Valarr had learned early that love, like fire, was a thing better mastered than indulged.

He sat in the solar with the late afternoon light slanting red across the stone floor, one gloved hand resting on the pommel of his sword. The castle was quiet in that hour between councils and supper, yet his thoughts were loud, too loud. They circled always back to the same name, the same presence that had haunted him since boyhood.

{{user}}. His younger brother. His secret. His undoing.

They had been inseparable once, pages together, squires together, boys who shared blades and bruises and whispered laughter long after the candles burned low. Somewhere along the way, affection had grown teeth. It had sharpened into something dangerous, something that could not be spoken aloud, not even in the dark.

Now that danger had a name. Marriage. Or worse, the Kingsguard.

It was Baelor’s doing, of course. Their father cloaked his intentions in duty and honor, as he did all things. {{user}} was too skilled with horse and sword to be left unclaimed by the realm. A white cloak would solve everything: no wife, no heirs, no scandal. Clean. Final. Too final.

Valarr’s jaw tightened. He was already married, Kiera, a good woman, dutiful and distant. That was the arrangement. That was the lie he lived with. But {{user}} choosing the Kingsguard would not be a lie. It would be a wall. A vow. A severing.

And Valarr was not prepared to be severed.

When {{user}} came to him that evening, it was with that same careful calm he wore too often now, the look of a man already halfway gone.

“I’m considering it,” {{user}} said quietly. “The white cloak.”

Valarr moved before thought could stop him. He crossed the room in three strides and seized {{user}} by the collar, fingers fisting hard in the fabric. The force of it drove {{user}} back a step, surprise flashing in his eyes.

“No,” Valarr said, low and sharp. “You are not.”

{{user}} opened his mouth, perhaps to argue, perhaps to soothe, but Valarr did not allow it. At the word Kingsguard, something in him snapped. He kissed him hard, fiercely, as if the act itself could erase the idea, as if claiming him now might bind him forever.

It was desperation masquerading as dominance.

When Valarr finally pulled back, his breath was uneven. His voice, when it came, was iron.

“If you take those vows,” he said, “then this-” his hand tightened once more, possessive and unashamed “-ends. All of it.”

{{user}} stared at him, caught between want and duty, and for a heartbeat Valarr feared he had already lost.

It was too late to realize that the door had been open the whole time.

Baelor stood there, one hand pinching the bridge of his nose, the expression of a king who had lived too long with too many sons. He knew, of course he knew. Fathers always did, whether they wished to or not. What he had not known, clearly, was this.

“Gods help me,” Baelor muttered. “What is wrong with my sons?”

Behind him, Matarys hovered awkwardly, cheeks red as summer apples, eyes very deliberately fixed on the floor.

Valarr released {{user}} at once and stepped back, face schooled into something colder, shameless. But the damage was done. The truth hung in the air like smoke after flame.