Work Text:
His nephew was a natural son posing as legitimate and his farce ended at the sea.
Aemond shelters his nose with a cloth drenched with perfume, Jacaerys’ body does not smell particularly bad —or at all—, the brutish pirates his grandfather allied himself with in Aegon’s name reek of rotten fish and need for a bath. Aemond didn’t have to receive them, he could have easily sent the castellan or the steward to mend ways and dismiss them immediately. He had better things to do as regent, like attending council or keeping Daemon away from Harrenhal.
Yet, he must testify that a second bastard from the whore of Dragonstone is dead. He couldn’t do the same when he killed the one who slashed his eye, he needed to satisfy his curiosity, to close the open wound that prohibited his face to be described as a handsome one.
Jacaerys arms are covered in cuts and deep purple bruises, part of the flesh is lost, torn off by arrows and sea scavengers. But his face is unscathed, still pleasing to the eye with plush lips and long lashes, the blueish undertones are yet to alter his crimson lips and cheeks, making it hard to believe the boy is never waking up. Aemond’s hand hoovers over Jacaerys’ face, his fingertips caressing the curls covering it, but one of the myrish men stops him, asking for money, even if the Gullet was a complete failure and a dead boy doesn’t compensate it. Aemond must make himself sure Jacaerys has died, so he sends the myrish to the steward, granting some payment for their service.
It's not enough though, the scarce light coming from the sun, creeping over them harrows his senses. Bring him to me, the hoarse voice of his bedridden brother, bounded inside the leagues away walls of the Red Keep, commands him. Aemond refuses, his older brother always gets what he wants, but he won’t be getting this, for once, Aemond is keeping who he wants.
Jacaerys feels light on Aemond’s arms, a pheasant just shot and taken to be served at a prince table, but first he takes him to the maester, who dares to ask him if he must call the silent sisters to prepare the body for the pyre. Aemond forbids him from asking more stupid questions, ordering him to fix his nephew and make him presentable for supper. The maester looks at him as if deaf. Aemond puts a hand over his sword’s hilt, he won’t be repeating himself and the maester finally starts to work with trembling fingers while trying to divest Jacaerys carefully.
Aemond grows bored quickly, ripping Jacaerys’ clothes and rusty armor with his bare hands, leaving him only in underclothes. The chainmail couldn’t protect Jacaerys from the crossbowmen, but at least, it prevented the fish trying to eat the flesh of his pale lean chest. Aemond asks the maester for a mirror and he brings it under Jacaerys’ nose, to see if it tarnishes under his breath. No matter how softly someone tries to exhale, they might trick the human eye, but not a mirror.
And he waits, waits and waits. Sweat droplets forming over his forehead, burning his eye… Nothing happens. Aemond clenches his fist, and the mirror breaks in his hand, the glass creates new little cuts on Jacaerys’ lips, painting them red with Aemond’s blood. A perfect shade for that luscious mouth. Jacaerys is playing with him, presenting as temptress in a brothel, a wanton whore waiting to be kissed by a prince and Aemond almost obliges, wiping the blood in a quick, but gentle manner. Ruining Jacaerys’ face will do no good.
Aemond throws the broken mirror aside and allows the maester to continue.
It is said that Harrenhal is cursed, haunted by the men who dared to oppose the Dragon as their king. The stone didn’t burn, but everything else did. Harren’s men burned, his sons and daughters burned, his grandchildren too, as well as himself.
Aemond thinks he has seen weeping shadows on the long halls, Alys Rivers smiled the first time he looked back over his shoulder. He hates being made a jester, he never did it again, but this shadow is different and caught his attention, this one is trying to enter the maester’s chamber with its eyes locked on his instead of hiding in the dark, its tears shine fiercely with hate and regret. Aemond knows who it is, who he is.
Aemond could drown in the power he holds from just being alive, being able to forbid a tortured soul from seeing his dead son’s rotting corpse. Punishing a man who broke the law and actively let a whorish princess seduce him while on service. It feels right, it feels good. He decides to let the shadow in, asking a few questions to the maester, watching from the corner of his eye how it crumbles over Jacaerys’ body. He always envied how loved Jacaerys was, even now, death does not forbid him from being surrounded by love.
Not for long.
He lifts Jacaerys’ from the table, tearing it away from the shadow begging him for more time. Aemond doesn’t answer to its plead, he has been more compassionate to the adulterous commander of the gold cloaks than to the residents of the castle. It should remember, it was there looking as every human being got their heads removed by Aemond’s sword, and Aemond assumes it does, as it disappears from his sight. No more shadows appear on his way to his bedchamber. He ordered for supper to be served in his quarters, two chairs on each end of the table.
Alys is sat in front of the chimney, a hand over her belly, growing with his child. She was waiting, but not for him. Her eyes fall directly on Jacaerys as Aemond enters the room. “A beautiful boy,” she says, “how sad”, she adds with a disgusting smile. “He has your sister’s nose,” she is getting on his nerves. Aemond wants her to shut it, but he lets her keep talking. She only answers to his questions if she finds them amusing, his family’s disgrace is her favorite subject. Aemond orders the handmaids to clean and dress Jacaerys. “I thought we would be eating together,” Alys’ tightens her teeth, “alone.”
Aemond tells her that he didn’t invite her today, and it is true. He only sent for her on the first nights, and then, she came without needing to be called and he let her, she is his mistress in bed and of whisperers, when she aligns with his needs.
She can’t fulfill them today.
“I will be leaving then,” she replies. “Let this moon last. Not even I could have foresight that your heart would beat again one last time, my prince. Sleep with your eye open and enjoy his sight until you rot along.”
Jacaerys is stiff enough to sit, anything else is impossible for him.
Aemond eats and drinks, he normally digests half of what he has in his plate, but a necessity to overdo anything that makes him, and his nephew, stand in different positions washes all over his hot-blooded body; he isn’t mad, he knows Jacaerys won’t come back to life, no matter how merciful he has been, but he feels his own life is starting to lose purpose of being. Aegon is a good-for-nothing piece of shit who had the luck of being born first, nothing more, much, much less; his mother and Helaena are afraid of what Aemond has become, they fail to understand him; and Daeron is an outsider, his values are too different to mean something.
He craves for Jacaerys’ gaze, to submerge on it.
Those big brown eyes observing full of admiration and fright of being hurt under his touch. Aemond has returned to that evening at the Keep’s yard far too many times he would want to admit, but he never thought it would stay in just that: a bittersweet memory of being wanted and feared. Ladies oft gave him one of the two, even some men, but Jacaerys gave him both, and no other has genuinely —Alys does fear him, but her lust is born from the power he gives her—, resulting in the recognition he didn’t know he desired until he received it.
Jacaerys starts to glide to the side and falls to the ground in a hard, cold thud.
Aemond hits the table, darting towards Jacaerys. His nephew looks as if he just fell sleep, with his long lashes fanned delicately over his cheeks and his pouty mouth half-opened. A sight to be enjoyed indeed, Jacaerys is using Aemond’s clothes as they were the closest available, meddling with his smell. Aemond doesn’t remember Jacaerys’ particular essence, but his lungs are drowning at how perfectly his nephew combines with his, and he seeks for Jacaerys’ collar, his nose barely touching the cold skin, up and down, and then up again, snuggling against the ear.
“Jace…,” Aemond mumbles, waiting as if his nephew were to wake up, “your lips are cold,” he says sliding his thumb over them. There is no need of blood for them to be appetizing, they are rosy like a girl’s. He finally indulges for his lips to touch Jacaerys’. It tastes of iron and salt. He doesn’t kiss him; it would be useless as there won’t be a rejection or tolerance —or reciprocation.
And he should leave it.
Leave him.
His thumb continues to inspect Jacaerys’ chin, neck, reaching the start of the doublet, snapping it open. His lips follow the same path, leaving traces that will take time to fill again, if they ever do. Sucking and tasting the salt of the sea which became the temporal resting place of his nephew. And he rests his head where there was once a beating heart, something warm, now indifferent. His hand goes lower, and he fondles Jacaerys’ crotch above his breeches. He unlaces them to take the limp cock out, it’s soft and delicate, and it will stay that way, but he strokes it, because he can do whatever he wants with him.
What would Jacaerys do if he opened his eyes? Would he be angry? Accuse him of being a deviant, perhaps? Or would he enjoy it and beg him to continue, letting him use him as his heart desired? Aemond thinks he knows which one is the correct answer, but he chooses to believe Jacaerys would act in-between, reluctant, demanding him to stop, yet little whimpers would escape from his lips and his chest would be all flushed. And it pumps Aemond’s veins, igniting an abnormal arousal.
He unbuckles his belt, freeing his own cock, already painfully red and leaking with pre-come, and he smears it using Jacaerys’ dark-nailed hand sloppily. Aemond can’t imagining it being any other way, his nephew escaped before being corrupted completely by Aegon, he probably died pure. Aemond likes women, Jacaerys cannot offer him a cunt to impregnate, but he died untouched.
A virgin ready for him to defile.
He strips Jacaerys, leaving only the doublet on, and he grabs one of the legs to put it over his shoulder, making enough space for him to use his pre-come to lubricate his nephew’s puckered hole, teasing the rim with a finger before entering. It feels different from fingering a warm cunt, it doesn’t wet itself to receive more, it is just tight, but it’s Jacaerys’ and that alone makes it better. He enters a second, spiting on it to help them easily slip in and out, until he gets jealous over his own fingers.
Can someone get jealous over oneself?
He can.
How absurd.
Aemond gives his cock a few strokes, guiding it to Jacaerys’ glistening hole. It is tight, too tight, even more so than he expected, but he continues to penetrate Jacaerys, nonetheless. It feels so good. His throat let’s out a low grunt as he further ruins his nephew’s virtue. Jacaerys is a bastard, made of sin, for this. It feels too good. Aemond fills him to the brim with each thrust, digging himself a place inside his nephew’s guts.
Is Jacaerys a sinner, even when he was just a product of lust?
Aemond lowers, getting closer to Jacaerys’ lips, kissing them, even when he knows there won’t be an answer; he just wants for this moment to feel more intimate, even when he is violating his nephew’s rest. Why did it had to be like this? Aemond is enjoying it, he is getting what he desired from Jacaerys. The perfection that went over his brunette head, by being far too occupied lying about not caring what others thought or said about him, overachieving to try to compensate his supposed faults.
Jacaerys was a stupid boy.
Aemond adjusts Jacaerys’ hips, giving himself better leverage. Thrusting and breathing erratic with his mind numbing. His eye lost on the closed ones. “Wake up,” he commands with his hands squeezing Jacaerys’ neck. “You are not getting away this time, bastard. Look…!” he rams more and more, his knuckles going white. “Look what I became,” and he hears a crushing sound, “what you did of me.”
And Aemond too.
At the end, there is no ecstasy, only penance.