Forbidden Dreams (Gwayne Hightower AU)

1

"You should have seen her. The biggest boobs in London".

Gwayne glared at his friend, sprawled carelessly on his sofa.
He wasn't sure if Criston Cole was his friend or not.
He was pretty sure Cole was secretly fucking his widow sister.

"Oh, come on, bro. Let's get you out of here. You see those boobs for yourself and tell me if I'm not right" Cole jumped up to grab Gwayne and drag him out of the house.
Not just a house, really.
The Hightower castle.
As Gwayne looked at his family's belongings, he felt nauseous.

Because his father, the influent Otto Hightower, has arranged a wedding for him at his back.
With a hideous Lannister girl.

Losing himself in a brothel didn't feel like a good plan.

Gwayne didn't actually enjoy the place and feeling vulnerable with stranger women. Some of his friends got awful deceases because of that bad habit.

In that desperate moment, Gwayne would marry any random whore.
Anyone would be better than the spoilt, nasty Lannister girl.

"You look like a corpse" Cole wrapped an arm around his shoulders, but Gwayne shrugged it away "It's just a wedding. We all have to go through that shit".

Not just a wedding. Being chained to another human being for the rest of your life. And if you hate that human being...
Money and wealth felt like a curse in that moment, when freedom was just a dream out of reach.

Some bells rang and Gwayne looked up, towards a church on the horizon, beyond the crowd of people filling the roads.

A newly wed couple exited the church, greeted by joyful people and a cascade of rose petals.

It was like a loud slap on Gwayne's face. Like a sword thrusted into his heart. Like having his soul painfully ripped from his body.

Because that was a poor couple. It was clear from the cheap and simple decorations. And the church being one of the outskirt ones beloved by what Cole would call the "smallfolk".

But they were the happiest people Gwayne had ever seen.

The couple kissed and it was clear as daylight that they were madly in love.

Gwayne would have sold his soul to be in the groom's place.
If he could, he would sell all his belongings just to join the smallfolk and being free.
Being born into nobility was a curse.
He wanted to ride away from it and never look back, to finally embrace freedom.
He was trained for his whole life to a miserable existence, no matter the wealth, if the result was that he had to bind himself to a noblewoman he hated.

"It's unfair!" Gwayne snapped, turning his back to the wedding celebrations, but the view of the happy couple kissing was still burner into his eyes and his brain.

Cole snickered "Are you envious of the smallfolk? Would you like to be penniless, begging for mercy and listening to your stomach grumbling all day?".

Gwayne stomped away, ignoring the children at the side of the road offering newspapers and any sort of trinket for few coins.

"I didn't get to choose anything of my life. I hoped my father would send me away, to join the army as you did. Instead he trapped me in an unhappy marriage" Gwayne said angrily.

"You're not married yet" Cole pointed out "That's why you really should drown your displeasure in our favourite brothel".

"It's not my favourite brothel" Gwayne protested.

"And even if you're married, if you have a wife, you can still do whatever you want, spend your nights in the brothel, forget that you're married unless you have to attend to some event".