Chapter Text
Grief affects the soul differently, from person to person.
Some harden their hearts, to ensure something of that nature doesn't affect them again in the future, which was what Maekar Targaryen had done. His once warm embrace had turned cold and somewhat forced - as if it physically pained him to envelop any of his children into a fatherly hug,
Some drown themselves in the bottle, or other vices that they find adequate enough to numb their feelings, which was what Daeron Targaryen had done. He had yet to be seen without the personalised hip flask in his hand, or without a glass of soured wine by his side. He drowned out the memories, kept the dreams at bay, there was no one left to tell him otherwise.
Aemon buried his nose deeper into books to simply see if there was a cure, so no other family had to go through such an event. Unlike Daeron, he didn't want to numb the pain, he wanted to use that to his advantage, to help others. Truly, a courageous feat - not many could or would do what he was.
And some, painfully so, shut the world out and pretend as though the world below does not exist—
Aerion Targaryen had not been seen by a living member of his family in two years. He had been heard, of course - despite the thickness of the walls of Summerhall, there was no drowning out the sorrowful cries of a motherless mothers boy. Maekar couldn't bring himself to sit with a child he did not know how to help - of a son who reminded him too painfully of himself, of a son who hurt so inwardly that he had become numb to all else.
Daella, Rhae and Aegon had all continued with their lives as though nothing had changed for them - because in theory, nothing had. They had their governesses, their guards, their wet nurses, and glances of their father. Dyanna Dayne had become a fleeting memory in their minds, a wisp of dark blonde hair against the sandy stone walls. Nothing more, nothing less.
Grief was —
"I believe that is all we have time for today, Aerion. You did well." Bowen Mudd, the royal therapist, said in his usual placid, unmoving voice.
Grief was unnecessarily suffocating, as was pretending that therapy was what was going to cure him.
Aerion hadn't much spoken since he'd accepted the video call almost two hours ago. He'd been polite, he was raised to at least give some form of audible responses before they turned into nods and shrugs. He couldn't actually remember what he had said for it to be classed as him 'doing well'.
"I shall see you again next week," Aerion paused, suddenly acutely aware of how raw his throat felt, he was certain it was evident in his voice - "does Friday work?"
Bowen Mudd had no choice but to make Friday work. Aerion had only been doing these online therapy sessions because he was forced to do that, or venture downstairs and sit with his siblings.
He would've rather set fire to the west wing, but the west wing had always been so full of memories of being chased through the hallways—
"Friday works perfectly, I shall see you then."
As soon as Bowen Mudds face had disappeared, being replaced by a blank screen, Aerion finally let out a shuddered breath. It wasn't that he had been holding in his breath, not entirely, he just hadn't allowed himself to exhale too loudly, afraid that the therapist would mistake it for a sigh, or a indicator that he was sad.
Sometimes he just breathed heavier to quell an urge to cough—
A knock against the door was unwelcome, it made him jump in a way that was very un-princely.
"Aerion?"
At first, he couldn't distinguish which brother it was, it sounded too old to be Aegon… but it had been far too long since he had heard his voice. He was hoping it was a figment of his imagination, and had allowed himself the luxury in believing it, until it happened again.
"Aerion, it's me- Daeron."
His older brother, his alleged protector - what a bloody good job he had done.
"I'm coming in."
Daeron hadn't given Aerion much of a chance to hide beneath his bed, or climb onto the window ledge of the parapet. He hadn't given him much chance to hide the picked at supper from the day prior, either — he hoped the alcohol had softened his memory enough to not put the pieces together.
"Don't—"
His meek voice was drowned out by the door getting stuck against the floor as it began to close behind the eldest. Aerion didn't bother looking at his brother in the eye - he should've, it was polite after all… but so was bidding someone to enter their room.
"Tybolt dropped off your university work, bolted before dad could ask if he'd spoken to you."
Chicken, Aerion thought to himself, although he was sure he would've done the same had he been face to face with Mister Lannister.
"You look —"
Here it was, the obligatory 'you look…well' comment. No doubt followed by an ounce of awkwardness, it was Daeron after all.
Before he could finish his comment, he found himself taking a seat that had clearly been neglected for many a moon. The cushion almost cracked beneath his weight, the way a leather sofa does after being left for a week or two.
"I didn't invite you to sit." Aerions voice was cold, irritated more so than angry.
Almost in the same way he would talk whenever a fish refused to bite on his line. It brought a faint smile onto Daerons lips but it didn't last long, instead he turned his face to the view outside of the window. Not much could truly be seen, the tips of trees, snowy covered mountains in the distance and clouds. So- so many clouds.
Perhaps that was why Aerion liked to be cooped up up there alone, he could paint until his hands cramped - or he could stare out at the unmoving landscape and picture it being ravished by dragons.
Anything was a possibility.
"Your hairs gotten longer."
A beat passed before Aerion leaned forward, allowing his already loose shirt to puddle in his lap. There was a look on his face that wasn't easy to decipher. It wasn't threatening, nor docile, it was… both, at the same time - a look that would've once looked so natural on him, but now it just looked so out of place. Unnatural, even.
"Congratulations, your detective skills haven't gone down the toilet!"
Unlike his fashion sense, clearly.
Wine stained cream undershirt, dark jeans that looked as though they needed washing months ago — honestly, it was as though Daeron had long since given up.
What Daeron had wanted to say was that Aerion looked like a shell of his former self. Eyes sunken in from lack of sleep, deep purple bags beneath - he looked like a ghost, a purple ghost. Daeron was supposed to be the one who looked ill, he spent nights with his head in the toilet, throwing up that days poison, — his little brother was supposed to be bright and angry, and - not at all sad.
"Uncle Baelor and his kids are visiting in a few weeks, dad wants you to acclimate before then… doesn't want you to—"
"Show myself as the freak?"
That wasn't what he had meant at all, but Aerion thought whatever he wanted to. What he had wanted to say was Maekar didn't want Aerion to be overwhelmed. No one knew what would bring back the Aerion of before but they all worried about bringing in a new rendition - one that seldom spoke. At least this version spoke, even if it was through calls or voice notes — or the wall.
Instead of replying, as he should've done, he got up to leave - even making such a show of it he slapped his thighs like he'd seen his uncle Aerys do whenever he'd outstayed his social battery. Before he could even pass by where Aerion had been awkwardly hunched over, a hand gripped his wrist so tightly, he could already feel the bruise begging to form.
His eyes drifted down, blue meeting tired and lifeless lilac, and he stood motionless. This was the most Aerion had done in two years, it was the most time he'd spent in the physical company of another - and it was instinct.
And yet, he couldn't let go.
Daeron looked as though he was on the urge of asking questions, it was as though his skull had become transparent, the cogs whirring back to life as the questions began to line up in an order of most to least important.
Was he eating was tied first was how did he truly feel.
One was a question he felt as though he knew the answer to and the other was one he didn't wish to know but felt it was his duty as the eldest to find out.
"Are you still in the band?"
It was Aerion to break the awkward silence, it was his question to come out first - it was his way or the highway, just as it used to be. The question was a surprise, not least because Daeron had convinced himself that his participation in the band was a secret - clearly a poorly kept one, but out of them all he was sure Aegon would've been the one to find out first.
Not classics loving Aerion.
"Uh, no- I mean, no, yes I'm still in the band," Daeron started, using his free hand to shimmy his phone out of his jacket pocket. "How did you even know about that?"
Aerions grip loosened almost entirely, the imprints of bony fingers clearly visible against alabaster skin. With the same hand that had been clamped so tightly around his brothers wrist, he beckoned him to sit back down - this time, next to him.
He was certain he'd have to text Bowen Mudd for another two sessions before next Friday. He didn't think he was strong enough to start going downstairs - having his brother in his room was already hard enough. It felt as though he couldn't quite get breath all the way into his lung, like it was getting trapped somewhere between half way full. He could never tell the difference between a panic and an anxiety attack — he hadn't been in therapy long enough to remember the ways to negate it.
"Mum told me."
There was no room for arguing with his statement, it was a half truth. Before her death, Dyanna had told Maekar about his eldest sons adventures across the Reach - playing to crowds as large as she could imagine (when in reality there were rarely more than twenty people), and Aerion had just happened to overhear.
Daeron didn't need to know that their father knew, too.
"Mum also told you to eat and don't pick at your food, but you've fallen back into old habits."
Aerion forced them both back into silence, glaring at nothing in particular but glaring none the less. For what felt like ten minutes (but really only two had passed), they sat in uncomfortable silence, until Aerion turned his glare onto his brother.
"You just had to go and ruin it, didn't you? You can tell dad to shove his advice up his backside, and our dear cousins can choke for all I care." His breathing came back in shallow huffs, the tips of his ears burning pink with hurt and anger. "— and you can shove your brotherly love so far back up your arse that you can taste it."
Daeron took that as his cue to leave, but before he could get his hand on the door handle,he found himself turning around - to look at his little brother, the boy who was once so overcome with joy, he vomited. He would give up all his worldly possessions just to see that boy again.
"I'll be back later with supper, we can eat together."
Nothing else was said, he didn't give Aerion the chance to reply before he felt the door close on his back.
So, Aerion did what Aerion did best - lost himself in the silence again, wondering what the rest of the house was doing below him. Wondering if little Rhae remembered him — wondering if someone was still feeding Dyannas sourdough starter.
What Daeron couldn't get out of his head, was the way Aerion looked. Pale, much paler than he had been before — and so very gaunt.
Guilt crept in quicker than he could have expected, each step he took going back down to the rest of the family, it was like it was beginning to take hold. It was suffocating him because he could've done more. Done more to drag him out of that godawful tower room he loved to waste away in. Done more to show him that he wasn't truly alone in his sadness - that they all felt it, he could've demanded to see him in then flesh instead of conversing through the door —
He should've been the brother Dyanna had asked him to be before her soul left her.
"How is the drama queen?" Aegon asked, appearing almost out of nowhere.
Daeron almost jumped out of his skin, the short pale curls atop Aegons head seemed to jostle at his reaction; as though he was trying his best to stifle the laugh that began to brew in his sternum.
"Go take Rhae and Daella outside, I need to talk with -" Daeron inhaled sharply, the desire to just rip off the plaster and tell the world was clawing its way out of him but he made a promise - not to Maekar, but a silent one to his brother, "literally anyone but you."
The words came out far harsher than intended, and despite the jutting out of Aegons bottom lip pulling at his heart strings, he didn't cave. There were just some things a twelve year old didn't need to know about a brother eight years his senior. He wasn't even sure he wanted Aemon there, either, but there were only so many books his measly allowance could afford to buy to keep him occupied.
The youngest stomped the heel of his foot against Daerons toes with all of his might before sulking off, calling out to the two girls who moved with such grace they almost floated… or rather, Daella did - Rhae was simply just carried.
"Aemon, grab me a bottle out of the fridge?" Daeron yelled through to the dining room, taking his sweet time to walk through the hallway, admiring all of the old portraits and photographs taken from years past.
He stopped in front of a duet photograph, himself and Aerion- he couldn't have been more than seven, Aerion perhaps less than one.
They all looked like aliens at that age, he could remember that quite clearly.
Daeron heard the fridge door rattle open, bottles of wine and beer clinking together at the movement. What he had expected when he rounded the door, was a nice cold bottle of arbour gold, de-corked and poured into the nice wine glasses he had gotten for his twenty first, but instead! The little worm had decided that a nice cold bottle of Voss sparkling water - the worst kind of water, was what he needed.
"You know this shit tastes like television static, right?"
Aemon gave him a look of displeasure, though he made no attempt to disguise it with a smile. No, instead his face remained as it had been. He should've made more of an effort but even Maekar didn't point out that Daeron, too, had a face like a slapped arse.
Instead, wild arm gestures were waved in front of the darker blonde, who in turn took his sweet time to unscrew the plastic lid and take a large, dramatically so - to the point where the silence was eating away at everyone's resolve.
The sound of the tap dripping into the basin became a monotonous tune that no one could drown out, sometimes overridden by the screams of glee from beyond the garden path.
"Oh, just spit it out, boy!" Maekar finally snapped, cheeks flushing with a pink no Targaryen should see.
It was at that moment that Daeron found his hands incredibly interesting. The way the life line on his palm was at an odd length, his fertility line too — or, whatever it was that the YouTube palm readers had said. He should've just gone to the tarot reader that had pop ups in the town square.
Maybe he'd learn if he was on the right path for his destiny, or maybe he'd find out that actually… he was six nautical miles away from his true reality.
"Please, Daeron."
The glass bottle froze half way towards his lips, the rawness in his fathers voice caught him off guard. Hell, it probably caught Maekar off-guard too.
Aemon did what Daeron wanted to do, and found himself slowly edging towards the nearest door, his hands bringing his classical mechanics physics book high enough to cover the look of shock that had painted his face like such a pretty picture.
For sixteen, he was too smart for his own good.
"I don't know what you want me to say, dad." Daeron paused, feeling the air become heavier with guilt - grief - every single emotion no male Targaryen had ever wanted to feel. "He looks ill, I don't think he's eating properly and — he needs a haircut."
The last part was redundant, he knew that, but he needed something to lighten the blow he'd just dealt to his fathers left temple.
He actually liked Aerions long hair, the way it curled like their mothers, effortlessly beautiful. It was like spun gold, coiled like the jewellery wire Daella uses, it was… like his own, but cared for and paler, much paler — like sunglass.
"Postpone it."
"What? No. It's expected, noted in the diaries—"
How was he supposed to tell him that Aerion was not ready. How was he supposed to put into words that Aerion thinks himself a freak, that he thinks their father thinks him a freak — without breaking his heart?
It was stupid, trying to protect the old man's heart, he should've been doing the protecting instead.
"At least tell him you still care, and that you love him if you won't cancel something that should've never been planned in the first place."
Aerion had waited, for far longer than he should. Daeron had said he'd be back with supper, normal people ate supper before the moon replaces the sun - and yet, the natural warmth of the sun had long since been swapped with jumpers and the portable radiator.
He should've just closed the window, but he found it always obstructed his view and made it harder for him to portray what he saw onto the canvas.
Instead of texting, asking why Daeron wasn't there like he'd promised, he focused all of his attention onto the easel, his paintbrushes saturated in Prussian blue. He wasn't sure why he'd chosen that colour, the sky lacked any shade of blue - at least from what he could see, there was instead an overwhelming darkened grey. It wasn't quite black, perhaps there was still too much atmospheric light for that to happen.
He wondered if he needed such a colour, or if he could somehow mix one - create one of his own for that very sky. The same sky that had seen too many good and bad things happen to good and bad people. Perhaps the sky held onto memories for those who couldn't anymore, he liked that thought. His mothers memories dancing above him, silently reminding him that they had been cherished, even if there was no audible confirmation anymore.
He wondered if the sky in Starfall leaned more purple, if the sky in Oldtown more green, the sky in the Vale paler than the rest.
He wondered if—
"What are you painting tonight, little brother?"
Somewhere in the midst of mentally calling Daeron a waste of space and wondering about the undertones of the sky in other places, he'd not heard the door open and close, nor had he heard the tray of food being placed on the desk…
Or the desk being dragged out to finally seat two as it had done many moons ago.
"The sky, if it wasn't so painfully obvious."
Oh, how silly of me, Daeron thought, taking a few steps towards the window - the canvas and the window perfectly inline.
He had to admit that his brother was talented with a brush and pallet, perhaps even more than he was with the spoken word. His viper tongue didn't seem to hold the same bite it had once, maybe that was growth - he had hoped it was growth.
A few minutes had passed in silence, Aerion had picked up his brush once more and had began to lean in towards the canvas before the same voice cut him off again.
"So, supper?"
No, Aerion had wanted to say, but truthfully he had been slightly more peckish than the last few nights.
Instead of speaking, the brush was placed into the glass of murky water with a quiet clink of surrender. One meal wouldn't change two years, but it could lessen the loneliness he had selfishly placed himself into.
He turned, finally, his eyes leaving the canvas with reluctance, but found the spread in the table with ease. Bowls of yoghurt, fruit, nuts —
"This looks like breakfast?"
"Were you expecting burgers and fries, or veal?"
Aerion didn't know what he had expected, but he knew it wasn't what was in front of him. It was almost as if Daeron remembered he favoured these things, as if it was a normal occurrence three stories below.
"I— is that cherry jam?"
Cherry jam, Starfalls biggest export, Aerions favourite.
"I dunno, I've never had it." Daeron lied effortlessly, lifting the dainty spook from the pot to his nose, "Sure smells like cherries, here - try some."
The spoon left Daerons face and was shoved - elegantly, into Aerions mouth. He hadn't meant to do that, but the sound of perhaps pure delight was an indicator that it was a welcomed thing.
Said spoon remained in Aerion mouth for a good five minutes as Daeron made himself a small plate. Oranges, marmalade, crackers, cheese - his favourites, leaving Aerions favourites ready for the taking.
Slow hands moved, the plate trembled slightly in the younger hand, as if the weight alone was enough to snap bone, but as bits were arranged delicately on the china, the strength returned. Vanilla yoghurt sat in the middle, and around sat piles of favourites to mix in when he was ready. Walnuts, the jam, berries, and to Daerons surprise, the banana chips.
A barely audible hmm slipped past despite Daerons best attempts to keep it from being misconstrued.
Aerion said nothing, his gaze remained on the rest of the spread for a moment longer before lifting up to meet his brothers. The lilac in his eyes had lightened since their last meeting, Daeron noted, and smiled at the thought.
Was this because he was happier?
"I want you to send me progress pictures of that." He pointed towards the barley started canvas, "I think it'd look quite nice in my room, don't you agree?"
Aerion shrugged, noncommittally, unsure of what words to use, of how to agree to showing progress without agreeing to part with it once it was finished. Of course, there was no doubt that Daeron would find a way to walk away with it, but that would take hours of work, never mind the expected bribes.
The silence stretched on for a minute or two longer before Aerion let out a loud sigh. He needed reassurance more than he needed the painting. A painting that had no clear intention, or ending.
After eating a few berries and allowing the sourness to linger so sweetly against his tongue, Aerion lifted his gaze back up to Daeron. He could almost hear his own heartbeat in his head, he could feel it in his throat, the tightness - the urge to throw up… but instead of acting upon it, instead of allowing himself to gag, he breathed through his nose, again and again until the urge drifted to the back of his mind.
"You can have it if you promise me you won't leave my side when they show up."
It was Daerons turn to fall silent, letting the words sink in - letting his mind churn in such a way, he was almost picturing a little six year old Aerion cowering behind him in much the same way he had when they had all first met Baelor and his children.
Would it be worth it? Yes. Did it feel nice to be needed again? Also, yes… but there was a silent doubt that lingered, what if he found that he didn't need Daeron after all?
"You have yourself a deal, valonqar."