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teabringer-fics · 2 months

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ocean of tears | aegon x f!reader

summary: modern au. alicent hightower calls you in the middle of the night to inform of you two things: viserys targaryen, her husband and the ceo of your company, is dead... and your employment is now contingent upon tracking down her oldest son, aegon, and dragging him back to hq before daybreak. later, a conversation in the dark turns into a possible lifeline for westeros's reluctant heir.

word count: 11k | read on ao3 (honestly recommended bc of the insane word count but you do you boo)

tags: corporate setting, angst, extended treasure hunt, grief, a bit of viserys bashing, oral (f receiving), fingering, unprotected p in v, a lot of plot, depiction of anxiety, boss/employee relationship, it's very long (i feel like i'm rattling off prescription medication side-effects when i do these)

a/n: i'm back on tumblr bitches! do all that good commenting jazz if you even make it to the end of this whopper pls 🫠🫶

This is gonna be torture/before it’s sublime…

You wake to the sound of a distant and yet insistent melody, distorted at first by the confusion of interrupted sleep. It takes your eyes a few moments to adjust to the pitch-dark, and by the time you’ve successfully fished your phone out from amongst the tangle of sheets the din has died, leaving you in a cold sweat, startled, imagining your parents in a fatal car crash, your sister, studying at Oldtown, gone missing in one of those bizarre, yet commonplace turns that lands her at the center of a true-crime podcast.

You tap the screen just to be blinded—”motherfuck” or something along those lines escaping your mouth—and are still squinting through the glare when it comes alive in your hand.

Alicent Hightower

Mobile

You slide to answer and raise the phone to your ear.

“M-Ms. Hightower?” Shaky and stupid even to your own ears. You glance briefly at the time display on the upper-left corner: 2:56 AM. At the other end, Ms. Hightower’s voice is posing a question which you fail to understand and, still reeling from the relief of knowing that this late-night, early-morning phone call has nothing to do with your family, you plug your other ear and ask, “Sorry, what?”

“Aegon! Where is Aegon?” Ms. Hightower demands. You tamp down the urge to repeat “what?”, although on the inside your thoughts are written in large capitals: WHAT??? The hour is ungodly, she’s scared you half to death, and how in seven hells are you supposed to know where her son is—you hold the phone in front of your face again, as if this will elucidate matters or else trigger your body into waking from its bizarre dream—at 2:58 on a random Tuesday?

Digging deep for whatever scraps of professionalism exist inside you at this time of night, you clear your throat and say, “Aegon? I’m sorry, Ms. Hightower, I have no idea. Has something happened?” The thought of Aegon Targaryen, uncontrollable playboy partier and heir to the largest fortune in Westeros, meeting a tragic end in a nightclub restroom, or wrapped around a traffic pole after five drinks too many, doesn't elicit the same panic response as thoughts of your sister’s hypothetical kidnapping. But you do register a sensation like a stone falling in the pit of your gut. It lingers at Ms. Hightower’s continued silence.

Is she crying? You strain your ears. There are no sniffles, no choked sobs that would indicate a mother’s frantic grief. Only a maddening stillness that makes your skin prickle and your heart beat, pounding, at the center of your throat.

Then it ends.

“Viserys is dead.”

You would think this three-word, straight-forward pronouncement would illuminate the perplexing state of affairs that led to Alicent Hightower calling you almost at the witching hour to ask about her son, but instead the silence widens in your head, an emptiness like a sudden fall replacing the weight of suspense, and it takes all your faculties to say, “Ma’am, I am so, so sorry for your loss. When did it happen?”

You might as well have not spoken at all.

“You are to tell no one, do you understand? Consider yourself bound by the NDA you signed upon your employment. No one is to know about this, not before we have a plan in place and certainly not before the markets open. This could be catastrophic if we don’t manage to get ahead of it.”

“I understand.”

“I am counting on your discretion.”

“Yes, ma’am,” you repeat.

You are buzzing with adrenaline, still sweat-damp and nervous but locked into Work Mode. Viserys is dead. So it finally happened. The man has been threatening to kick the bucket for years now—mostly in private, but of late hiding it had proven nigh on impossible. The papers speculated, blogs ran the gamut of gossip, and now the day has come, under cover of darkness, with his shrewd widow at the helm.

Her voice comes clear, urgent, utterly in command. “I know it’s late, but I need you to track down Aegon. He’s not answering any of our calls. I thought you might have better luck, being his personal assistant. I've sent Aemond and the Cargylls out to look, but so far no luck. This is important—probably the most important thing you have ever been asked to do. Aegon needs to show his face here before Rhaenyra does. His grandfather and I are doing our best to keep things afloat, but once news of this reaches—”

“Rhaenyra doesn’t know that her father has died?” you ask without thinking, your tone openly aghast.

Again, the silence.

“Rhaenyra,” Alicent replies, her accent sharp enough to cut glass, “will be informed in due course but this is about more than just her. The company cannot fall to ruin. I will not let my husband’s legacy be destroyed in a single night. For better or for worse, Aegon must claim his inheritance or we run the risk of hemorrhaging shareholders. Rhaenyra made her choice—she made it the moment she threw her lot in with Daemon. The time to act is now, before they make their return from Dragonstone.”

In the background, you hear the sound of a door being opened and closed, letting in muffled voices from a different room. Whoever the newcomer is, Ms. Hightower orders them to wait. “Listen,” she goes on, “I know it’s ugly, it’s bloody and it feels underhanded. But she’s left us no choice. Tell me now if you don’t have the stomach for it. If you refuse I’ll consider it your resignation effective immediately.”

Well, that’s no choice at all, is it? You like having a roof over your head, food on the table (not that you make it to your own table very often these days). Rent prices in King’s Landing are exorbitant. You need this job. You don't want to fail.

“I’ll find him, ma’am. I promise.”

“Good girl. I knew we could count on you. Bring him here when it’s done.”

The line goes dead, your phone dark.

Shit. Why did you promise? If Aegon’s own bodyguard can't find him, his own brother, there’s no telling where he might be. And to stake your whole livelihood on it? Seven hells…

“Shit, shit, shit,” you say aloud, taking five seconds for self-pity before flinging yourself out of bed and putting on the first thing you can find, probably your discarded work clothes from the day before. You yank your hair into a disheveled knot, propping your phone on the dresser so you can call Aegon on speaker, vibrating with anxiety as the dial tone rings once, twice, six times, before going straight to voicemail. Of course… of course it couldn’t be that simple. You try again, hunting for your car keys—damn the mess—and when he doesn’t answer, you yell at your phone, “Siri, call Aemond Targaryen!”

The call connects. Surely, Alicent’s most responsible, Type-A progeny will have the courtesy to make himself available to you in your hour of need.

“Come on, come on…” you mutter, letting out a triumphant “aha!” as your fingers close behind a keychain fallen between the cushions of your ratty old loveseat.

No dice. Once more, you are met with a canned voicemail prompt.

Beeeeep.

“Aemond, for fuck’s sake, answer my fucking call! I’ve spoken to your mother… Call me back as soon as you get this. Bye.” With that you swipe your purse from the minuscule kitchen counter and race out the door, pushing impatiently at the lift buttons, tapping your foot all the way down to garage level, racing to your car so fast that you knock the wind out of you when the door fails to unlock on the first try. You take a breath—pull it together—, point the fob at the driver’s side door, and wait as patiently as you can until the telltale double-beep of the mechanism letting you in.

The engine starts. You tear out of the underground car park and emerge onto a King’s Landing lit by artificial lights, active and just a little bit seedy. You pass shuttered coffee shops, bougie restaurants, convenience stores, residential buildings with spotless terraces and “For Lease” banners hanging out front, all as you white-knuckle the steering wheel. Viserys is dead… Viserys is dead… shareholders… market opens… Rhaenyra…

What a mess.

Your nerves are already frayed, which is why (understandably, you think) when the center console lights up and a ringtone blares from the too-loud car speakers, your foot slams down so hard on the brakes that it makes your head whip before a yellow light. “Mother save!” you curse—and then, seeing that Aemond has deigned to call you back: “Thank the Seven!”

“I can’t talk for long.” His smooth, chilling voice makes you shudder as it envelops you, and you reach to turn down the dial so that, at a more reasonable volume, he can ask, “Have you found him yet?”

What am I, a magician? You roll your eyes, trying very hard, and perhaps failing, to rein in the sarcasm when you say, “Um, no. I just wanted to touch base with you. Where have you looked?”

“His city flat. All his usual Flea Bottom haunts. The Street of Silk. I even talked to those worthless idiot-goons he calls friends.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay, well… that’s strange.”

“No shit.”

The light changes. You drive forward, headlights pointed towards Flea Bottom anyway, because never in a million years would you think to find Aegon anywhere else.

You sigh. “Never mind, I guess I’ll figure something out. Where are you?”

“On my way back to HQ. If Aegon doesn't wish to be found, then Stranger take him. Someone has to steer the ship and be there for Mother.”

“Right. Well, d’you know if—”

“I have to go. Call me when you’ve found him.”

Call Ended

You blink at the screen. Did Aemond Targaryen just hang up on you? Seriously?

Cold bastard…

In the three years you’ve spent working for the company, your feelings for Aemond have never coalesced. Some days, you prefer his company to that of his elder brother, especially when deadlines are tight and Aegon is, predictably, nowhere to be found. But there’s no denying that he sets you on edge, his brilliance and ambition matched only by his ruthlessness. If anything, he reminds you of a pristine besuited robot you could never hope to understand. For all that he holds you in something like regard, puts up with you because of your usefulness and because Alicent, in her own strange, imperious way, likes you, and you suppose that not up-and-quitting when faced with Aegon’s shenanigans affords you a few points in his esteem, at the end of the day, you’re one of the staff. Ceremony is for family. Hence, the abrupt hangup.

Annoyed, you try calling your errant charge again. “Please leave a message after the…” “Aegon, you little shit, I am not getting fired because you decided to get shit-faced in some seedy hole in the wall as a toxic grief response—answer your fucking phone!” Never mind. Too strong. Wrong tone. You press the command to re-record, putting on your best phone voice, aiming for gentle, kindly, reassuring. “Aegon, it’s me again… It’s fine if you don't want to talk but at least shoot me a text so I know that you’re still, you know, alive. Your mother is worried sick and Aemond—” Basically told you to go to hell and fuck yourself sideways. “—has been trying to get in touch. Please, just… send me a smoke signal… telegram… note-via-carrier-pigeon?” You blow out a breath, press End on the steering wheel, and note the time: 3:37 AM.

The thought that Aegon may have done something irremediably stupid returns. It’s not like you’re friends, exactly—not even remotely. You’re his assistant, a job which, shortly after you acquired it, you realized nobody else wanted. It’s thankless, literally; irregular, at times demeaning, at others boring to the point of tears, chaotic, unpredictable… But you’ve gotten used to the routine. You know Aegon’s moods. You’re used to him, and you’d like to think that, by now, he’s used to you. It’s not an ideal job by any means, but you get by and if, say, he got hit by a taxi cab after stumbling drunkenly into the street, you think you might actually feel kind of awful about it.

You call him again.

Still nothing.

Up ahead a familiar building looms, brick-lined, discreet. You feel ridiculous sidling up to the door and knocking in a pattern of tap - taptap - tap - tap. The door opens a smidge and a voluptuous, curly-haired redhead peeks out, her big green eyes blinking out into the dark. “I need to speak to Sylvi,” you say without preamble. Her face folds into a scowl.

“Well, I need a million quid and a stud with half a brain and a massive cock, luv. Patrons only.”

“I’ve been sent by the Hightowers,” you quickly say, shoving your foot in the door to stop it closing. “Just tell her that I’m looking for Aegon.”

She rolls her eyes, clicks her tongue at your request. Though she shuts the door in your face and you hear her footsteps receding, you hope that the overt name-drop will make her cooperate. Impatiently, you tap your foot in the street, watching a few people pass you by on the footpath. Nothing to see here, folks… I’m standing in front of a brothel but not of my own free will.

The door opens. “He isn’t here,” Ruby declares, crossing her arms in front of her—quite frankly—perfect breasts. Whenever you’ve had to pick up Aegon from his latest bender with the ladies of the night, you’ve moved through the vestibule feeling like an absolute troll. Sylvi must be paying her girls their weight in gold if looks are anything to go by. Perhaps it’s time to consider a change in profession…

“Really? Did she tell you that?” you ask, crossing your arms skeptically in front of your own less endowed chest.

“I’m telling you he isn’t here,” Ruby huffs. Fleetingly, you wonder whether Aegon’s ever slept with her, if he likes them bold and Botticelli-like, or if his tastes run elsewhere.

Nope. You throw the mental image of Aegon fucking anyone out of your mind. You are a modern woman, damn it—you don’t get flustered at the thought of good honest sex work… or sex… or your random, uncontrollable boss having it with Venus-looking women with perfect tits.

You clear your throat. “You wouldn't by any chance be lying to me about that, would you?”

“His brother was already here—tall one… delicious… lot more intimidating than you.”

“Cheers, but also, how dare?” (Upon further reflection, Ruby might be exactly the kind of girl Aegon would favor. They’re both equally annoying.)

“Listen, I’ll tell you the same thing I told ‘im: your guy isn’t here. Maybe he’s at some other cathouse in the neighborhood but I hardly doubt it. The madam doesn’t like being stepped out on, if you know what I mean. She’d have the arse-hair off any establishment that tried poachin’ her clientele.” She leans back, seemingly proud of having strung this rebuttal together.

You sigh. Back to square one.

“Thanks for the help anyway.”

“Nuh-uh!” Ruby holds out her hand, the sash of her elegant robe loosening, revealing an expanse of gleaming rosy-pink skin and the curve of her left breast. You wish you’d bothered to at least run a brush through your hair. “What, d’you I work for charity? I’m paid for my time, luv.”

“Clearly, I’m not having a good one!” you protest.

Ruby just stands there, wagging her palm in your direction until you reach inside your jacket and pull out your purse. This had better count as a business expense, you think, pulling out a fifty- and then a hundred-stag note.

“Is that all?” Ruby asks.

“Gods, are you serious?”

“I get paid twenty-five moons for a basic experience.”

“What experience?” you demand. “Freezing your arse off in the cold for no reason? I don’t recall getting off!”

Her eyes narrow. “Want to make it a full dragon?”

You zip your mouth shut and part with the notes.

“Ta!” Ruby sings, waving at you with a girlish grin and once again shutting the door in your face.

Aegon, when I find you… Grumbling, you reenter your car and call him again, but you know better than to expect a reply. Making a U-turn, you take a side road and drive parallel to the Street of Silk, looking for the favored watering hole of Aegon’s “worthless idiot-goons,” as Aemond so colorfully put it. His cronies may have helped him hide from his brother until the danger of discovery had passed; if that’s the case, you think you might strangle them all on sight.

“Well, if it isn't my Girl Friday!” The Honourable Leon Estermont crows when he sees you coming. “Fancy a line?” Next to him, Martyn Reyne is wiping his nose and throwing back what’s left of a dangerously pink drink. All around you, the club is a flashing hub of darkness interrupted by neon lights, the music thumping.

You knew enough to head straight for the VIP section located on the upper floor, and from this platform—if you even bothered to look—you could see a mass of bodies writhing down below. The air smells of smoke, alcohol… sweat, even sex. The idiot-goons are reclined on a tufted leather sofa, which disturbs you—you don't want to know what kinds of activities have gone on up here. You’ve never been invited. The most you’ve experienced is hauling a stumbling Aegon into a waiting car driven by one of the Cargyll twins.

Once, but only once, he almost threw up on you.

You prefer the brothel, if you're being honest. At least there, transactions are straightforward, the workers plain. You don't know if these two would bother pissing on Aegon if he were on fire. The thought makes you angry. You shoot Leon the fakest of smiles.

“Not for me, thanks, I like my neurons just the way they are. Also, I am not remotely your anything. When was the last time you saw Aegon?”

“Aegs?” Leon pipes up, nearly shouting to be heard over the noise. “What, is he missing or something? Those freaky bearded twins came ‘round earlier, asking the same thing. Bores, the pair of them.”

The song shifts from a techno beat to something raunchy, with a lower bass. It makes your bones vibrate, your head pound. Leon bends over the chrome table to snort more of Father-knows-what, then leans his head back, moaning, eyeing you up and down in a way that makes you want to hose yourself down with disinfectant. “Come on, Friday, take a load off! You’re off the clock.”

“Actually, I’m not.”

He laughs. “Aren’t you? That’s the problem with you lot—you don't know how to loosen up. And instead of figuring it out, you like blaming the rest of us for knowing the right way to live.”

The rest of us. You lot. The haves and have-nots.

Incredulous, you blow out a breath. “There is so much wrong with that sentence, but something tells me it would be pointless to even start. Last—time—you saw—Aegon—when?” You snap your fingers in front of his face, all pretense at civility abandoned. You want to hit him over the head with an ashtray.

“Sheesh! I don’t know! Two days ago, maybe? A day ago? Yesterday?” On his left, Martyn’s legs are splayed, mouth half-open. He’s drooling onto his own chest, probably snoring beneath the sound of obnoxious music. Leon doesn't notice at all.

“Fucking useless…”

“Hey!”

You stomp down the spiral staircase, feeling like you've wasted—you take out your phone: 4:50 AM—more than an hour of your life in a pointless search. Your eyes prickle with frustration. Now is not the time to give in to the panic-driven water works.

Brusquely, you go to your recent calls and tap Aegon Targaryen (14). Fourteen… the number is insanity. The man’s father is dead, what could he possibly be doing?

“Aegon, seriously…” you grouse into the phone, wiping your nose, too tired to hide the edge in your voice, the exhaustion, the anger, the—fine, you’ll admit it—worry. “Now I'm starting to think you might actually be lying in a ditch somewhere. I’ve looked everywhere, no one has heard from you… listen, forget about your mum, forget about everything just… pick up my call, you absolute fucking twat—”

“I could have you fired for that.”

“Aegon!” His name is a gasp. You don’t know whether to laugh or get on your hands and knees, kiss the floor and thank the Seven. “Aegon—where… what’ve you—wait.” Your eyes narrow into resentful slits. “Were you screening my calls the entire time, you blockheaded douchebag! Tell me where you are!”

“Phone died.”

“Well, clearly it’s made a miraculous recovery!” you scoff. “Tell me where you are, I’ll come get you.”

“’m at yours.”

“Come again?”

“Yours.” Either his voice is slurred or the reception in the area is shit. “‘m at your flat.”

“You’re out in the hallway?”

“No, I’m inside your flat,” he responds, and has the audacity to sound impatient at being made to repeat himself. “Fucking tiny, by the way.”

You stop in your tracks, having handed the valet a tip you can’t afford after your stand-off with Ruby. “And how, pray tell, did you manage to get inside my fucking flat?”

Aegon either fails to notice or doesn’t care that your voice is pitched menacingly low. “You keep a spare under the mat. Fucking mental of you, by the way. Is getting potentially kidnapped a secret kink of yours?”

“YOU USED MY KEY?”

“No.” You picture the exact movement of his shoulders, that little uncaring shrug that has, on more than one occasion, made you picture him getting pecked at by an army of ravening birds. “I had a copy made ages ago.”

“You Targaryens have no sense of personal property! Gods!” you exclaim, ignoring the side-eye you got from the valet, reentering your car and buckling your seat belt. You start the engine, feeling like you’re going out of your mind. The phone is pressed between your ear and shoulder as you sputter, “That is so… so incredibly wrong! You do know that, right? You do know that’s what’s fucking mental? You can't just make a copy of my keys and keep them to use whenever you fucking please! Just—ugh! Just stay there, you weirdo, and don’t go anywhere! I’m five minutes away.” Lies. You’re more like twenty, but you don’t want him to think he has a wide enough window to make an escape.

After violating what probably amounts to a half-dozen traffic laws and speeding all the way back to your building, you feel marginally calmer, except for the residual stress and the thought that maybe, just maybe, you’ll enter your flat to find Aegon vanished once more into thin air, your job gone along with him. You retrace your steps, taking the lift to the sixth floor, holding your breath as you try the latch and find it unlocked—so much for the judgments he made about your inadequate sense of safety.

In your absence, he parted the drapes just enough to see by, and in the meager light coming in from public street lamps posted across the way, you make out a shape bent over the dining table, unnaturally hunched, its head almost hanging over the edge.

Though the door shuts with a metallic clang that sounds like a gunshot in the deep quiet, not even this makes him stir, and but for the steady rise and fall of his back you would think him unresponsive, passed out like his feckless friend Martyn back at that infernal club. You round the table. Aegon shifts just enough to look at you and you can tell that his eyes are heavy-lidded, bleary. But alert. Conscious.

You let out a breath and feel your shoulders sag in relief.

“You look like shit,” you say to him. “Are you wasted?”

“Unfortunately, not anymore.” He makes a rolling gesture with his free hand, one of his eyebrows quirking in typical Aegon fashion. “Stone-cold sober me… well, maybe not that first bit.”

“Mhm. I’ll make you a coffee.”

At the machine, you take a moment to close your eyes and listen to the water steam and bubble before it begins to drip into a generic white mug, one you hardly ever use, being rarely at home. You had thought that once you’d seen Aegon in person—made sure he was all right, your job not halfway over a cliff as Alicent had implied—you might feel better, like everything was resolved, or at the very least no longer your problem. But all you do is feel confronted with a wreckage you’re not sure you’re equipped to handle.

You’ve seen Aegon drunk out of his mind before, bloodshot-eyed, raving-mad, slurring his words, stumbling, laughing maniacally, starting brawls that one or both of the Cargylls had to finish. But this… Dejected, broken. How do you deal with this? And then, even though you’re trying to be understanding, you can’t help the surge of anger that makes you turn around and stomp over to his side of the table. How could he be so selfish? To leave his family in the lurch, add to their troubles, add to yours?

You brace your hands on your hips. “What on earth possessed you, by the way? You disappeared! Do you have any idea—? No… Where have you—? Wait. You do know your father is—?”

“Defunct? Departed? Without ghost?”

Had he reacted more violently, you might've been inclined to pick a fight. Instead, Aegon’s droll resignation makes you feel like a world-class prick who just picked on an orphan.

You deflate, arms falling immediately down to your sides. “I’m sorry.”

Aegon snorts. “I’m not. Just wish he'd had the fucking decency to leave a will.”

“There’s no will?”

“Why do you think everyone’s going out of their fucking minds? It’s Mum’s word against Nyra’s. I say let her have it. Whole thing’s cursed anyway.” He sits up with a groan, puts his elbows on the table, rubs his hands from his eyes all the way to the pale tangle of his hair—Viserys’s eyes, Viserys’s hair.

What sort of a billionaire doesn’t leave a written will? The man had two wives, a conniving brother, five adult children, not to mention an international conglomerate with hundreds of employees and scores of attorneys looking out for its wellbeing—he had to know that being ill-prepared would've caused this kind of clusterfuck.

Carefully, you lower yourself into the other chair, watching your boss like a skittish animal you’re afraid of scaring off. “Aegon… where were you tonight? Not even your friends seemed to know about your father or where you had run off to.” He keeps silent. The machine lets out three ill-timed beeps and you rush to the counter to take the mug by its handle and set it down in front of him. “Here, drink this. You need to sober up.”

“What for?”

“Your mum wants you back at HQ.”

He shakes his head, crosses his arms in front of his chest. “Forget it! I’m not fucking going.”

“Fine. Just drink your coffee.” Just drink your coffee, dear, you might have said, sounding, even to your own ears, like a child’s mother. He narrows his eyes.

“She sent you to manage me.”

“I’m your assistant, Aegon! What do you think I’ve been doing the last few years?”

“I don’t know, making copies?”

“Oh, go fuck yourself!” The profusion of air that leaves his nostrils can’t be called a real laugh, but it’s close enough given the circumstances. You smile.

You watch him blow over the rim of his cup before he takes a sip, the motion childlike, almost delicate. You sit down and track the subtle movements of his lips in the shadows, his throat working as he swallows. In that moment, nothing is as important to you as the simple repetition of him lifting the cup and setting it down, over and over, until you’re sure he’s had at least half of what you gave him.

He seems lucid, sits straighter than when you first walked through the door, and you’re thinking now might be a good time to coax him into your car when he breaks the silence.

“He even had to die in the most useless way.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t tell me what I do and don't mean!” His fist pounds the table. One second he is glaring daggers at you, the next, he begins to cry—curled in on himself, shoulders heaving violently, his body wracked by sobs that suck all the air out of the room with a grief so vast you feel you’re drowning in it, flailing as you try to pull him back towards safer shores.

“Aeg…”

He tugs his arm away. Helpless, you try again, closing your hand around the delicate wrist, reaching for something, anything, to make the outpouring stop.

But nothing can make it stop. He cries until the tears peter out and he whimpers, clasping your hand, not so much for comfort but as an anchor. His hold is brutal, unyielding, and then gradually it loosens until the clamor subsides. Embarrassed, he lets you go and wipes his eyes with the heels of his palms.

He picks at his fingernails when he’s anxious. You can't see them in the dark, but it’s a habit of his you know by heart.

You ask the question because you want to take his mind off his father, because you’re curious and you feel like the answer is important somehow—to you, and to him. “What were you doing tonight, before you took my call?”

He freezes. His hands drop and he folds them almost primly on the surface of your faux-wood dining table, avoiding your gaze in such a fashion that you think, if the lights were on, you would find him blushing as well as stammering. He mumbles an unintelligible response.

“What?”

“I was at the Sept!”

“Of Baelor?” You lean forward as if this will help you picture Aegon Targaryen, of all people, resorting to a place of worship during a time of need. “You were in a sept? Willingly? And you didn’t burst into flames?”

“Fuck you,” he laughs, another breathy thing but stronger this time.

“I’m glad I didn’t wager any coin on your whereabouts or I’d be bankrupt right now.” Especially after Ruby. You tuck that story away for a later time, hoping it brings some much needed levity after the funeral or in the near future. There won’t be much humor, you know, in the days to come. “Why the Sept? I know your mother attends services but I didn’t think…”

“For the quiet?” he replies. “And I figured no one would come looking for me there.”

“Well, you thought right.”

“I have my moments… not that he ever thought so.”

“Aegon.”

He waves you away. “I’m not looking for sympathy.”

“Well, I think you're bloody entitled to it—if not now, when?”

He doesn’t reply. He finishes his coffee. The sound the mug makes when it rolls between his hands sounds like a marble, repetitive, ominous. “It was always Rhaenyra… He wanted Rhaenyra—are we all just supposed to forget that? Pretend it never happened? The last twenty years of my life—”

“Like I said, you don't have to go.”

“Is that what my mother told you?”

“No.”

“I thought not.” His bitterness, and the truth lying behind it, that Viserys loved his eldest daughter best and treated her half-siblings like less than a footnote in his life, hits you with a wave of restlessness. He’s right; there’s no use telling him otherwise, and nothing Alicent does now can wipe away the resentments of the past. It was always Rhaenyra.

It was always Rhaenyra.

You get up from your chair and rush to the sink to fill a clean glass with water. “Here,” you say, setting it down in front of him like it should cure all of his ills.

“You’re being fussy,” he complains.

“I’m being assistant-y.”

“You’re treating me like a basket case.”

“Well… you haven’t always been the steadiest bulb in the box, have you?”

You mean it as a joke, but Aegon doesn't take it that way. He slides the glass over and stares into the depths, his expression hangdog, miserable. “You’re right… I’m sorry.”

“That’s not what I—”

“No, I’m a nightmare to work for. I know it, my mother knows it… No one wants me at the helm—let Aemond fight our sister for it, if it’s that important to him.”

“Your mother will say you’re the firstborn son, the natural head of the family.” He scoffs. “There was a time—” A time when he took interest, when he had just graduated from university and sought actual responsibility from his father only to be made redundant at every turn. Let the more experienced men handle it. Keep quiet and watch. Your input isn’t necessary. You’re more of a family representative, anyway. Gradually, he had lost interest, lost confidence. If no one cared, why shouldn't he get blackout drunk during work hours? Show up weary and hungover to important business meetings? Say the wrong thing and blow up tenuous relationships cultivated over decades?

Aegon must be thinking the same thing. “It doesn't matter anymore,” he says. “Nothing—” Nothing matters anymore.

“Aegon…”

“Would you choose me?”

You feel your stomach drop.

“If you were on the board, one of the shareholders… do you think I could do it? Would you choose me over Rhaenyra?”

“I—” Your face heats, your mouth goes dry. You want the floor to open up and drop you in the basement, hide out on the next boat to Pentos. Of all the things he could have said, you would take anything, literally anything, over this. “I—”

“You can't even say it.”

“You’ve stopped trying, Aegon! Maybe if you did… maybe if you applied yourself. You have your mother in your corner, your grandfather, Aemond, people at the company who would take your side. If you wanted it—”

“Bullshit.” He snatches his coat from the back of his chair, stands fast enough that you actually believe him about not being wasted. All you can do is chase after him, grab his arm when he's halfway to the door, just to the side of your cramped, unused kitchen.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I didn't come here so you could lie to my face! Me or Rhaenyra?” he spits through the gritted teeth.

This is do or die, you know—either you tell the truth and risk hurting him or shatter years’ worth of trust in a second. Even if Alicent pats you on the back and says “job well done,” Aegon will never want you again. He’ll drive you away, make your life miserable if he has to, anything to get you out of his sight.

Your throat is clenched almost to closing when you say, “Rhaenyra… I would… I would choose Rhaenyra. But that doesn’t mean—”

“What? That I’m not useless? That my father didn’t find me a disappointment up to the bitter end?” He turns away, and you can see his jaw clench, the shadow of stubble around his cheeks. “Are you close with your parents?”

You nod.

“Then you don't know. You never will, and there’s no use trying. Tell my mother you couldn't find me.”

No use. You tug on his arm, but he is determined to get to the door and manages to open it a crack before you push it closed, squeeze your body around him to act, irrationally, like a human shield between him and the exit. “Don’t go,” you plead. “I’ll tell her whatever you want, but don't go. Don’t go out there like this.”

You know exactly what he’ll do if he leaves the building: he may have given his vices a mostly wide berth when he first got the news of Viserys’s death, but now, raw with grief and anger and Alicent’s heavy expectations, he’s liable to find the closest bar and drink himself under the table and into oblivion. To call the dealers Aemond threatened six months ago if they ever sold to his brother again. To go off the deep end… for good this time.

Aegon frowns. “Why do you even care what happens to me?”

“Because.”

The word hangs in the air, inadequate. If you tried to explain the feeling, he might call it pity, and perhaps that's what it is: three years' worth of annoyance, resentment, frustration, concern, three years of watching him walk into the office with black eyes or reeking of booze from his latest bender, of watching him and his—admittedly—disgusting friends squandering their fortunes on women, drugs, and self-indulgent purchases. As a man, Aegon has proven himself to be crass, irresponsible, petulant, entitled, completely unreliable. But you have also, on certain rare occasions, seen the set of his face when he thinks no one else is watching.

The fear. The exhaustion. The way his hands shake beneath glass tables. The desire to please, and the ignorance as to how.

The truth is, when he’s not being an absolute tosser, you do see him as something fragile, to be pitied. If you said that out loud, he would hate you and probably fire you on the spot. And it might be for the best, you think. What do I want with this insanity?

But standing there between him and the door, his gaze boring into yours, the faint smell of alcohol, cigarettes, and coffee on his breath, you know that you do care what becomes of him. Even if he fired you—even if Alicent fired you—even if you quit—you would still dread the coming of a day when you would pick up your phone and find a news alert: Aegon II Targaryen, Son of Viserys, Dead at 25 or 26 or 30. It’s as if, in this moment, having been forced to look at him—to really look at him, not just as an unwilling charge, a fully grown man-child you’re forced to contend with every day to make your living—you can see his life unfurling, past, present, and future… ignominious, burdened, without purpose.

How can he stand it? A mere glimpse of it leaves you breathless. Exhausted from a night of fraught nerves and virtually no sleep, you feel your heart kick in your chest like a frenzied horse. How can he stand it? How can any of them? Who would want to be a Targaryen?

“Hey, hey, what's wrong? What’s wrong?” Aegon asks more insistently. He puts his hands on your elbows, lowers you to sit—for lack of a better alternative—in front of the door when your knees weaken and your body sags. “Hey, listen to me, you’re alright, you’ve just got to breathe… Breathe…”

Frantically, you shake your head. I can’t.

“Don’t be a fucking idiot. If you couldn't breathe, you’d be passed out right now. In and out… look at me…” He takes a breath. “In… out…”

It takes a few minutes, but the feeling subsides, leaving you trembly and more than a little embarrassed.

“What in gods’ name is wrong with you?” Aegon asks, stroking his hands up and down your arms.

“Long day?”

He rolls his eyes. “Tell me about it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be stupid, I give people panic attacks all the time.”

You let out a watery laugh.

Aegon shakes his head at you. “I won’t let her fire you, if that's what you're so worked up about.”

“That’s not…”

“You’re not my keeper. She should never have called you in the first place. This isn't your mess to clean up, you’re meant to take messages and go on coffee runs and… keep track of paperclips—”

“Stop trying to make me laugh.”

“Why? It’s been your cheap ploy all night. That, and fussing like a mother hen.”

You sigh. This isn't at all how the night was supposed to go. You were meant to be the helpful one, the adult, the one one in control, the one who could be relied upon. But you're not in control. Not of yourself, certainly not of Aegon. If anything, he’s the one sitting next to you on the floor acting sanely, not having a secondhand existential crisis like a world-class fool. (Aegon, to his credit, had the good sense to lose his shit in the privacy of a sept, without any witnesses.)

“Listen,” you begin, “what I said before…”

“Forget it.”

You don't want to forget it. You want to tell him “You tricked me into saying something I didn't want to say”, something you can't take back, something which, while technically not a lie, obscures a more important truth—what that truth is feels too broad and frightening and, worst of all, pointless, for words. And yet you want him to know. Too many people have failed to bother. The last thing you want is to be added to that list.

“I meant what I said… about Rhaenyra. But for the record, and for whatever minuscule thing it might be worth, I wish that I didn't.… I really, really fucking wish that I didn't.” His hand on your face takes you by surprise, his fingers sweeping against your right cheek.

“What are these for?” He blots your tears away, ones you didn't know you had shed. His voice is hushed and disapproving. Without thinking about it, not even once, you pull him towards you by the back of the neck and crash his mouth into yours. Clumsy and graceless, it is less a kiss than a desperate exchange of air.

Stupid, stupid… Something at the back of your head is conscious enough to ring the alarm, but it is Aegon and not warning bells that is most immediate, solid and real and here. The heat of his mouth. The sound of his breathing. The staggering hesitation of his tongue when it brushes against yours.

Immediately, as if barraged by warning bells of his own, he pushes you away. “I don’t want your fucking charity.” His words are snarled, dangerous. He is a wounded animal and you should let him be. But you can’t. The seeing—you wish you didn’t know him so well, not now, on this night and in this moment. You wish you could shove your knowledge into a box of indifference and leave him to his fate, to face his mother, his brother, and his half-sister, his father’s ghost alone, but you can’t. A fierce possessiveness buzzes through your veins alongside the shock and stress and fear.

You feel tied to him somehow.

Perhaps it's naive to want to save him. The Targaryens are a dying breed, a glorious capstone creature just before its inevitable extinction. Rhaenyra will never go quietly—in the end, they will eat each other alive, if not this morning, then some other day, and a different house will rise in their place. They always do.

There will be other billionaires, other jobs, other men.

But at present, the most important thing to you, more important than your job or your reputation or your morals or basic common sense, is to make Aegon Targaryen believe you… to throw him a rope and feel him take it. And you know—because by now you think you’ve learned the major ins-and-outs of him, the dark passageways, narrow roads, the winding alleys no one dares to travail—that the only way to do that is to hurt him. “You are… an idiot,” you hear yourself say.

His face freezes, only his eyes giving the injury away.

“You’re right, maybe no one at the company except for your own mother wants you at the helm. You’re late to everything. You don’t give a fuck about anything of any weight. You’re a fucking embarrassment around waiters, and half the time a complete dick to Aemond… although, granted, he’s a complete dick to you as well and has a stick up his arse that'll probably never come out without surgical intervention. Your friends are clowns—I mean it, fucking nincompoops with shit for brains. You are borderline actually an alcoholic, and sometimes it feels like you haven't bothered yourself to open a book in the whole of your existence. You have everything, stuff people would kill for, and you appreciate none of it. But I get it… You think I can’t ever hope to understand because I love my sister and my parents call me every week and send me nameday cars, but I do. I’d be like that too, maybe, if I had Viserys for a father. Maybe you’re right… maybe the company is cursed and the best thing you could do for yourself right now is take the next flight out to Lys or Dorne or literally anywhere on the fucking planet and forget about it—forget about your name, your family, the company, all of it. I can take you,” you say. “My car is downstairs, I can drive you to the airport, I can make up a story and throw your mother off the scent if you really want me to. But I also think you’re tired of being this person… You’re a shitty liar, Aegon Targaryen. Maybe the top seat isn't for you, but you're looking for an excuse to stop being the guy who lands on trending pages for being an eternal fool. CEO won’t do that for you… your mother can’t do that for you… gods know that getting high off whatever backstreet shite Reyne and Estermont procure definitely won’t do that for you…”

“Let me guess,” he quips, “only you can.”

“Ha! No, that’s—this is—that is not what this is. What, are you crazy? I’m not your shrink, and anyway, it's not like I’m being paid a small fortune every week to exorcize whatever the hell’s wrong with you and your privileged-yet-unbelievably-fucked-up family. All I’m saying is… work your shit out, Targaryen. Fucking communicate! Don’t let your father, of all people, have the last word on who you want to be, especially if you feel like he did fuck-all to deserve it!”

“Are you finished?”

“Done. That’s my two-cents. So you can stop your whingeing about pity and charity and all of that nonsense. Only one of us has their bed in the same room as their dining table, and only one of us was pulled out of sleep by your terrifying mother who whacked me over the head with an NDA before I was even fully conscious.”

“That sounds like her.”

“She hasn’t even told Rhaenyra that your father is dead.”

“…that sounds like my grandfather.”

You sigh. “I didn’t kiss you out of charity, you numpty. I—I just wanted to. I just really wanted to… I still do.”

“I’m no good for you.”

“Probably not.”

“You’ll end up hating me… you’ll quit.”

You let out a mock gasp. “No one to guard your paperclips? How will you cope?”

“I don’t know,” he says, dead serious. “Not anymore.”

There is no humor in the set of his face. He is all grim, all self-despisal, all—could you be imagining it?—thwarted longing. You are beyond the facetiousness he uses as a shield. He wants you. You can see it in his eyes, in the labor of his breathing, in the way he leans ever so slightly towards you and then leans back. I’m no good for you. You’ve decided you don’t care.

“Aegon, kiss me,” you whisper into the dark.

He’s on you before you’ve finished, kissing you desperately, with tongue this time, the slow wet drag pulling a moan from you which you have neither the time nor the presence of mind to regret before he’s kissing down your jaw, your neck. You feel his teeth scrape against the soft hollow behind your ear and you climb into his lap, ungainly, perhaps, but it matters not when you settle to find him hardening beneath you.

He groans into your shoulder, hooks his thumb inside the open collar of your button-up top to part the material and suck at your clavicle, while his other hand, on your hip, guides you to rub against the seam of his trousers. It occurs to you that he must not realize the way he’s writhing beneath you; if anything, he seems only half-aware as he rambles, underneath his breath, “Need you… gods, I need you…”, before ravaging your tongue again.

Impatiently you undo your shirt buttons. Aegon’s hand moves over your breast, first over your bra, then directly over your naked flesh when you fling it aside, along with your top, to land who-know-where. Your nipples pebble underneath his thumbs. You roll your hips. The placket of his trousers catches you directly and you groan, arching your back, bearing down on him so that a breathy, rumbling laugh escapes his throat.

Aegon’s laugh feels better than his tongue in your mouth, than his hands on your breasts, than the ridge of him growing long and hard beneath you. Oh no… you shouldn't like to hear him laugh.

“Should we get off the hallway floor, d’you think?” Only you can hear the nerves behind his humorous inflection, the wobble in his voice that tells you a part of him is expecting this to be the end, the moment you give in to regret or common sense and send him on his way, push him out the door and never speak to him again. He avoids your gaze, trains his eyes somewhere around the vicinity of your collarbones and he looks, in the faint light coming through your half-parted curtains, like a little boy bracing for the worst.

You pull his head up to your level, kiss him slow and deep, rock your hips, relish in the tightening of his hand around your waist. “Yes,” you say into his open mouth. You feel him relax, feel the exhale of relief that moves from his body into yours before he kisses you with renewed vigor.

He anchors his hands on your lower back, then throws you off balance, lowering your body onto the chilly tiles and laving down your neck to the valley between your breasts, slotting his knee against you—by chance, you think at first. Then his movements become deliberate, impossible to deny. His hands are all over you, running up your sides, pressing along the dip and rise of your hipbones. Your heart pounds beneath his lips. “This isn’t how we get off the hallway floor,” you protest.

“But your bed is so far away!”

“Not so long ago, you were calling my flat tiny,” you remind him, with no little store of resentfulness.

He grins—“I guess it’s all a matter of perspective”—and lets you turn away so you can press your palms against the floor and push yourself into a standing position.

Aegon stays on the floor, splayed, smiling up at you until you offer him a hand. He lets you lead him to bed, where your sheets are rumpled, the duvet fallen on the floor. Neither of you cares enough to notice. After laying you down, he takes the time to unbutton your slacks, take off your shoes, slip your trousers down your legs, pausing only to drop a kiss at the curve of your ankle, the side of your knee, the inner portion of your thighs. When the mattress dips beneath you, you know that he is kneeling at the foot of the bed. You feel two of his fingers going down your slit, over the gusset. Your breath comes in shallow pants. You aren’t ready, but there’s enough for it to dampen the tips of his fingers and make them slide through.

Your mouth parts, hungry, expectant. For a moment, your eyes lock, and you have enough wherewithal to freak out about the fact that he—Aegon, your boss, Alicent Hightower’s son—is looking at you with a fuck-me gaze and that you, despite all common sense, are pressing your clothed cunt against his hand and whimpering—actually whimpering—for him to touch you.

Between you the tension stretches, and then breaks. Aegon dips his head and puts his mouth on you, the heat of his tongue following the same path as his fingers. It glides and it flicks and it tastes you hard enough to make you throw your head back against a pillow, but it doesn’t make contact with your heated skin. You buck your hips against his face, pull at his hair, and he lets out a moan which, if you aren’t mistaken, is laced with a deep, buoyant laugh. He’s enjoying this… The thought makes your muscles clench and pulls a long, fluttery gasp from you. And then, only then, does he bare you fully.

The night air and his warm breath hit you in a way that has you squirming, halfway up the finish line before you feel his lips close around your swollen peak, suckling and laving, gathering your considerable moisture on his tongue only to spit it back out onto your naked cunt.

His fingers move through the mess, gently probing, rubbing circles against you one minute before he turns his wrist and enters you. You moan, feeling two of his fingers stretching you out. In truth, you can’t remember the last time you were fucked, probably around the same time you started working for the Targaryens, and now that the floodgates have opened you don’t know what to do, how to behave. As his fingers work you and he nuzzles his face against the top of your mound, his stubbled cheek rubs against your clit in a way that makes your breath catch and your toes curl, and all you can think is more—not just his cock inside you, but more… more of him… You want him to have you any way he wants.

You clamp your eyes shut and try not to think about the implications of that.

His fingers make an audible sound when they move inside you now. Between squelching and moans and the rumbling in his throat, the room beginning to acquire the heady smell of sex, you’re getting close, so close, to coming undone on his mouth. “Just a little more,” he hear him say to himself, “just a little more…” He brushes against something that makes your eyes roll, your neck tense, your legs spasm around his shoulders. You clutch the sheets and feel the silence that overtakes your body as the knot of pleasure breaks and you hang—back arched, tense—suspended over something that snaps and leaves you boneless, powerless, at his mercy when he withdraws to throw off his clothes and kiss his way up your chest, slipping his tongue in your mouth and notching his hips against yours.

You feel him hard against your tender core. He slides against you, deliberate, slow. You whimper and try to squirm away from him, but he nuzzles the side of your face and strokes your hair, makes calming sounds like the ones he would make for a nervy horse. He doesn’t rush things. Only holds you and touches you where you’ll allow, only occasionally bucking his length against your inner thigh. Slowly, the sensitivity subsides and you kiss him in earnest, restless and eager, moving your hand down to hold him, first loosely and then as tightly as he seems to like. His lips part. His breaths are ragged as he moves over you and thrusts his cock into your hand, the head damp, the length of him pulsing hotly in your palm. You think about stopping, pushing him onto his back, swallowing him down as far as he’ll go. But he stops you.

“Tell me this isn’t just because my father died.”

“It’s not,” you say, your hand going still.

“Swear it.”

Your first thought is What a ridiculous thing to say, but it isn’t ridiculous, not to Aegon. So much of his life has been defined by his father, by what Viserys did or failed to do, and if he won’t have the old ghost here, in the bedroom with you, well, it’s not such an unreasonable thing to ask.

“I swear it,” you say, holding one half of his face and staring levelly into his eyes.

He nods. “I think you might be the only person in the world who doesn’t think that I’m a fucking joke.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Aegon, can we stop bloody talking about your father? Fuck him! He didn’t know you.” Not like I do, is what you want to say, but too soon, too soon. You kiss him to stop the words from falling out. “I want you… I want you. Is that really so hard to believe?” You take his hand and let it delve between your slit again, to feel how wet you are, how ready. To feel the needy moan you push into his mouth… the way you angle your hips until his tip is nestled, just so, at your entrance. “Do you want me to swear upon the Seven?” you ask him, tightening your walls so he can feel you squeezing around his leaking cockhead, inviting him in. “I’ll do it if you want me to… Mother, Father, Maiden, Smith—”

Aegon puts his hand over your mouth. “Shut up or you’ll remind me of my mother.”

You begin to laugh, a bubbling, ecstatic thing which he knocks right out of you when he pushes in to the hilt. You gasp, only vaguely aware that you never asked him to wear a condom, but he feels so good, too good to stop now. He hitches one of your legs and snaps his cock into you, increasing the pace. You moan at the length of him, the breadth of him, the way his fingers dig into your flesh, the sound of his stones hitting the back of your thighs, rhythmically, over and over again.

His eyes are shut, his teeth clenched, you feel him trembling above you, torn between taking and delaying his own relief. Always something to prove. Annoyingly, he is dampening the moans in his throat just as you want to hear him—gods forbid you think less of him. “Aegon… it’s okay,” you speak into the curve of his neck. You kiss his shoulders, tighten your thighs around his hips, bear up on his length.

From his lips pours a sound of mingled pleasure and distress. He is trying so hard not to finish, but can no longer keep up with the measured thrusts he first started with. His pace falters, he grinds against you, fucks you deep into the mattress in a way that, had he lasted longer, might have drawn from you another peak. But it doesn't matter. You feel his body start to shudder and you want it, want him to cum, want him to come undone, want him to cum inside you—what are you thinking?—want him to feel good, want him to feel so good… Not even with a gun to your head can you later recall everything you said to him in those crucial seconds before he spilled inside you with a deep, audible groan.

You remain that way for an unmeasured length of time, arms wrapped around each other, sweat cooling, breath coming slowly back to baseline. Then, with a kiss to your cheek that is sweet and almost chaste, he parts from you. You wince at the loss, the mess pooling between your thighs, and for a moment you fear that this is it—Aegon will walk out the door like he’s done to so many others. Goodbye. Thanks for the good time. Instead, he rests his head on your shoulder, tentative, an uneasy dog craving affection but not wanting to get in the way. You kiss the top of his head, let him doze. Even when he shifts away from you to lie on his stomach and bury his face in a pillow, he keeps his arm thrown across your middle.

The gesture is oddly moving. You think about it until you wake, just a little after 7:00 and see that the sun is newly risen in the sky. For a few minutes you match your inhales to Aegon’s, his exhales, the brief pauses in between. You’ve never felt closer to him than now, and with that comes a feeling like he’s yours somehow. Yours…

He wakes on his own, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He turns his head to squint against the daylight, and though you’re trying to be chill and sophisticated about it, you hold your breath and wonder what his reaction to you will be.

“Seven hells,” he curses, burrowing face-first into his pillow. “Did we only sleep for two hours?” We. The little word calms you, even as he drags his body to sit at the edge of the bed.

Without overthinking it, you wrap your arms around his chest and kiss the side of his neck. He sighs, caresses your arms and holds loosely to your wrists. Soft as you can, you ask, “What’ll you do?”, and press your cheek against his thin, pale shoulder.

“I’m going to see my mother. I’ve kept her waiting, and I can’t just hide from her like some pathetic—” You squeeze him and he breaks off. “I need to speak with her. After that…”

“Whatever comes after that comes after that.”

“Wow… you’re a regular portrait of wisdom.”

“Hey! You came here, remember!”

“That, I certainly did.” From the smirk you see spreading across his face, you can tell he isn’t referring to the simple act of having walked to your flat.

Your face heats. “Idiot.” You say it without bite and it comes out fonder than you meant it to. He smiles. “Do you want me to take you?”

“I can manage.”

“I know… but you don't have to.”

“Fine.” The word is vulnerable. Immediately he has to clear his throat, stand, and begin to dress. You do the same.

You should really have considered having a shower, especially after the long night and the hasty sex (the sex… a part of you still can't believe it happened except for the dull ache between your thighs and the way you keep stealing glances at Aegon, remembering his hands on you, clinging, seeking, sorrowful) but there is no time. The markets open at 9:00. Alicent will want to speak with him before then, draft a last-minute press release, calm the shareholders, the board. As it is, you and Aegon are walking a thin line. You settle for picking a clean black dress out of your closet, and are in the process of trying to fix your hair when you feel him coming up behind you, his hands gentle on your back as he zips you up.

The gesture is so simple, so earnest, that it breaks down every pretense and you have to admit to yourself that, even if you’d had the time, you don’t want to wash him off or have this quiet moment you’ve shared come to an end.

In the car, he sits with his head propped against the passenger window, deep in thought, fiddling with his hands, and especially with the signet ring that depicts his family crest.

Try as you might, you can't read his thoughts and you don't want to pressure him by asking what he plans to do. He could very well be on his way to starting a war between his family, or he could end it—walk away, probably earning the resentment of Aemond and his mother. Either way, there isn't a right choice to be made, only one he thinks he can live with.

Once out of the car, he takes your hand and doesn't let it go, not in the lift up to the lobby, not when you swipe your keycard for the executive floor and the doors open to a hushed, semi-lit chaos. He doesn’t speak. He keeps his head bowed, wary, observant, but he is calmer somehow—you can tell that he’s decided.

Together, you walk around a small handful of department heads speaking into phones. Their assistants cross the floor, exchanging fretful looks while clutching file folders, tablets, cups of coffee. Along the far wall, glass-encased offices are mostly empty except for Conference Room 1, where Alicent Hightower stands at the head of a table at which are seated her father and the head legal counsel, the company’s financial officer, a few of their allies on the board. Aemond, too, is there, immaculate even at a distance. He is the first to spot them; his lips purse, even as his one visible eye remains defiant.

“See you on the other side?” Aegon asks, finally letting go of your hand. You tug his fingers before he can pull the conference room door and he turns to you, waiting, watching you rack your brain for the right thing to say. “Don’t worry, it’ll be all right” and its many variations seem like the veriest wrong, platitudes, lies.

“You can handle it,” you tell him at last, “whatever it is.”

Aegon appears doubtful at first, then he exhales. His face settles, his shoulders square. He has a look about him you've never seen before… Perhaps he and Aemond have more in common than either of them think. Perhaps he is more like his mother than he believes.

He strides through the door and everyone turns to look at him, the heir apparent or the prodigal son. You leave him to it, thinking, To war, then, or whatever it may be.

#hotd x reader #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon ii targaryen x reader #aegon x reader #hotd x you #aegon targaryen x you #aegon ii targaryen x you

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