off before Stannis could say anything.
Stannis didn't have to tell Ned it hadn't gone well. His friend saw that girl ignoring him at dinner and flirting with a young knight. "What happened?" he whispered.
"I don't know," Stannis whispered back. "She asked about the waterfall and I told her and she got mad."
Ned looked bemused.
"I don't understand girls," Stannis hissed, glaring as that wretched girl laughed at a joke that wasn't even funny - not that Stannis had ever heard any jokes he deemed funny.
"Maybe..." Ned looked down at his trencher and began cutting his meat into even little pieces.
"Maybe what?"
"Maybe you should have just agreed that the waterfall was pretty and the legend sad."
"How do you know what happened?" Had Ned hidden and watched? Stannis frowned at the thought.
Ned didn't answer.
"It's just a stream of water. And the legend isn't sad; it's stupid. As if life isn't bad enough, people have to go making up stories about even worse things after death."
"I know, Stannis. But that's not the point. People don't like to be told such things, especially not girls."
Traitor. How would he know anyway. Stannis ignored his former friend the rest of the night.
But by the following evening, he decided to forgive Ned. He had been punished enough having to dine with those boorish knights' sons while Stannis brooded alone.
"Have you made any progress?" he asked, after glowering at the other squires until they shifted away and gave him and Ned privacy.
"I haven't kissed a girl yet, if that's what you mean."
"We're nearly men grown," Stannis reminded him. "You'll be sixteen in less than a year."
"Must it be a highborn maiden? The seamstress's apprentice seemed friendly when she measured me for new feast clothes."
They were pressed for time and there was a scarcity of young noble girls at the Eyrie. "You can kiss her," Stannis said. He was supposed to be measured tomorrow. Maybe she could be of use to him too.
He meant to do it. But she was touching him and chattering about how fast he was growing, and Stannis was very uncomfortable. He imagined trying to kiss her and her not allowing it. That would be appalling. He found himself becoming irritated by the way she put her hands all over him. "I believe you have the measurements you need," he said curtly, and stepped away from her.
He didn't know what he would have told Ned if Ned hadn't also failed to kiss her. "I couldn't," Ned confided. "I'd thought about the way she touched me when I was...you know, last night. I was too embarrassed to even look at her today."
"It's just all well," Stannis declared. "She was little better than a harlot."
Another moon passed without either of them kissing a girl. Stannis had been thinking and he had arrived at a conclusion that led to him having a cup of wine for the second time in his life. "Desperate times call for desperate measures, Ned," he said.
"You changed your mind about going to a whore?"
"No." The issue of honor and his visceral distaste of such women aside, whores carried diseases. He didn't think he could get a disease merely from a kiss, but he wasn't willing to risk it.
"I think," he said carefully, "We should just kiss each other."
Ned looked shocked.
"Girls' lips are made no differently from a man's," he said defensively.
"Well, actually," Ned began.
"Not much different," Stannis amended irritably. "If you find the suggestion distasteful, just say so." It's not like Stannis wanted to kiss Ned any more than Ned wanted to kiss him. He'd simply come up with a practical solution to their problem, which was more than Ned had done.
"No," Ned assured him. "It's not. You're not. I'll do it." He made it sound like he would be doing Stannis a favor, making a sacrifice for him. Stannis was offended.
Ned must have read the look on his face because he hastily added, "I want to kiss you. Truly."
Stannis didn't believe him. Not even after they were alone in Ned's room, with the door safely barred. Ned was standing very close to him, and he moved even nearer. Stannis realized that, being nearly a head taller than Ned, he needed to tilt his face down. He bent his neck this way and that, trying to get the angle right. This was so much harder than it looked.
And then it happened. Their lips touched. It was simple. He and Ned touched all the time; a hand up after being driven to the ground in the training yard, help to adjust a brooch that just wouldn't pin properly. And yet this felt so different. Stannis opened his eyes and only then realized he'd closed them.
Ned looked disappointed.
"Maybe we need to do it again," Stannis suggested.
Ned nodded. "This time I think I should put my arms around you, if you don't mind."
"All right."
Ned slid a hand behind his neck and Stannis was sure the hair there had raised. He tried not to let it show. It was too late now to back out. He tentatively wrapped his arms around Ned until their chests were pressed tight. He put his mouth to Ned's again, just as Ned had been about to say something, and Stannis discovered it felt even better.
"Now that we've done that, I guess we ought to do the rest. With girls, I mean," Ned said later.
It was a shame they couldn't just learn it all with each other. "Yes." He thought about it. "They're different from us between the legs, but I don't think their breasts are that bizarre. We have nipples too."
Ned was looking at him oddly. "You want to touch each other's nipples?"
"Why not?"
Ned shrugged. He pulled his tunic over his head. Stannis had seen his friend naked many times; they took baths together regularly. But this time it was like seeing a stranger. Ned's chest was pale, with only a few wisps of hair as of yet. Stannis slowly took off his own tunic, his heart pounding.
"Ready?" Ned asked.
Stannis was sure his voice would crack if he tried to speak, so he nodded. Ned touched one of his nipples lightly. Instinctively Stannis knew that wasn't the way. "Harder," he said, and Ned pinched him.
Oh.
It hadn't been a good idea after all. He hoped Ned wouldn't notice what was happening in his breeches. He was going to suggest they stop, but then Ned licked his nipple. It wouldn't be fair to him to stop now. He grasped both of Ned's nipples between his fingertips and twisted.
Ned made a sound that was much better than those horrid moans that came from Robert's wenches. Stannis was so glad he'd found way to solve their problem that spared them girls. He slid his hand down Ned's chest to the waistband of his breeches. No girl knew him like Ned did and he didn't care to know any girls as well as he knew Ned.
Title: A Practical Solution
Rating: R
Pairing: Stannis/Ned
Word Count: 2,215
Summary: Teenage best friends Stannis and Ned embark on a quest to lose their virginity. AU crack!fic.
Stannis didn't drink wine or ale or spirits of any kind. He never wanted to become the drunken fool so many men - lords and common men alike - became as they grew older. He also disliked the thought of not being in control of his tongue and his other parts. But he didn't think he could bear to have this conversation without fortification.
"No," he said, when the serving boy poured his customary cup of water and prepared to add salt. "I'll have wine tonight. Just half a cup."
Lord Jon looked astonished, but he didn't say anything. Stannis's fellow squire Ned Stark, however, did. "Wine, Stannis? Are we celebrating something?"
"No." I'll tell you later, he mouthed to him. The Dornish red was sour, but the effect was not unpleasant. Stannis permitted his cup to be refilled.
When they had finished their dinner and Lord Jon had given them leave to go, Stannis led his best friend for a walk in the garden that passed as a godswood in this mountaintop stronghold. "My brother said something that made sense." Although Stannis had been unsurprised to find half the serving women at Storm's End with Baratheon bastards in their bellies, he had still taken it upon himself to remind Robert to conduct himself with more propriety and to set a better example for their younger brother Renly.
Ned continued walking beside him in silence, waiting for him to continue.
"He said it was my duty to my future lady wife to learn what I am supposed to do in the bed chamber." Robert hadn't put in such delicate terms. And he'd been quite insulting. But he had made an impression on Stannis. "It's not honorable to father bastards, of course, but he did say I...er, a man could make sure he didn't." Stannis knew he was blushing, but Ned was too courteous to laugh at him. He didn't ask why Robert didn't make sure he didn't father bastards either.
Stannis had. "I forgot," Robert had replied, and then he had roared with that booming laughter of his.
"I've been thinking, Ned. We should...we should do our duties by our future wives."
"Stannis, I've never even kissed a girl. Who am I going to, you know." He knew Ned was blushing too.
Stannis had never kissed anyone either. "Maybe we should learn to kiss first," he suggested uncertainly.
"The chamber maid does give me this look when she asks if there's anything she can do for me."
Stannis knew the girl Ned spoke of. "She's betrothed to one of the stableboys." There was nothing honorable in kissing another man's woman.
"Well, there's..." Ned hesitated. He stopped and examined the statue of Alyssa Arryn as if seeing it for the first time.
"Yes?" Stannis prompted him impatiently.
"There are whores down in the village."
He knew that. He'd seen them; had even been accosted by a couple of them. Stannis hadn't liked the way they looked at him, the insolence as they'd made their lewd propositions. "I will not consort with whores," he declared. It was a waste of good money to pay such women for a kiss too. Really, he'd thought better of Ned.
"You know," Ned pointed out, "There aren't like to be many women who would do it who don't already belong to other men or are whores."
"Lord Royce's daughter tried to kiss me once."
Ned smiled. "She tried to kiss me too. But, Stannis, we were ten years old then. And a lord's daughter certainly won't give you more than a kiss."
Stannis frowned. He hoped Ned hadn't been corrupted by his brother Brandon on his visit home. "Of course not," he said. "But we could find some maiden eager for a kiss and a widow to offer us her bed." He knew Robert had bedded one of his lords' widows when the lady had come to him to settle a land dispute with a neighbor. It seemed to him the least dishonorable option, outside of marriage.
"All right," Ned agreed. He offered Stannis his hand. "I'll try, and I'll tell you if anything happens."
They shook hands and finished their walk.
It was a moon before any highborn maidens presented themselves. Lord Grafton came to present the taxes he'd collected the past year and accompanying him was his daughter. She was thirteen and pretty enough. When Lord Jon ordered him and Ned to escort her about the Eyrie, Stannis didn't mind as much as he usually did. At least not until they were alone.
"The view is so pretty," the girl sighed. She rested her head on his shoulder.
Stannis was shocked. They had just met!
"It is very pretty, my lady," Ned said. He looked at Stannis meaningfully. "Pray excuse me, I have to...do things." He was gone before Stannis could stop him.
"Do you think they're really tears shed by Lady Alyssa?"
That was silly. The waterfall was fed by snow melting at the top of the mountains. "Of course not," Stannis started to explain.
She talked right over him. "It would be so tragic to mourn your family for thousands and thousands of years. It was very cruel of the gods, don't you agree?"
Stannis knew all about the gods and their cruelty. They had thrown his parents' ship against the rocks and sent them to their deaths as he watched from the walls of Storm's End. "It would be, but that's water, not tears. Tears are salty and salt water is harmful to crops, yet the smallfolk use water from that waterfall to irrigate their farms. So clearly the water is not truly tears shed by some long dead woman."
The girl removed her head from his shoulder and dropped the arm he'd offered her out of courtesy. "Thank you for the lesson, Maester Stannis."
Stannis was speechless. All he'd done was answer her question! Girls were so strange.
"It was kind of you to show me around, but I'm tired from the climb up. If you'll excuse me, I need to rest." She stalked off before Stannis could say anything.
Stannis didn't have to tell Ned it hadn't gone well. His friend saw that girl ignoring him at dinner and flirting with a young knight. "What happened?" he whispered.
"I don't know," Stannis whispered back. "She asked about the waterfall and I told her and she got mad."
Ned looked bemused.
"I don't understand girls," Stannis hissed, glaring as that wretched girl laughed at a joke that wasn't even funny - not that Stannis had ever heard any jokes he deemed funny.
"Maybe..." Ned looked down at his trencher and began cutting his meat into even little pieces.
"Maybe what?"
"Maybe you should have just agreed that the waterfall was pretty and the legend sad."
"How do you know what happened?" Had Ned hidden and watched? Stannis frowned at the thought.
Ned didn't answer.
"It's just a stream of water. And the legend isn't sad; it's stupid. As if life isn't bad enough, people have to go making up stories about even worse things after death."
"I know, Stannis. But that's not the point. People don't like to be told such things, especially not girls."
Traitor. How would he know anyway. Stannis ignored his former friend the rest of the night.
But by the following evening, he decided to forgive Ned. He had been punished enough having to dine with those boorish knights' sons while Stannis brooded alone.
"Have you made any progress?" he asked, after glowering at the other squires until they shifted away and gave him and Ned privacy.
"I haven't kissed a girl yet, if that's what you mean."
"We're nearly men grown," Stannis reminded him. "You'll be sixteen in less than a year."
"Must it be a highborn maiden? The seamstress's apprentice seemed friendly when she measured me for new feast clothes."
They were pressed for time and there was a scarcity of young noble girls at the Eyrie. "You can kiss her," Stannis said. He was supposed to be measured tomorrow. Maybe she could be of use to him too.
He meant to do it. But she was touching him and chattering about how fast he was growing, and Stannis was very uncomfortable. He imagined trying to kiss her and her not allowing it. That would be appalling. He found himself becoming irritated by the way she put her hands all over him. "I believe you have the measurements you need," he said curtly, and stepped away from her.
He didn't know what he would have told Ned if Ned hadn't also failed to kiss her. "I couldn't," Ned confided. "I'd thought about the way she touched me when I was...you know, last night. I was too embarrassed to even look at her today."
"It's just all well," Stannis declared. "She was little better than a harlot."
Another moon passed without either of them kissing a girl. Stannis had been thinking and he had arrived at a conclusion that led to him having a cup of wine for the second time in his life. "Desperate times call for desperate measures, Ned," he said.
"You changed your mind about going to a whore?"
"No." The issue of honor and his visceral distaste of such women aside, whores carried diseases. He didn't think he could get a disease merely from a kiss, but he wasn't willing to risk it.
"I think," he said carefully, "We should just kiss each other."
Ned looked shocked.
"Girls' lips are made no differently from a man's," he said defensively.
"Well, actually," Ned began.
"Not much different," Stannis amended irritably. "If you find the suggestion distasteful, just say so." It's not like Stannis wanted to kiss Ned any more than Ned wanted to kiss him. He'd simply come up with a practical solution to their problem, which was more than Ned had done.
"No," Ned assured him. "It's not. You're not. I'll do it." He made it sound like he would be doing Stannis a favor, making a sacrifice for him. Stannis was offended.
Ned must have read the look on his face because he hastily added, "I want to kiss you. Truly."
Stannis didn't believe him. Not even after they were alone in Ned's room, with the door safely barred. Ned was standing very close to him, and he moved even nearer. Stannis realized that, being nearly a head taller than Ned, he needed to tilt his face down. He bent his neck this way and that, trying to get the angle right. This was so much harder than it looked.
And then it happened. Their lips touched. It was simple. He and Ned touched all the time; a hand up after being driven to the ground in the training yard, help to adjust a brooch that just wouldn't pin properly. And yet this felt so different. Stannis opened his eyes and only then realized he'd closed them.
Ned looked disappointed.
"Maybe we need to do it again," Stannis suggested.
Ned nodded. "This time I think I should put my arms around you, if you don't mind."
"All right."
Ned slid a hand behind his neck and Stannis was sure the hair there had raised. He tried not to let it show. It was too late now to back out. He tentatively wrapped his arms around Ned until their chests were pressed tight. He put his mouth to Ned's again, just as Ned had been about to say something, and Stannis discovered it felt even better.
"Now that we've done that, I guess we ought to do the rest. With girls, I mean," Ned said later.
It was a shame they couldn't just learn it all with each other. "Yes." He thought about it. "They're different from us between the legs, but I don't think their breasts are that bizarre. We have nipples too."
Ned was looking at him oddly. "You want to touch each other's nipples?"
"Why not?"
Ned shrugged. He pulled his tunic over his head. Stannis had seen his friend naked many times; they took baths together regularly. But this time it was like seeing a stranger. Ned's chest was pale, with only a few wisps of hair as of yet. Stannis slowly took off his own tunic, his heart pounding.
"Ready?" Ned asked.
Stannis was sure his voice would crack if he tried to speak, so he nodded. Ned touched one of his nipples lightly. Instinctively Stannis knew that wasn't the way. "Harder," he said, and Ned pinched him.
Oh.
It hadn't been a good idea after all. He hoped Ned wouldn't notice what was happening in his breeches. He was going to suggest they stop, but then Ned licked his nipple. It wouldn't be fair to him to stop now. He grasped both of Ned's nipples between his fingertips and twisted.
Ned made a sound that was much better than those horrid moans that came from Robert's wenches. Stannis was so glad he'd found way to solve their problem that spared them girls. He slid his hand down Ned's chest to the waistband of his breeches. No girl knew him like Ned did and he didn't care to know any girls as well as he knew Ned.