Work Text:
under the table
Everyone else is preoccupied, but Jace sees it. He sees how when he extends his hand to Helaena, the entire table stills and heads swivel to look at Aegon. But Helaena glances at her other brother, and Aemond is looking at her as well.
Jace knows then, the entire dastardly scheme of it.
Still, provoking Aegon has always been a thrill, yet he doesn’t wish to draw Aemond’s ire. So he feigns obliviousness, his eyes only on Helaena and Aegon, never straying to the brother who truly fumes.
Surprisingly, Aegon is better at hiding his outrage.
Their words tonight have been too pointed, but yet covert enough that nobody would suspect the double meaning lurking beneath.
You’ll finally get to lie with a woman.
…
I have fond memories of our shared youth.
Only Jace and Aegon knew. He has no doubt about that. For his skin had prickled when Aegon had breathed heavily in his ear, clasping his leg just high enough to make his cock twitch. What sordid trysts borne from the folly of truth, when they were but only learning the desires of their bodies—discovering what that meant together in darkened rooms.
Jace smiles smugly as he and Helaena dance, he twirls her as she laughs airily, all the while he stares at Aegon. For Jace had maintained the higher ground, and had given a fine speech to Aegon and Aemond. Still, he knows that the true display of indifference would have been to take Baela’s hand and lead her to the floor, yet he couldn’t resist twisting the knife just a bit.
Besides, had Aegon not already made a jab at Aegon’s intended? What is it then to invite his uncle’s sister-wife for a dance? He can tell from Aegon’s gaze that it wounds more than he shows.
Good.
It’s like the air crackles between them, even as he spins Helaena around, he orbits around Aegon. To his delight he can feel Aegon’s eyes on him. Sitting beside him all night had been a unique kind of torture. Something threatening to spill open, staining the floor red with blood.
The music winds down and he hears Aemond’s words, his rage—once a low simmer, begins to boil. His lips part without any forethought.
“I dare you to say that again.”
Everything becomes a blur after that, Aemond’s fist collides with his face. From the corner of his eye he watches Aegon slam Lucerys into the table. His body hums with rage but Aemond pushes him to the ground and then he’s being pulled back, pulled away.
When they’re all apart and being dragged away to separate quarters it’s Baela’s voice in his ear soothing him.
“Don’t. Just don’t. You’re better than that—better than them.”
He lets himself be led, and Baela makes some veiled allusion about Aemond’s reaction to it all, how she’d noticed him watching Helaena like a hawk. Well, that’s new. She lets the implication linger in the air. Jace is just grateful she had been too preoccupied with Helaena and Aemond to pick up on any possible tension between himself and Aegon, she hadn’t read into it.
She leaves him with a kiss on his cheek that feels cool, passionless but comforting. He swallows dryly.
Sooner rather than later she will be his Lady wife, his future Queen. And she is the best of them, the kindest, and wisest, the most patient but with the fire of both the Targaryens and Velaryons in her blood. He could not do any better.
Yet he knows no love will bloom between them, not like it might between Luke and Rhaena. He will be a good husband, gentle and faithful—the antithesis to every insidious rumour spread behind his back. And he knows Baela will be an exemplary wife, an upstanding Queen.
He wishes he loved her.
He wishes she could spark even a flicker of the warmth Aegon ignites within him.
Disgusted with himself, he turns towards his chamber door. Only to feel a hand on his shoulder.
“Nephew.”
The voice breathes into the dim light of the hallway, and Jace is under no illusions. He knows from the mere feel of the pressure of his fingers through his fabric—even if the voice hadn’t been a giveaway.
He goes to shrug him off but Aegon is already tugging him down the hall, shoving him into a sheltered alcove and pressing his lips to his, hungry with need.
Jace responds on instinct, though it’s been years since they fumbled around with little to no knowledge of what they were actually doing. He’s got one hand splayed against the cool skin of Aegon’s chest—two buttons of his doublet popping onto the stone floor with a clatter—the other at his waist as Aegon’s tongue slips against his before he pushes him off.
“Enough!” he erupts, panting.
He doesn’t yell, too aware that they’re not far from half their family’s sleeping quarters.
Aegon smirks through the torchlight, his face half in darkness.
“You made me jealous.”
It’s that signature pout that Jace came to know so well in their youth. And while it makes him want to roll his eyes, to huff and stomp away, it gives him a bit of satisfaction to know he still has that effect.
How easily they fall into old patterns.
They’re still pressed up against each other, Aegon’s leg is still slotted between his as his shoulder blades dig into the rough wall behind him. His mouth is still kissing distance away, his lip still swollen from moments prior.
He hates himself for being distracted by it.
“You could’ve asked your wife to dance,” Jace says obstinately.
Aegon tilts his head.
“I wasn’t jealous of that, if anything that was Aemond. You know what I mean.”
His eyes narrow as he glosses over the revelation about Helaena and Aemond, apparently confirming Baela’s suspicions.
“I could hardly ask you to dance.”
Aegon pauses, “No…but I quite enjoyed having you sitting beside me.”
That makes Jace’s skin hum with something dangerous. Aegon grabbing him where anyone could have glanced at what passed between them—he’d never understood boundaries. Instead, Jace brushes him off.
“I could really tell that from all your comments about my sexual prowess.”
He’s proud of himself for getting through that with a straight face, but Aegon guffaws anyway.
“Teasing, that’s all.”
He leans forward, nips at Jace’s jaw.
“I missed you.”
In the years away he’s forgotten just how needy Aegon can be. He always felt like he was the one trailing after Aegon who was older, taller, stronger. But now Jace is taller, of probably equal strength. Still younger.
But old enough to know better.
His uncle is chasing him now.
“Aegon. We can’t.”
He puts both his hands on Aegon’s chest and shoves him this time, hoping the break in contact will snap him out of this. Aegon looks legitimately put out.
“No one is here to stop us.”
Jace bites the inside of his cheek, levels Aegon with the most defiant gaze he can muster and recites the words he’s been telling himself for years.
“You may do as you please, flitting about and following wherever your fancies lead you but I do not have the same privilege. I will be King one day, and half of Westeros already calls me a bas–”
Jace cuts himself off abruptly, realizing that as usual he has said too much where Aegon is concerned. Aegon watches him, subtle amusement flickering in his violet eyes.
He punches him on the shoulder, reminiscent of the way Jace did to him at dinner.
“King…what a prospect.”
The air is heavy between them. They are no longer the boys of their youth, they can’t brush aside what they now know to be true. They’re not ignorant to the whispers that swirl around them.
“Regardless of what your mother thinks, it’s my birthright.”
Aegon practically hisses, “My mother is the Queen.”
A gulf opens between them, and the lingering taste of Aegon’s wines seems to leech from his lips, leaving only stale longing.
“For now,” Jace whispers.
They both saw how Viserys ails, and with it, Alicent’s reign will be snuffed out. Her time wanes, and his own mother’s is just beginning.
“And you’ll what? Marry Baela, be the dutiful Princeling, primped and plucked as the perfect heir, the fucking perfect little bas—”
He can’t let Aegon finish that sentence, can’t hear the acid of the word he’s run from his whole life. It’s why, despite himself, he surges forward and kisses Aegon, this time catching him off guard. Jace moans into his mouth.
“I will do my duty, as you have done yours.”
Aegon’s fingers thread themselves into Jace’s hair, pulling to tilt his lips closer to Aegon’s own.
“If you think the twins are mine, you’re delusional.”
Jace could almost snort if it weren’t all so fucking bleak. What are they even doing? There’s no part of this that doesn’t end in misery. He feels his cock hardening, can tell Aegon already is, and suddenly he’s transported back to a fumbling afternoon in Aegon’s bedroom, jerking each other off with all their clothes still on, their lips brushing with inexperience.
They’d always been close growing up. Luke always felt so young, and Aemond didn’t have a dragon and they’d somehow just fit. They’d flown together often, when their dragons were still small and learning themselves. The only one who had been bold enough to chase after them had been Helaena and somehow the memories involving her seem dimmer in his mind.
Aegon is like a beacon in the images of his youth, the sun blotting out the rest of the darkness, and he is the only thing Jace can fixate on. Aegon must sense his change in mood because he pulls back, leaning his forehead against Jace’s, steadying his breath.
“What’s wrong?”
He can tell Aegon means it, that for all his bravado, he has always been gentle with Jace. He can be acerbic, poke and prod, but he’s always let Jace see this softness. Once upon a time Jace revelled in it.
What isn’t wrong? When Jace looks ahead into the future of his life, he sees nothing to be thrilled about. The potential for war, a succession crisis—if not when his mother ascends then surely when she dies one day and Jace is to take the throne The very best they can hope for are treasonous plots that will need to be stamped out before they come to fruition.
If he weren’t—
He thinks of Aemond’s toast, his obvious jabs. He thinks of a thousand moments over a lifetime bringing him to this conversation with Aegon.
“I’m a bastard.”
Jace’s words are barely a breath, but Aegon hears them. He’s never said them, not really, not so bare. But he knows them to be true, has for as long as he could remember. It’s not mere treason spread about by Alicent and Otto, it’s the truth.
He can’t meet Aegon’s eye.
“Why does it even matter?” Aegon asks.
And that’s just like Aegon, just what makes him so infuriating. He’s never gotten it. He didn’t get it when they were stupid teenagers riling Aemond up about not having a dragon, he didn’t get it when he and his brothers were subject to the rumours of court. He doesn’t get it now when they’re on the brink of disaster.
He’s never cared, he’s never had to, being the first born son of the King—his place is all but assumed, and even though it isn’t, even though Jace’s own mother is the heir apparent, Aegon has never felt slighted. He could care less, with his white Targaryen hair, violet eyes, and his dragon of gold.
The world has been his since the day he was born, and Jace has only ever clawed for scraps, desperate to prove that he deserves a seat at the table.
He remembers, shortly before they were separated as teenagers, kissing Aegon, wanting to suspend the moment and never leave it. And Aegon had murmured some drivel about Jace’s eyes, how he couldn’t stop staring at them, how his hair was so beautiful.
He’d been besotted, they’d been young and half in love half in lust.
But that comment had burrowed deep in his chest, staying place all these years.
(Aegon is the only person in the world who wouldn’t look at his hair, his eyes, and see them for what they were. Marking him as other, as wrong. He just thought Jace was beautiful, never worrying about what his features signalled to the realm.)
Suddenly, humiliatingly, Jace’s eyes are wet.
“Did you not hear Aemond?” Jace swallows, “Do you not hear every insipid whisper in this very castle? Surely you’re not such a drunkard to miss even that. They’ll put you on that throne Aegon.”
Aegon stills. Jace has struck a nerve.
His hand is still on Jace’s arm, they’re still breathing each other’s air, but Jace can feel the current of tension radiating from him.
“I don’t fucking want it, Jace. Regardless of what my mother or my grandfather want, I don’t want the bloody Iron Throne, Rhaenyra can have it.”
There’s something there, something Aegon doesn’t say, maybe it’s more complicated. Maybe, if Jace remembers, there’s a part of Aegon that thinks he’ll never be quite enough, not what his mother and his grandfather want. Maybe there’s a part of him he tucks away that yearns to prove himself. But still, Jace believes him, knows Aegon is being honest when he says he has no wish to rule. The same way he knows what Aegon wants matters so little.
“I’ve never wanted it,” Aegon continues, “You know that. All I ever wanted was y–”
This time, it’s Aegon who breaks off, but Jace understands what he was about to say. Aegon had said the same thing years ago, that it was enough for him to hang from Jace’s lips like a silent prayer, that he would never need more than torrid trysts behind locked doors.
Jace wanted that too, once, he wishes it were enough now.
Maybe tonight it can be.
Their eyes meet and the years spread between them fold in on one another, like no time passed at all, he sees the soft flutter of Aegon’s eyelashes, the rose coloured tint of his cheeks and he can’t resist again.
He kisses Aegon once more, hard, and this time neither of them pull away. They pant into each other’s mouths and Jace lets his fears and worries slip away into the night. They’re no longer fumbling boys, they’re men, and they understand what they want.
It’s been so long since they’ve felt each other’s skin, and it takes only minutes for Aegon to have Jace’s cock in hand—for him to stroke it with only his own spit to wet his palm. None of the rush of it stops Jace’s groans of pleasure or the way his hips thrust into Aegon’s hand. It doesn’t stop him from whimpering for more. It doesn’t stop him from coming with Aegon’s name on his tongue.
It doesn’t stop him from sinking to his knees and taking Aegon into his mouth as his uncle lets out a grunt of surprise before sinking into him.
Everything is a frenzy, frantic minutes they spend unraveling each other, as if they were anyone else—not uncle and nephew, not Jacaerys Velaryon and Aegon Targaryen, not doomed before they could ever even begin.
Aegon’s fingers wind into Jace’s hair as he comes hot and fast into Jace’s throat. He doesn’t think of anything else except the feeling of Aegon on his lips as he swallows, only getting back to his feet and cradling Aegon to his chest, the two of them still shaking from the sudden ferocity of their passions.
“Aegon…” Jace hates the way his voice trembles.
“Shh,” Aegon hushes.
He pulls Jace closer to him, slotting his head into the crook of his shoulder as his fingers trace up his back.
“I guess you do know where to put your cock,” Aegon murmurs.
“Well actually we didn’t–” Jace starts but Aegon laughs against him and it reverberates through his body.
“Shut up Jace,” he kisses him again, with none of the fervor of before.
It’s slow and lazy and languid and tastes like every memory Jace has fought to forget. It singes his lips, like he and Aegon have forever and not just a few stolen minutes in a darkened alcove. Aegon kisses him like they’re never going to part, like they shouldn’t be worried about someone discovering them here, about the mess it would make if anyone saw them.
Jace melts.
He’s had the weight of the world on his shoulders since he could remember—the responsibility born to him and the uphill battle he knows is yet to come. Yet under Aegon’s caress, it slips away.
There is the way the world sees Aegon—brash and careless and crude and then there is the way he is with Jace, the way his lips part Jace’s slowly, the way he handles him so gently like Jace might be made of glass and he could break at any moment. He doesn’t know what he ever did to earn this secret side of him, but he never wants to let it go again.
When Aegon pulls away, Jace doesn’t open his eyes. He wants to live in this moment for just a while longer.
“Rhaenyra is coming back to King’s Landing,” Aegon says quietly, “She told my mother.”
This is news to Jace, but he can tell Aegon speaks true. He did see his mother and Alicent speaking after they were pulled apart from the fight.
“Come with her.”
Jace’s eyes open, and Aegon has a strange expression on his face, at once earnest and shy. It’s a clear invitation to come back to Aegon, to come back to his side and stand with him instead of apart.
Could it be that easy?
Jace sees it all in flashes, returning on Vermax, his mother on Syrax—her taking up her spot as Viserys’ heir, he as hers. He sees himself learning the court again, treading carefully but with renewed hope. And in every imagining, there is Aegon. He imagines more of this, more time. Moments alone in the evening, talking and kissing, gods the kissing, not to mention the rest. His heart hammers as he thinks about it.
Aegon would make it all the more bearable, Jace would even put up with Aemond if it were only for a few moments with Aegon.
He realizes that for the first time since it was announced he has let himself forget about his impending marriage to Baela, if only for a few minutes. His mouth dries when he thinks of her face now, the guilt begins to creep back in. Still, he’s unable to say anything else other than the truth.
“I want to. I will.”
He realizes, in that moment, that he wants to be wherever Aegon is. It’s been years, and yet there’s still this pull between them—inescapable as it is, he feels as if he is finally able to breathe again. He wants to be wherever they have room to explore whatever this can be, what it can become, against all odds.
Aegon’s lip pulls up at the left corner and Jace kisses him one more time, feather light, barely a peck. And then he’s extricating himself and saying goodbye.
“I’ll see you soon,” he promises as Aegon gazes after him, watching Jace disappear into the dark hallway back to the privacy of his chambers.
As he opens the door to let himself inside, he allows himself to bask in a shred of hope instead of fear for what’s to come—the possiblities seem suddenly endless.
Later, on Dragonstone, when his mother tells him that Aegon has been crowned King, Jacaerys swallows hard and has to blink back memories of that last night in King’s Landing—the feel of Aegon’s hands on him, the way his eyes had softened as they held each other’s gaze.
Knowing this was inevitable does nothing to ease the pain spreading through his chest. He wonders if Aegon thought of him when they laid the crown upon his brow. He wonders if he thought of those final words shared between them, promises that will always be left unfulfilled. The next time they see each other is more like to be upon the battlefield—opposite sides of a fiery bloodbath. He doesn’t let himself shudder at the thought of what happens on battlefield, how often people fail to come back.
(He can’t think of Aegon’s body burnt beyond recognition when he can still remember touching the soft skin of his yet unmarred cheek.)
Aloud he asks, “What is to be done about it?”
And inside, a part of him dies, a part that never really got the chance to live.