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invisibleicewands · 5 months ago

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Please come and see me because I’ll be dead soon’: how Michael Sheen got sucked into a forever chemicals exposé

An opera-loving member of high society turned eco-activist who was forced into police protection with a panic button round his neck. A Hollywood actor who recorded said activist’s life story as he was dying from exposure to the very chemicals he was investigating. Throw in two investigative journalists who realise not everything is as it seems, then uncover some startling truths, and you have “podcasting’s strangest team” on Buried: The Last Witness.

On their award-winning 2023 podcast Buried, the husband and wife duo Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor dug into illegal toxic waste dumping in the UK and its links to organised crime. This time, they focus on “forever chemicals”, specifically polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and set out to discover whether one whistleblower may have been decades ahead of his time in reporting on their harmful impact.

“It’s amazing how big the scale of this story is,” says Ashby, as we sit backstage at the Crucible theatre, where they are doing a live discussion as part of Sheffield DocFest. “With this series, we don’t just want it to make your blood turn cold, we want it to make you question your own blood itself.”

It all started when Taylor and Ashby were sent a lead about the work of former farmer’s representative Douglas Gowan. In 1967, he discovered a deformed calf in a field and began to investigate strange goings on with animals close to the Brofiscin and Maendy quarries in south Wales. He linked them to the dumping of waste by companies including the nearby Monsanto chemical plant, which was producing PCBs.

PCBs were used in products such as paint and paper to act as a fire retardant, but they were discovered to be harmful and have been banned since 1981 in the UK. However, due to their inability to break down – hence the term forever chemical – Gowan predicted their legacy would be a troubling one. “I expect there to be a raft of chronic illness,” he said. He even claimed that his own exposure to PCBs (a result of years of testing polluted grounds) led his pancreas and immune system to stop working. “I’m a mess and I think it can all be attributed to PCBs,” he said.

However, Gowan wasn’t a typical environmentalist. “A blue-blood high-society Tory and a trained lawyer who could out-Mozart anyone,” is how Taylor describes him in the series. He would even borrow helicopters from friends in high places to travel to investigate farmers’ fields. Gowan died in 2018 but the pair managed to get hold of his life’s work – confidential reports, testing and years of evidence. “I’m interested in environmental heroes that aren’t cliche,” says Ashby. “So I was fascinated by him. But then we started to see his flaws and really had to weigh them up. My goodness it’s a murky world we went into.”

The reason they were able to delve even deeper into this murky world is because of the award-winning actor Michael Sheen who, in 2017, came across Gowan’s work in a story he read. He was so blown away by it, and the lack of broader coverage, that he tracked him down. “I got a message back from him saying: ‘Please come and see me because I’ll be dead soon,’” says Sheen. “I took a camera with me and spent a couple of days with him and just heard this extraordinary story.”

What Gowan had been trying to prove for years gained some traction in 2007, with pieces in the Ecologist and a Guardian article exploring how “Monsanto helped to create one of the most contaminated sites in Britain”. One was described as smelling “of sick when it rains and the small brook that flows from it gushes a vivid orange.” But then momentum stalled.

Years later, in 2023, Ashby and Taylor stumbled on a recording of Sheen giving the 2017 Raymond Williams memorial lecture, which referenced Gowan and his work. Before they knew it, they were in the actor’s kitchen drinking tea and learning he had conducted a life-spanning seven-hour interview with Gowan before his death. So they joined forces. Sheen isn’t just a token celebrity name added for clout on this podcast; he is invested. For him, it’s personal as well as political. “Once you dig into it, you realise there’s a pattern,” he says. “All the places where this seems to have happened are poor working-class areas. There’s a sense that areas like the one I come from are being exploited.”

Sheen even goes to visit some contaminated sites in the series, coming away from one feeling sick. “That made it very real,” he says. “To be looking into a field and going: ‘Well, I’m pretty sure that’s toxic waste.’” Sheen was living a double life of sorts. “I went to rehearsals for a play on Monday and people were like, ‘What did you do this weekend?’” he says. “‘Oh, I went to the most contaminated area in the UK and I think I may be poisoned.’ People thought I was joking.” Sheen ended up being OK, but did have some temporary headaches and nausea, which was a worry. “We literally had to work out if we had poisoned Michael Sheen,” says Ashby, who also ponders in the series: “Have I just killed a national treasure?”

The story gets even knottier. Gowan’s findings turn out to be accurate and prescient, but the narrative around his journey gets muddy. As a character with a flair for drama, he turned his investigation into a juicy, riveting story filled with action, which could not always be corroborated. “If he hadn’t done that, and if he’d been a nerdy, analytical, detail-oriented person who just presented the scientific reports and kept them neatly filed, would we have made this podcast?” asks Taylor, which is a fascinating question that runs through this excellent and gripping series.

Ashby feels that Gowan understood how vital storytelling is when it comes to cutting through the noise. “We have so much science proving the scale of these problems we face and yet we don’t seem to have the stories,” he says. “I think Douglas got that. Fundamentally, he understood that stories motivate human beings to act. But then he went too far.”

However, this is not purely about Gowan’s story – it’s about evidence. The Last Witness doubles up as a groundbreaking investigation into the long-lasting impact of PCBs. “We threw the kitchen sink at this,” says Ashby. “The breakthrough for us is that the Royal Society of Chemistry came on board and funded incredibly expensive testing. So we have this commitment to go after the truth in a way that is hardly ever done.”

From shop-bought fish so toxic that it breaches official health advice to off-the-scale levels of banned chemicals found in British soil, the results are staggering. “The scientist almost fell off his chair,” says Ashby. “That reading is the highest he has ever recorded in soil – in the world. That was the moment we knew Douglas was right and we are now realising the scale of this problem. The public doesn’t realise that even a chemical that has been banned for 40 years is still really present in our environment.”

To go even deeper into just how far PCBs have got into our environment and food chain, Ashby and Taylor had their own blood tested. When Taylor found 80 different types of toxic PCB chemicals in her blood it was a sobering moment. “I was genuinely emotional because it’s so personal,” she says. “It was the thought of this thing being in me that was banned before I was even born and the thought of passing that on to my children.” Ashby adds: “We’ve managed physical risk in our life as journalists in Tanzania and with organised crime, but more scary than a gangster is this invisible threat to our health.”

In order to gauge the magnitude of what overexposure to PCBs can do, they headed to Anniston, Alabama, once home to a Monsanto factory. “As a journalist, you have an inbuilt scepticism and think it can’t be that bad,” says Ashby. “But when I got there I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I hate to use words like dystopian, but it was. There is a whole massive school that can’t be used. There’s illnesses in children and cancers. It truly was the most powerful vignette of the worst-case example of these chemicals.”

It’s bleak stuff but instilling fear and panic is not the intention. “Obviously, we’re really concerned about it,” says Ashby. “And although the environmental crises we face do feel overwhelming, it is incredible how a movement has formed and how individuals are taking action in communities. The lesson to take from Douglas is that the response doesn’t have to be resignation. It can be agency.”

#Michael Sheen #Interview #Buried #The Last Witness #BBC Radio 4 #it's interesting that with two little kids at home he went in a poisoned place anyway

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endless-ineffabilities · 2 months ago

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Maroon (part six)

modern!Aemond Targaryen x f!reader

themes/warnings: angst, depiction of trauma/injury, mutual pining, language, avoidant Aemond

word count: 3.9k

series masterlist ▪︎ main masterlist

The Dragonstone ball came and went. Aemond and the reader are no closer to reconciling. Aemond's personal battles threaten to get the best of him, and there is only one person he thinks of turning to.

Aemond had begun to severely dislike his weekends.

His stomach churns as he lies motionless under the sterile white hospital lights, feeling more like a lab experiment than a person. The surgeon, a man who face Aemond could now recognise in his nightmares, hovers over him again, poking and prodding as if inspecting a faulty machine.

After four months, the process was routine, almost mechanical. Aemond hated every second of it.

No matter how many times they examined his injuries, one thing remained glaringly clear – he would never be as he once was. The cold, clinical truth he had been avoiding finally settled like a dead weight on his chest. He would never regain sight in his left eye. Ever.

Aemond’s stitches had been removed earlier than expected, the result of the extensive, borderline-experimental treatments his mother had ensured that he underwent. Her desperation to fix him bordered on obsession – nothing but the best surgeons, the most cutting-edge procedures, were made available to her son. ‘Nothing but the best for the Prince of the City’, they would say. And Aemond knew it wasn’t really for his sake. He had to be perfect. He had to be fixed.

A Targaryen heir couldn’t walk around looking all deformed, not in this family, not in this city. Yet no amount of money or prestige could make him whole again. The best the world had to offer still wasn’t enough.

He clenches his jaw, his body completely tense under the surgeon’s touch. The treatment felt less like healing and more like a futile attempt to erase the ugly truth. He felt wronged, betrayed even. He was so used to being in control, or at least, having some semblance of it. It was the only way he could bury the darkness within – the bitterness, the anger. But he has no control left. Now he is the one who bends to everyone’s will.

His mother demanded justice for him. She wanted Luke relieved of his seat at Dragonstone, and inheritance of Driftmark. At the very least, she argued, the boy should be demoted for a time or sent away to learn the error of his ways. Viserys would have none of it. According to him, both Aemond and Lucerys were equally at fault. Just boys being boys. Yet, nine times out of ten in the weeks following the accident, Viserys frequented Lucerys’ hospital suite accompanied by his precious firstborn Rhaenyra.

Aemond barely saw him. He normally wouldn’t care; he trained himself not to. But nothing was right. He didn’t deserve any of this. Luke would limp for months, and that’s it, but Aemond lost his fucking eye. He felt that childish angst resurging inside him, and he knew he was no longer in control.

He recalls the Dragonstone Ball, the night from a week prior when he’d finally emerged after months of hiding, his public reappearance carefully orchestrated to show that Aemond Targaryen was still here, still powerful, still beautiful. He tried to convince himself that he had come to terms with everything – a plain-faced lie. The crowd, the so-called elite of society, had clamoured at the sight of him. They had been shocked, though not in the way he’d expected. They hadn’t recoiled at his injuries. Some had barely seemed to notice.

It wasn’t as bad as they thought.

That had been the general statement. Whispers circulating the Valyrian hall, their astonishment turning to confusion. Why had he stayed away for months? Why all the secrecy? He looks fine, he heard them murmur, their eyes barely lingering on the faint scar on the side of his face.

Some even saw his appearance in a twisted light, and deemed it as an enhancement to his aura. But they didn’t care about him, not really. They saw a carefully curated image, a version of Aemond that fit neatly into the narrative of a rebellious, aristocratic heir who felt the need to challenge his younger nephew into a game of chicken, only to pay for it dearly. Some had even dared to call him The Dark Prince of the City, a new title he loathed.

What a relief it must be for everyone that he was only a little bit fucked up. How fucking fantastic. To them, his injury was cosmetic, an insignificant blemish on a life still dripping with wealth, status, and power. It doesn’t matter that there is an aching emptiness inside of him, a sense of loss and injustice that stretches far beyond the physical damage. It doesn’t matter that he can barely look at himself in the mirror. It doesn’t matter that he can’t allow himself to be with you.

But it does. It all does.

He closes his eye, his mind drifting back to the night of the ball, when he last held you in his arms. When he last tasted you. Oh sweet seven hells, the way you melted unto him. The way you felt…

I can wait, you promised. But how is that fair? Is there even anything left of him for you to keep waiting for?

“It’s almost time for us to have an ocular prosthesis put in,” the surgeon says casually, as if making small talk about the fucking weather. “Your mother has already vetted some top-of-the-line models, I’m sure you’d be pleased – ”

Oh, will he? The best prosthetic eye, was it? Gods, this must be what winning the lottery must be like.

“ – or she also mentioned that we could go about the traditional route? Apparently, it had been custom to have gemstones installed in place of – ”

"I don't care," Aemond snaps, cutting the surgeon off mid-sentence. Without waiting for a response, he pushes himself up from the reclined seat. He knows the surgeon’s sudden shift to small talk signals the end of the session. It always does.

"We're finished?" he says, not bothering to hide the bite in his tone. "Good. Cheers, doc."

“Wait, Aemond, remember to regularly apply the ointment – ”

“Yes, yes, I know,” Aemond says rushedly, barely glancing at the surgeon as he walks to the door. “Oh, and that’s Sir Aemond to you. We’re not friends.”

In the week following the ball, you find yourself slipping back into the familiarity of your routine. Hours spent poring over your dissertation with your supervisor, extra shifts at the bookstore, and meetups with Jace that often blurred into late-night conversations over coffee. You threw yourself into distractions, eager to escape the lingering effects of that eventful night, but the high was hard to shake off.

For a night, you felt like you were floating on clouds. Everything had aligned so perfectly – Jace had been the ideal partner, Baela’s custom gown made you feel like royalty, and the ball itself was something from another world entirely. Things couldn’t have gone better.

You could have gone with Aemond. But that doesn’t matter now.

He made his choice – one that had been crystal clear until it wasn’t. Until he’d pulled you out of the ball, and kissed you with such fierce intensity that your legs nearly gave out beneath you.

He avoided you, but also stalked you. Dropped you as his partner to the ball, but sought you out during it with an emotion in his eyes you couldn’t fully decipher.

Is that emotion the very same that you feel? Perhaps it was only momentary, and the next time you see him, his gaze will display cold indifference. Aemond is fire, and then he’s ice, keeping you in a state of uncertainty. What you have with him is suspended in limbo – you told him you would wait, and you plan to make good on your word.

It’s because of him that you refused Cregan when he texted you – your number practically offered up to him on a silver platter by Jace – and asked if you wanted to ‘have dinner some time’. You said you were having a particularly busy week, so maybe a rain check? You weren’t exactly lying. You did keep very busy – intentionally or not, it doesn’t matter. But as you sit on your worn-out couch, research papers strewn on the coffee table after hours of struggling to break ground on your dissertation, the idea of having dinner with the handsome Stark seemed all the more tempting.

That when you hear it – a faint knock at your door.

Living alone has never given you much anxiety before, and you didn’t think it would start tonight. But who could be knocking at your door past midnight, when you hadn’t buzzed anyone in? You were never on close terms with your neighbours, either.

You sit on your couch looking like a deer in headlights, staring at the door like it’s supposed to silence the knocking.

When did you get so wary? It could be Jace. Maybe Helaena. But then again, they’re not the type to show up unannounced. And besides, if it were them, you’d have already –

Aemond’s voice calls out your name, partially calming your racing mind.

You sense hesitance in his tone. Almost embarrassed. Like he knows he shouldn’t be here.

“Aemond?” You find your voice, and move quickly to the door. As you open it, the question is on the tip of your tongue – What the hell are you doing here? – but the words stick in your throat.

“Hi, darling,” he says weakly, exhaustion etched in his voice. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

Something resembling a gasp escapes your lips when he turns his head slightly, revealing the fresh bruise blossoming beneath his right eye, a vicious mix of maroon and violet. The skin is split, blood dried along the cut, though his eye itself looks unharmed.

“Aemond, what – ”

“Can I come in?” he interrupts, his voice barely a whisper. “Please.”

He walks past you as you step aside, his eye trained on you the whole time. A newly-arrived guest in your home and he has already claimed the space, his presence intoxicating. The air feels heavier, as if your modest apartment has shifted to accommodate someone like him. Or maybe it was just the effect he has on you, what do you know?

You gesture for him to take a seat, anywhere he’d like, and he waits until you settle right next to him before he visibly relaxes. The tension in his body eases, and his shoulders drop as he glances down. It becomes apparent to him how battered he must look.

He starts to say, “I’m sorry for coming over unannounced – ”

“What the fuck happened, Aemond?” you cut him off, your sharp tone making him flinch. He swallows nervously, eyes darting away before he responds.

“I got into… an altercation. Nothing to worry about, really – ”

His nonchalance is grating to you, frustrating you to no end. How can he say that, when the skin below his good eye is an angry colour it should never be in? “Nothing to worry about? Look at you! Gods, why am I just sitting here… I have to get the first-aid kit – ”

You start to stand, but his hand shoots out, grabbing yours with surprising gentleness. “It’s fine. Just... sit with me?”

He’s not being fair, using that tone with you. His question reminds you of the first time Helaena brought you to their penthouse. She needed to pick something up from downstairs, when Aemond had wandered into the living room, a book tucked under his arm. “This is my brother Aemond!” she exclaimed at the sight of him. “Aemond, this is my new official best friend. Don’t scare her off! I’ll only be a minute.”

You’d stood awkwardly, watching Helaena leave, and when you finally turned back to Aemond, he was already lounging in a plush chair, a knowing smirk playing on his lips.

“You know you can sit with me, if you’d like,” he had called out. “Promise I don’t bite.”

He had kept that promise – literally, at least. His bite stung far more – he drew you in, made you fall for him, and just when you thought things seemed too good to be true, he ices you out and avoids you for months.

But sure, Aemond didn’t bite.

You ignore his plea, pulling your hand from his. The expression on his face morphs into disappointment, but you force yourself not to dwell on it. If he’s offended, it can most certainly wait until his injury is dealt with.

“I’m getting the first aid kit,” you say firmly, before disappearing into the bathroom. When you return, he is leaning forward, head held in both hands like he’s burdened by a migraine.

A fresh surge of panic rises in your chest. You sit next to him, clutching the small first-aid kit, suddenly feeling like it’s far from enough. “Aemond, you should probably go to a hospital. You might have a concussion or something – ”

“I don’t,” he says flatly.

“How can you be sure?” You reach for his face, gently turning it toward you. Pulling out a disinfectant wipe, you start dabbing at the bruise. He tries to hold still, but every wince betrays the pain he’s trying so hard to hide.

“Got hit in the face, not in the head,” he says matter-of-factly.

“Okay, smartass.” you reply, still unconvinced. Your nose scrunches at his tone, and his lips tug at the sight. He’s grateful that at least his lip wasn’t split – he knows you’d make things far more difficult for him if he had to resist the urge to kiss you. Especially with the way your reactions are always so damn adorable.

You apprehensively apply antiseptic to a cotton pad, dabbing it over his bruise. “I don’t know if this is enough, Aemond, we really should call someone… Helaena – ”

“It’s fine, darling. I’ve been through much worse,” he says coldly, and your face falls at his insinuation. You’re afraid to know just how much worse – what he went through, what he still could be going through. He reaches for your knee, and squeezes gently as a gesture of reassurance. “I’m sorry. But trust me, I’ll be fine.”

You shoot him a look of disbelief. He’s comforting you? It almost feels absurd – he’s the one who looks like he ran face first into a pole, yet here he is, acting like it’s no big deal.

“Tell me what happened,” you demand, putting the contents of the first aid kit back with an audible snap of plastic.

Aemond hesitates, jaw clenching as he tries to find the right words. You can already tell that he’s going to try to downplay it. He says, “I, uhhh, got into a fight, I suppose.”

“What, you just felt like it?” you say bitterly. Ever since you’ve known him, Aemond has always been the most composed out of all his siblings. But it seems as if another Aemond came out the night of the accident. If you don’t look close enough, you would think he has changed completely. But you do, and you know that your Aemond is still in there somewhere.

He doesn’t answer right away. If he were to say he never feels like breaking things, like letting it all spiral out of control, he’d be lying through his teeth. “You should see the other guy,” he replies, leaning back with a cocky smirk that you just want to wipe right off his lips.

With your own.

“It’s not funny,” you mutter, lightly slapping his arm, and he puts on an exaggerated grimace.

“Don’t hit me. I’m already injured,” he playfully scolds.

You sigh deeply. The boy isn’t making any of this easy. “Who did this to you? Who… who did you – ” Your face contorts into obvious worry, and he exhales sharply, his eyes flickering with distaste.

“Not Lucerys,” he sneers. “You don’t need to worry about your little friend. One of Alys’ degenerate friends at the club. Must have been a Greyjoy. He certainly smelled like one.”

The callousness of his tone, the way he spits the words without a second thought, feels wrong. You’ve heard Aemond make cutting remarks before, but they were always sharp, witty, delivered with a certain sensitivity. Now, it’s like he doesn’t care who he hurts.

“You got into a fight because… you wanted to defend Alys, is that it?”

“No, gods.” He immediately shakes his head at the notion. “She had nothing to do with it. She left early… she wasn’t even there by that point.”

“Then what?”

The truth of it was, he heard the news of Lucerys’ early induction into the board at Driftmark, like some hero’s welcome. Lucerys, the Velaryon heir, rewarded for his resilience, for living through what nearly destroyed Aemond. His grandfather Corlys, being the CEO, had always doted on him – the raven-haired grandson who didn’t bear the slightest resemblance to him nor to his late son Laenor.

Lucerys was treated like the golden child. And Aemond… Aemond was left to lick his own wounds in the shadows.

So Aemond heard the news, and went on a bender. It was nothing if not immature. He knows it. But he hates that he can’t just let it go, that he can’t turn the other cheek like he’s supposed to.

“They said some idiotic things,” he mutters finally, his tone hollow, “and things got unruly. Next thing you know – ” He clicks his tongue, shrugging as if it’s no big deal.

“You just threw yourself into a fight? For what? To feel something?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, darling,” he says, his voice flat. Your frustration reaches its peak, and you wordlessly walk to the kitchen to retrieve several ice cubes, wrapping them in a clean hand towel to create a makeshift cold compress.

When you hand it to him, he just looks at you with brows raised. “Press it against your face,” you explain, your voice clipped but calm.

He looks amused, and he hovers the compress over his bruise for a mere second, before dropping it on the couch beside him, shaking his head. “I’ll pass,” he says, his tone dismissive.

“Just do it, Aemond.”

“It’ll cover my fucking eye,” he mutters, his voice breaking. “and I want to be able to see you. I want to… look at you.” He shifts uncomfortably, gesturing vaguely to his eyepatch. “As you can tell, this one is permanently out of commission.”

His vulnerability chips away at your frustration. “Aemond… ” you whisper his name softly, as his gaze burns through you. “You don’t have to act like this doesn’t bother you. You can be hurt, you can be angry. You can feel whatever it is you’re feeling. Just don’t shut me out.”

His jaw clenches, but his gaze doesn’t leave yours. “I’m not shutting you out.”

“Right. Sure,” you reply, unable to help the sarcasm. “Then stop brushing me off when I try to help you.”

He exhales sharply, his shoulders stiffening. “I don’t need you to fix me.”

“I’m not trying to fix you, Aemond,” you snap, but your voice cracks under the strain. “I’m trying to be here for you. There’s a difference. Why can’t you see that?”

“Because it’s not that simple!” His voice rises, sharp and biting, his frustration finally matching yours. “You can’t just magically undo what I’m going through. Who I am –”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do,” you shoot back. “I know I can’t make everything better, but I’m here and – ”

“You shouldn't have to stay,” he mutters, quieter this time. “It would be easier for you if you let me go.”

“You don’t get to decide what’s easier for me, Aemond,” you say, voice trembling with emotion. The silence stretches between you, and for a moment, you think he might actually let you in.

But then he stands abruptly. “I shouldn’t have come,” he mutters, pacing the room. “This was a mistake.”

“Then why did you, Aemond?” you ask, standing too, your heart pounding in your chest. This was not how you expected your cluttered little night-in to go.

“Because… because of you!”

“Me? I have done nothing but try to help you, even when you push me away… I wait for you, and I keep waiting and – ”

“Why?” He leans over you, tilting his head. “Why wait? I can’t deal with what you seem to expect of me. I can see it in your eyes. How can you look at me like that?”

“Enlighten me,” you challenge, stepping closer. “Like what?”

“Like… I’m better than I am.” Like I’m good. “I’m not. I would ruin you.”

“And yet, here you are,” you insist. “You came here. You sought me out.”

He looks away, jaw clenching again. “I shouldn’t have. Alys would have taken me in, tucked me into bed without all this questioning. Not… whatever this is.”

Your throat clenches at his words, and you have to swallow back the pathetic sob that nearly rises out of you. “Is that what you want? Did you come here for a pat on the back and quick roll in the hay? Is that how you see me?”

“That’s not what I meant.” His eyes snap back to yours, full of anger and regret.

“I’m not going to ignore what’s happening with you, Aemond. I can’t. I care about you. You’re a lot better than you think you are. You’re good and kind and fair. But you’re just – ”

“Broken?” he interrupts, his tone biting, as though the word itself is a weapon.

“Aemond – ”

“Am I just a fixer-upper to you then, darling? A project for your brilliant mind?”

“That’s not true. You know it isn’t. You’re lashing out on me, and I just want to help you!”

“I don’t want your help.” His words are clipped, final, made clear over and over. But you don’t back down.

“Then what – ”

“I just want you,” he confesses, the words tumbling out of him like something precious. You stay silent, trying to process his words.

He continues, his voice growing more pained. “That’s just me. I’m fucked in the head for wanting impossible things. I want you to stop looking at me like I’m still the Aemond you used to know. Maybe that Aemond was never even real. I want you to stop wanting to fix me. And I… I just want you to love me.”

You say nothing for a while, your chest rising and falling, betraying your erratic breathing. He says in finality, “Like I said – impossible.”

“It’s not impossible,” you find your voice, your eyes never leaving his.

“What?”

“It’s real, Aemond. And quite frankly, it’s driving me insane,” you admit, feeling braver than you ever have before.

“Darling – ”

“You want me to love you?” you ask, your voice steady despite the chaos of the evening. “Well, you have it.”

He shakes his head slightly, like he’s trying to shake off your words. “You don’t actually mean that – ”

“I love you, idiot.”

“You love me,” he echoes, the words tentative, like he doesn’t quite believe it. He looks at you, like he’s seeing you for the first time. “I don’t think I’ve ever understood you,” he murmurs, almost to himself.

“Just what every girl wants to hear,” you tease, a small, weary smile breaking through the tension.

But Aemond isn’t smiling. He’s still staring at you, his hand twitching like he wants to reach out but doesn’t quite know how. “You love me?”

“Aemond.” You can only nod, growing unsure of yourself. Is this him realising that he doesn’t actually mirror your sentiment? Fire and ice – he wants your love, but can’t love you back.

In the heaviest of silences, you do what you’ve expertly done thus far.

You wait.

Series taglist (comment below to be added): @caught-in-the-afterglow @aemondtargaryensrider @punggo66 @dollfaceyourfear @candypurplebutterfly @moonmaiden1996 @mxrgodsstuff @lolitaisreal @blue-serendipity @melsunshine @thejanecampaign @fxngsfxgxrty @padfooteyes @msmarvel-19 @tempo-rary-fix @lauraneedstochill @julczimozart @sarcasticfangirl @witchyv @pyjama-shorts @bellaisasleep @zillahvathek @thincrusttheworks @krispold @yougotthatlove @raging-panda @fleetingly-artistic @throughgoeshamilton @polireader @katsav17 @minttea07 @kravitzwhore @meggiemay82 @hedonefox @daenysx @schniiipsel @namoreno @afro-hispwriter @aemondswifeisme @emcharra @malfoytargaryen @iiamthehybrid @fullmetalriotts @kellzlib @justsumtuffstuff @daydreamy-me @yentroucnagol @kezibear @queenofshinigamis @paprikaquinn (continued in comments...)

Some notes in the margins...

Maroon is back! Grateful to all of you lovely readers who waited 🖤

The suspense at the end! Gah!!! If I'm honest, I hit a wall right there. Does the night culminate in heated passion? Is it the right time? Would it be good for either of them?

I'm sure you'll know my decision from the first passage of part seven 😆

As always, I am eager to hear from yous!

#maroon #aemond targaryen fanfiction #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen imagine #aemond targaryen #modern!aemond targaryen x reader #modern!aemond targaryen #house of the dragon #hotd #ewan mitchell

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