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Sometimes, when the light fades over the castle wall and the boredom of evening sets in, he passes the time by imagining the day when Ser Duncan will return for him. Weathered by the wind and tanned by the sun, his cloak stained with mud, all bramble-scratched and battle-worn and smiling. His blue eyes bright and glad as he looks down at Aegon. Gods, how you’ve grown, lad, he’ll say, wondering at it, though the top of Aegon’s head will scarce be up to his shoulder. All that fine food and drink, is it?
And Aegon will grin and say how it’s better than hard salt beef, at least, and Ser Duncan will chuckle, low and fond, and then they’ll both be grinning at each other. Then they’ll go to the yard and Aegon will show him how he’s trained, how he’s practiced, how he can spar and ride and carry a lance, how he’d be as good a squire as anybody else—the sort of squire any knight should be lucky to have—and Ser Duncan will smile and say: Well done, lad.
And then he’ll say how he’s changed his mind, how he was a fool to ever refuse Father’s offer. And Aegon will nod and say why, yes, you were a fool, and perhaps he’ll be petty enough to let Ser Duncan squirm for a little while and beg his pardon, but inside, inside, his heart will be soaring, it will, and then—
Aegon imagines it often as the years pass. Over and over, like a book you take down from the shelf again and again, until the parchment is worn and the ink is faded. Over and over and over, and it makes no difference.
Ser Duncan doesn’t come.
Instead, it’s Daeron who visits him tonight. He announces his presence in Aegon’s bedchambers by stumbling over the threshold and pitching head-first onto the rug. Watching from his perch by the window, cross-legged with a book propped open on his knee, Aegon frowns. He mislikes being interrupted, especially with this sort of foolishness. His brother was already drunk at supper, swaying in his chair and calling for more wine in increasingly slurred tones, and he’s plainly not stopped drinking since.
“It’s late,” Aegon says, and slams his book shut with a pointed thunk. He’d just gotten to the good part of the story, too; the knight arriving at the ruined castle, sword drawn, prepared to do battle with the unnatural spirits haunting it.
Owlishly, Daeron blinks up at him. His eyes are rimmed with red and there’s a sheen on them, like he might have been weeping, but perhaps that’s only the firelight. The scar on his cheek is ghastly, livid. “Is it?” he says, sounding the words out with the exaggerated care of all drunkards, over-enunciating each syllable. He could hardly sound less apologetic. “Late, early, it’s all the same to me. I’ve not slept since. . .I can’t remember when.”
“You seemed quite soundly asleep yesterday morning, when I was sent to fetch you for sparring.”
“Ah.”
“I nearly kicked the door down, trying to rouse you. Didn’t you hear?”
Daeron doesn’t answer. He makes a half-hearted effort to stand, moving treacle-ish slow and clumsy, but only succeeds in nearly yanking a tapestry down off the wall. Collapsing back again, he looks like a puppet with its strings cut. Uncanny, somehow. “He wanted to see me,” he remarks. “Father. S’where I was, just now.”
At this rate, they’ll never get anywhere. With a theatrical huff, Aegon sets his book aside and hops down from his perch. “Get up,” he says, and prods Daeron—not particularly gently—with the toe of his boot. “Get up, brother. You debase yourself.”
“I thought you liked base things,” Daeron says, and Aegon kicks him again.
Ser Duncan was always clumsy, too, but not like this. All his fumbling was merely a manifestation of his gentle nature, his great strength. Whatever strength Daeron once had is gone now. Leeched away from him, drained by drink and despair. His body is soft and pliant under Aegon’s hands as he drags him up, pulling him forcibly to his feet. Just the husk of a man, hollow and brittle as the carapace of a dead beetle. Aegon helps him as far as the bed, depositing him there. Fusses over him for a few moments, twitching his rumpled tunic straight, then turns away.
“What did he want with you, then?”
“Who?”
“Father.”
“Oh,” says Daeron, and laughs, a mirthless little hiccough of a sound. These days, wine no longer seems to lift his spirits, only makes him slow and foolish—he’s as melancholy as ever. “To scold me about something, I think. My habits. He says it’s past time I was wed, says it might force me to cease my indic—indesc—”
“Indiscretions,” Aegon finishes. Restless, he takes the poker and stirs up the hearth, jabbing viciously at the dying coals and watching as the sparks fly up. He doubts that marriage will do much to change Daeron’s nature, but one never knows. It will probably be his turn next, six-and-ten and nearly a man grown already. Such things are inescapable.
Perhaps Ser Duncan has wed somebody, too, by now. Perhaps he found his Dornish girl again and they’re settled somewhere beyond the mountains, raising a family of giants together. Idly, Aegon imagines her with a babe at her breast, cooing as she tells it stories of knights and maidens. A child who’ll pester her with questions about her scarred finger. Would she and Ser Duncan ever speak of it, the nightmare that had brought them together? The tourney at Ashford, the slain dragon, Aegon himself.
“Take heart,” he tells Daeron, setting the poker down, feigning an airy briskness he doesn’t quite feel. He’s already sick of thinking about weddings. “There’s every chance no woman will want to marry you. I wouldn’t.”
Another laugh, just as mournful as the last, and then Daeron’s fingers are plucking at his tunic. Drawing him closer. “Come here.”
“Fuck off,” says Aegon, but the words ring childish in his ears, and he allows himself to be drawn reluctantly back. Settles down on the bed at his brother’s side, the feather-soft mattress dipping under their weight, rolling them together. “Seven Hells, you reek of wine. Are you truly as averse to bathing as you are to combs and brushes?”
“You sound like Father.”
“Fuck. Off.”
“S’no wonder he loves you best,” says Daeron, and brings a hand up between them, tugging absentmindedly at Aegon’s hair. He sounds almost in a revery now, drifting off down some distant path. Dreaming himself awake again. “The gods made you in his likeness, inside and out, right down to the marrow.” (and then, with a soft and drunken little snicker—) “Should I fear you, do you think? Will you split my head open?”
Aegon’s stomach twists, bile rising in his throat. Really, he knows he shouldn’t blame Daeron for the rotten things he says, but he can’t help it. He shuts his eyes tightly and, in the dark of his own mind, sees the exposed fragments of his uncle’s skull. The blood welling up. “Don’t talk like that. Don’t. You don’t mean it, anyway, you’re only drunk. You ought to be abed.”
“I am abed.”
“My bed.”
There’s no answer to that, only a thoughtful sort of silence, and Aegon opens his eyes again. Suddenly apprehensive, a suspicion striking him. “If you’re going to be sick, go be sick out the window. I’m not having the servants called to clean up your messes.”
Mutely, Daeron shakes his head. His fingers are still tangled in Aegon’s hair. For whatever reason, it seems to fascinate him. He tousles it, tugs on it gently; the silver strands run between his fingers, gleaming in the firelight. “S’lovely, you know. Your hair.”
“It’s not,” says Aegon, and scrunches his nose, making a sour face. It’s grown nearly down to his shoulders, white and wild like thistledown, and Father has forbidden him from taking a razor to it ever again. He loathes it. Sometimes he wonders if Ser Duncan would even recognise him now. “Leave off, you’re hurting me.”
“Sorry, Egg, m’sorry—”
Egg. Nobody else ever calls him that, these days, except for Aemon in his (increasingly rare) letters. Against his better judgement, Aegon feels his resolve start to soften, and he lays back and lets his brother pet at him clumsily for a while. It’s not so bad. After all, he’s surely no more like Father than Daeron is like Baelor Breakspear. A different fate awaits them both. The gods won’t raise them so high, nor bring them so low.
Daeron is still talking to him, slurring a string of apologies in his ear, though it’s doubtful he even knows what he’s apologising for anymore. He kisses Aegon’s forehead, then his cheek. Trails damp and open-mouthed kisses down to the edge of his jaw. The sensation is ticklish, but not entirely unpleasant. “I’m sorry, truly I am. I’m sorry, sorry—”
“You should be,” says Aegon quietly, and closes his eyes, and it’s not their uncle’s shade he sees now, but Ser Duncan again, the very last time they’d spoken. Bruised and battered, stony-faced, not bothering to even look at him. I can’t, Egg. I’m sorry. The memory is like a knife between his ribs. If only Ser Duncan hadn’t been so eager to leave, they might have come to an agreement. He’d have gladly given up everything to serve the knight, and squire for him, and live and die by the road. Would have made a home from the hedges and ditches, would have never looked back.
He turns his head suddenly, feels Daeron’s lips against his own. This, too, is not entirely unpleasant. It appeals to Aegon in the same way as a painful blow during a sparring match or the heat from a blazing fire. Something harmful that can be tolerated, can be mastered.
When he opens his eyes, Daeron is staring at him hazily, no hint of recognition in his eyes. They might as well be strangers.
“Do it again,” says Aegon, curious to see if he will.
Dutifully, Daeron kisses him again. His lips are very dry, and his breath is sour with wine and bile, and he can’t seem to keep steady long enough to make the kiss last. Eventually, sick of his fumbling, Aegon grasps him by the hair and drags him closer. Holds him there, until he starts to whimper and gasp, rutting against Aegon’s hip. “I can’t,” he’s saying now, slurred and witless. “I can’t, I can’t—”
(I can’t, Egg. I’m sorry.)
Aegon wants to laugh. He wants to weep. “Of course you can,” he says, and yanks at Daeron’s hair, grief making him cruel. “What else are you good for, now? What else can you do?”
It takes them a while to position themselves properly. To find the right arrangement of limbs, of hands—to work out who should be atop the other. Aegon still has very little experience with these things, while Daeron (who has plenty) can’t seem to keep himself upright without getting dizzy. Eventually, they find a decent compromise; Daeron sitting up propped up against the bedpost and Aegon astride him, straddling his lap. Firelight sends their shadows dancing madly across the wall, blending together.
Impatient, Aegon shoves a hand down between them and finds that Daeron’s cock is still soft. Aegon knows he shouldn’t be surprised (he’s heard people say this about drunkards, that they sometimes can’t fuck the same as other men do) but all the same, he feels a vague stab of disappointment. It’s stupid to be hurt, but he can’t help it. “You don’t want to?”
You don’t want me? he might have asked, if he weren’t quite so proud.
Daeron looks pained. “It’s not like that,” he says, sounding a little sullen now. He bucks his hips up with a little grunt, pressing his cock hard against Aegon’s hand—as if, by pantomiming his way through the act of lovemaking, he’ll be able to coax himself to arousal. “The room’s spinning.”
“It’s your head that’s spinning. The room’s fine.”
“I’ve gone blind,” Daeron says, and cries out when Aegon grips his cock more tightly, mashing the lifeless flesh in one fist. Palpitating it roughly, pulling at it again and again. It gets no harder, but a slick and translucent liquid begins to leak from the cockhead, spilling down over Aegon’s fingers, shining in the dim light.
“You haven’t gone blind—you’re just drunk, that’s all. Look at me. Look. Kiss me again.”
And so Daeron kisses his jaw, his throat, the divot of his collarbone. He buries his face in the crook of Aegon’s neck and they stay like that for a while, still mostly clothed, rocking against each other. It’s not long before Aegon feels his own cock begin to ache, pressing uncomfortably against his stomach. Nowhere near so shy as Daeron’s was. Maybe his blood runs hotter. He ruts against his brother and, grasping blindly at him, finds the ruined remains of his ear. Pitted scar-flesh. A keepsake from the fighting at Ashford.
Perhaps Daeron’s mind has wandered in the same direction, because he begins to squirm again. “Don’t speak of it,” he begs, the words a wash of wine fumes against Aegon’s cheek, and kisses him desperately on the lips. Like he’s trying to steal away the words before they’re fully formed. “Don’t, Egg. Don’t think about it.”
Breathless, Aegon digs his fingernails in, pinching the ruined mess of the other’s ear. There’s a pleasure in this cruelty—a great and terrible relief, an infection being drained from a wound. Perhaps this is why Aerion carried on as he did, he thinks. “Don’t call me that.”
“Aegon,” says Daeron thickly, and then—“Brother.”
“Don’t call me that, either. He was more a brother to me than you ever were.”
Daeron doesn’t ask who he is. “I know.”
“I wish—I wish he’d killed you at Ashford.”
“So do I.”
Aegon hears his own pulse roar in his ears and imagines that it might be the hoofbeats of a horse. That it’s Ser Duncan aside his destrier, riding into the courtyard below. I’ve come back, he says, and smiles, nothing but kindness and understanding in his eyes, and Aegon grins and says: I knew you would, ser. And he spills with a gasp, slick soaking through the front of his breeches, and—just for a moment—sees bloody stars blazing across a distant sky. I knew you would, I knew.
Then the pleasure fades and he feels a little ashamed, all of a sudden, and tired as well. He puts his arms around Daeron’s neck and kisses him again, trying to be tender. “I’m sorry,” he says, hoarse and low. He feels like a child again, a foolish boy trying to act the part of a lover. “Truly. I didn’t mean it, those things I said.”
His brother’s eyes are pale and wet. He tilts his head to the side, looks up at Aegon with a bleary smile. “’Course not,” he says, and something terribly like pity flickers across his countenance. The scar on his cheek makes his smile stretch uncannily wide.
There’s a cramp in Aegon’s legs, now, and so he crawls out of Daeron’s lap. He kicks off his boots and shoves his soiled breeches off, leaving everything in a heap by the bed. A problem to be dealt with in the morning.
“We ought to wash,” he says, wrinkling his nose, bunching up a handful of tunic and using it to wipe the slick from his thighs. “Can you stand?”
“In a moment,” says Daeron, which almost certainly means he can't.
Aegon can’t be bothered to press the matter any further. With a sigh, he lays back on the bed and lets Daeron sprawl beside him, dragging the blankets up over them both. The fire has burned low again, a bed of glowing embers in the hearth. He reaches down to touch his brother’s cock, playing with it absentmindedly—coaxes out another little trickle of slick.
“Gods,” Daeron mutters. His eyes are closed and, even in the poor light, Aegon can see that his eyelids are a dark and bruise-ish shade of purple. Split veins. Sickly.
Frowning, Aegon sticks his fingers in his mouth, licking up the other’s spend fastidiously. It’s rank and a little numbing, like drinking seawater. “Do you like the way it feels?” he asks, curious in spite of himself. He cannot see the point in lovemaking when it doesn’t bring you to a proper release, but perhaps Daeron enjoys the sensation. He ruts with whores often enough, after all—there must be something in it. “Does it feel good to you?”
“It doesn’t feel like much at all to me.”
They lie there for a while, listening to coals snap in the hearth.
“Do you ever dream of him?” Aegon asks, and, when there’s no answer—“Ser Duncan.”
Daeron’s eyes are still closed, but a frown furrows his brow; he blanches like a man in pain. “No,” he says, and turns on his side, drawing Aegon to his chest and holding him there. Curling into him. “Let me alone, now, won’t you? My head aches.”
In the dark, Aegon closes his eyes and feels his brother’s arms around him. He imagines that they are both laying in a field, beneath the branches of a great oak tree, and there are stars overhead. He imagines that Ser Duncan is very near. That he is coming back, he is, and there is nothing to do but wait for him. Aegon falls asleep imagining it, hoping to dream of the knight’s arrival, but he doesn’t.
He doesn’t dream of anything.