Downfall

by Metalomagnetic

Summary:

Aegon defends his brother, after many years of failing to do so.

Notes:

A mix of show canon, book canon, and head canon.

For a time, after Aemond claims Vhagar, he makes it a habit to mount her and disappear, sometimes for days, to their mother’s despair.

Even their useless, ever distant father grows concerned.

“He might not know how to control Vhagar yet. Balarion once took a girl to the ruins of old Valyria. He brought her back a year later, only for her to die of gruesome wounds. Aegon, look for him.”

So Aegon tries to fly after Vhagar, find her and Aemond in the skies, his brother so small on her back that the dragon appeared riderless.

Once, Aegon finds them above Dorne.

“She likes to come here,” Aemond says, face flushed from the wind- or mayhaps from a fever; the bandage is wrapped tightly around his head, and the wound still gets infections.

He looks free, childish, so different from the boy he is becoming, shut off in the library or straining his arms in the training yard, face always so serious.

“They’ll shoot us out of the sky,” Aegon yells at him, so he can be heard at a distance. Sunfyre is not eager to get too close to Vhagar.

The dornish have no love of dragons- especially Vhagar. She must have burned thousands of them to death.

“Nothing can hurt her,” Aemond screams back, a vicious smirk on his lips. Aegon prepares to remind him the dornish did kill a dragon, with a scorpion bolt, but his brother goes on. “However, your pretty little Sunfyre is not as fierce. Better fly back home.”

Aegon throws an apple at him, with surprisingly good aim.

It happens in a second. A huge wing deflects the fruit, and then Vhagar is turning, teeth bared, biting the air inches away from Sunfyre’s wing.

Sunfyre shrieks, dives so fast, Aegon almost falls out of his saddle.

“No!” Aegon screams at him when Sunfyre makes to turn and fight back, once it recovers from the fright. “Settle down. Vhagar is just an ugly, quarrelsome old bitch.”

He hears Aemond’s laugh in the distance. “Scared, brother?”

Aegon twists in his saddle and throws his wineskin in his direction.

Vhagar intercepts it with her tail, slapping it away with so much speed, for a second Aegon wonders if the wineskin will land all the way in Pentos.

She is fast, surprisingly so.

Maybe not so surprising, since her wingspan is ridiculous.

Aemond chases him back to King’s Landing. Vhagar really doesn’t play nice; she likes to come very close to Sunfyre, bite the air around Sunfyre’s face, or tail.

“She’s playing,” Aegon keeps reassuring his dragon. As long as Aegon doesn’t get frightened, neither will Sunfyre. His dragon doesn’t like it, but he takes his cue from Aegon.

And Aegon will never fear his little brother.

 

(-)

 

“We are both mothers, and we love our children,” his mother tells Rhaenyra, as their entire family looks on. Aegon snorts in his cup.

Not all your children, mother, Aegon thinks, his cheek still smarting from when she hit him, just hours before.

“You will make a fine queen.”

That’s just outrageous.

Since he can remember, his mother always told him Rhaenyra will kill him, and his siblings, if she ever claims the throne.

He empties his cup and stands to get more wine, making his way to Baela, filled with purpose. He can feel Aemond’s gaze on him.

“I regret the disappointment you are soon to suffer. But, if you ever wish to know what it is to be well satisfied, all you have to do is ask-”

Predictably, Jace stands up, like the easy to taunt child that he is.

Aegon doesn’t have the time to laugh before Aemond stands, too.

Silence falls over the table. Jace reconsiders whatever he meant to do to Aegon, wavering under Aemond’s piercing glare.

Impressive how he conveys such menace with only the one eye.

Jace wilts at his side, like a flower without water.

Aegon sits, knowing the bastard won’t dare anything; not with Aemond staring him down from the other side of the table.

“To prince Aegon and Prince Aemond,” he says, voice thin and uncertain.

His mother has a threatening look in her eyes when she moves them to Aegon. Behave, they say, and Aegon can feel the slap stinging his cheek, were they to be alone.

Aemond looks disappointed when he resumes his seat, after Jace is done with his little speech. He’s been in a frenzy since he found out the bastards will be coming to King’s Landing, training like a maniac, beheading straw men in the yard late into the night.

Witnessing Daemon behead Vaemond Velaryon in the throne room only fed his bloodlust.

Aemond seems ready to put the Strong bastards on their knees; alas, he’s a dutiful son, and their mother did ask them to play nice.

Aemond won’t act without a provocation.

Aegon meets his eye over the table. He shrugs. I tried to give you one, he thinks at his brother.

When Jace asks Helaena to dance, Aegon is giddy with anticipation. Surely, Aemond will take offence to that.

But his brother always had such tight self-restraint. He shifts his chair to glare at their nephew, but he remains seated. Waiting.

Perhaps he’ll do us the favour of dropping dead now, Aegon thinks, observing his forever dying father. Only now he truly looks like he’s about to meet the Stranger.

Of course, even delirious and in pain as he is, probably aware this will be their last dinner together, the King can only look at his precious daughter, or at his precious grandson.

No surprises there. Aegon can’t recall the last time his father looked at him. Not that he bothers to visit his King. He’d given up on trying to gain his affection a long time ago.

Aemond and Helaena still bother; his brother because he’s forever the dutiful son, ready to please their mother, and Helaena…only the gods know with her.

Every now and then, they go to their sire’s decaying chambers, and they suffer being called ‘Daemon’ and ‘Rhaenyra’.

Fools, he thinks, just as their father starts moaning. Servants rush in to carry him away.

And then…then the pig comes, just as their father departs.

They place it right in front of Aemond.

Aegon winces.

Lucerys smirks, breaks into a soft laugh.

A mistake, Aegon knows, getting ready, shoulders tensing with adrenaline.

There’s no possibility of Aemond ignoring this slight. He’ll do something, he’ll snap-

Aemond slams his fist into the table so hard, the bards stop playing, startled.

Here we go, Aegon thinks, on the edge of his seat.

“Finale tribute,” Aemond says, raising his goblet.

Once more, silence falls over the table. No one can reduce a room to silence quite like his little brother.

“To the health of my nephews. Jace, Luke, Joffrey. Each of them handsome, wise…”

Oh, this will be good. Anticipation builds in Aegon’s stomach during the small pause.

“-Strong.”

“Aemond!” their mother cautions, but it’s too late.

His brother doesn’t snap often, but when he does…there is no turning back.

“Come! Let us drain our cups-”

Aegon raises his cup.

“To these three Strong boys.”

Jace, the fool, does his mandatory idiot act.

“I dare you to say that again!”

Aegon feels the bastard at his back, but he doesn’t bother turning. He has his eyes on the other one.

“Why? ‘Twas but a compliment. Do you not think yourself strong?”

By the sounds of it, Jace punched Aemond. That will end badly for you, nephew.

Luke stands, but Aegon is ready. So ready. He grabs the bastard by his black curls and slams him, face down, on the plate, praying his eye got stuck in a knife.

He’s been having vivid dreams about it, cutting the bastard’s eye. He can envision screams of agony, tears and blood on that stupid face.

Aemond pushes Jace so harshly, the dimwit slides across the floor. And then he laughs.

Gods, but I haven’t heard him laugh in so long.

Aegon lets Luke go, turns to look at his brother, who is still smirking.

Aemond is so unhinged, he even rips his hand away from mother’s hold.

He’s saying something no doubt witty and cutting, as are most of his words these days, but Aegon can’t focus, attention firmly on the way that eye sparks with violence.

The Strong boys move towards Aemond, and Aegon prays they get to him. He wants his brother to bash their heads in.

It will be beautiful, he knows.

Dameon steps between them. Uncle Daemon. Aemond’s hero.

Growing up, Aemond wouldn’t shut up about their uncle, and his big dragon, and his wars, and his sword and his battles. On and on it went, for years, boring Aegon to death.

Seeing him cut a man’s head in two probably only enhanced the admiration his brother has for their uncle.

Aemond is staring at him so intensely that Aegon isn’t sure if his brother wants to be Daemon or fuck Daemon.

Not that he would, his godly brother, but he certainly seems like he might want it.

Aegon hates it, bile rising up his throat, unwelcome images forming in his head, depicting his stupid uncle and his little brother together.

Aemond leaves, and Daemon goes after him, a slight smile on his face. Pleased, almost. Aegon has half a mind to follow them, but he forces himself to grab a skin of wine and head to his own chambers instead.

He wouldn’t, Aegon convinces himself, stumbling down the halls of the keep. Unlike Aegon, his brother holds on to decency. Or tries to, when Aegon isn’t there to ruin it for him.

If anything, Aemond would sooner kill their uncle than fuck him, bring him down in a clash of steel.

An image of Dark Sister cutting clean through Velaryon’s head flashes in his head. Worry makes its way into his stomach, threatening to dispel the dinner and wine he just finished ingesting.

No. That’s silly. He banishes the worry with more wine. Some spills on his clothes. It’s been many, many moons since any knight won a sword fight against Aemond. Even Ser Criston loses on a daily bases. And that cunt likes to brag he bested Daemon twice, in a tourney or another.

Aemond will be just fine.

They’ll probably just exchange witty insults and go on their separate ways.

Once in his chambers, he stumbles to his bed. He shrikes when he sees one of his sister’s creepy bugs crawling on the pillow beside him. He throws the pillow away, as far as he can.

Gods, she’s insane. Why couldn’t mother give her to Aemond, instead?

They all begged for it, each with their own reasons, but their mother paid them no mind and Aegon is now stuck with her, and her insects.

She keeps leaving the most horrid bugs on his bed, never failing to make his heart stop for some seconds when he discovers them.

“They are gifts,” Aemond snarled at him, when Aegon almost strangled Helaena after she placed a scorpion between his sheets, and a guard hurried to call Aemond to break them apart. “She’s trying to win your affection!”

Helaena was left crying in a corner, hugging her scorpion; Aegon on the floor at Aemond’s feet, hugging himself, because he was convinced his brother broke his ribs.

He sighs, checking his bed for other gifts, and collapses back on it when he finds none.

He supports his back on the headboard and keeps drinking.

He drinks and drinks, and eventually a stray thought pierces through his hazy mind.

I wish mother would have betrothed me to Aemond.

It makes him giggle, the absurdity of it. He pictures it, imagining the horror felt throughout the realm at the news of such a union. He can almost see the Septons marching to King Landings to burn it all down; their mother sickened face, clutching at her seven-pointed star necklace, falling to her knees, praying for absolution of sins.

He laughs, amusing himself. Wouldn’t that be a sight? Aemond should be in a wedding gown, if he’s to be my bride.

He tries to imagine it, eyes closed, yet he keeps getting distracted by his brother’s face.

His hair would be in braids, falling down his shoulders, some piled at the back of his head, in an intricate manner.

The patch is forgotten, and the sapphire glints in the sun, but not as brightly as his brother’s purple eye, and that stare of his- stoic, violent, and intense; his lips, curled in that mocking smirk…

Aegon swallows, opening his eyes.

His cock is hard, straining his breeches.

Gods be good, I am as depraved as Aemond calls me. Disgusting. Aemond called him that, too, when he dragged Aegon from a pleasure house, once or twice.

Weak.

That’s his brother’s favourite word to describe him.

Aegon is weak. Weak willed. He unlaces his breeches, shoves his hand inside, grabbing his cock.

I can’t be blamed. Not with the way he walks, and talks, and stares.

Aemond makes brave ladies and whores alike swoon when he walks by, or when he trains with his sword, or when he climbs on his brute of a dragon, swinging those long legs over the saddle.

You are no lady, a dying voice of reason, of decency whispers in his head.

“But I am a whore,” he quips back.

The gods and their rules are not for Aegon. They are for his mother, for Aemond, for the smallfolk.

Aegon has no gods. He can’t remember the last time he’s been to the Sept.

But I would kneel to worship my little brother, where he to let me.

Aegon gives in to his urge and strokes himself, building up a pace.

He did fight in the beginning, when these desires first awoke inside him, many moons before. He did his best to drink more, to fuck more- anything to dispel Aemond from his head.

He fought, but he lost.

Weak.

Aegon goes back to his fantasy, only this time it’s not a lark. The Sept, the scandalised people, their mother- all gone.

It’s a Valyrian wedding instead, on a beach somewhere. On Dragonstone, why not?

Aemond just killed Daemon, cut his head off, and they’ve taken the castle from their cunt of a sister.

It’s theirs now. There’s no one around.

Aemond cuts his lip, drags the dragonglass over the flesh until Aegon bleeds.

He moans, biting his lip until he tastes the blood.

 

(-)

 

He hears Lucerys’ scream in the wind rushing past his ears.

Will it ever stop?

No man is so accursed as the kinslayer.

It’s only been minutes, but Aemond is convinced he’ll live the rest of his life hearing his nephew’s last terrified scream; the crunch that came after, the sound of Arrax’ hard flesh breaking to pieces between Vhagar’s jaws, as Aemond looked on, powerless to stop it.

He hadn’t felt powerless since childhood, and now he’s reverted to the pathetic creature he used to be. He covers his ears, trying to make it stop.

It doesn’t.

Vhagar slows down, wings still around him.

“Move!” he snaps at her. “MOVE!” He wants to get off her. He wants to go home, get away from her and hide in his bed.

But she won’t, losing speed. He hits her. It’s the first time he does it.

When he returned with her from Driftmark, the dragon handlers delivered him the whip.

Aemond threw it away, revolted, despite the men insisting it is needed.

He hits her with his fists, but she doesn’t speed up; there’s no harm he can cause her, no pain- he’s only inflicting pain on himself.

It feels good; warm, when his skin breaks on her scales and blood spills over his clenched fingers.

For a second, he stops shivering.

She roars. He feels it, her body trembling with it underneath him.

It’s different from the roar of victory she released into the skies after she spat bits of Arrax out of her mouth.

“SHUT UP!” he screams, but it’s swallowed up by the wind, by her roar.

Compose yourself. The voice sounds eerily like his grandfather’s.

Aemond gives her what she wants. He grips the reins firmly, and only then she picks up speed again. She wouldn’t have, otherwise. She doesn’t like it if he isn’t holding on to her when flying through storms, not since he almost fell off her, long before.

He looks down, and the black clouds, endless, seem tempting.

If he’s dead, maybe his mother can avoid the war.

She roars again. He can feel her distress now, mixing with his own, in that part of himself that awoke when they bonded.

It’s better than the joy that came from her, minutes before, the pure triumph that rushed through his body, the vengeance, at long last met.

Were those her feelings or mine?

He rests his head on the saddle, hoping it will put an end to the dizziness.

It doesn’t. But he holds on to her, and she soars through the storm with haste.

He senses she wants to land, that she wants him on the ground.

“No,” he whispers, against the hard wood. “Take me home.”

She doesn’t land, but she goes out of her way to fly over rivers, close to the water, presumably so she can snatch him up in case he flings himself off her. 

They get out of the storm.

The sun shines brightly, he can feel it on his skin, but he doesn’t understand how that is possible.

A part of him remains in the storm, and it will never get out, trapped between lightning, thunder and dark clouds.

Luke keeps screaming.

 

(-)

 

When he dismounts, he notices his legs are shaking. He takes a moment to still himself, bent over, hands on his knees.

She turns, moves as she did so many times before, as if to nudge him with her head.

But there’s blood all over her maw.

He walks away and does not look back, but it is too late. He’ll never get the image out of his head.

“My Prince.” Ser Arryk bows when Aemond reaches the Red Keep.

He pays no attention, willing his feet to carry him to the small council chamber.

He stopped shivering. He keeps his head high, shoulders straight, stiff, trailing water all over the floors.

He feels wet, feels the cold that seeped into his bones, made a home there.

Yet half of his face is burning. He ignores it, as he had the entire ride home. His eye hurts the most. It stings.

The eye he lost.

He doesn’t see Arrax coming from his blind spot. He only sees the fire right before he feels it, engulfing his face. Vhagar’s face, but many times, they are indistinguishable from each other. For a second, he truly can’t tell which one of them is consumed by flames. His eye, the searing pain, sends him into a panic. Rage comes immediately after, drawing out the storm, the thunder, his nephew’s voice yelling at Arrax to obey him. He’s there, on dragon back, in flight, but he’s also on Driftmark, bleeding in the sand, blood gushing down his face.

He breathes in, a different sort of dread taking hold of him as he walks past Ser Criston, and opens the door.

He sees his mother first, and he has to quell the impulse to run to her and bury his head in her chest.

He is no longer a child.

“The Maesters reported a fierce storm fell over the coast,” she says, eyes kind and worried as she hurries to him. “I feared-"

Aegon snorts in his cup, seated at the table. On their father’s chair. But their sire is dead, so it’s Aegon’s now. “As if Vhagar would be bothered by a storm, mother.”

“What did Lord Borros say?” His grandfather gets straight to it, as is his custom.

Aemond steps out of his mother’s path. He wants her to hug him, but she won’t want to, shortly.

“He pledged his banners to Aegon,” Aemond says. He feared his voice would come out weak and scared, but it doesn’t. “I had to choose one of his daughters to marry.”

His grandfather smiles. “Well done, my boy. Now, we need to-"

It would be so easy to let him go on. Aemond dreams of a world where he would have only returned with that news.

“Lucerys came with word from Rhaenyra whilst I was there.” He forces the words out, fingers clenching into a fist at his side.

“I advised you she won’t accept the terms, Alicent,” his grandfather says. “She’s not considering peace if she’s sending her sons to call her banners. What did Lord Borros-"

“He sent him away.” Aemond sits, staring straight ahead.

“Good.”

“I went after him.”

Silence falls over the room. In it, he hears Luke screaming louder than ever.

“Aemond.” His mother's voice, from behind. Soft.

Scared.

“Aemond,” she calls again, when he doesn’t speak. “What-”

“I killed him.”

Aegon drops his cup. The clash of metal against the stone floor mixes with Arrax’ dying cries.

“You what?” His grandfather stands.

“Aemond- Aemond!”

He ignores his mother.

“I chased him in the storm and had Vhagar eat him.”

Kinslayer. Kinslayer. Kinslayer.

“Him, and his dragon.”

His mother’s cry is just like Luke’s.

“You fool!” His grandfather slams his fist on the table. “You only lost one eye. How could you be so blind?!”

“No, that can’t be! Aemond, look at me-"

He won’t look at her, keeping his eye on a painting on the wall.

Their voices raise, talking over each other. His mother pulls at his shoulders, shaking him.

“Enough!” Aegon. He’s standing now, too.

It’s so rare for Aegon to get involved in matters of state that the surprise is enough to make Aemond turn to look at him.

“Why are you making a fuss over a bastard?”

“Aemond started a war!“

“What?” Aegon laughs. “He started a war? No, mother, he did no such thing. You started a war the moment you placed this crown on my head.”

“Aegon, Luke is her son- was- gods, help us!“

“Her son being there, to call upon banners- my banners- is an act of war in itself. Rebellion. Treason. We extend generous terms to her and uncle Daemon, and she turned around to gather an army. I will hear no more of it. Thank you, brother!” He lifts a new cup, high into the air. “You already dealt with one of their dragons. As always, you act swiftly and efficiently. Grandfather, arrange for a feast in Aemond’s honour.”

“Have you gone mad?”

Aegon’s jaws grind together.

Aemond can’t stop staring at him. Rage, so much more familiar and welcomed, warms its way through the cold.

“A feast?” His grandfather repeats, outraged. “For a kinslayer? Do you understand how that will look-"

“Take care how you speak to your King, lord Hand. Now go, make haste.”

The word ‘king’ settles over them, heavy and oppressing.

A novelty, even if plotted for years, even if it was a sure thing since Aegon was born.

All throughout their lives, it was a fact; he grew up hearing his brother will be king.

And now he is.

“Did you not hear me?” Aegon demands, when no one moves. “You called my brother blind, but do you not see the crown on my head, grandfather? Were you not there when a dragon burst through the floors at my coronation, killing hundreds of my people? Was that not an act of war?”

“Your Grace.” Their grandfather's voice sounds as cold as Aemond feels. Felt. He’s too hot now, boiling with rage, all of it directed at Aegon.

Footsteps move away, and soon, the door opens, and then slams shut.

“Mother, leave us,” Aegon orders.

Aemond bites his tongue, bites back the fury, the violence that keeps mounting.

She leaves. She can’t hit Aegon anymore, nor send him to his room, not when she put a crown on his head.

Aegon sighs. “What a bother,” he says, picking up a wineskin and refilling his goblet. “I wager you need a drink, too-"

Aemond is out of his chair, and upon his brother before he realises he’s doing it.

He snaps, pure hate coursing through his body. How dare the little bastard attack him again? Is one eye not enough?

The desire to kill him recedes as soon as Vhagar lurches after Arrax, nothing playful about it anymore, as soon as he realises what is about to happen.

But it is too late. He cannot take it back.

And now it’s too late- he can’t take hitting his brother back, either.

He slaps Aegon so brutally, the crown falls off his head, clattering on the floor.

Stop, something begs inside him, but Aemond cannot stop, his fingers curling around Aegon’s throat.

Aegon fights back, but it’s been many years since his brother could best him.

In no time, Aemond slams him against a wall with a sickening crush.

“My King?” Ser Criston’s voice comes from the other side of the door.

Aemond breaths, but there’s not enough air. His lungs refuse to work properly since Luke disappeared between Vhagar’s jaws.

Aegon’s face is red- it’s often red and splotchy these days, from his wine.

But now it’s an angry red. His eyes, usually clouded, are wide and desperate.

But his hand is gentle when his fingers close around Aemond’s wrist.

Aemond lets go of his throat.

“Yes?” Aegon chokes out.

“Do you need me?” Ser Criston asks.

Aegon takes a shuddering breath. Aemond can smell the wine on it.

“No. Ignore whatever you might hear next, Ser Cole.”

His hands massage at his neck, staring up at Aemond.

“A feast? A feast?” Aemond demands. “You disgust me, you wretched creature.”

Aegon laughs, a broken, painful sound. “Brother,” he croaks. “All your life you looked down upon me, but surely you wouldn’t call me wretched now, after you fed our nephew to your dragon.”

Aemond slaps him again. Aegon spits in his face, starts struggling.

“What a king you are,” Aemond hisses, moments later, when he straddles Aegon on the floor. “Look at you, you miserable excuse of a man. You can’t even throw a punch.”

Aegon giggles. “Why would I need to learn how to fight when I have my fierce brother to do it for me?”

Aemond grabs his hair, pulls tightly, forcing Aegon to bear his throat to him.

“Your Grace?” Ser Criston asks, again, urgency in his voice, when Aegon gives a sharp cry.

“I ordered you to ignore it!” Aegon shouts, fingers closing around Aemond’s, trying to release his hair, with no success. “I’m the fucking King. Why won’t anyone obey me?”

“Prince Aemond?” Ser Criston inquires, ignoring Aegon.

Aegon makes a frustrated sound, truly angry now, face twisting with hate.

“We’re alright, Ser Criston,” Aemond answers.

Aegon spits at him again.

As Aemond is busy wiping the spit off his face, Aegon hits him over the head.

Hard.

Surprisingly hard. His ears ring.

What in the seven hells-

He almost loses his balance, but regains the upper hand, pinning Aegon’s hands to the floor, above his head.

“Take it! Take it and be done with it!” Aegon screams.

Blood rushes down the side of Aemond’s face and he realises Aegon hit him with the crown.

“Everyone secretly wants you to have it, anyway. You want it -"

“SHUT UP!”

He can’t deal with Aegon’s self pity right then.

Vhagar’s roar pierces through the open window, as angry as he is.

Aemond flinches when he hears it. He wants to cover his ears again.

He stops just in time. He lets go of Aegon’s wrists, but manages to hold onto his shoulders, instead.

She roars again, closer. If he’d look out the window, he knows he’ll see her flying close by, trying to reach him.

“What happened?” Aegon asks, voice barely above a whisper.

Aemond shakes his head. He sits back, on Aegon’s legs.

His brother sits, too. He brushes Aemond’s hair out of his face.

“What happened?” he whispers, again.

Aemond leans his head on Aegon’s shoulder. It’s been many, many years since he took comfort in his brother, since he sought it from the wastrel, but he’s seeking it, now.

“I lost control of her,” he says, just as quietly.

Aegon is not worthy of being king. He knows little of history, barely more about the blade; he’s a foul drunk, a whore, but he’s a Targaryen. A true Targaryen. Sunfyre would never disobey him.

“We would have gone to war, anyway,” Aegon says, after some seconds. “You know we would have. Mother is delusional. Daemon would have never bent the knee, and our grandfather wouldn’t have rested until Rhaenyra was dead. The war was unavoidable, from the second I was born.”

Aemond tries to cling to the words, to believe them.

“By the time the war ends, we will all become kinslayers. No way around it, when family fights family.”

Aemond inhales, a lungful of wine and sweat, and his brother’s scent.

“I would have killed that bastard myself. I’d have chased him on Sunfyre and I’d have brought you his eye. His eyes. Along with his head. He deserved to die. He maimed you, Aemond, and he wasn’t punished for it. ”

Aemond sinks his fingers in Aegon’s hair again, pulls him even closer to him.

“I should have been there. I’m sorry,” Aegon says, quietly, when their mother finally dozed off at his bedside.

“Are you?” Aemond hisses, and he has to turn his head to keep Aegon in his sight, because he can’t see as he used to. His eye is gone. He still can’t believe it. His face hurts, his head hurts. He hurts, all over.

What hurts the most, however, is the way his father dismissed him, choosing to side with the people that took his eye out. The only words he’d deigned to throw at Aemond as the Maester was stitching him up were a command to reveal who spread ‘lies’ about his whore of a sister and her bastards.

It was only his lady mother that tried to fight for him; Aemond will never forget her pain, her tears, how she stood alone against all those people.

“You’d have joined them, had you been there,” he spits. “You always did, you mocked me with them-“

“Harmless larks,” Aegon says, paler than usual. “Do you think I’d have played with them if I knew one day they’ll-“ he swallows. “-they’ll hurt you like this?”

“Get out,” Aemond orders, turning his back to him.

Aegon doesn’t leave. The bed dips under his weight, and a large hand settles on Aemond’s shoulder.

It’s different from his mother’s gentle, caring touch.

Stronger, steadier.

Is this how a father’s touch would feel? Aemond wonders.

In the following months, when the wound would become infected, repeatedly, when the pain would become too much, when he would stumble into furniture and fall because he couldn’t see as he used to, Aemond would go to his brother at night.

He’d almost always find him drunk, but he’d sneak in his bed, snuggle close to him, trying desperately to feel safe, and Aegon, wretched, useless Aegon, was the only man that could at least provide an imitation of safety for him.

“Are you in pain? Wake the Maesters,” Aegon mumbled sleepily, when Aemond first slid under his blankets.

“I don’t want a Maester.”

Aegon never knew what to say, but he’d throw an arm around Aemond’s shoulders and draw him closer, falling back to sleep.

But soon Aemond grew frustrated with the crumbs of security he took from Aegon. Insufficient. Soon, as his bond with Vhagar deepened, he found his safety in her. In himself. In his sword.

He’d keep himself safe.

And he did. He needed no one, just his dragon.

Vhagar roars outside, but Aemond hates her. He hates himself.

He wants to cry, right there in Aegon’s lap, as he did in those first months after he lost his eye.

You are no longer a child.

Aemond releases his brother, gets off him. Aegon picks himself up, slowly, wincing. He picks his crown up, too, looking at it with clouded eyes.

They leave the room, both bloodied, Aegon’s face bearing imprints in the shape of Aemond’s fingers.

Ser Criston glances at them, but says nothing, trailing behind them in silence.

 

(-)

 

The feast is glorious. Aegon gave orders for food and wine to be sent into the city, too, to his smallfolk.

“Prince Aemond slaughtered a dragon,” Aegon addressed a large crowd from a balcony. “He will slaughter more, soon. He swore the Blacks will be punished for the hundreds of deaths Meleys and Rhaenys brought upon this city at my coronation.”

The cheers were loud.

The people were getting angsty with the dragons since Rhaenys killed so many of them. But now they’ll be reassured Aegon’s dragons will not hurt them. Vhagar is there to protect them against the bad dragons.

Aegon loves it when they cheer for him; he loved standing there with so many eyes looking up at him with acceptance.

He wasn’t prepared for it; no one looks at him that way. His mother’s eyes are filled with scorn, his father looked at him with indifference, his grandfather with disappointment. Helaena, with fear or disgust.

And there’s Aemond, who’s one eye pierces Aegon deeper than other people manage with two.

But the people love him. They cheered for him at his coronation, and now they’ve done it again as he delivered his speech.

He feels kingly, as he looks down at the crowds. He feels wanted.

The city celebrates throughout the night. “Prince Aemond,” they yell from time to time, so loudly they are heard from the Red Keep. “Dragon slayer! Hail Aemond One Eye, the dragon slayer!”

The celebration inside the Red Keep is a tad more subdued. Some of the lords and ladies aren’t as cheerful. Kinslayer, they’d say, if they could. They won’t, of course. Aegon will take the head of whoever would dare to utter it.

At least Tyland Lannister, Larys Strong and Jasper Wylde seem to think Lucerys’ death is beneficial.

And it is; it truly is. War was coming either way. And now his cunt of a sister lost a dragon. She has more than Aegon, but considering Vhagar, he’s not overly concerned.

Her only truly valuable weapon is Daemon.

I have Aemond, Aegon reassures himself.

Aemond attends the feast because Aegon commanded it, but he doesn’t linger long.

He sits at a table, alone, glaring at anyone that dares to meet his eye for more than a second.

He drinks two cups of wine, and then he retreats, people jumping out of his path to make way.

Aegon gets drunk in no time. Every lord and lady wants to have a drink with him; they smile at him, eager to please him.

I can grow used to this, he thinks, the fumes of alcohol and power making him dizzy.

He never wanted to be king. He only ever wanted to be loved, and when that was clearly not going to happen, he only wanted to be left alone, to his wine and his whores.

Yet they made him king. They forced that crown on him. It’s only been three days, but he’s growing more confident.

The crown on his head made sure he can settle the debt he owed to Aemond.

He did not protect him when he was a child; he wasn’t there when those bastards maimed him, but now Aegon can protect him. He can defend his brother, cut the head of any man that dares to call him a kinslayer.

“I’ll start with grandfather,” he warned his mother, hours before. “I’m not jesting, mother. If any of you dare speak against him… you will not like the result.”

Vhagar’s roars can be heard outside, as she flies around the Red Keep, restless.

It sobers Aegon every time he hears her, because he hears his brother’s torment in her cries.

He must be tormented if he hit me.

It’s been years since Aemond raised a hand to him, back when Aegon attacked Helaena over the scorpion in his bed.

Aegon loved it. He finally saw Aemond, his brother, not the ruthless, emotionless warrior that parades in Aemond’s body as of late. Not the decent, godly man their mother tried so hard to turn him into.

“Come here,” he demands, when he sees Jaehaerys sneaking glances at him.

The boy climbs the stairs, carefully, trying to contain his giddiness. When he stops in front of the throne, he shifts from leg to leg, nervous, glancing at all the blades.

“Where’s your sister?”

“With mother,” Jaehaerys answers.

“And where is Helaena?”

The boy bites his lip. “In her chambers. She’s crying.”

Aegon sighs. Helaena started crying as soon as she learned Lucerys died, and she hadn’t stopped since.

“Uncle Aemond is upset, too. I tried to make him smile, but he wouldn’t even look at me.”

“Ignore them.” Aegon smiles at him, reaches over to lift the boy’s head, lightly holding his jaw. “They’re sour things; they like to spoil any fun for the rest of us.”

“I am having fun,” Jaehaerys admits, almost guiltily. “I like hearing the people chanting uncle’s name outside. He’s a hero!”

“He is.”

“I can hardly wait to ride Vhagar again! She’s a hero, too!”

“Soon, you’ll ride Shrykos. It’s different when you ride your own dragon.”

“She’s still small,” the boy complains. “Uncle Aemond says it will be at least another year or two before I can fly her. Will you take me on Sunfyre on the morrow, if uncle is still upset and won’t take me flying?”

“We’ll see.”

Jaehaerys pouts, and Aegon feels like pouting, too, when he realises he’s the king now, he can’t run off on his dragon whenever he wants.

“I’ll find time,” he corrects. He won’t be his like his father. He swore to himself, when he first held the twins, that he’ll do his best to love them, and if not love them, at least pay attention to them.

The boy smiles. “They’re chanting your name, too, father! How does it feel?” He lowers his voice, filled with awe. “How does it feel to sit on the throne?”

Aegon pats his leg, and Jaehaerys is quick to climb on his lap.

“How does it feel?” he asks the child.

“Good. It feels good.”

“Get used to it.” Aegon runs his fingers through the blond hair. “One day, it will be yours.”

 

(-)

 

There’s no guard at the door. Aegon remembers Aemond’s discussions with their mother, how he insisted he doesn’t need a guard.

Aegon will make sure to assign a Kingsguard to Aemond. Warrior or not, even his brother needs sleep; and he is vulnerable when he sleeps.

Their half-sister is sure to retaliate for the death of her bastard.

He opens the door, making as much noise as possible, to make sure Aemond hears him coming.

Wouldn’t do to lose his kingly head because he startled Aemond.

It’s been quite some time since he visited the chamber. It’s usually Aemond that finds himself in Aegon’s quarters, waking him up from a drunken stupor, throwing whores out, depositing Aegon on the bed after dragging him out of a pleasure house.

It’s dark, a dying fire the only source of light, throwing shadows on the walls.

His brother is in his bed, a blanket covering half of him.

“Leave me,” Aemond demands, not looking at him, curled around himself.

He’s still in his riding clothes. Hadn’t even removed his boots.

Aegon advances closer, slamming the door shut behind him. “Is that how you greet your king?”

“Does my king desire to be slapped around again?” Aemond snarls, voice muffled by the pillow.

Gods, yes.

“You didn’t bow,” Aegon says, stopping when he reaches the bed.

"What?”

“At my coronation. Mother bowed; grandfather. Not you. What was that little nod, brother?”

He gets no answer. Aegon fists his hand into the blanket and pulls it off in one swift motion.

Aemond stands as quick as a cat, and he finally faces Aegon from the other side of the bed.

He still has his eye patch on. Aegon hates that thing; Aemond hates it, too.

“Don’t wear it, then,” he suggests. “If you so despise it.”

“I must. The ladies at court get frightened when they see my scars.”

Ever the gentle man, the perfect man their mother wishes for him to be. She modelled him into the husband she never had.

Strong, decisive, godly.

“You must be gentle with the ladies,” she kept telling them. Well, she gave up on Aegon as soon as he hit puberty, but she kept at it with Aemond and Daeron.

So Aemond covered his scars and his empty socket when the ladies flinched from him at court.

Aegon, forever haunted by guilt over that cursed night on Driftmark, bought him the prettiest sapphire in the entire realm, to cheer him up. Like Symeon Star Eyes that Aemond adored as a child when a Septa would teach them histories.

It made Aemond smile, a rare occurrence after the loss of his eye.

But the ladies flinched from the gem, too.

So then the patch came.

“Tell him he looks like a fierce pirate,” Aegon instructed Daeron, when Aemond would skulk around the keep, fidgeting with the patch.

Daeron danced around Aemond, in the training yard, begging to play pirate, and soon Aemond became comfortable with the patch, though he always took it off when only family was around.

Only the ladies still flinched.

So Aemond had taken to avoid them entirely, secluding himself in the libraries with books he cannot terrify, or with Vhagar, who’s even more frightening than her rider.

He never understood that it’s not the missing eye that frightens the ladies so.

You’re covering the wrong eye, brother.

It’s the real one, the barely contained anger glinting inside it, the purple that in candlelight almost burns red- that one has the potential of sending anyone fleeing.

He was just a boy, relearning how to walk, how to fight, how to fly the biggest dragon in the world, an unhinged aura growing around him as the years passed and he secluded himself from the world, only comfortable with their mother and sister, their little brother.

Eventually, Aegon took him to a pleasure house where the women were not as easily scared. Aegon found love- or at least the pretence of it- in those women; the love and acceptance he can’t find in the Red Keep, and he hoped Aemond would find it, too.

“Don’t be scared,” Aegon teases him, as they make their way through the Street of Silk.

“I’m not scared,” Aemond hisses, fingers clasped around the hilt of his sword, hidden by the robe he’s wearing as a disguise, as if Aegon is taking him to battle, not to a brothel. “It’s a sin,” he continues, glancing at Aegon quickly.

“Gods be good, you really need to spend time with people other than mother. If I don’t rescue you, she’ll turn you into a Septon soon enough.” Aegon slaps a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not a sin. It’s natural. You’re old enough for it. Time to get it wet, brother.”

“He is so sweet, my prince,” the whore Aegon chose for Aemond told him, after the deed was done and Aemond was frantically cleaning himself in another room, probably trying to wash out the sin of it all. “A kind and gentle soul, that one.”

Aegon mocked Aemond relentlessly, because his brother clung to his hand for the rest of the night, refusing to let go of Aegon until they finally left the brothel.

“That nod was what you deserve,” Aemond says, eye glinting. “More than you deserve.”

“You keep saying you should have the crown, that you are worthier than I, yet you refuse it. You helped mother put this iron monstrosity on my head. But you do not think of me as your king. You can’t have it both ways, brother.”

Aemond comes around the bed, hair flowing around his head as if it has a life of its own. As if it, too, is angry.

Everything about Aemond is angry. His eye, his lips, his hair, his posture.

A true dragon, all fire and blood, even if he tries so hard to wear the Hightower facade of civility and decency, to pray to Hightower gods.

He’s looming over Aegon, like a shadow from Asshai; a pale, beautiful shadow.

“Do you want me to kneel for you, Your Grace?” he asks, voice cold, but with an unstable quality to it. “Will that make you leave me alone?”

“No.”

No, he doesn’t want Aemond to kneel. And no, it won’t make Aegon go away.

Under all that hate and harshness, there is still his little brother trapped somewhere, small and vulnerable and in pain.

Aegon left him to his own devices long enough. He failed him for years.

But the crown- what a curious thing. Since they placed it on his head, something inside Aegon awoke to welcome it. Responsibility. For the small folk. For his family.

For his brother.

It also awoke power; the power of the dragon. The freedom of the dragon.

Dragons take what they want. They are not bound by human constraints or customs.

Just as he feels Aemond about to snap and possibly hit him again, Aegon lets himself sink to the floor, on his knees.

Silence.

He closes his eyes for a second, relishes in the intensity of it all. In the power of doing what he wants, and this time- this time no one can stop him.

He is the king.

There will be no mother to order guards to drag him to her chambers.

The guards are his, now. Everything is his.

“What are you doing?” Aemond’s voice comes softer than ever. More dangerous than ever.

Aegon opens his eyes. He reaches out, and Aemond almost flinches, but he doesn’t back down. He was never one to back down.

Aegon grabs his hip. Boney and sharp, as cutting as the rest of his brother. Everything about Aemond is meant to inflict harm.

“They thought you’d die, you know?” Aegon says, letting his thumb caress the hard leather. “You were born so small and frail, they were convinced you won’t get to your first nameday.”

Aegon’s earliest memories are his mother’s tears, the wet nurse's assurances his baby brother would die, soon.

“And frail you remained, half my size, always with a running nose or a cough. Until you got Vhagar.”

His brother flinches again at the mention of his dragon.

“No Maester could explain why you grew so fast after you claimed her. Why you never got sick again. But we know why.”

It was Vhagar, taking root inside Aemond, giving him her strength.

Aemond was always fierce; daring and unafraid. But his body didn’t help him until Vhagar came into his possession.

His fingers go to the heavy belt, bearing the Hightower sigil. Aegon sneers at it. He wants it off, anyway, so he can get to his goal, but the sigil only makes him get rid of the thing with more urgency.

Aemond’s fingers crush Aegon’s thinner ones, stop them in their track. Calloused, hard fingers.

“Have you gone mad, brother? How much did you have to drink?”

“I’ve never been more sober, Aemond. I’ve never been saner. Let me take care of you. I want you.”

He looks up, meets that violet, fierce gaze.

Aemond pushes him to the floor, those beautiful lips made to smile twisting in disgust, as they often do when faced with Aegon.

He falls on his back. The crown falls, too, rolls under Aemond’s bed.

It is an ugly crown, heavy and utilitarian. A crown for a Conqueror.

His namesake had two wives, spitting on Westerosi tradition and gods. If Aegon the First would had wanted a wife and a husband, he’d have done that, no doubt.

You are my Visenya, Aegon thinks, delirious with lust. My warrior, the savage rider of Vhagar.

“When I think you can sink no lower, you still surprise me,” Aemond growls.

And gods, those lips are sinful, just by existing, especially curled like that.

“Are your whores not enough anymore? Are you running around Flea Bottom begging for cock?”

“Only yours,” Aegon says, sitting up on his knees again.

Aemond closes his eye. His jaw tenses.

“I am already a kinslayer,” he warns. “Do not make a kingslayer out of me, as well.”

“That brown haired, brown-eyed bastard is no kin of ours,” Aegon says. “He had it coming. He should have died that night, on Driftmark, for what he did to you. If we had a real father, if I were a real man, then Lucerys would have died right then. But we had a coward for a father, and I was a stupid boy.” He tries to take Aemond’s belt off again, but he’s stopped once more. “I am the king now, however, and I will not be weak like Viserys. I will ask you to bring me all their heads. I’ll take them myself if I can. Our whore of a sister, our uncle, the rest of her children. I will be a kinslayer, too. And I will not regret it.”

“Is that what makes you hard, you sick degenerate? Thinking of killing our sister?”

“No. Thinking about you killing our sister makes me hard,” Aegon says, smiling up at him. “It makes you hard, too,” he goes on, trying to wiggle his fingers out of Aemond’s death grip. “I know it does. Or perhaps killing our uncle, taking off his head with his own sword.”

“Stop.”

“No. I will not. I am your king,” he reminds Aemond. “You do not-"

“I don’t give a shit,” Aemond snarls at him. “You think your crown would stop me from beating you to a pulp?”

“No,” Aegon agrees. “Being my brother stops you. Because you are no kinslayer. If you were, you’d have killed me long ago. You’d have usurped my throne. But you did not, you will not, because the same blood flows through our veins.”

“Aegon.” Aemond sounds tortured. Mad, unhinged, and tortured.

“Let me, brother. Allow me to give you pleasure.”

“Are you so determined to have me completely ruined in one day? To make me a kinslayer, a deviant, a whore- all within hours?”

Fuck the Faith, Aegon thinks. Fuck the Faith, the Septons, the Seven Gods, and fuck their judgement, too. Who are they to decide what is deviant?

“These are not our gods; not our customs. We are Targaryens, from old Valyria and we have our own ways,” Aegon insists, and when he pushes at those strong hands, Aemond finally relents.

Aegon opens the damn buckle, ripping the belt from it’s loops and throwing it away from them.

“Helaena-”

The mention of her name makes Aegon’s blood boil. “You’re fucking Helaena already, so why not me? Why would she mind when I don’t?”

Aemond’s fingers wrap around his jaw, wrenching his head up painfully.

“I fuck her because you won’t. That’s my lot in life, cleaning up after you, fixing your mistakes, compensating for your faults.” He grips Aegon’s jaw tightly. “You have always been my ruin. You took me to a pleasure house when I was but a boy. You asked me to father bastards because you couldn’t make yourself touch her. And now I’ve become a kinslayer in a war started so you can keep your crown and your empty little head.”

“They aren’t bastards,” Aegon hisses, incensed, slapping his brother’s hand away from his jaw.

Aemond laughs, harshly. “I thought you won’t be like father. Yet here you are, defending those children even if you know-"

“They aren’t bastards,” Aegon cuts him off. “They are ours. Our blood. Our features. Ours.”

Aegon loves the children, all the more because they aren’t his.

Jaehaerys, especially, takes so much after Aemond, it makes his heart ache. The trust in those innocent eyes when they look up to Aegon- 

“What happened to ‘she’s my sister’, Aegon? Wasn’t that your excuse for avoiding Helaena’s bed?” Aemond stops him again, right before Aegon can undo his laces. “I am your brother.”

Aegon did try to use that excuse with their mother, to appeal to her silly faith, that would frown upon such a marriage. “You are Targaryens, and you have your own queer customs. Everyone accepts- even expects that from you.”

Bet you’d sing a different song, mother, if you knew I want to fuck your precious favourite son.

“I only said that because you’d have hit me if I told you I don’t want Helaena because she’s insane and repulsive-”

Aemond hits him. Hard. He almost falls again, only saves himself by holding tight to Aemond’s legs.

Aegon spits the blood out, the taste strong against his tongue. “But you needed little convincing to accept warming her bed, didn’t you? When will you stop hiding, Aemond? You wanted her. And I gave her to you. You wanted Luke dead, and Vhagar obeyed you. Admit it! Admit it, you coward-”

Aemond’s fingers curl around his throat in a bruising grip.

“Vhagar obeys you too well,” Aegon croaks out, suffocating. “I’ve never seen a bond as strong. You don’t even need to think it, nor speak it. You only need to feel it, and she’ll do it. But it’s easier to blame me, to blame her, than to face yourself-”

“Shut up!”

“Make me!”

Aemond does. He lets go of his throat, only to grab Aegon’s hair instead.

With his other hand, he undoes his laces.

Aegon breathes harshly, greedily, sucking in the air his brother just deprived him of.

Aemond is half-hard, always at odds with himself, always the Hightower inside him ready to restrain him, to guilt him, to shame him.

“Brother,” Aegon whispers, in High Valyrian, to banish the Hightower side, murder it, slaughter it, leaving only Targaryen fire in its stead.

Aemond grips his hair tighter, tilting his head up, and shoves himself inside Aegon’s waiting mouth.

It tastes like he imagined it would. Like dragon, like fire and power and salt.

It hardens fully against his tongue. Aegon has never sucked cock; he’d kissed a man or two, in some drunken orgies. He’d grabbed an arse, once, firm and male, but even he knew how compromising being found with a man would be.

He doesn’t know what to do, it’s all too much, just like Aemond is. Overwhelming.

He loves it.

The sweet, gentle soul the whore spoke about must have died along the way. Or it might be reserved only for their sister.

Aemond is rough, thrusting harshly into Aegon’s mouth, into his throat.

It’s painful, it makes him choke, it asphyxiates him more efficiently than Aemond’s fingers around his throat.

It’s perfect. Even as Aegon drools around it, even as his fingers desperately grip Aemond’s hips to ground himself- it’s what he wanted. For a long time.

Eventually he needs to breathe, and he struggles, but Aemond doesn’t let him go.

“You wanted this, Your Grace,” Aemond says, pushing Aegon’s head down, until his nose is buried in the soft, blond hair that surrounds his cock, and keeping him there. “You begged for it like a common whore. So take it.”

Aegon takes it. He’s lightheaded, black spots swim in his vision, and his body goes limp; he’d collapse if not for Aemond’s grip on his hair, pulling painfully at his scalp.

He thinks he’ll lose consciousness soon, his eyes close-

What a way to die, he thinks, woozy. From all the ways he imagined, nightmarish visions of Rhaenyra feeding him to her dragon, Daemon beheading him, or simply dying alone on a lonely street in Flea Bottom- choking on his brother’s cock is the perfect way to go.

Aemond lets him go, throws him on the floor.

“You’re bad at playing the whore, brother. Even that you can’t do right.”

Aegon can’t speak, coughing, shivering. His cock is desperately hard in his breeches.

“Aemond,” he whispers. “Aemond-”

He tries to stand, but he’s shaking so badly he cannot. He tilts his head to look at him, at his beautiful, murderous, disturbed brother.

“I’d marry you, if you’d let me,” he says, the words like glass in his abused throat. “I’d take you as a husband.”

A bitter laugh. “What makes you think I’d want you as a wife? You gave yourself to anyone that would have you. You are worth nothing.”

He hauls Aegon up with ease. “Go on, then. Undress.”

Aegon can barely stand. He sways on his feet, hands uncoordinated, clumsy as they try to take off his doublet. He loses his balance, lightheaded, but Aemond catches him, steadies him.

His eye is burning. With lust, with desperation, with that Targaryen madness Aegon heard about.

He’s terrifying, but Aegon can’t summon any fear, never could. Because behind this force of nature, he can still see his little brother, lonely and shy, trailing after Aegon wherever he went.

“Be calm, but firm,” the dragon handlers told him when he first set his eyes on Sunfyre and decided he’ll claim the dragon; the most beautiful dragon he had ever seen, with his gleaming golden scales and pink wings.

“And if he doesn’t accept me?” Aegon asked, heart in his throat.

“Then he will burn you, my prince.”

Aegon stood under Sunfyre’s gaze, laid bare before it- nothing like a dragon’s stare judging one’s worth. No secrets there, no hiding. Aegon gave himself to Sunfyre and waited to be accepted or burned to a crisp.

He has the same feeling when he looks into his brother’s eye, as intense, all knowing, and scorching as any dragon’s.

“Beautiful,” Aegon whispers, voice rough. He slumps into Aemond, reaches up and takes off the eyepatch. “I’ll never flinch from you, brother,” he says. “From any part of you. I’ll take you as you are.”

You don’t need to cover your scars from me. You don’t need to be gentle.

He’s shoved onto the bed.

Aemond picks up his dagger from under the pillow, where he keeps it.

Aemond with a weapon, especially when he’s unhinged and lost to reason, would be a nightmare to others. But not to Aegon- for Aegon, his brother is splendid.

He is salvation, the only chance they have in the war. Without him, Daemon would kill us all and mount our heads on spikes.

Aemond is the weapon. He was treated as a weapon, ever since he claimed Vhagar. Their grandfather ignores Aegon, just an empty head to hold the crown and warm the iron throne. But Aemond was molded into a weapon by Otto, by Ser Criston, by Vhagar.

“You started a war,” their mother screamed at Aemond, but what did they expect when he was raised for it?

“Do you think we will win?” Aegon asks, placing his hand over Aemond’s, the steel blade under their fingers. “That whore has many more dragons. She has Daemon.”

Aemond stares down at him, made of marble. And then he smiles, a beautiful, blinding thing.

“Do you think I’d let our uncle cut your pretty neck, brother?” His smile grows larger. “You’ll keep that throne. I’ll make sure of it. If only to spite you.”

He slashes at Aegon’s clothes, swiftly, cutting them to unsalvageable ribbons.

“I’ll deal with Daemon, Your Grace. I swear to you.” 

There you are, brother. There’s the Targaryen dragon, not the Hightower prince that is concerned by kinslaying.  

“Do not think of him. Do not dream of him,” Aemond commands. “I am the only one that’s allowed to haunt your dreams and waking hours, from now on.”

He climbs on the bed, and Aegon opens his legs to make room for him.

“I will burn the realm from Dorne to the Wall, if I have to. You will keep your crown.”

Aegon moans, seeing Aemond on Vhagar, seeing the fire already, spilling from Vhagar great maw, spitting hell over Westeros. “Burn them all, brother. Burn them all. Burn their gods, their customs- show them Valyria, come again.”

“I will.”

Aemond sounds relived as he says it, as he gives into his nature, casts aside the Faith, the guilt, breaks the shackles men tried to put on wild dragons.

Aegon can feel the fire under his brother's skin, melting his veins, as his fingers trail over Aegon’s chest. His hands are calloused and hard, unlike the whores on the Street of Silk.

Aegon touches back, taking Aemond’s clothes off. Silky skin greets him, stretched over taunt muscles, marred by scars in some places, marks of Ser Criston’s training, close encounters with his morning star.

There’s nothing soft about him, no fat, no curves- just harsh angles, hard muscle, all over.

If I cut him open, I’ll find ‘fire and blood’ written on his heart.

Aegon is soft; thin, still, but he knows he’ll grow as fat as their sister if he lives long enough.

The only hard thing about Aegon is his cock, and Aemond looks at it, head titled to the side, curious and determined, the same way he looks at his books.

But Aemond doesn’t need to study Aegon as he studies old parchments. He already knows everything there is to know about him, every nook and cranny, every fault, everything twisted and wrong that rots inside Aegon.

He knows how ugly and unlovable Aegon is under his pretty eyes and pouty mouth, perfect skin unbroken and unblemished.

But Aemond likes ugly things, doesn’t he? He loves the unlovable. Vhagar is proof of it.

Love me, Aegon begs him, silently, and he feels his eyes fill with tears. Love me, brother.

It’s all he ever wanted; to be loved, to be held. To be needed.

You needed me once; when you were hurt, when the wound on your face was fresh, you came to me. Aegon would wake with freezing little feet pressed between his own, with hot tears, mixed with blood, spilling on his chest, as his little brother curled around him, seeking something from Aegon, needing something.

He needed me. And it is tragic, Aegon thought it tragic back then, too, that all the gods, old and new, Westeroi and Valyrian had only given worthless Aegon to Aemond.

“I’m a monster,” Aemond whispers, choked by tears, small hands digging into Aegon’s flesh. “I’m hideous. Daeron saw me without the bandages and he got so scared, he ran away.”

And Aegon didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what to do, how to help.

Useless, his mother’s voice rang in his head.

“Stop crying,” he demanded, uncomfortable. It wasn’t right to see Aemond cry.

He never cried. Not when Aegon teased him and played cruel pranks on him, not when Ser Criston would land a hard hit with the training sword.

Not when they took out his eye. Aemond sat on that chair, wincing as the Maester stitching his face, and didn’t shed a tear.

When their sister demanded Aemond be tortured so they could find out who spreads ‘lies’ about her bastards, Aemond didn’t flinch.

And when their mother lost her mind, when the injustice of it all broke her iron tight composure and she slashed Rhaenyra arm, when she was left standing alone, with enemies all around, with an ineffective, weak husband, and a useless, worthless first born son that just stood there, it was Aemond that got up and went to her side, blood still dripping down his face.

“Do not mourn me, mother. I may have lost an eye, but I gained a dragon.”

It was Aemond that was wronged, he was only a child, but he comforted their mother, stood at her side, when no one else did, found the words to defuse the tension, even if he was hurting so much inside, eaten up by pain and by hate.

He never cried in front of their mother, in front of anyone. Just with Aegon. He needed Aegon, sought his protection, and Aegon failed spectacularly, as always.

I will not fail you now. I’ll stand up for you and defend you with all the might of the crown.

Aegon knows what to say now, how to set his brother free. I am a monster, Aemond’s eye said when he came back from Storm End, when their grandfather and mother screamed at him and blamed him for a war they set in motion.

He looked at Aegon, only at Aegon, and for once, Aegon could help.

I love you, even monstrous. Be whoever you want, brother, I will still love you. I will speak for you.

“I love you,” Aegon says, trailing his fingers on that angular, sharp face.

Aemond closes the space between them and kisses Aegon.

He kisses like he does everything else. Puts all of himself in it. Intense, and passionate, and better than anyone else before him.

Aegon moans into it, gives himself to it.

Yes. This is what he desires. To be held and kissed without having to pay for it or take it by force.

“How do I-” Aemond asks, drawing back to stare at Aegon.

Aegon giggles, drunk, but for once it is not the wine at fault. “Surely, you can imagine where to stick your cock.”

Aemond slaps him. Lightly. Playfully. Nothing like before.

“Show me.”

Show me. Aegon should have taken Aemond himself, that night at the pleasure-house. How-why- had he let a whore touch his little brother?

“Oil,” Aegon says, breathless.

Aemond stands in all his naked glory, shadows playing on the hard planes of his body. He doesn’t retrieve oil from his nightstand, where Aegon keeps his oils. But his brother isn’t a degenerate, always playing with his cock, or needing oil close by for when he catches a servant unawares, the way Aegon does.

His brother walks further away, to where the glass container sits, where he keeps the sapphire when he doesn’t have it in. There are oils there, because Aemond never stopped hurting.

His scar bothers him, the socket often gets irritated, dry. Aemond never complains about it, but Aegon heard his mother talking with the Maester, speaking on trying different oils from Essos.

When he returns, the bed dipping under his weight, he hands the vial to Aegon, with that curious expression, almost childlike in its innocence.

A corrupted innocence, tainted by murder, by blood, but not degeneracy.

No worries, brother. I’ll taint you completely.

Aegon spreads his legs wider, trails his oiled fingers between them, under his balls.

He’d had whores finger him before, caressing that special spot inside him as they sucked him off.

But all of those memories fail to compare to how Aegon feels as he breaches himself, while his brother watches, as intense as always, kneeling between Aegon’s legs.

He moans, raises his hips to give Aemond a better view, as he gets himself ready.

Those harsh hands close around Aegon’s ankles, gripping tight. Those perfect lips part, Aemond’s breath quickening, his skin flushing with arousal.

And when Aegon can’t take it anymore, when he cannot wait a moment more and pulls his fingers out, wraps them around Aemond’s thick, throbbing cock, Aemond makes a noise, too, between a whimper and a moan.

It sets Aegon ablaze.

“Come,” Aegon half commands, half begs. “Take me. Make me yours. Claim me.”

Aemond shifts, lowers himself over Aegon, one arm supporting his weight, the other between them, guiding his cock, slapping Aegon’s hand away.

Aegon grips his shoulders, those strong shoulders, filled with knots of tension, tired from carrying the weight of their family on them, the weight of the world.

Aegon’s crown is heavy, too, it pulls at the muscles in his neck when he wears it, but it’s Aemond that will have to bear that weight, as well. He’ll have to carry Aegon and his crown, see them through this war safely.

But then Aemond pushes inside him, and all thoughts of war and crowns slip from his head.

It burns, but Aegon expected nothing else. It’s their fate to burn, always. They are dragons.

Aemond’s head drops onto Aegon’s shoulder, a sound so delicious escaping his mouth that it soothes any pain he’s inflicting on Aegon.

“Brother,” Aegon whines, pulling him closer, burying his nose in Aemond’s long neck, into silver hair that tickles him, spills like a curtain around them, shielding them from the world.

“Aegon,” Aemond whines back, lips wet against his shoulder.

He clenches around Aemond, greedy, wanting to keep him inside, never let him go, to trap him there, so they can stay in that bed where they can keep each other safe.

Would that we were common folk, in Essos, with no duties and no crowns. But Targaryens aren’t common. Closer to gods than men.

Aemond is clearly overwhelmed, trembling above Aegon, thrusting inside him with abandon, chasing release, in more ways than the one.

Aegon wants it, wants Aemond to spill all his guilt, all his resentment, all his fear inside Aegon. Leave them with me, brother, I am made of such things, apt to handle them. Spill your kindness inside Helaena. Give us all that makes you human.

Keep only your fire for yourself, burn brighter than any other. A dragon has no need for kindness, guilt, or fear.

Aegon holds Aemond close, trails his hands over the expense of his back, whispers Valyrian words of love and vengeance in his ear.

Whispers ‘I love you, I need you’ over and over again. Whispers ‘my brother, my knight, my loyal subject’ over muffled moans.

Aegon has never felt so full; satiated, as no drink or food or whore could manage it. The gaping hole inside his chest seals shut with his brother inside him.

And he hopes Aemond feels it, too. Neither had experienced the support of a King, the safety it provided for their half-sister her entire life, gave her the liberty to act as she wanted, with no consequences, no matter how glaring her mistakes.

But Aemond has that now. His King will always be on his side.

Power, tenderness, love blossom inside Aegon, and he’s addicted to how it completes him. Sweeter than any drink or cunt.

When Aemond’s cock twitches inside him and fills him with seed, Aegon has the absurd fantasy it would take root. How wonderful it would be, to carry a piece of Aemond inside him for moons on end, to have him right there, inside, to place his hand on his belly and feel him-

Bitter jealousy for Helaena burns in his heart; how lucky their sister is, how glorious she must have felt carrying the twins inside her, walking around, riding her dragon, sleeping, eating, with Aemond right there in her belly. And then, when the twins were born, to have Aemond’s eye look upon her with such tenderness and love.

“I wish I could give you a babe,” Aegon says, as Aemond regains his breath, his body crushing Aegon’s, burying it into the mattress.

Aemond laughs, his breath hot and wet. “You would make a terrible mother.”

No worse than our own. He doesn’t say it, lest Aemond punches him again.

“Finally, you came first,” Aegon quips, because he can’t help it. Aemond was always so jealous he comes second, to everything. The fate of any second son.

Aemond rolls his eye, snorts, but he’s so relaxed, a content smile twists at his lips when he looks down at Aegon.

Aegon kisses him, almost chaste, a sharp spike of affection overwhelming his arousal. It only lasts a moment, and then his cock demands all the attention.

He reaches a hand between them, he only needs a few strokes to find his release, he thinks. He closes his eyes and kisses Aemond again, nothing chaste about it now.

“No,” Aemond says, and his fingers close around Aegon’s, stilling them.

“Aemond,” he warns.

He tries to keep his brother in place, but Aemond is stronger, and he twists away with ease. 

“Your King demands satisfaction,” Aegon says, petulantly, but he stops his whining when Aemond lies down on the mattress and hands Aegon the oil vial.

And then he spreads his legs- his long, lean, perfect legs- in the most inviting of ways. Aegon almost comes undone just witnessing it.

Aegon crawls in the space Aemond made for him. He’s incredibly aroused, harder than he’s ever been, but he’s also nervous. He doesn’t think he ever fucked someone sober- in fact, he doesn’t remember ever fucking someone he cared for, someone whose comfort mattered to him.

There’s a dull ache in his backside, Aemond’s seed still dripping out of his sore hole, and he loves it, but he doesn’t want to inflict any more hurt on Aemond, not even a minor one, not even something that brings pleasure.

Especially not now, when Aemond finally looks up at him with the trust he had when he was a boy, with the hope he had when he was small, and scared, and wanted Aegon to make it better.

“Gods, you are so beautiful it pains me,” Aegon whispers, cupping his face, struck by Aemond’s perfection.

“Do not mock me,” Aemond bristles, but his tone lacks its usual harshness. “You’ve mocked me enough to last me a lifetime.”

“And I’ll mock you again. Your smug face calls for it, on occasion. But not over this- you are beautiful, brother.”

He bends and kisses the scars on Aemond’s sharp cheek, the eyelid that won’t ever close again, the sapphire.

“Does it still hurt?”

“Sometimes,” Aemond answers, after a handful of moments.

“But not now?”

Aemond’s fingers thread through Aegon’s hair. “Even if it did, I wouldn’t notice.”

Oh, my sweet brother.

Aegon straightens his back, uncaps the oil vial, pours a generous amount on his fingers. Aemond’s eye doesn’t leave Aegon’s face; his sapphire works as a mirror, almost. Aegon can see his own distorted shadow dancing inside it.

“I should have fucked you on your thirteen nameday,” he says, shifting to put a pillow under Aemond’s hips. “I don’t know what came over me, to let you go inside with that whore. It should have been me.”

Aemond smiles- and what a difference it makes, to have those lips stretch with amusement instead of bitterness or scorn.

“I hoped you’d have at least come in with me,” he says, spreading his legs more when Aegon pushes a finger inside him.

So tight. So hot.

“I thought you’d show me how to do it properly. But you always performed your brotherly duties half-way, if you performed them at all.”

Aegon still remembers how Aemond looked over his shoulder, eye wide, face flushed, as the whore led him away to a chamber. He kept his eye on Aegon until the door shut behind him.

“I was an idiot.”

“You are an idiot,” Aemond corrects, sounding condescending, even with a finger up his arse. “But you are an idiot with a crown now.”

“Do you want me to put it on, brother? Do you want me to fuck you with the Conqueror’s crown on my head?”

He pushes another finger alongside the first; no discomfort shows on Aemond’s face, his lips still curled in a smile.

“If you do, I’ll cut your cock,” he answers. “Maybe I’ll cut it, anyway, but first, I must learn how you use it.”

“Oh, you’ll learn,” Aegon promises, smiling back. He pours more oil over his fingers, moves them as gently as he can.

What a strange thing, gentleness. Novel. He never before had the instinct to be gentle with someone.

Well, except the children. Sometimes.

“Maelor is mine, I think,” he says, twisting his fingers, trying to find that special spot. “I fucked Helaena once. When I first started to desire you in my bed, and no amount of wine would clean me of that passion, I waited until you left her chambers, and I sneaked in. I fucked her while your seed was still hot inside her.”

The only reason to touch their deranged sister, her only appeal- that she smelled of Aemond that night, had his sweat on her skin, his spend in her cunt.

“I figured he’s yours,” Aemond says. “He’s so whiny and needy he could only be yours.”

His smile falls of his lips when Aegon adds another finger, his lips part around a moan.

“He takes after Helaena,” Aegon argues. “I have a bastard; I forget his name, but he’s not whiny at all. Last I saw him, he was a sturdy lad.”

“Gaemon,” Aemond says, legs falling wider still. “His name is Gaemon. And you have a daughter, too.”

“Do I?”

Figures Aemond would keep track of these bastards that keep appearing like mushrooms after a rain. Aegon is surprised Aemond only found two. Surely, there are bound to be more out there.

The fantasy from before returns, only with Aemond now being able to carry Aegon’s babe.

He’d want that. To have his brother have a part of Aegon inside him, growing in his belly, taking up space, taking up love.

When he deems Aemond ready, Aegon takes him, slowly, gently, but it’s that fantasy that makes him reach his pleasure, sooner that he’d have wanted, ecstasy painting stars behind his closed eyelids.

 

(-)

 

Aegon is asleep, a light, warm presence in his bed, limbs intertwined with Aemond’s.

Aemond listens carefully, but Luke isn’t screaming anymore. There is only silence, slightly interrupted by his brother’s breathing.

The fire died out, long before, but now light is creeping into his chamber, as the sun starts its climb.

“Aegon,” he says.

His brother shifts, but doesn’t wake.

“Aegon,” Aemond repeats, trying to push him away. But his heart isn’t into it. If anything he pulls Aegon closer. “You have to leave, before they start looking for you.”

“No.”

“Yes,” Aemond argues. “Come-”

“Just a little longer.” His brother’s voice is wrecked, and Aemond hardens between his legs, because he knows it’s not just sleep that makes Aegon sound so rough.

Aemond lets him go back to sleep.

Just a little longer is what he’s been telling himself for hours. But he’s afraid to let Aegon go. He’s afraid Luke will start screaming again, that the storm will find its way back into his bones, replacing the warmth Aegon provides.

Alas, eventually, he wakes Aegon up for good.

“Take some of my clothes,” he says, and Aegon stumbles around the room in near darkness for a while.

“You’ll break fast with us?” Aegon asks, hesitating by the door.

Order it, brother. Don’t ask, command. You are a king now. Do not sound so uncertain.

“Mother won’t want me there. Helaena either.”

His sweet sister. Aemond was told she started crying as soon as she heard the news.

“Well, fuck them!”

“Do not make me hit you again,” Aemond threatens, sitting up. Aegon or not, no one talks of his lady mother that way.

“Fine,” Aegon snarls, petulant. “I’ll see you when I see you, in that case.”

He starts to open the door.

“Wait.”

“What?”

“You’re not going on your own,” Aemond informs him, standing and picking up his clothes.

“You are jesting! I’ve stumbled alone, drunk, in the hour of the wolf, so many times-”

“You were not the king,” Aemond reminds him. “And Rhaenyra will seek revenge. I am not taking any chance.”

“She probably doesn’t even know yet. How would she have found out so soon? It will most likely take them days to find Arrax’ and Luke’s remains. If they find them.”

Daemon will go looking. His uncle would know something went wrong, when the boy fails to return.

And Caraxes has a good nose. And then he’ll tell his wife. Or will he come straight to King’s Landing?

Surely not. It would be suicide. But their uncle was never overly concerned over his own safety, from the stories Aemond heard of him.

He puts on his sword belt, and fastens his longsword on one side, and his dagger on the other.

He fishes his eyepatch of the floor, too, fixes it in place. His eye hurts- he’d kept the gem on for too long, but that’s a problem for later.

They walk in silence through the still dark hallways.

Ser Criston waits in front of Aegon’s chamber. He looks exasperated and relieved when he sees them.

Aegon looks fucked out, hair in disarray, Aemond’s clothes too loose on him.

But Aemond has brought him to his chambers in far worse conditions. This is nothing new, nothing to arise suspicions.

Just Aegon and his whores, Ser Criston would no doubt think.

“All yours,” Aemond says, and turns around without another glance, as Ser Criston shoves Aegon into his chambers.

“My prince,” he asks, and Aemond stops, without turning. “The crown!”

Fuck.

“If he left it in- gods knows where he’d have left -”

“I shall retrieve it,” Aemond says. “Stay with the king. Do try not to lose him again, Ser. He is no longer your prince. The stakes are far higher.”

He marches back to his room and finds the crown under the bed.

For a moment, Aemond is tempted.

Just to try it, see how it feels.

The moment passes, he shoves the temptation away and returns the crown to Ser Criston.

“I promised Jaehaerys I’ll take him flying,” Aegon said, right before he fell asleep. “But I’m afraid that would be a tad uncomfortable.”

Aemond smiles, despite himself, knowing why it would be uncomfortable. He feels it too, a not quite pain, at the base of his spine. But he’d felt much worse during his life, unlike Aegon. It’s nothing to him.

He stops outside his sister’s quarters, straightens his shoulders and breathes out before he enters.

The maids have already woken the children up, but Helaena is hidden under the blankets, weeping.

She does not acknowledge Aemond’s presence.

The twins do; they looked grumpy and sleepy when he entered, but their faces light up as soon as they see him, and they evade the maids attempts to dress them, running to him.

He catches them both, lifting them up.

Jaehaera snuggles close to his chest, nuzzles at his neck, falling asleep almost instantly.

“Are we going flying?” Jaehaerys asks, all sleep gone from his eyes. “Is father coming? He said he-”

“The King is busy. I will take you.”

“No,” Helaena cries, still under her blanket. “No! Don’t take him near her!”

Aemond ignores his sister. He puts the boy on the floor, and he passes the girl back to a maid.

“Maelor?” he enquires.

“Still sleeping, my prince,” the maid says, and Aemond walks quietly to the cradle, just to gaze at the babe for a second. His dragon egg is there, too.

Aemond doubts it will hatch, if it hadn’t already. Jaehaerys’s egg hatched within mouths of his birth. I’ll find you a dragon, he promises the boy.

“I’m ready!” Jaehaerys declares, fastening a cloak around him.

“No, you are not,” the maid says. “And you haven’t eaten-”

“Come,” Aemond cuts over her, taking Jaehaerys arm and removing him from the maids and his crying sister.

“Aegon truly is sorry he couldn’t join us,” he says, as they turn a corner. “But kings are busy men.”

“I don’t mind. I prefer it when it’s you. But don’t tell father! I don’t want to upset him. Everyone is upset enough already.”

Aemond brushes a strand of hair out of the boy’s face.

“It’s just that Vhagar is - Vhagar,” he says, looking up at Aemond with awe. “She’s so much better than Sunfyre!”

“Hmm.”

The boy launches into a retelling of history, a battle Visenya and Vhagar fought in Dorne, as if Aemond wasn’t the one to tell Jaehaerys the story in the first place.

 

(-)

 

“Vhagar!” Jaehaerys screams, as soon as they see her, slumbering on a hill.

He wrestles out of Aemond’s grasp and runs to Vhagar.

She lifts her great head, but her eyes find Aemond, ignoring Jaehaerys, who’s jumping in front of her, trying to pet her.

His mother cried in terror, hid her face in her hands when she saw her grandson running towards Vhagar.

Since then, Aemond made sure she will never witness it again.

“Be careful,” Aemond says, loudly, when Jaehaerys loses his patience and grabs the ladder, climbing it recklessly, his feet slipping on the rope a few times.

He only gets laughter in response.

“You can never attempt to climb any other dragon on your own,” Aemond told the boy, hundreds of times. “Only Vhagar and Dreamfyre.”

“Not even Sunfyre?”

“No. He’ll burn you alive if you approach him without your father.”

“But why? I’m his son.”

Sunfyre accepts Jaehaerys, as long as Aegon is there with him, but he won’t accept him otherwise. Because Jaehaerys is not Aegon’s son.

Their looks, their identical eyes and hair colour will fool people; Aegon and Aemond share those things, after all. The twins do resemble Aegon greatly. 

But a dragon is never fooled.

Aemond stops when he’s in front of Vhagar. His son is almost half-way up the ladder.

Aemond gently lays his fingers on the side of her face. He checks her for injuries, but she recovered already, just a handful of blisters around her eye.

She leans into his touch, makes a pleased sound. He rests his head on her snout.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her.

She licks him.

“I know it wasn’t your fault.” He kisses the side of her head, just under her eye. “I hope you enjoyed it, because you’ll have to kill many dragons in the future.”

She roars, and he feels her eagerness.

She was Visenya’s mount, after all. War is in her blood. In his blood, too.

“I’ll take you to war, my Queen,” he promises, and she roars again.

He wonders if she knew it, as soon as she saw him on Driftmark. If she sensed it in him.

She must have. She knows him, more than he knows himself. She accepted him.

And now he accepts himself. Aegon is right. Westerosi gods are not for them.

“You are my only god,” he says, in his mother tongue, that rolls more naturally from his lips than the common one.

“Uncle!” Jaehaerys calls. He stands in the saddle and waves his hands, trying to capture Aemond’s attention.

He falls; the boy barely has the time to scream, before Vhagar twists her wing, and he glides harmlessly on it. He laughs all the way down, coming to a stop at Aemond’s feet.

“You’ve got to stop doing that,” Aemond tells him, though he remembers many times in his childhood when he’d dismounted Vhagar in the same way.

“Come, uncle! Take me flying!”

Aemond lifts him in his arms; skinny legs lock around his hips, skinny arms cling to his neck.

Aemond bends his head to give Vhagar another kiss, right on the snout.

Jaehaerys does the same. 

When they take flight, a little while later, there is no anguish; Luke isn’t screaming. 

Just Jaehaerys delighted laughter. 

“Dracarys, Vhagar!” his son orders, because he loves it when she spits flames out in the sky. “Uncle!” he whines, when she doesn’t react. 

Aemond kisses his head. 

“Dracarys,” he says, and the clouds turn into flames all around them. 

He knows the next time he will utter the command, it won’t be at empty air. 

Notes:

I would like to write a second chapter, but then I would have to acknowledge Blood and Cheese, and it's just too painful. Maybe if I am feeling masochistic in the near future.

Thank you for reading and I would like to hear your thoughts, if you have the time. ❤️