Work Text:
Aegon had been lost once again.
It’s an abjectly absurd circumstance to be in, especially for a second time. Valarr tries his very hardest not to be frustrated, but the bitterness wells up inside him all the same. After all, he reasons in the moments when the cynicism takes hold above the shapeless, gnawing grief, their delegation is down one man on its way back. How hard could this possibly be?
Still, he helps. What else is there to do? They can never leave unless the boy is found. The sooner they leave, the sooner they’ll reach Summerhall. The sooner that happens, the sooner his cousins would be left there so that Maekar can explain himself before the King, and once it’s done, he would go back to his domain and King’s Landing would be free of their presence for at least a few moons.
One can hope, at least.
For the time being, however, he wades through the damp forest floor, occasionally calling out in the event that his cousin is somewhere in the vicinity and somehow hadn’t found his way back to camp, and stops in place when he hears the crack of a broken branch, followed by a string of curses. The nearby river drowns most of it out, but there’s someone there. It’s extremely unlikely, but, “Aegon?”
“Leave me be,” a voice croaks back, rough and familiar, but not quite in the way he’s used to hearing it. The cadence is all wrong, pained and lacking the anger that he’d heard in it just hours prior.
“Uncle?”
“Go back to camp, Valarr. Neither of them is here.”
Ah. Not Maekar, then. “Cousin. Aegon has gone missing.” He steps closer, one hand on his sword’s hilt, as if approaching a wild animal. “Were you not informed?”
“I was right there when Father realised that he was gone.” There’s a small clearing right next to the river and as Valarr makes his way out from the forest, he can take in the sight that Aerion makes a little more easily – there’s a wooden bath of some sort placed right next to the riverbed and he’s lounging in it, the bruises covering his face emphasised by his closed eyes. “He’s with the hedge knight. Where the fuck else would he be?”
“And you didn’t think to tell your father that so that he can go look for him?” He takes another step closer, feeling his temper rise. “Or so that he can bear with it and we can go home?”
A bloodshot eye opens to stare furiously back at him. “Do you imagine that my father would know where to look? He’s with a hedge knight. If Aegon wants to sleep in a haystack tonight and for the foreseeable future, he should.”
It’s too much; too flippant, all things considered. “I should have guessed that losing another family member would not faze you. When has it ever?”
That puts his cousin on edge. Aerion leans forward, a barely-there wince passing over his features as his doubtlessly many injuries begin to act up with the small movement. “Don’t do this.”
“Do what? Do you feel any remorse at all?” He can feel the tears weighing heavy on his eyes and furiously blinks them back. He will not cry. Not here; not in front of the man who had led to this. “Do you even understand what you’ve done? And for what?”
“Do you imagine I wanted this?” Aerion rises from his bath and reaches for a robe discarded to the side and under any other circumstance, Valarr would have helped, he thinks; would have tried to do something to make this better. He’d never been fond of watching people suffer, and in front of him is a man in excruciating pain, gritting the words out through it in something between a whimper and a cry. “Perhaps you had it right. I should have stuck to besting old men and near-children and knights far beneath me so that our family would smile upon me and we could continue our monotonous, unremarkable, insignificant existence right into obscurity.” The words sting, but it’s Aerion, and every single thing that had ever left his mouth had had jagged edges. It almost doesn’t matter that it hurts when compared to the meagre normalcy that it offers. “A family boasting with mediocre fighters and enough money and vestigial power to make sure no one mentions just how mediocre we are. Undistinguishable from Lannisters in a generation or two.” He looks Valarr over as he ties his clothing together. “Or Martells, perhaps.”
“As opposed to what? Invoking ancient rites that you can’t finish over a perceived slight and involving your entire family in them?”
“How was I meant to know?”
The question is as loud as it’s anguished and it sends the birds flying from the nearby trees. More importantly, it renders Valarr quiet in turn.
“Even he didn’t know that he would fight. Not until the very last moment. It’s why he needed your armour, isn’t it? How was I meant to know that he would pick his side?”
And just like that, Aerion crumbles.
It’s a strange thing to watch. His cousin had always swung between terrible, explosive anger and unflappable smugness and anything else had seemed unfathomable, unthinkable, at least from afar – Valarr had watched him take a great many injuries in play-fighting, in jousts, at his father’s hand, and he had always taken it in stride. He had seen him after the trial itself, being tended to off to the side by a small flurry of fussing attendants and he hadn’t made a single sound. To watch him like this, curled into a wounded pile of a man next to his makeshift, remote camp, knocks the breath out of him. It’s ridiculous to have the urge to do anything at all about it, but it’s there. He had never been one to turn to the gods much, though his father had been fond of quoting The Seven-Pointed Star at him occasionally when it had come to family matters, and the gods apparently teach that one should love one’s family. Would he think the same now, after everything that had happened?
Valarr can imagine him sighing, fond and exasperated. He can see him think about it, find the entire thing terribly undignified, and then push him forward to do what his heart tells him to.
That’s the trouble, truly – his heart is a twisted thing of sickly, misplaced compassion and a connection he can’t shake off and the shame of it is almost as strong the need to act.
“Get up,” he hears himself say, striding over to his cousin and extending a hand towards him when it doesn’t look like he’ll follow orders. Those bright, shining eyes are frighteningly tired now; vacant in a way he had never expected. “Get up. Your father can’t know I’ve seen you like this.”
Sure enough, that gets him to his feet. “My father does not care either way. I’m to be sent abroad for however long it is that he deems appropriate.”
He had wanted this, Valarr reminds himself. He had wanted peace and quiet and not a hint of any of his cousins for at least half a year. It had been an angry, desperate plea, but it doesn’t change the way his heart sinks now. “Where?”
“To Lys.” A joyless bark of laughter follows. “I’m as good as dead to him. I suppose I should be grateful he’s chosen the closest thing to a paradise that he could think of now that I’ve doomed him to whatever hell it is that kinslayers end up in.”
“So you do understand.” A miserable, questioning look is all gets in response. “You do understand you’ve doomed us.”
He can see a number of horrendous responses pass through Aerion’s head before he settles on, “I’ve doomed myself most of all. It will never...” He falters, digging into the damp earth with his boot. “It doesn’t matter, truly. Nothing ever does.”
“But it does. You have a father who loves you waiting for you when you get back.” As if it’s any punishment at all to send Aerion to Lys. “It’s more than I can say for myself.” Another choked-off whimper, quieting when Valarr’s arms wrap around him to keep him steady as he sways on his feet. He’d overheard his uncle and Daeron just this morning as they’d discussed the injuries sustained. Aerion held himself well on that field, Maekar had said, secret and shameful and proud, all things considered. It had made him sick to hear it, less because of what it means and more because of the realisation that he would never, ever hear his father say the same to him again – would never feel his embrace, the warmth of his smile after every success and the comfort after every failure. “For better or for worse, you’re very much alive. It’s what the gods have decided.”
“The Others take the fucking gods.”
“Quite.” He’s carrying most of Aerion’s weight now, fingers digging into his side to keep him up, and he rejoices in the hiss of pain he receives for that. Unfortunately, so does his cousin, because his expression turns a little more serene for it. “You’re the one who invoked them, however.”
“It was history I was invoking. Your father understood.”
“No doubt he did. He understood you better than you presumed, I think. He knew that you were a terrible, feral little beast, and he was fond of you regardless, for the most part.” He remembers his father’s advice the first time he’d met his cousins – be careful with Daeron, as he’s not very fond of play-fighting, and be careful of Aerion, because he bites. Both had proven to be true just moments after that. “You see what he did as a betrayal, I’m sure. I think he’d hoped there would be a lesson to be learnt there.”
“I do. I did.” His cousin had never been one to hide his worst thoughts from the world; it makes sense that he wouldn’t start now. “But I see him every time I close my eyes. It was stupid. Senseless. The sun snuffed out to protect a flicker of supposed light.”
“It’s not for either of us to understand, it was for him to do,” Valarr counters. “Your sun is just fine.” He can’t keep the envy out of his voice if he’d tried, and he barely has the thought to try. “It’s your moon that’s gone dark in your sky.” Aerion makes a soft, confused noise. “Do you recall when we were little and we’d pester the Grand Maester to bring us to the highest solar in the Keep to look at the night sky?”
A quiet, startled laughter. “I do.”
“He would tell us how it’s the sun that keeps us warm and harbours life, but the moon keeps the seas in check so that they don’t rise up and obliterate us.” He has a destination now and he steers them both in that direction, aware that they’d be undisturbed now that everyone had wandered off to look for the missing prince. “I’ve always thought that our house works precisely so – everything has to weigh in its place, or it’ll all go off-kilter and cause unimaginable damage. I was right.”
Aerion shakes his head as much as he’s able, downcast eyes growing glassier with unshed tears. It’s anger and hurt more than it’s remorse, if Valarr has to guess. “To me, perhaps. But to Father— I can’t replace what has been lost. I never will. I can’t be what he was.”
“He would do it again to save you.” He’s furious and hurt himself, more than words can say, but taking it out on Maekar would help not at all. Aerion delights in being used in such a way, even if he would fight tooth and nail against it. “To save you exactly as you are, Seven damn you.”
“They already have.”
“You don’t get to do this,” he decides abruptly, stopping them both in place. “To pretend that you’re the damned one when I’ll be the one spending the rest of my days stumbling around in the dark. You don’t get to—”
“What difference does it make?” His cousin snaps, having apparently found his voice through the agony of every minute movement. “You’ll hate me all the same.”
“Don’t you think I wish I could?” It comes out louder than he’d meant it, but about as loud as he feels it. “I’ve blamed every man I’ve met since the trial. The hedge knight came to speak to me after the funeral and I sent him away. I’ve blamed your father, I’ve blamed myself. I’ve not said a word to you—”
“I wanted you to,” Aerion whispers back, ragged and vicious. “Every single man at that tourney wanted me dead. I wanted you to come and say it outright. Tell me I killed your father. Tell me I’m to blame that you’ll inherit a crown you’re not ready for, and that it’s my fault that there will be no one to teach you how. I’ve been waiting for you to. What else do you want me to do?”
“What use would it be for me to say things you already feel all on your own? If you thought yourself blameless, you wouldn’t be aching to have this placed on you.” He shakes his head, resolute. “No. You’ll carry that for both of us. It seems I’ve inherited my father’s care for this family, or at least the worst parts of it, I think. He used to say that we must love our kin regardless of anything else. Surely he did not mean this, but now I’ll never know.”
This. He has no other name for it – this terrible, shapeless fondness that they had indulged for so many years. Too many to pretend it’s nothing; too many for him to not redirect the fault to every place he can other than the shoulders where it should be placed. He and Maekar have that in common, he knows, and it’s not a particularly reassuring thought.
“Where are we going?”
“To my tent.”
“I somehow doubt your wife would like that.”
“She has a pavilion of her own.” Valarr casts him a glance as heavy as he can make it. “The perks of being the crown prince, as it turns out. There’s so much empty space around you all of a sudden.”
Inside, he lays Aerion down on top of the furs that make his bed and helps him disrobe from the minimal clothing he'd had after his bath; trails a hand over his undressed wounds before he helps tend to them. His cousin allows it, drowsy and content, only allowing himself a bitten-back cry of pain when Valarr tightens the bandage at the crease of his thigh. It's cathartic and holy and terrible, and he can't get enough of it. "Keep your voice down," he murmurs, pressing a kiss on Aerion's bruised chest as he makes his way up his body. "We wouldn't want your father to come looking."
"And if he does?"
"I'll tell him I'm taking care of our wounded warrior," he shrugs and hovers just above him; just enough to watch his cousin wince as he tries to strain up for a kiss. "In the only way I know."
The pain seems to matter a little less with each passing moment and Aerion does get his kiss now - a soft, pointed tongue lapping at Valarr's lips until he opens up and lets him inside, drawing out a groan from both of them, tortured and wanting.
"Be with me tonight," Aerion says, unimaginably sweet as Valarr had never seen him. It's not as if he hadn't planned on it already, but it becomes an inevitability now, as if he would die himself if he doesn't comply. It's stupid and reckless and there's not a single soul in the world left who has the sense - or the bravery - to tell him to stop. "The next time I see you, you might be king."
"The next time I see you, you might be a changed man."
Aerion smiles, somehow wicked and wistful all at once. Not very likely. "Would you like that?"
"No." It feels good, better than he would admit to, to cover his cousin's body with his own entirely; hide him away from the world and ensnare him in his arms and make him feel every single wound and bruise on his body awaken once again. Being alive hurts; they both seem to agree on that much. "Gods fucking help me." But they won't and he's as lost to them as Aerion is for seeking him out instead of them and letting himself melt into the fervent, grateful, adoring kisses of someone he cannot change. He would worry that they would be doomed to the same hell, at least, but it feels like they've arrived precisely there already. "No, I wouldn't."