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The dance begins when their first alarm goes off at five. Measured moves and practiced grace come together as part of a complicated routine.
Rhaenyra doesn't even open her eyes before hitting snooze. Daemon squeezes his arm around her torso, a silent thanks.
Another ten minutes, another alarm. This time, Daemon moves.
Slowly, so as not to disturb her sleep, he sits up in bed. His arm moves from around her to the top of her head. He brushes the fine hair from her forehead and stokes his thumb along her hairline. Rhaenyra snuffles in her sleep, but does not wake.
Dictated by an internal clock, Daemon changes into his workout clothes and heads downstairs.
Six days out of the week he starts his morning this way. He stays firm and fit, though he is no longer a young man who needs to. On the seventh day, and any other day Rhaenyra finds the strength to wake up so early, he spends his first waking hours with his wife instead of working out. Though he supposes, most of those mornings do begin with a workout of sorts.
The rest of the house is quiet, not even their house staff bustling about quite yet. He passes the doors of each of his children, seven in total, the younger ones on the same floor as his and Rhaenyra’s bedroom while the older children occupy the floor below.
When he makes it to the home gym, Jace, Rhaenyra’s oldest boy, is already there, keeping a steady pace on the treadmill. Daemon isn't surprised to see him there. Jace joins him for his workouts most mornings, always making it there before Daemon, beating him by mere seconds or an hour Daemon isn’t sure.
They don't acknowledge each other at first, Jace's music loud in his headphones, but he knows Daemon's there. It's his routine too.
After a while, Jace still on the treadmill while Daemon lifts, two more come to join them. Luke and Baela, a second son and first daughter walk in together. They're his two natural born scrappers, always leaning conspiratorialy into one another.
"Morning, Dad." Baela waves as Luke goes to Jace.
"Is your sister awake yet?" He asks.
Baela scoffs, then smiles. "About as awake as Rhaenyra."
The two of them are so similar, Rhaenyra and Rhaena, cut from the same lovely cloth, stepmother and daughter.
Jace steps off the treadmill, tagging his brother in, who beckons Baela over to the machine next to him.
Daemon sets his weights down and walks to the sparring mat pushed into the corner of the room. Jace meets him there.
"You ready, old man?" He laughs as they circle each other.
"Ready to kick your ass, kid."
"Get 'em Jace!" Baela calls over.
"Nah, uncle stepdad has this one in the bag." Luke says, snickering.
Daemon turns around incredulously, "Uncle stepdad?"
Jace, a dirty fighter, uses that opportunity to rush at him. Daemon is proud to say the kid picked that up from him.
Most days Jace is the one who ends up yielding, but Daemon is never more pleased than when he is the one tapping the mat.
After their workout, the four of them all disperse again to shower and continue their morning. When Daemon gets back to their room, Rhaenyra is awake, though barely, their two youngest kids, Viserys and Aegon, curled up next to her watching some kids show on her iPad. She smiles sleepily at him.
"Dada!" Viserys, their youngest, squeals, making grabby hands up at him. Daemon picks him up in a tight hug. The boy’s fat fingers knot themselves in Daemon’s sweat damp hair. He pries Viserys’ fingers away only to hold his small hand in his own.
Before Laena, Daemon never thought of himself as someone's husband (though he’d been married once before). Before the girls he'd never imagined himself a dad. And before all of this: Rhaenyra, her boys, and their children together, he never saw himself being completely happy.
Now, he touches his forehead to his son's, holds his tiny hand in his, and feels that happiness deep in his chest, heavy and warm.
"Should we get up, husband?" Rhaenyra yawns.
Without looking at the clock, Daemon shakes his head. "You have time. Rest a bit longer, my love."
Rhaenyra doesn't need to be told twice, tucking Aegon further in her embrace and closing her eyes. When Daemon puts Viserys back down on the bed, he crawls to her and she folds him under her arm as well.
Sweat is starting to tack hair to the back of his neck, otherwise Daemon would get into bed with them, would hold his wife as she held their boys. He heads ruefully into the bathroom.
When he comes out of his shower, towel wrapped around his waist, it isn't Rhaenyra on the bed with the boys, but Baela, Aegon in her lap and Viserys behind her, grabbing fistfuls of her hair. Hair is his favorite toy as of late. She bats him away gently and turns to Daemon.
He raises an eyebrow.
"Rhaena can't put on a pair of jeans without Rhaenyra telling her they look good." She says in explanation. "Anyway, now that you're out, the Littles are yours. I have to get ready for school."
The Littles, as the older kids refer to Viserys and Aegon, disentangle themselves from Baela, though not before she gives them both kisses on the head.
Daemon tries to get himself ready quickly, only the process of putting on pants is quite difficult when there's a toddler holding onto your leg.
He does manage, in time, and sets out to get the Littles ready. Daemon brings them, one in each arm down to their bedroom, pausing when Rhaenyra and Rhaena come hurriedly up the stairs.
Rhaenyra’s blouse hangs open, all but one button undone. Her pants are zipped up, but not buttoned, and her hair is still mussed from sleep. The look she gives him as the two of them pass by explains that she knows exactly what she looks like, but his daughter, having picked up a few things from Rhaenyra herself, had not taken no for an answer.
"Morning Dad, Littles." Rhaena says as they pass, ruffling Viserys and Aegon's hair.
"What's the emergency today?"
Rhaenyra’s mouth quirks up at the sides, "She can't find a pair of pants she stole from me weeks ago, but that's the only pair that looks good with the shirt she needs to wear today, and she thinks I stole them back. We've checked her closet, so now we're on to mine."
"I don't think you took them back; I know you did. I saw you wearing them last week." Rhaena follows Rhaenyra into her closet, both girls laughing as they go.
Getting the Littles dressed is always a struggle. Viserys loathes to be dressed, kicking and pulling his clothes off the second Daemon turns around to get Aegon dressed.
Aegon, for his part, is at the age where he thinks he can dress himself independently yet sticks his head into either arm hole of his shirt before even considering the opening for his head. At least Daemon gets a laugh out of that.
Once the struggle is over and the boys are mostly presentable, Daemon brings the younger boys down to the kitchen where Joffrey, the youngest of Rhaenyra’s three older boys is sitting at the table, homework spread out in front of him.
The kitchen staff work around him, placing bowls of fruit and plates of eggs in between his papers.
"More late assignments?" Daemon asks, strapping Viserys into his high chair and placing Aegon down into hit seat.
"They're not late. They just will be if I don’t finish them right now."
"It's not like it matters," Jace pops a piece of fruit in his mouth and sits down at the table, "it's just the sixth grade." He grabs a few of Joff's papers and looks them over before grabbing one of the pencils on the table and starting to write. Daemon watches in quiet amusement.
"Are you doing Joff's math homework?" Baela comes in, snatching the paper from Jace and dropping down at the table.
"If he is, he's probably struggling with it." Luke follows Baela into the room. He doesn't sit down, instead he ambles over to stand at Viserys' side, chuckling when the smaller child drops his piece of fruit in favor of wrapping his tiny hand around his finger.
Jace flicks a piece of egg across the table, aiming at Luke, and Viserys giggles when it lands on the tray of his high chair.
Without a word, Jace is up from the table and running around the kitchen to avoid Luke chasing him, almost knocking Rhaenyra over as she descends the steps and walks into the kitchen.
"Jace! Luke" She admonishes, though she can't keep a smile from her face.
"Sorry mom." Jace hugs Rhaenyra in apology, tucking his mother under his chin in a way that Daemon knows she hates. It reminds her that they’re growing up.
Luke comes over as well and hugs Rhaenyra from the side, taking the opportunity to pinch Jace's cheek as he does.
"Ooh, are we hugging?" Rhaena comes from behind them and attaches herself to the last bit of Rhaenyra not covered by her other children, wrapping an arm around Luke's back as she does. Daemon doesn't miss the soft way her fingers dance along his spine, but doesn't acknowledge it either.
"What's one eighth as a decimal?" Joff interrupts the group hug, and the room breaks out in laughter.
"No more helping him with his homework, he'll never learn a thing." Rhaenyra scolds, breaking away from the group to ruffle Joff's hair before taking her usual spot by Daemon.
He takes her hand under the table and she leans into him, laying her head on his chest.
"Did you find the pants?" He murmurs. He feels Rhaenyra’s laughter on his heart.
"In Baela's closet!"
"You should've guessed. Those girls wear more of your clothing than you do."
Rhaenyra sighs and breaks a piece of bacon into her mouth, "I hardly fit any of my clothes anymore." It's been a growing concern of hers, her weight, but Daemon couldn't care less. She's as perfect to him now as she ever has been.
"Buy different clothes."
"And leave our girls to pillage the rest of my things?" She cries in mock distress. As if they don't already.
Breakfast is a fast affair, everyone needing to leave the house and start the rest of their day.
They leave the staff to clean up breakfast while Jace and Luke 'help' Joff finish his homework, Baela actually helps Rhaenyra finish her hair, and Rhaena grabs Viserys while Daemon gets Aegon to hand them off to the nannies.
Their routine, the dance they know all the steps of, begins to wind down.
Jace and Baela leave first, taking the keys to Baela's car and kissing the Littles on the head as they go.
Luke and Rhaena are next, "We can take Joff to school." Luke offers.
"That would be great-" Rhaenyra starts, but Joffrey cuts her off.
"I'm good." He says, nonchalant. He starts to walk out of the door, but Daemon stops him with a hand on his shoulder.
"Keys." He demands.
Joffrey looks back at him with feigned ignorance.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Rhaenyra checks the key ring by the door and rolls her eyes. "Why do you insist on taking my car every time you decide you're old enough to drive?"
Joffrey cracks a bit, pink tinting his cheeks and a whisper of a smile at his lips.
"I don't." He says, trying to get his breathing under control. "Know what." He breaks a bit more. "You're talking about."
Luke comes up behind Joffrey to hold him still while Rhaena digs her hands into his sweatshirt pockets.
Joffrey struggles a bit, but not enough to knock himself free. It's all part of a game.
Rhaena comes up with the keys in her right hand and tosses them to Rhaenyra over Daemon's shoulder.
"Better luck next time." Luke says, tucks his little brother under his arm, and the two of them follow Rhaena out the door.
"He's actually going to walk out of here with them one day." Rhaenyra says once they're alone.
Daemon scoffs, "He won't get very far. I doubt he could turn on the car, let alone get Syrax up to the speeds you push her to."
Rhaenyra smacks his chest playfully but leaves her hand there, warm even through his shirt. "Like you don't ride that Ferrari of yours just as hard."
"Caraxes was made for speed. Your little gold Lambo is a vanity car."
Rhaenyra fists her hand in Daemon's shirt, wrinkling it before they're even out of the house, and pulls him in for a kiss.
Daemon has never been able to get enough of her, can't stop himself from pushing her up against the wall and knotting his fingers in her hair, ruining the work Baela just did.
Rhaenyra moans against his mouth just as prettily as she had the first time they kissed and every time after that.
It's her that pushes away after a few minutes of making out like teenagers. She shoves him away with a wild grin.
"I bet my little vanity car and I beat you and yours to the office." She sing-songs. Daemon bends down to nip at her mouth again, completely addicted to her taste. She leans forward to meet him and Daemon pulls back with his own smile.
"Don’t be a sore loser." He says, pulling away with finality and practically running to his car.
Rhaenyra follows, her laugh a twinkle behind him.
Daemon speeds and cuts through morning traffic with abandon, pulling into the office garage at 8:59. He expects to see Rhaenyra behind him and plans to gloat, but she's already there, leaning up against a wall and pretending to yawn.
"You're just getting in? I've been here for agessss." And on that last drawn-out syllable, Daemon brings his niece in for one last kiss before they head in to work, ready to start a completely different dance with less predictable dragons.