[ it's disappointing at first, that there isn't anyone for him to take his frustrations out on. he would have liked something to blame, someone else to point his endlessly churning rage at that isn't any number of the others he's already spurned. it seems all he's done since returning is burn bridges, though for most he hadn't needed to say anything at all. it's the strange avoidance, though it's for good reason. he wants to hurt danny johnson, and some people want to flock to him. embry hasn't found a way to coexist with these concepts. ]

I really wanted to show you how brutish I could be and fight someone on your behalf. [ flopping down onto his back, he carelessly wrinkles a pair of wool trousers as he pushes them out from beneath him. ] I'm not just a pretty face, you know.

[ he cradles her hands to his chest, a pair of bird wings against the thud of his heartbeat. it's the softest thing he's felt since coming back. ]

If you did, I know you had a reason. [ he counts himself lucky that he wasn't one of the poor bastards caught in her crossfire — lucky that he was dead, or he might have been. what he doesn't say is that a betrayal from alicent would have gouged him open worse than danny's knife sinking into flesh. ] If you're gonna play, you might as well play to win.

[ how many times has he thought of giving in, of confessing every lie to ash, of throwing his every sacrifice out the goddamn window and saying yes, yes, i will marry you, i will move to bumfuck nowhere and raise cows with you and damn your career to hell. a million times. but he's already playing the game. he's already hurt the people he loves the most. there's no sense in losing now.

he maneuvers her fingers so her nails press to his palm, leaving little crescents marked in his skin. ]

When you feel like tearing yourself up, find me instead. It hurts in a good way, if you're the one doing it.