Chapter Text
Aerion Targaryen always got what he wanted.
Ever since he was a child, his parents had known it was better to indulge him than try to tame his ever-changing predilections. His mother had been more inclined to it—she had understood him in that quiet way mothers sometimes understand their most difficult children, seeing past the tantrums to something wounded and wanting beneath. She would smooth his silver-gold hair back from his forehead when he raged, her cool fingers tracing the shape of his fury until it softened into something manageable.
"You burn so brightly, my love," she would murmur in the mother tongue, the old Valyrian that tasted like honey and smoke. "The world will not always know what to do with such fire."
But after her death, even Maekar—who possessed a temperament dangerously close to his son's, a simmering volatility held in check by iron discipline—decided to leave Aerion to his own devices more often than not. Widowed and burdened with four sons and two daughters, Aerion's moods were so exhausting that Maekar took to ignoring them to preserve what little patience remained to him.
It became a game, after a fashion. Aerion had always loved to dance along the edge of his father's forbearance, testing precisely how far he could push before that legendary composure shattered and consequences came crashing down. The anticipation was almost sweeter than the punishment itself—watching his father's jaw tighten incrementally, the vein at his temple beginning to throb. There was a mathematical precision to it, a calculation of exactly how much insolence could be deployed before the scales tipped.
Until he had crossed that line completely.
And his father sent him away from home.
Study abroad, Maekar had said, his voice carrying that particular flatness it acquired when he was deliberately suppressing stronger emotion. They had stood in his study, surrounded by leather-bound ledgers and the faint smell of old paper, and Aerion had watched his father's hands remain perfectly still at his sides. It will do you good to gain some wisdom. Lys has excellent programs—I've made inquiries.
It's not a punishment, his uncle Baelor had provided, his warm hand settling on Aerion's shoulder with an attempt at comfort that felt almost worse than outright condemnation. But a redirection. A chance to find yourself away from... distractions.
Aerion had looked between them—his father's granite expression, his uncle's gentle concern—and understood perfectly. He knew who he was in the eyes of the public. Brightflame, they had called him, and not kindly. He had burned down a whole building for the sake of it, for the sheer magnificent spectacle of watching something consume itself, and the name had stuck like ash to skin. Maekar feared his insatiable hunger, that yawning emptiness that nothing seemed to fill. So he sent him away, somewhere that hunger might be sated.
Lys wasn't a punishment. Aerion knew it before he had boarded the plane.
His father, for all his coldness and need for order, could not bear to send his second son somewhere he would lack anything his heart might desire. It was a particular kind of cruelty, Aerion thought—to be exiled in comfort, to have every material need met while the essential need went unanswered. He was being managed, not punished. Contained, like something volatile that might still prove useful if stored properly.
So he packed his bags with careless efficiency, said goodbyes to his family that were more performance than sentiment, and flew toward his sentence.
White beaches that stretched endlessly under a sun that never seemed to dim. Loud clubs where the bass vibrated through his bones until he could forget he had bones at all. Insatiable strangers who spoke his mother tongue with lilting Lysene accents and wanted a piece of him—his accent, his name, his sharp Targaryen beauty that marked him as something exotic.
You'll write to me, won't you, cousin?
The question kept him tethered. Valarr had asked it the night before Aerion left, his mismatched eyes—one brown, one pale blue, a genetic quirk that made him look perpetually otherworldly—holding Aerion's with an intensity that contradicted his casual tone. He could still feel the warmth of Valarr's hand against the back of his neck.
"Every week," Aerion had promised, and meant it.
So he wrote. As cheesy as it made him feel—and Aerion Targaryen did not do cheesy, had built an entire identity around being too sharp and too cruel for such soft sentiments—but also giddy in a childish, hopeful way he would never have admitted aloud. He sent countless letters speaking of nothing and everything: the way he'd started sleeping on the left side of the bed out of habit, leaving the right side empty as if waiting for someone to fill it; the cheap postcards he bought but never sent, too embarrassed by their sentimental images; the strange compulsion he had to describe every small detail of his days, as if by writing them down he could make Valarr see through his eyes, could bridge the ocean between them with nothing but ink and longing.
Valarr replied to each and every one.
His letters arrived on heavy cream paper, always sealed with the Targaryen sigil in deep red wax. His handwriting was precise without being stiff, the letters of a man who had been rigorously educated but had developed his own quiet elegance. He wrote of the family business—carefully, never revealing anything that might compromise him if the letters were intercepted—and of his father's health, of Aerion's younger siblings and their small dramas. He wrote of the weather and the garden and the books he was reading.
And sometimes, in paragraphs that Aerion read and re-read until the paper grew soft at the edges, he wrote things that made Aerion's chest ache with a feeling he refused to name.
The house is quieter without you. I find myself listening for your footsteps in the hall, or the particular way you close doors—as if they've personally offended you.
I miss the sound of your voice. Is that a foolish thing to say? Perhaps. I'll say it anyway. I miss the sound of your voice, and the way you argue with everyone about everything, and how you never let me win even when I'm right. I think you've ruined me for peace and quiet, cousin. I find I don't mind.
The time it took for the letters to cross the Narrow Sea became a sweet punishment for Aerion. Each delay between sending his own words and receiving Valarr's response kept him waiting for the next crumb of attention, the next increment of hope that Valarr haunted the hallways of their home still, that he paused outside Aerion's empty room and felt the same hollow ache.
Until the letters stopped.
No preamble. No warning. No gentle explanation or careful farewell. Just silence where words had been, an absence so profound it felt like a physical wound.
Aerion waited three weeks before he called. Then four days more before he tried again. His pride warred with something rawer, something that felt dangerously like desperation, and pride won enough battles that he limited himself to three attempts before he stopped.
At first, he told himself he didn't care. He couldn't care less. Valarr Targaryen was nothing—a distraction, a pleasant way to pass the time, a warm body that had happened to be convenient. There were plenty of warm bodies in Lys, after all. Plenty of strangers who looked at him with wanting eyes and didn't require letters or promises or pieces of himself he wasn't sure he knew how to give.
He partied with a vengeance that surprised even himself. He lost himself in strangers who grabbed at him on dance floors and whispered filthy things in his ear in languages he barely understood. He let himself be wanted, let himself be consumed, let the bass and the lights and the press of anonymous bodies drown out the quiet voice that kept asking why why why.
But at the end of every night, he always found himself walking back to his lonely apartment alone. Checking his mail for letters that had stopped coming long ago. Refusing even the thought of entertaining another warm body in his bed, because none of them had mismatched eyes and none of them wrote him letters on cream paper and none of them had ever looked at him like he was something worth the risk.
Then the invitation arrived.
Aerion was sitting on his small balcony, watching the sun set over the Lysene harbor, when his landlord knocked on his door with the day's post. The envelope was thick and cream-colored, and when he turned it over in his hands, he saw the Targaryen seal pressed into blood-red wax.
His heart stuttered. His hands, which had never trembled for anything—not for his father's disappointment, not for the building he'd watched burn, not for any of the consequences he'd so casually courted—his hands trembled now.
He opened it carefully, as if the paper itself might wound him.
Valarr Targaryen and Kiera of Tyrosh invite you to celebrate their union of love and commitment.
Commitment.
Aerion read the word once. Then again. Then again, until the letters blurred and lost all meaning, until it felt like his eyes were bleeding. Perhaps they were—he reached up to touch his cheek and found moisture there. But instead of blood, Aerion realized with a horror that made his stomach turn, he had tears in his eyes.
As a child, he had always cried in frustration. His mother used to soothe his hair and tell him that it was okay to cry, that tears were just feelings that had nowhere else to go. He had stopped after she died, had learned to channel everything into the bright, burning anger that came so much more easily. Maybe this was just his anger at being played by the perfect golden boy. The heir who could do no wrong, who had smiled and whispered sweet words and then discarded Aerion like a toy he'd outgrown.
How he had fallen for the act.
He had observed Valarr for years. Ever since he reached a certain age, Aerion had known that he possessed a charm that could make the strongest man crumble. He had his mother's beauty—the fine bones, the generous mouth, the silver-gold hair that caught light like spun metal—and his father's will, always taking what he wanted. And Aerion had wished nothing more, since he first learned of desire, than to make Valarr break for him. To find the cracks in that perfect composure and pry them open until something real spilled out.
But Valarr was patient. He was composed and righteous in the image of his father Baelor, ready to be built into the perfect heir for the family business, to handle any conflict and charm the public with his mismatched eyes and easy smiles that told you nothing.
And yet.
Aerion had noticed how those eyes lingered on him sometimes. How Valarr was fighting against it, against him. How his gaze would catch on the line of Aerion's throat, or the curve of his mouth, and something would flicker there before being firmly suppressed. Duty and honor and norms had nothing to do with what simmered between them. Aerion was impossible to ignore—he had made himself impossible, had cultivated his sharp beauty and sharper tongue like weapons—and Valarr, to his credit, truly did try. But he was drawn in anyway, by Aerion's dangerous allure, no matter how his casual cruelties might have kept him at arm's length at times.
They had danced around each other for years. A glance held too long across the dinner table. A hand that brushed his as they passed in the hallway. Arguments that were really something else entirely, their voices low and intense while everyone else in the room faded to insignificance.
But Aerion was no patient man. He didn't have Valarr's virtues, had never learned to wait for what he wanted.
"Take me or leave me alone for good," he had said one night, cornering Valarr in the library after everyone else had gone to bed. He had always been good with ultimatums, with dramatic flair. It was one of his few talents—knowing exactly where to apply pressure. "I'm done with this. I'm done watching you watch me and pretending I don't see. Either do something about it or stop looking at me like that."
And Valarr—the sweet thing that could be hard as iron, the perfect heir who had never broken a rule in his life—had cracked.
Aerion remembered that night with a clarity that was almost painful. The way Valarr's carefully constructed composure had simply... dissolved. One moment he had been standing there with that infuriating calm, and the next he was crossing the space between them and his hands were framing Aerion's face and his mouth was hot and desperate and everything Aerion had been aching for.
"You," Valarr had breathed against his lips, "will be the death of me."
Oh, how that satisfied the greedy monster inside of Aerion.
He was drunk on the new person he had discovered in those stolen months. The Valarr who existed only behind locked doors, only in the darkest hours of the night, only when no one else could see. The secret glances across crowded rooms, secretive winks that made Aerion's stomach flip, slight brushes of hands on clothes that lingered too long. Doors locked and quick rushes of adrenaline in the hours when the rest of the house slept. Rough hands on his hips that left bruises Aerion pressed on later, alone in his room, remembering. Sweet gentle words in his ear that contrasted so sharply with the urgency of touch that Aerion sometimes couldn't breathe.
The contrast was as confusing as it was addicting. Valarr, who was all gentle patience in public, could be almost bruising in private. Valarr, who was so controlled, could whisper things that made Aerion blush—him, Aerion, who had thought himself beyond shame. The golden boy could have a filthy mouth in the dead of night, but what undid Aerion most was when Valarr would reach right into his chest and confess some things sweeter than sin.
"You're beautiful," Valarr had said once, his voice rough, his thumb tracing Aerion's lower lip. "Do you know that? Do you understand what you do to me?"
"Tell me," Aerion had demanded, because he was greedy, because he could never get enough.
And Valarr had told him. In words and in touch and in the way he looked at Aerion like he was something precious rather than something dangerous.
The distance of Lys could never burn away his desire for the man. He could smell Valarr on the letters—the faint scent of his cologne, the particular smell of his study where he wrote them. He could imagine him writing soft words in the dead of night under the faint light of his desk lamp.
Or perhaps, now, instead of frustration at being fooled, it was truly just hurt festering in his heart. Hurt and resentment. Resentment he could work with. He had cultivated it his entire life, had let it grow in the spaces where other people kept softer feelings. He just hadn't thought he'd feel it towards Valarr again. Not after everything.
He could paint the picture clearly now. Wedding bells and flower decorations. Chapels and venues and the gardens of their home transformed into something out of a magazine spread. The man he loved on the arm of someone else. A woman. Someone his father would gaze protectively upon, nodding with quiet approval at his son's fine choice. Congratulating his beloved heir for the life he will share, the strong children his wife must bear for him, to carry the Targaryen name forward into another generation.
All while Aerion had been loyal to a ghost. To a coward who had blindsided him with hollow words and then discarded him without even the courtesy of an explanation.
They’ll let you come back eventually. I'll be right here.
Valarr had said that the night before Aerion left. They had been tangled together in Valarr's bed, the sheets twisted around them, the sky outside just beginning to lighten toward dawn.
"Try to be good," Valarr had added, his fingers carding through Aerion's hair with a tenderness that made Aerion's throat tight. "And write to me. Promise you'll write."
And Aerion—like the loyal dog that Valarr had forged him into, trained and tamed and desperate for any scrap of affection—had nodded and kissed him one last time.
He was going to be sick.
Aerion pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until he saw stars. He had known, on some level, that it would inevitably happen. Valarr was the heir. Valarr had responsibilities, expectations, a future that had been mapped out for him since before he could walk.
But Aerion had thought they had more time.
He had thought Valarr would at least have the decency to look him in the eye and tell him. To offer some explanation, some apology, some acknowledgment that what had passed between them was real. Instead, Valarr had cut him off like a sickness you carve out of your body. Left him stranded in Lys alone. Thrown him the wedding invitation like you throw a stray dog a bone and call it a meal.
That was cruel.
Valarr was a far too calculated man not to recognize the cruelty of it. But Aerion could be cruel too.
While Valarr had been controlled and composed and gentle at times, Aerion had been cruel his entire life. It was his nature, his defense, his sharpest weapon. He had honed it like a blade. He could be so cruel that Valarr would regret every soft word he had ever written, every touch he had ever stolen.
He contained his anger.
The whole time he packed—folding his clothes with a precision that was utterly unlike him, as if controlling this small thing would help him control everything else. The whole flight—staring out the window at the clouds and seeing nothing, feeling nothing but the cold burn of purpose settling into his bones. The whole monotonous routine through airport security, his face carefully blank, his movements mechanical.
The short walk out of the automatic doors toward his brother's car waiting for him in the parking lot.
Daeron, who was a more quiet disappointment than Aerion. The first son who had never risen to expectations, who had dealt with the pressure of being Maekar's heir by simply... opting out. At least he was too lazy to set buildings on fire, unlike Aerion. At least his failures were passive rather than spectacular.
He was leaning against the car when Aerion emerged, his posture awkward and stiff. He looked worse for wear—shadows under his eyes, a tension in his shoulders that hadn't been there before Aerion left. His dark blonde hair was uncharacteristically disheveled.
"What, no welcome home banner for the prodigal son?" Aerion asked, taking his sunglasses off with a theatrical flourish. The sunlight was too bright, too cheerful, entirely wrong for the storm brewing inside him.
Daeron pushed off the car. His movements were jerky, uncoordinated, like a man who had forgotten how to inhabit his own body comfortably. When he met Aerion's eyes, there was something hollow in his gaze that gave Aerion pause despite himself.
"You look like shit," Aerion commented, because cruelty was easier than concern, because he didn't know how to ask what's wrong without it sounding like an accusation.
"Good to see you too, brother." Daeron's voice was flat, but there was a weariness in it that went beyond simple annoyance. He looked far older than his years suggested—older than the last time Aerion had seen him, certainly.
"Yeah, yeah. Distance grows the heart fonder, or whatever they say." Aerion threw his bag in the trunk with more force than strictly necessary. The sound it made was satisfying—a solid thunk that echoed in the quiet of the parking lot. "So no welcome back committee? Just you?"
"Sorry to disappoint." Daeron's mouth twisted briefly. "Everyone's busy."
"Gotta be busy with the wedding." Aerion tried to hide the bitter resentment in his tone, but he could hear it bleeding through despite his best efforts. The words tasted like ash. He watched his brother's face carefully, looking for any reaction.
A shadow fell over Daeron's eyes. Interesting. Aerion had always been good at picking at the scabs on people's wounds, finding the tender spots and pressing until something gave. It was a talent, albeit not a kind one. "What a celebration, eh?"
"Sure." Daeron's voice was carefully neutral. "Important enough to bring you back."
Aerion scoffed, sliding into the passenger seat and slamming the door harder than necessary. "Not by choice. But I'd be stupid to refuse the grace I'd been granted, wouldn't I?"
Daeron started the car, pulling out of the parking spot with excessive caution. Everything about him seemed muffled, dampened, like someone had turned down the volume on his personality. "Jest all you want, but this might actually be your chance. To make Dad forgive you."
"And how would I do that?" Aerion turned to look at his brother, studying the profile that was so familiar and yet somehow strange.
"Prove to him you grew up, Aerion. Don't cause a scene. I'm sure the wedding will bore you, but for once in your life, try to be good."
"Look at you, playing the role of the big brother." Aerion's grin was sharp enough to cut. He leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms. "Where were you my entire life? I seem to recall you being conspicuously absent for most of it."
Daeron worked his jaw. A muscle jumped in his cheek. For a moment, Aerion thought he might actually respond—might finally show some spark of the fight that should have been there, that any Targaryen should have possessed. But then his brother's expression smoothed back into that familiar blankness, and he said nothing at all.
The rest of the drive passed in silence.
Their father tried to be stern. Aerion could see him making the effort—the set of his jaw, the careful distance he maintained as Aerion walked through the front door of the house he'd grown up in. Maekar Targaryen was a man who believed in consequences, in order, in the idea that actions should have weight. He had sent his son away for a reason, and that reason had not magically evaporated in the months of absence.
But his eyes gave him away.
They always had. For all his coldness and his need for control, Maekar loved his children equally and just as fiercely as any father. It was perhaps the only soft thing about him, the only place where his iron discipline cracked to reveal something warmer beneath. And when he looked at Aerion—his difficult second son—there was a relief in his gaze that he couldn't quite hide.
"Aerion." His father's voice was gruff, almost reluctant. Then his arms were opening, almost against his will, and Aerion was being pulled into an embrace that smelled like the particular cologne his father had worn for as long as Aerion could remember.
"You look well," Maekar said, pulling back to study him. Small talk was never his strong suit; the words came out stiff, like he was reading from a script he'd only half-memorized.
Aerion tried to play it off, to pretend he wasn't moved by the warmth of his father's arms around him. He had spent months cultivating his anger, his resentment, his determination to feel nothing but cold fury toward everyone who had sent him away. But he softened anyway, despite himself. Some things were too deeply ingrained to resist.
"I think I look the same." He shrugged, aiming for casual and landing somewhere closer to defensive. "Perhaps the time away is playing tricks on your memory."
His father couldn't help the sigh that escaped him. Aerion watched the familiar progression of emotions cross Maekar's face—frustration, resignation, and underneath it all, that stubborn love that refused to be extinguished no matter how many buildings Aerion burned down. But his reproach, whatever it might have been, was stopped by the sound of footsteps on the staircase.
His younger sisters were anxiously waiting on the landing, their small faces peering through the banisters. They were looking for any signs of how Aerion's mood was today—a survival tactic they had learned young, reading his temper like sailors read the sky for storms.
"Well." Aerion spread his arms wide, and for a moment, something genuine flickered across his face. "I'm not getting any younger. Come over here."
Their little arms grabbed at him as he picked them both up, and they were far heavier than he remembered. They had grown in his absence—grown and changed and become slightly different people than the ones he'd left behind. Rhae had lost a tooth; Daella's hair had been cut short in a way that made her look startlingly like their mother. He had missed it. He had missed them, and the realization sat uncomfortably in his chest.
Aegon, his younger brother, was the one who had changed the most. He stood at the foot of the stairs, trying not to look intimidated by Aerion anymore, his chin lifted in a defiance that was almost convincing. He had shot up several inches—he would be tall, Aerion realized, taller than any of them perhaps—and his face had lost some of its childish softness.
Aerion raised an eyebrow, setting his sisters down gently. "You got taller, you little rat."
"That tends to happen." Aegon's voice cracked slightly on the last word, betraying his age despite his best efforts. He flushed.
"Hm." Aerion reached out and ruffled his hair roughly, enjoying how Aegon squirmed and protested, laughing easily for the first time since he'd stepped off the plane. "Still a brat, though. Good to know some things don't change."
They had lunch in the formal dining room, the long table feeling absurdly empty with only the six of them scattered along its length. The food was excellent—it always was—but Aerion barely tasted it. He was too aware of the tension in his father's shoulders, the way Maekar's gaze kept drifting to him and then away, as if he couldn't quite believe his son was really here.
It seemed that tension would never go away when Aerion was involved. He had earned that, he supposed. Years of testing boundaries and pushing limits had created a wariness that no amount of distance could fully erase.
He talked about Lys. He hyperbolized it, spinning stories that were more fiction than memory. He talked about classes he had barely passed, about scenery he couldn't care less about, about people he had met and immediately forgotten. He made it sound like an adventure, a grand education, exactly the kind of character-building experience his father had intended.
He could tell that neither his father nor Daeron bought a word of it.
Maekar's eyes were too sharp, too accustomed to seeing through his son's deflections. And Daeron—Daeron had always been able to read Aerion better than Aerion was comfortable with. It was something about the way they had grown up, perhaps, two disappointments in a family of high achievers, learning to recognize the tells that others missed.
But for the sake of the little ones, who were grabbing onto his every word with wide eyes and open mouths, they nodded their heads and indulged him.
Daeron was barely present anyway. He had that distant look in his eye, the one that suggested his body was at the table but his mind was somewhere else entirely. He pushed food around his plate without eating it, responded to questions with monosyllables, and kept glancing at his phone with an expression that Aerion couldn't quite read.
Aerion filed that away. He would have to dig into it later, when he had the energy to care about someone else's problems. Right now, his own were more than enough.
"I hope I'm not interrupting."
The voice carried across the dining hall with the particular resonance of someone accustomed to being heard. Baelor was home. Aerion hadn't inquired about his uncle's whereabouts when he arrived, afraid that if he asked, he would then have to ask about Valarr as well. And he didn't wish to know anything about where Valarr was. What he was doing. Who he was with.
"Nonsense, brother. Have a seat." Maekar gestured to an empty chair, some of the tension leaving his shoulders at the arrival of his older brother. "We were just welcoming Aerion home."
"Ah, Aerion." Baelor's warm hand landed on Aerion's shoulder as he passed, a brief squeeze of welcome. His uncle had always been tactile in a way that Maekar was not—touches and embraces and casual affection that came as naturally to him as breathing. "It's good to have you back. I hope the trip made you wiser." He settled into his seat with the easy grace of a man comfortable in his own skin. "I can't wait to catch up properly."
His words, as well as his gaze, were warm. Aerion almost winced.
Baelor looked exactly like Valarr. Or rather, Valarr looked exactly like Baelor—the same fine features, the same brown hair, the same way of smiling that made you feel like you were the only person in the room. It was torturous, sitting across from a face that was almost but not quite the one he was desperately trying not to think about.
Would Valarr's hand be cold instead of warm? Would he welcome Aerion home with that same easy grace, or would he struggle to look him in the eye? Would he even be able to meet Aerion's gaze, knowing what he had done?
Aerion carried that question to his room that night. Tumbled it around his head as he struggled to fall asleep in a bed that was both familiar and strange. Stared at his childhood room—the posters he'd never taken down, the books he'd never finished—and wondered why he felt more homesick now that he was here than he ever had when he was away.
The room felt smaller than he remembered. Or perhaps he had grown larger, filled up more space, become someone who no longer fit in the container that had once held him.
Regardless of Daeron's poor opinion of him, Aerion wished he could be good.
He wished he could prove to his father that he didn't deserve to be discarded anymore. That he deserved to be home, to be part of this family, to have a place at this table that wasn't conditional on good behavior. He wished he could smile through the wedding, raise a glass to the happy couple, and mean it.
But he also wished to carve out Valarr's heart right on the aisle. To scratch at his beautiful face until that perfect composure cracked and bled. To burn the whole venue down and watch it crumble to ash, just like that building all those years ago.
He was hurt, and his hurt had always inevitably turned to anger. It was easier that way. Anger was clean and bright and purposeful. Hurt was just... pain, formless and consuming, with no outlet and no resolution.
He could be good. If he wanted to. He had that capacity somewhere inside him, buried deep beneath layers of armor and spite. But he didn't want anything right now except to hurt Valarr like he was hurting himself.
He wouldn't let himself lose in front of Valarr. He never had, not even when they were children scrapping in the garden over some imagined slight. Valarr met his challenges head-on, with his head held high, a never-ending patience he seemed to have inherited directly from his father. But Aerion never yielded. He had made it his life's mission to tear down Valarr's composure, to find the cracks in that perfect facade and dig his fingers in until something real spilled out.
The only moments he felt like he might have succeeded had been those darkened hours when the only indication that Aerion had the same effect on his cousin as Valarr had on him was the shuddered breath that fanned his ears and the trembling hands that touched him with reverence.
"You undo me," Valarr had whispered once, his forehead pressed to Aerion's, his voice rough and broken in a way it never was in daylight. "I don't know how to be around you without falling apart."
"Then do it," Aerion had replied, pulling him closer. But in truth, he was the one falling.
He had let his guard down, let Valarr past all his defenses, and now he was paying the price for that vulnerability.
The ceiling of his childhood room offered no answers. Aerion stared at it until the darkness behind his eyes began to swirl with colors, and then he closed them and waited for morning.
He tried to busy himself in order not to wonder why Valarr's absence was causing such a knot in his stomach.
He had been home for a full day, and Valarr hadn't shown his face. Was he scared to face Aerion? Or was he simply blissfully unaware of anything else in the presence of his wife-to-be, too consumed with wedding preparations and future plans to spare a thought for the cousin he'd discarded?
The house was more alive than Aerion had ever seen it. Valarr wanted the ceremony in the residence gardens—of course he did, it was the most picturesque spot on the estate, the place where every Targaryen wedding for generations had been held—so the week prior to the wedding was a chaos of preparations. Gross flower arrangements in shades of cream and pale pink appeared on every surface. Bows of white ribbon adorned every door knob. Staff members rushed through the hallways carrying chairs and linens and centerpieces.
So where was the groom?
His father and uncle faithfully supervised the process, standing in the garden with clipboards and serious expressions, discussing seating arrangements and sight lines as if they were planning a military campaign rather than a celebration. Maekar looked up when Aerion and Daeron approached, and Aerion watched his uncle disappear into the crowd of busy workers that ensured his son will have a magical wedding day.
The question still tingled on Aerion's tongue, but since no one was providing insight, he wouldn't ask first. He had his pride, tattered as it might be.
"Since when are you the best man?" He couldn't help this incredulous question escaping him as he watched Daeron accept a folder of paperwork from their father.
Daeron shrugged, not meeting his eyes. "Matarys is too young. And well..." He trailed off, but the meaning was clear. We got closer while you were away. "I'm sure if it wouldn't have been for the scandal, he'd have asked you."
The sentence, which Daeron clearly meant to soothe, did the exact opposite. Aerion felt his jaw tighten. "Don't worry, brother. I'm not losing sleep over it."
"I don't even know what a best man does." Daeron flipped through the folder with obvious bewilderment. "I should write a speech, I guess, but I'm shit at it. Valarr said he doesn't want a bachelor party—too scandalous, apparently—so I just have to stand there like an idiot behind him on the wedding day."
"Good thing that's something you excel at."
Daeron looked tiredly at him, and Aerion felt a brief flicker of something that might have been guilt. It passed quickly. "Glad to see Lys hasn't softened your edges, Aerion."
Aerion rolled his eyes. They walked into the garden together, and he forced himself to take in the scene with something approaching neutrality. The flowers were excessive, in his opinion—cascades of white roses and pale peonies and something delicate and purple that he didn't recognize. An arch had been erected at the far end of the main path, draped in more flowers and ribbon. Rows of white chairs faced it, waiting for guests who would arrive in a few days' time.
"Your mother would have known what colors would work better." Baelor's voice lingered on the edge between amused and sad. He was looking at a sample arrangement with a critical eye, his head tilted. "She had an instinct for these things. I'm afraid I've inherited none of it."
"I will be very honest." The voice came from somewhere to Aerion's left, and everything in him went still. "I don't really care about the flowers."
That voice.
It gave him pause—a full-body pause, the kind where time seems to stretch and thin and every nerve ending comes alive at once. Aerion wished he could turn around and just walk away. Retreat to his room, lock the door, pretend he had never heard it. But his feet were rooted to the floor, and his eyes inevitably found the figure whose absence had so annoyingly bothered him until this moment.
Now he understood why he had been so bothered. Because Valarr's presence was devastating in a way his absence could never be.
He was standing near the arch, a sample ribbon draped absently over one hand, his head turned toward his father. The afternoon light caught the streak of silver in his hair and turned it almost white, and his profile was as perfect as Aerion remembered—the straight nose, the generous mouth, the long throat that Aerion had once pressed his lips to in the dark.
Both eyes turned toward him and his brother. One pair lit up—Baelor's, warm and welcoming. One pair widened slightly, almost imperceptibly.
Valarr's mismatched gaze met his, and Aerion felt the impact of it like a physical blow.
"Ah, Aerion, finally." Baelor, gallant as ever, seemed entirely unaware of the tension that had suddenly thickened the air. "I was just telling Valarr earlier that you settled back home in no time. You two haven't had the chance to talk since you've been back."
Valarr found his voice fast, as he always did. Aerion watched him fix every crack in his composure, smoothing over any evidence that he might have human feelings. It was a masterful performance—the slight straightening of his spine, the careful arrangement of his features into something pleasant and neutral, the way his hands stilled at his sides.
"Indeed." Valarr's even voice caused a fire in Aerion's gut. "Aerion. You look well."
You look well. The same words his father had used. Empty. Meaningless. A script that everyone seemed to be reading from.
"Do I?" Aerion's smile was sharp enough to draw blood. "How generous of you, cousin. Family life is clearly rubbing off on you."
Valarr's eyes held a quiet disappointment at Aerion's cruelty. Aerion knew that look—had seen it a hundred times before, whenever he pushed too far or said something too sharp. It was the look Valarr gave him when he was being difficult, when he was making things harder than they needed to be.
Oh, this was only the beginning.
"I hope you will enjoy your time back home." Valarr's voice was perfectly steady. Perfectly polite. If Aerion hadn't known him so intimately, he might have believed the calm.
"Oh, I do happen to enjoy a good party." Aerion let his smile widen, showing teeth. "I must say, thank you for giving me the pretext to be back so soon. I was beginning to think I'd never see home again."
"We all hope your stay will be longer than just the wedding, Aerion." Baelor stepped in smoothly, his voice warm with the particular diplomacy that had made him so effective in business negotiations. "I'm in talks with your father about it. There's no reason you shouldn't be home permanently."
"I do hope so as well, Uncle." Aerion kept his eyes on Valarr as he spoke. "I could only hope to still have a place in this... ever-growing family."
"Nonsense, Aerion. This is your home."
Valarr looked at the ground. His jaw was tight, his shoulders rigid. He looked, Aerion thought with savage satisfaction, like a guilty man.
"Is Kiera here as well?" Daeron inquired, and Aerion could have killed him. The traitor. Of all the times for his brother to develop social awareness, this was not it.
"No." Valarr's answer came too quickly. "She had... an appointment." The hesitation was slight, but Aerion caught it. Very vague. Was Valarr afraid to give any details about his lovely fiancée in front of Aerion? Afraid of what Aerion might do with the information?
"Don't bother, cousin." Aerion's voice was cold. "You can speak freely. I'll just leave you to it."
He turned and walked sharply back toward the house, his footsteps loud on the gravel path. An impulsive thing to do, but he had always followed on impulses. So he kept on walking. Fast through empty corridors, past startled servants, up the stairs to the second floor where his room waited like a sanctuary.
If he had turned around, he would have seen Valarr hesitate for just one second.
He would have seen his cousin's composure crack—just slightly, just for a moment—before Valarr addressed his father and Daeron with a murmured excuse. He would have seen Valarr follow after him with quick, determined strides, almost like he couldn't help it. Like Aerion was a gravity he couldn't escape.
But Aerion didn't turn around. He never did.
The door to his room barely slammed behind him before it was opened again.
Aerion whirled, ready to yell at whoever was coming to bother him—to unleash some of the fire that was burning him up from the inside. The words died in his throat when he saw Valarr weaving in his doorway, one hand still on the handle, his chest rising and falling slightly faster than normal.
He must have run up the stairs. The thought was absurd. Valarr didn't run. Valarr was composed and measured and never did anything without careful consideration.
"You can't act like that all week." Valarr's voice was low, controlled, but there was an edge to it that Aerion recognized. "You're angry at me—I understand that. I deserve it. But those comments in front of my father—" He shook his head, a sharp, frustrated movement. "Do they really make you feel better?"
The nerve of him. The absolute, breathtaking nerve.
"I'll tell you what would make me feel better." Aerion stepped forward, jabbing an accusing finger into Valarr's chest. The contact sent a shock through him. He ignored it. "If you could act like a man."
"Aerion." His name was almost a warning. Valarr's mismatched eyes were dark, intense, fixed on Aerion's face with an expression that might have been pain or anger or something else entirely. "You don't know half of what is happening here."
"Then tell me, cousin." Aerion put all the venom he could muster into the word. "How is Kiera? Is she excited for the wedding? Has she picked out her dress? Will you be taking her on a honeymoon to somewhere romantic?"
"Leave her out of this." Valarr's jaw tightened.
"Like you left her out of all of your letters?" Aerion laughed, and the sound was ugly. "You could have fooled me. All those sweet words you wrote—were you thinking of her while you wrote them? Did you seal each envelope with a kiss for her, too? Or was that just for me?"
"Aerion—"
"Did you have her in your bed while you were writing to me?" The question came out raw, jagged. "One hand on the paper and one hand on her? Did you whisper the same things to her that you whispered to me?"
"Keep your voice down." Valarr glanced toward the door, which still stood slightly ajar.
"No." Aerion's voice rose deliberately. "I'm sorry I'm not as calm as you are. I'm sorry I can't just pretend that nothing happened, that you didn't spend months making me believe—" He cut himself off, shaking his head. "You're a coward."
Valarr was silent for a long moment. Then, quietly: "You're right. I am."
"A self-aware coward." Aerion's laugh was bitter. "What a surprise. I took you for many things, Valarr, but a coward and a liar wasn't one of them."
"I didn't lie to you." There was something fierce in Valarr's voice now, something that cut through the careful composure. His eyes met Aerion's and held them. "I never lied to you. Not once."
Aerion couldn't help but laugh again, though there was no humor in it. "Then how do you call it? What you did? Hiding the truth? Omitting certain... details?"
"I wronged you, Aerion. I know that." Valarr's voice was rough. "But I never lied. Everything I ever said to you—every word I wrote—I meant it. All of it."
"Then tell me the truth now." Aerion stepped closer, close enough to share the same air. "Why did you do it? Why are you doing this now?"
To me. The words hung unspoken between them.
Valarr shook his head, and Aerion could see the fight in his eyes. The war between what he wanted to say and what he felt he could say. His hands clenched at his sides, and for a moment—just a moment—Aerion thought he might actually break. Might actually give him something real.
"I can't." The words came out strained.
Aerion laughed again, and this time it hurt his throat. "Of course. You can't spare an explanation for little old me. You're too busy with your new life to bother with a dirty secret from your past." He leaned in, his voice dropping to something intimate and cruel. "Tell me, cousin. What would your wife think if she knew how you used to fuck me?"
"Don't." Valarr's eyes darkened dangerously. A muscle jumped in his jaw.
"Oh?" Aerion felt a savage satisfaction at having finally provoked a real reaction. "Struck a nerve? She wouldn't think so highly of you then, would she? The perfect heir, the golden boy, brought low by his degenerate cousin. What would Daddy say?"
"Aerion—"
"Get out." Aerion stepped back, pointing toward the door. His hand was shaking. He hated that his hand was shaking. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out."
Valarr didn't move. His mismatched eyes searched Aerion's face with an intensity that made Aerion want to look away. His voice, when he spoke, was softer than it had been. Almost gentle.
"I can't give you what you want. I wish I could—you have no idea how much I wish—but I can't. Please." The word cracked something in Aerion's chest. "Please don't be like this. I know you're more than just cruel. I know who you are beneath all of this."
"You don't know a thing, Valarr." Aerion's voice was hoarse. "You never did. Now get out of my room."
Valarr held his gaze for a long, agonizing moment. His hand lifted slightly, as if he might reach out—might touch Aerion's face the way he used to, might bridge the distance between them with something other than words.
Then he dropped it.
He turned and walked out, closing the door quietly behind him. The soft click of the latch was worse than a slam would have been.
Aerion stood alone in his childhood room, surrounded by the ghosts of who he used to be, and pressed his shaking hands against his face.
Something in his chest ached with a ferocity that felt like it might consume him, and he understood, finally, what his mother had meant all those years ago.
You burn so brightly, my love. The world will not always know what to do with such fire.
The problem, Aerion thought as he lowered his hands and stared at the door Valarr had closed, was that he had never learned what to do with it either.
He was burning. He had always been burning. And sooner or later, everything he touched turned to ash.
Valarr would have to burn with him, it was only fair.