Chapter Text
“Papa…?” Minseo looked up questionably at Leehan, who sat beside him with a book in his hands, which he’d been reading from to his son.
“Hm,” Leehan hummed, acknowledging his son.
“What did that boy mean when he called me that word?” Minseo asked. The question made Leehan tense up before looking down at his son.
“It’s nothing, sweety. He was just being mean, but your dad took care of it,” Leehan said, gently pulling Minseo closer to him so he could place a kiss on top of the boy’s head.
“Sungho told me and Yunseong to go get dad, so we did!” Minseo said proudly, making Leehan smile faintly.
“That was good of you two, but there’s nothing to worry about now, sweety,” Leehan assured Minseo before quietly standing up from the bed in order not to wake up Minjae and Sumin, who’d already fallen asleep in their own beds. Baekseung, Yujun, and Hunter still slept in the chambers adjacent to Taesan’s and Leehan’s chambers, but the three older boys had gotten their own chambers when the triplets had become big enough to need real beds and not their cribs anymore.
“Okay, papa. Night,” Minseo said before getting more comfortable on the bed and almost immediately falling asleep, which was what he did most nights, never really having had a problem going to bed, unlike most of his overactive brothers.
“Night, sweety,” Leehan whispered, kissing the top of Minseo’s head before quietly leaving the chambers. He walked back to his and Taesan’s chambers, but before he got there, he met Sungho in the corridor. The knight looked rather tired, so he didn’t spot Leehan at first, but once he did, he stopped in his tracks.
“My prince,” He said, giving a small respectful bow to Leehan before walking past him.
“Thank you… for today,” Leehan said, prompting Sungho to halt momentarily a few steps behind the prince.
“It was nothing, my prince. I was just doing my duty,” Sungho said, ready to start walking again, but Leehan prevented him from doing so by grabbing his arm.
“No, I mean it, Sungho. Thank you! You could have done nothing and just let that man go on talking, but you didn’t, and for that, I’m very thankful,” Leehan said, letting go of the knight’s arm again once he’d realized he’d actually grabbed him in the first place, which was something he’d done on pure reflex.
“I would never let someone like that go around and say the things he said… not when it could be so harmful to Minseo, and… and to you…” Sungho said. He’d turned back slightly when Leehan had grabbed his arm, so he was now looking at the younger, but before he could fall back into that same old feeling he’d always used to have when he was around the younger, he backed away, gave Leehan another bow, and then quickly left the hallway. Leehan wanted to follow him, to beg him just to go back to normal… if they’d even ever had a normal, to begin with… but he didn’t want the knight to be so distant, so… not himself… and Leehan knew he was probably to blame himself, but he still wanted to at least make them get along and be able to talk to each other…
- - - -
Despite it being long past their bedtime, Taesan found Hunter awake, sitting on his bed, but seemingly not really doing anything at all…
“Hunter? Shouldn’t you be asleep, little man,” Taesan chuckled quietly, but Hunter didn’t seem to have heard him as he just kept staring out into the room. “Hunter?” Taesan gently tapped his son on the shoulder as he sat down on the bed beside him, and only then did Hunter notice his dad’s presence.
“Hi, dad,” The boy said happily as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
“Hey, buddy. What were you doing?” Taesan asked, moving Hunter up from the bed and onto his lap.
“Watching the man,” Hunter said, and it made Taesan quickly look up into the room to see what man his son had meant, but… there was no one there…
“What man, Hunter?” Taesan asked, eyes still darting around the room just to make sure no one was in there, but the only other people in the chambers apart from Hunter and himself were Baekseung and Yujun, and they were both asleep in their own beds.
“The man with the dragon,” Hunter said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“There are no dragons here anymore, Hunter, they’re all gone…” Taesan sighed as this was not the first time Hunter had brought up the dragons, seemingly having inherited Leehan’s fascination with them.
“But, no, dad! He was not here! He was in the big room with the sword-chair!” The description Hunter had given Taesan made the crown prince immediately think of the iron throne, even if he himself had never actually seen it apart from in books. “His dragon was so big, dad! And it burned up the bad man, and then it burned up the chair too!” A pair of glowing violet eyes flashed past Taesan’s eyes as his son spoke, and the memory of the young man and the violet dragon burning those soldiers came back to him, but he just shook his head to get rid of it before focusing back on his son instead.
“I think it’s time you sleep now, buddy. Sounds like you’re already dreaming, so why not go to bed as well, huh?” Taesan teased his son, but Hunter pouted his lips while Taesan moved him out of his lap and back onto the bed.
“It’s not a dream, dad! He’s real, and he is the one who was promised!” Hunter argued, which confused Taesan immensely, but he chose to ignore it for now in order to actually get Hunter to sleep before Leehan came back.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, sweety,” Taesan said, kissing Hunter on the forehead before pulling up the cover over his son. “Sleep now, goodnight,” He added, straightening back up but not before ruffling Hunter’s brown hair playfully.
“Night, dad,” Hunter answered, slightly turning to his side and closing his eyes. Taesan walked over to the doorway leading from the triplets’ chambers to his and Leehan’s, but he stopped there for a while just to make sure Hunter actually went to sleep. But once he was convinced the boy was indeed asleep, he finally left the chambers. He found Leehan already dressed for bed and sitting on their bed with a book in his hands. Taesan recognized it as one of the books the maester had said might contain something about Hunter’s scales or at least something about others who might have had the same features as him.
“Finding anything?” Taesan asked, pulling off his shirt before walking over to the wardrobe and putting on a new one. One he’d usually slept in before walking over to the bed and sitting down beside his husband.
“No…” Leehan murmured, not looking away from the book since he had to focus much harder on the reading since the text was written in High Valyrian and not the common tongue. Taesan moved closer to the younger so he could pull him into some sort of a side hug just to be able to hold him. He wouldn’t be too much help when it came to reading the book since Leehan was far better at High Valyrian than he was, but he still wanted to be close by just in case. “Did Minseo tell you what that boy called him today…?” Leehan eventually asked, closing the book before placing it back on the bedside table.
“No, but Sungho did…” Taesan answered. That made Leehan look over his shoulder and at Taesan, but the elder didn’t seem to point out anything else and instead just pulled Leehan back into a hug. “But the man has been dealt with, and apparently, dad had the boy, and his mother moved out of Winterfell, so there’s nothing to worry about anymore,” Taesan whispered into Leehan’s hair, and the younger just remained quiet at least for a while…
“Minseo asked me what that word meant…” Leehan eventually said, prompting Taesan to look up.
“What word?” He questioned.
“Bastard…” Taesan stayed quiet for a few seconds, long enough for Leehan to start to worry again. He figured the elder would just blame him and tell him that Leehan had brought it upon himself and that he should feel guilty over what Minseo had been called, but to his surprise, Taesan said none of that.
“Did you tell him what it meant?” Taesan asked instead.
“No…?” Leehan answered. “He’s too young to understand it, and it wouldn’t do him any good to know what it meant either! Because-”
“Because it’s not true!” Taesan interrupted him, but not by raising his voice or sounding angry at all. “He’s my son just as much as he’s yours; it doesn’t matter what others think! I won’t let them get to him in any way, and I won’t let him feel any different just because he doesn’t have the same hair color as his brothers! Which is just stupid if you ask me! Why should it matter what color his hair is? Dad’s blond, and father had black hair, and yet neither of us got either of those colors, even though what the hell you now did change your hair color, but that’s beside the point,” Taesan said, feeling rather angry over such a stupid claim to prove Minseo wasn’t his. “If anyone ever dares to threaten his life, or any of my children’s ever again, I’ll end them! My sons are my legacy! And Minseo is heir to the North! He will be king after me, and I won’t let anyone even try to change that!” Leehan still hated it when Taesan raised his voice, but this time, it felt different, and it wasn’t directed toward him either. So now, instead of flinching away like he normally would have done when Taesan raised his voice, using both his hands, placing them on each side of Taesan’s face to pull him toward himself before kissing him on the lips.
“You promise…?” Leehan whispered against Taesan’s lips. “You promise to protect them?” He moved so he was straddling his brother’s thighs, and Taesan moved his hands up to hold onto Leehan’s waist.
“I promise; I’ll do everything in my power to keep them safe! All six of them!”