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His limbs were sluggish with sleep still stuck to his eyes. He'd find himself dozing off in moments of weakness, never free to permit himself a true slumber. The dip from a dream was familiarly cruel, and no amount of experience made it easier.
His eyes were sunken and prickly. Daeron dragged his hand away from the wall that held him, and he saw black soot at the tips of his fingertips. Father would anger at the sight of it. He ought to tell the servants to scrub the walls clean before he returned.
Their long halls were graveyards. Only he and the trembling wicks disturbed the stillness; the small, neatly lined flames made his shadow rise high, high up.
Even when mother died, even then, at least there were muffled cries from some—from every direction. But now… He blinked slowly.
He needn't be afraid in his home.
Yet he would not look closely at the pitch-black at the end of the great hall. So he stumbled in the opposite direction.
“Pick up that cloak! Don't you see there's chainmail in that chest?” Aerion cried orders and insults in the same breath.
“Yes, my Prince.”
“Idiots! The iron would tear the fabrics.”
“Leave us,” Daeron made himself known. The crowd of the chamber made him blink rapidly, adjusting his eyes. Aerion's servants all moved with their chins low, careful to never thread too deep into the circle his brother occupied.
“Don’t move a limb! This is to be finished by sunrise! If I had a whip, none of you would be dragging your feet!” There was still some red between Aerion's teeth, Daeron remarked. The maester said he had bitten the inside of his cheek so hard as his helm was crushed that it was a miracle he still had a cheek at all.
Daeron sighed and motioned with his hand, “You may go. See to pack my brother's riding saddles and his helms.”
Aerion studied him and scoffed. He looked a grotesque thing. Purples and reds bloomed from the deep lacerations on his swollen face. The bruising on his neck was turning the colour of bile. Daeron couldn't keep his eyes on the sight. It twisted his stomach.
That screaming barrage of insults made his brother appear even more like a miserable, wounded animal.
A stark sight to that usually fine little thing. A flake of snow, mother called him. As a babe, the maesters said you could almost see through him—skin as white as milk.
Yet never before had he looked breakable.
He sat curled in on himself, cradling his lame arm—hardly an image of a dragon. Or even a man fit for a long journey. No, Daeron thought, Aerion was a scene from a battlefield, out of place in his own chamber where a dozen tunics, doublets, and cloaks lay about his daybed. He hadn’t a fabric without rubies sewn into it, or one without a gold-embroidered hem. Everything was adorned with some jeweled accent, and a dragon peered back at him wherever he looked.
Daeron sat at the end of the cushiony daybed, mutely cursing whoever crafted such a thing without a backrest.
Velvet from the Westerlands, satin from Dorne, lace from Myr…
“I hear they have lovely silks in Lys,” he said.
He expected an uncouth response; instead, Aerion sounded tired. “Say what you wish and be gone.”
Daeron shifted. What was there to say?
Goodbye?
Did you learn your lesson now?
Don't leave me here alone.
If there was an adequate word, he could not speak it.
He'd never admit the hold that fear had on him, for Aerion had a taste for it like a bloodhound. Well, now that his head had been rung like a bell, perhaps that had changed. But Daeron would not test it. It was not that long ago that fear would rouse Aerion like a mouse spurred a cat.
Daeron knew fear as one knows a mistress—intensely and intimately. That unyielding prickle at the back of the neck. A pit in his stomach that no ale or wine could fill. However, it did not stop him from trying.
After Baelor died… Dearon fluttered his eyes shut, recalling the day.
When they brought him the news, fat tears pooled in his eyes. They fell and mixed with the dirt, and the blood crusted on his cheeks, and the servants rushed to comfort him then. He sobbed and hiccuped without shame while they cleaned him and whispered of survivable grief, all while unaware that it was relief that rattled his bones.
He was glad.
He had thought it over. Naively, Daeron had hoped the dreams would subside. The dragon was dead.
Not long after, it seized him anew.
It was the first night on the road back when Father grabbed the wineskin from his hand and shoved it to the first servant who passed by. He was still exerting himself with the attempts to solve the unsolvable.
That was how the familiar veil caught him. He still hadn’t a name for it, but it would sweep him up and hold him suspended from the ground as if caught in a spiderweb. It always came for his eyes first. It stuck to the back of his eyelids, and he could not scrape it out. When he looked through it, he saw black dragon skulls rotting in the soil. The babes were all packed close, as if, in their dying, they clawed at the giant beast to break back in. The ground beneath the bones was cracked; it steamed, breathing through the fissures in long, squeaky breaths.
The agony of the dreams was not solely the inevitable; he called it fetid. There was a texture to it that clung to him the way foul smell clings to dogs after rain.
He had truly thought it over. He remembered, dejected.
The dragon was dead.
How could he tell Aerion that—That alone in Summerhall, he might drink himself to death.
He needn't supervision.
But was he horrible for wishing someone would stay?
“Whoring and drinking might do you some good,” said Daeron.
Aerion rolled his eyes. “Drunk fool,” he kicked Daeron's thigh with his foot. Swiftly, Daeron seized him at the ankle and tugged the leg until Aerion winced, struggling.
“Or would you prefer the Wall?” He mused, with a tilt of his head. “All your skill is in breaking things, yet the one time it counted, you could not manage it.” Aerion's pupils were so wide they had nearly snuffed out the lilac. “Father shows you too much grace,” Daeron said, and squeezed around the joint.
“Grace?!” Aerion blistered, “He ordered that I be gone by morrow, and he ran to King's Landing. For what?! They gladden at the chance to make him miserable! All his talk of duty… does he think me simple? I am the one who does everything he demands, but in his mind, he has been rid of me for a long while. I know—I know he waited for this.” He kicked again, and Daeron let go, unwilling to fight. “But you are free to sit here and count days like a foolish maiden while he runs off looking for Aegon.”
A smile tugged at Daeron's lips, and Aerion barked, “What?!”
Daeron shook his head, a loose strand of hair falling across his vision, “It is always about Aegon with you.”
“You're pathetic,” Aerion spat, and Daeron shrugged, indifferent. “You believe he will be thankful that you have seen that I do not run away?” Father had guards for that, and he'd trust a blind rat to watch over Aerion before ever entrusting some responsibility to his firstborn. “You could not even ensure that mother—” Aerion never got to finish the vile thing he wished to spew.
Daeron caught his jaw so hard he swore he could crush him like an overripe fruit. The force of it tore a guttural sound out of Aerion as Daeron's fingers pressed harder into the skin, clutching the bone.
There he was, Daeron thought, studying the flash of panic in Aerion's darkened eyes. He clutched harder to fix his grip, “Go on,” he dared. He'd make Aerion bite his own tongue if he tried to stutter a word.
“You… rotten imbecile,” said Daeron. “Father sat a day and a night next to you in that damned, ugly castle while the maesters dressed your wounds and washed the blood and mud and vomit from your skin. You think he wishes to be rid of you? Ha?” His fingers pressed into the cauterized wound. “He's run Aegon off because all he's done is protect you!”
Aerion drew his knees to his chest to put a shield between them. He pushed against Daeron's grip on his face, and the wound cracked open.
When they had finally arrived back at Summerhall, father had every soul in the castle on their feet. Even the little critters showed themselves for their Lord. It was so that when anger consumed Maekar, he would not scream or demand; it always gave Daeron a pause how the world bent to his father's will in those moments. Truth be told, that reverence was still the one thing about their father that thrust fear in him because it was not their Prince that the bannermen followed in step, it was the man who saw armies fall to his feet.
In a few short hours, Maekar settled all arrangements for the next three moons. He cursed and complained and tended to every urgency that may spring up in his absence. As he worked, Rhae clung to the ends of his houppelande. Daeron watched as sometimes father would sometimes pet her hair.
It was far too late in the night when Daeron went to him. The maester kept coming and going from his father's solar. There was talk of prepping the land. Field hands had to be gathered, and supplied… Summer was a never-ending heap of work. Daeron knew little of it.
On either side of his father's grand desk were tall, five-light candelabrum smithed into blooming flowers. They were gilded in gold. But no matter the number of bright flames, his father still squinted at the parchment in hand.
He'd never admit it, but his sight was poor. In daylight, it was manageable still, but at night—Mother used to smile and tell him and Aerion that when father read letters long into the night, it meant the maester had to be kept awake for a headache would need aid soon.
The easiest was when Baelor would come. They would sit next to the hearth, and Baelor would read long into the night.
“Should I read to you?” Daeron asked in a small voice.
Maekar didn't heed the question.
Daeron allowed himself to a seat opposite his father, one hand tucked under his thigh as he watched and waited. He looked older than he ought to, Daeron thought.
Or perhaps not.
Perhaps that was what Princes who knew the tremor of the battlefield, who held castles, and fathered six wretched children looked like.
“Do you know when you might return?” He tried again without success.
He was taking Daella and Rhae, too.
Daella kept asking where Aegon was. Why Aerion was hurt. Why they must go. Why Valarr did not come visit again.
Indeed, it was not without reason for father to take them, but… Daeron wished for more time.
Soon, they would become ladies-in-waiting.
His temple throbbed whenever he tried to think of a way to remind father of mother's wishes.
His sisters ought to go to Dorne.
If he brought it up… Father might spring up in fury at the accusation that he forgot. Unless, well, unless he did forget.
Maekar didn't appear vexed; he changed letters in hand, his lip no stiffer than normal. No, he only seemed tired. And Daeron guessed that, mayhaps, sleep was not so simple to summon for his father either.
The letters must be a great deal easier to look at than everything else around him.
Aegon gone.
Baelor… gone.
Aerion…
“What of Aerion, father?”
Maekar's face twisted, Daeron's words piercing through for the first time that night. He looked up with a scowl, “Aerion is no better than a horse.”
A horse only understands the crop.
Under Daeron's strength, the deep cut on Aerion's cheek gaped; a trickle of warm blood moistened the gaps between his digits. His firm grip held Aerion’s jaw shut. Perchance his brother would have struck him in return with that one good arm, but Daeron wagered it was the grip of panic and not the grip of strength that would not permit it.
Some of his fighting spirit had dimmed. Tragic. Daeron liked him best a live wire.
Aerion's nostrils flared with heavy breaths, and the anger and pain flushed his skin a deep red. He was beastly. His gaze a wild thing. Anyone would be hard to find softness in that gentle color.
He watched his brother's throat move as Aerion swallowed hard. There was a cut on his chin. And that brute didn't even spare his brother's pretty lips. Daeron's thumb brushed against the edge of the bottom lip, watching how the bruised skin moved under his touch.
Aerion's lips parted with a shallow breath and caught on the thumb. The skin was dry, cracked.
Daeron caressed it again, dragging the lip under his fingertip. Maybe he'd soothe it if he tried hard enough. Aerion's breath was warm against his thumb. He stroked the lip, and Aerion licked the tip of the digit. Soft but unmistakable. Daeron's breath died in his throat. He prodded inside the small, hot mouth, and Aerion's eyes fell shut.
Aerion inhaled through his nose, his tongue teasing out the digit gingerly. His teeth were sharp under the slide of Daeron's thumb, and he gave these sweet licks like a kitten lapping up milk.
Daeron had to stop himself from gasping at the sight.
Aerion's guarded legs fell open, making a space a person could fit into. He sucked the thumb softly like a babe. The lines of his face were serene, and Daeron wanted—Gods, he wanted him.
Daeron shifted in the seat, sliding his knee up to his brother's crotch. He slotted himself easily between the inviting legs and gave a tentative nudge. Aerion purred against the thumb, low and soft.
He was pretty, pacified like this. He swirled his tongue round Daeron's thumb and sucked sweetly. Daeron's cock stirred in his breeches at the noises that he stole out of his little brother. Warmth pooled in his groin.
At times when he and Aerion would steal themselves away, merry on Dornish wine that reddened their cheeks, coddishly they would shove hands into each other's breeches until failure or release. When the wine worked the best—poisoning his heart, clearing his mind—his cock would stay soft all night in Aerion's hand.
He pressed anew against the crotch, feeling the hardness of Aerion's cock. Daeron licked his lips and dragged his knee again, watching the motion. He imagined Aerion already leaking. His pretty cockhead red and drooling. He pushed again, with intent, and Aerion hissed, “Fuck.” His eyes snapped open, and Daeron frowned.
“What?” He fixed his grip on Aerion's jaw and slid his knee forward without an apology. The blood from the gash gathered in Daeron's palm and trickled past his wrist, into the sleeve of his tunic.
“Ah—ah,” Aerion whined, leaning his head back and screwing his eyes shut. “Wound,” he muffled out, and Daeron lowered his gaze.
“Here?” He asked and pressed his bony knee harder.
“Bastard!” Aerion groaned, grabbing at the front of Daeron's tunic with his good hand and yanking him closer. Daeron slipped his thumb out for the fear of losing it, a chain of spit stuck to Aerion’s lips. The mangled face was so close to his that he could feel the ghost of Aerion’s hot breath on his cheek, against his own lips.
Down lower, Daeron’s wet hand brushed against the inside of Aerion’s thigh. High, right up to where he imagined the cut was bandaged. Aerion breathed through gritted teeth, “Don't.”
“How d’ you mean to get release then?” He teased with a crooked smile. He shifted his touch to Aerion's hardness and watched his mouth slacken in a noiseless moan. “You’re lucky that it still works,” Daeron said, tracing the outline of the cock, and Aerion’s fingers dug into his chest.
All it took was a gentle tow for Aerion to fall forward, his forehead comfortable on Daeron's shoulder. He hissed next to Daeron’s ear, tucking himself into the crook of Daeron’s neck. The smell of copper blood sneaked into Daeron's nostrils.
He nuzzled against Aerion's hair, taken by the softness. All that compassed him was Aerion.
His nails dug into Daeron's chest and clawed. It was irresistible to him—leaving a mark. The easier plainly seen, the better. In their boyhood, Aerion used to kiss and suck deep, purple blotches on his neck and pass them off as training bruises. “You can handle a sword, dammnit, you ought to know better,” father groaned when he saw his skin, and Aerion reeled—a champion in his hidden game.
“Touch me,” Aerion whined into his neck, and Daeron tutted, “Do it yourself.”
Aerion’s teeth clamped the skin of his neck. “Ow!” Daeron cried, grabbing a fistful of Aerion’s short hair and yanking him away.
Fuck. Daeron breathed hard. “You're mad.”
The trickle of blood smeared wide against Aerion’s battered cheek, his mouth hung open as Daeron held him by the golden-silver strands like one would an unruly cat. He flashed a bloody, quick smile as if to declare that there was no taming him. No exile, no reprimand, no guards, not even hard labour, Daeron believed, would smother that pert spirit.
Aerion's tongue poked out between the sharp teeth, and Daeron brought him down onto his own lips. He kissed him hard, without finesse. The blood was too much, but Aerion was so warm. Aerion licked into his mouth, and Daeron could feel his lips smiling. He tasted metallic and sweet, sweeter than any wine he knew. Daeron pushed his tongue against Aerion's and licked him. He savoured his mouth until Aerion sucked all the breath from his lungs.
When they broke apart, Aerion had his good hand on Daeron's shoulder, and he was near sitting in his lap. He pressed their foreheads together and blinked his eyes closed.
“You'll think of me?” Aerion asked and jerked his hips, rubbing his hardness against Daeron's knee.
“Hardly.”
“Ah—Liar.” He angled himself better and moaned. With one hand, Daeron steadied his hip, dragging out the movement. Aerion bucked again, holding onto pleasure, chasing release. Their limbs tangled together, held close by quick, breathy thrusts. As it was oft.
Scarcely ever could he take Aerion how he liked best. Spread underneath him with tears in his eyes and knees near up to his chin so he could reach deeper, fuck him harder. Watch pleasure shatter his face and delight in knowing that it was solely for him. The castle was no place for thrill and his cock could hardly muster it, but once in a blue moon… Aerion would come undone on his cock, writhing in joy. All but proving that Gods remembered them too. Seldom was Aerion the one for gentleness, but Daeron could still sometimes ensnare him with unmatched pleasure. He was quick to rouse and quick to release, and Seven, save them, he could be the loudest thing in the realm.
Daeron loved him. He mouthed at his neck, kissing where the heartbeat lay. He loved fucking him, too.
His cock leaked, the sensation almost unfamiliar, and it made him desperate. He pressed harder into Aerion’s hip.
“A good whore isn't difficult to come by.” His voice sounded foreign to his ears, far away and thick. He realized he was panting against Aerion's skin. They made a chorus of wanton noise. Aerion clutched at his shoulder for purchase, sharp nails digging into the flesh. Likely, he had already bruised him.
Daeron kissed his jawline, licked the corner of his lips.
Aerion abandoned dignity. He humped and whined, and Daeron felt the punches of breath on his face. He angled his knee against Aerion's cock and moved him by the hips, once, twice, and Aerion cried out.
Under Daeron's guiding hand, he fell apart.
He tumbled against Daeron, his strength depleted, and he nearly took them both down.
“You'll think of me,” Aerion breathed out, certain.
The words poured molten steel into Daeron's body, his heart heavy at once. He blinked tears out of his eyes. Delicately then, with little air in his lungs, he ran his fingers through Aerion's hair and swallowed down the wonderment of when he'd get to do that again. How long would they have to wait? How near were his dreams? He listened to Aerion breathe in his embrace.
“Is this the most blood you've ever drawn from a man?” Aerion cut through the silence as he pulled back from the embrace, his pink tongue licked the blood from the side of his face, and Daeron's stomach turned.
Daeron hummed, unsure. If it were Aerion, it would be fitting. The older they grew, the fewer such comments he still got to hear. It was pleasant, once again. Before, it was imperative. As boys, it was the most important thing in the world that Aerion be Daeron's first. Daeron's most.
With grace, Aerion maneuvered himself on the floor between the fine silks, between Daeron's legs. His hands were a pleasant weight on Daeron's thighs. “I want to take you,” Aerion spoke, reaching for the string of the breeches. Daeron wanted to kiss him again.
His brother was a great many things, though not without effort. No, Aerion delegated effort even to the futile things, chasing the invisible prize—the nod of approval.
Daeron tried and failed to oust it from him.
It would be difficult, since sometimes he had reason to believe it was he who made Aerion as such.
He spat into Aerion's palm when offered and tilted his head back at the first touch to his cock.
Aerion made love to him. He licked up the gathered wetness and kissed the cock head as if it were Daeron's lips. Daeron thought he might die; he thought perhaps that too much alcohol and a soft cock were a secret blessing because how could he live through this? Aerion moaned and took him in the mouth with a noise that made his cock dribble, already close to release.
Without strength, he gathered Aerion's hair between his fingers and lulled his head.
“You're so pretty,” he spoke, the compliment almost vapid. But his brain couldn't muster something better. In turn, Aerion looked up through his eyelashes and flattened his soft tongue. “You should always have a cock in you. Fuck, Ah—Aerion—” He thrust his cock into the willing mouth, and Aerion hollowed his cheeks. “They all think you a great beast for battle, but you're best on your knees,” Daeron babbled, petting his brother's hair.
Warmth gathered in his loins, and when Aerion took him to the hilt. Daeron moaned, thrusting back into the warm hole. He gripped Aerion's hair tighter and drove his cock harder. His hips snapped in thrall to his pleasure. He fucked into Aerion's mouth, spilling with a low growl.
The tips of his fingertips went numb, and he felt himself away from his body, swept up in a wave of release and sweet pleasure.
Aerion kissed him with spent on his tongue and in his teeth, it was salty and nauseating as it hit the back of his throat, and Daeron kissed him back with ferocity.
‘Twas a horrible fucking place to choose and do this; they hadn't much place for either of their bodies, and his back ached. Aerion lazily palmed Daeron's sensitive cock, teasing, torturing, cruel. He wouldn't quit until Daeron knocked the hand away, and even then, he licked a long strip on Daeron's cheek and grinned.
They were more akin to a sight after battle than to that post-coupling; then again, with Aerion, Daeron wordlessly thought it the same thing. He cleaned himself with one of Aerion's countless tunics bound for Lys, and Aerion cursed his indolence. Biting back a smile, he vowed to have a tailor make one new, better, prettier.
A matching pair, for the two of them.
That mollified the protests.
Aerion needed more than a good wipe-down. A maester to change fresh bandages and his wounds cleaned and dressed with a salve. Daeron had made a proper mess of him. It was strange to consider—watching Aerion don on a fresh doublet, loose at the waist—how Aerion governed with his joy and awoke his cruelty.
In the late night and the candle wicks at half life, Daeron’s weary eyes saw a boy that most days he believed to be gone. Aerion’s fingers fumbled with the clips of the doublet, the injured arm difficult to command. Without a thought, Daeron reached out and fastened them. The rush of release had petered out of them, making the small gesture feel far too intimate. The clips were like burning coal under his fingertips. He pulled away.
“Be careful.” Out there. In Lys. Away from me.
Aerion smiled. The glint in his eye spoke before he could, then he tilted his head. Only slightly. Enough to betray his curiosity, to spell out concern. “Why?” What do you know?
Daeron remembered the dreams—unforgettable as they were. He thought of the dead dragon and its babes. The poisoned earth and the sickly breathing. How many dead dragons would it take… He thought of fires that flickered behind his eyelids. How, sometimes in the dark quiet of Summerhall, he could hear crackling.
He thought of the burning want in his chest when he kissed him—the warmth of Aerion's skin in Daeron's hands.
How Daeron would think of him.
With a knuckle of his finger, he caressed Aerion's cheekbone.
Since he was born, Aerion had never been away from him.
“You do not know how to hold your tongue, it is bound to get you in trouble.”
Aerion rolled his eyes, swatting his hand away, “I heard no complaints of my tongue earlier.”
He bit him farewell with some urgency, at once feeling like an intruder. His voice was thick, so he didn't say much, nor did Aerion offer plenty in reply. Perhaps father would sicken without him, and the sorrow would have been for naught. Soaking his woes in wine, he lamented over the chances of their next meeting. In his bedchamber, his hand reached for the bottle until he was shivering yet hot in the face. The red was tangy and dry on his tongue; he grimaced. Clutching the drink, his eyelids grew heavy.
No dream came to him, only a feeling of something warm leaving his hands.