Chapter Text
He feels sick.
He feels sick to his stomach and for once he is sober. He is sober all through the wedding feast, all through the renewal of the vows of loyalty to his half sister, all through the event itself, even his father giving him an inkling of attention does not help. He feels sick to his stomach.
The only saving grace is Aemond is the same.
He does not dare look to his right to see the man he wants heart and soul, to see if the man he loves is looking at him, he does not dare to look anywhere but at his plate and he picks his food apart and tries not to fall head first into the wine even though it’s calling to him like a dragon song.
Aemond for the most part does look at the man he loves. His brother is as open as a book and just as clear to it. His brother fixes his one eye on his nephew and it doesn’t move. Luke for the most part stares back when he can and the two of them look at each other as if looking at each other is the only thing they can do.
Aegon realises that he never asked Aemond how far the thing got. He knew that his brother and his nephew had managed to put the indignity (as his mother calls it) of the ‘incident’ on Dragonstone all those years ago behind them but he had no idea that his brother had fallen in love with the younger omega until the betrothal where his grandsire and his father had managed to once again floor the entire room.
He still didn’t know how the old cunt had done it.
Aegon had known that his marriage had been a topic hotly discussed. His father had laid down the law of the land in plain view after the whole beheading thing in the throne room. He had made it clear as birdsong that Rhaenyra was to take over the throne upon his demise and that night had called all the Lords and Ladies of the Seven Kingdoms to King’s Landing where they were all to re-swear the oath and to be reminded that when he died it was his daughter who would rule and not his son.
It had been a petty kind of revenge Aegon had thought, a petty kind of nonsense to see the look on his mothers face when she had seen his half sister kneel before her father and be gifted a throne. Daemon on the other side of her had looked pensive and dangerous, Aemond next to him had been thrumming with some kind of unnamed emotion. The only one who seemed happy about all of this was Helaena who had pointed out that night at the feast that it meant that the dragons would not dance (whatever that meant)
But then his grandsire had stood up and announced another plan, one to see him and his brother married and the quirk of a smile on the old cunts face had told Aegon that the man knew it was not what his grandsons wanted but what he wanted, a chance to keep his grandsons close to the throne, to keep one of them on the council, to keep one of them close to rule and if Jace should never not produce an heir there would always be a legitimate Targaryen one close by.
He had not said as much but it had been implied. And that had been the end of that. Recovering from her shock his mother had promised it to be a good idea and his father in his cups with milk of the poppy had not the whit or the whim to refuse. Even his half sister stunned a little had to agree that it was good sense on her end, they would be kept in the inner circle but far away from the throne. Diminished but still there. And should anyone come up with proof about the three dark haired sons of the Princess (as that evil cunt Larys Strong was sure to do at just the right moment in time) then they would be there willing to step into the role of a lifetime with a clutch of trueborn Targaryen Hightower pups.
What they wanted, what Aegon, Jace, Aemond and Luke had wanted…well…that didn’t matter. What mattered was the throne, the dragons and the chance to be close to it.
Jace had looked at him with horror in his eyes.
The truth was that it had been going well before that, they had been making steps to heal the children of Alicent and Rhaenyra even if their parents did not. And he and Jace had always been close and it had blossomed somewhat into that unnamed thing that he didn’t want to admit was love. Desperate touches and kisses in half nooks and crannies, furtive glances and giggles across the dinner table. Aegon snaking into Jace’s chamber to help him get ready as he was proclaimed the third in line to the throne after his mother just so he could touch his skin and inhale that warm cinnamon and honey scent that had him rutting against his pillows like an omega whore in heat.
They had spent one night together. One. And Jace had refused to bed him claiming that he could not without setting a path forwards in motion.
He had took Aegon to bed though and kissed every inch of him, lapped at his cunt until he had been sure that the world had narrowed only to the dark head between his legs, had held him while the orgasm of a lifetime had rocked through him, had let Aegon return the favour, had gripped him so tight it was like the two of them had become one, like there was nothing that would stop Jace from getting what he wanted and what he wanted was Aegon. And the Gods of his father’s family and his mothers knew as well as he did that there would be nothing he wanted more than Jace.
One night, that was all he had been given. One perfect, endless night, one snatched moment of happiness and the promise of a future and a lifetime, words spoken into his skin.
And now it had all been snatched away.
If this was what his sister had gone through when she had found herself to be wed to a man not Harwin Strong or Daemon Targaryen then Aegon found that he understood her in this moment more than he had ever done so before in his life.
“I will not even be allowed to see you” Jace had said the day before as they had met at the Dragon Pit. “I wont…I will be sent back to Dragonstone to learn the craft of a ruler or whatever it is that Demon wants to teach…I will not be allowed to see you until you are with child and…” he had twisted his expression away so that Aegon did not have to see it.
It had hurt, it had been fire on ice and ice on fire and pain. His whole omega brain crying out for an alpha who was not the one he wanted.
He wanted Jace.
Not Aemond.
And there was nothing that he could do about it.
They had married through gritted teeth. The only moment where his brother and he had been aligned throughout the years was in the disgust of this marriage and yet they had both done it.
Through the good graces of their mother (or through the good graces of their father not seeing what was in front of him) they made it through the wedding and then back to their chamber without the audience.,
And then it was…in Aegon’s humble opinion…where it all went to shit.
There was a pause and then.
“I am not going to fuck you”
Aemond said it to the canopy above his bed without looking at him. They had been left alone during the bedding ceremony (a lifeline both he and his brother would later cling to) and so it was the two of them.
“Well…I don’t want to fuck you either”
He scowled the second he said it, what a way to be mature. It even sounded childish.
“I suppose” Aemond said casually. “That you and our little half bastard nephew have been—”
“Careful” he snarled but Aemond only smiled at the canopy.
“Well” he said before he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. “That answers that one does it not brother?”
“Have you with…Luke?”
It was part curiosity that he asked this and part the age old desire to hurt Aemond. Even from the way his body curled in on itself Aegon had his answer.
“Oh”
Well…he had won that round he thought morosely. At least he’d had a taste of happiness before it was ripped away.
“Do you think you might be with child?” Aemond asked curiously.
He flinched before he could stop himself grateful that his brother’s back was turned. It had been all he had been thinking about.
“If I am? Will you tell mother? See me cut from this child as was our father’s first wife? See us separated?”
Aemond sighed as if he was being a child and then stood up.
“No” he said finally. “I will not. Our sister has managed to pull the wool over our father’s eyes. I see no reason why you could not. Even if the boy comes out a curly haired brown bastard”
For once the taunt did not stick. Indeed all Aegon could think about was said child. Jace’s child. Jace’s son with his brown hair and big brown eyes. It was a longing, a thing from a dream that he did not have the power to see to completion anymore.
Nothing.
Aemond turned to look at him for a second and then…
“You know when our sister takes the throne we could have this marriage annulled”
“On what grounds?”
Aemond shrugged.
“Non consummation. False pretences, whatever, if Rhaenyra can have a lover, a husband and her Uncle all in one lifetime I do not see why we cannot. We were married in our mother’s faith, we could marry again in our father’s”
Aegon shifted so that he was sitting up and looking at his brother now the embroidered sheets pressed against his naked skin.
“And then what?” he said scathingly. “Even if by some miracle we could get this marriage annulled they will never let you have Luke.”
Aemond flinched and Aegon smiled. It was always the way with them, when one of them smelt blood the other had to snap out and hurt. That was their very nature, Targaryen’s. They always had to hurt their own.
“She will marry them both off” he said quietly. “And even then are you—”
“Luke and I have an understanding” Aemond said and Aegon blinked.
“Wow. You’ve really thought the dismantling of this marriage through haven’t you?” he said sardonically. “Good thing I didn’t develop feelings for you huh?”
Aemond rolled his eyes.
“So are we agreed? We will seek our pleasure elsewhere?”
Gods it was hauntingly transactional.
“Yes” Aegon said finally. “And if I am with Jace’s child…or become with any other children—”
“I will give them my name” Aemond said nodding. “And we will never speak about it again”
All in all Aegon thought as his brother dragged the bedsheets over to the small settle in the corner, it was not the worst idea that anyone had ever had.
He turned over on his side and stared at the candle guttering away in the corner.
To anyone else, to his mother and his grandsire and his father this was his wedding night and he and Aemond were supposed to be fucking madly trying to populate the world with more Targaryen Hightower’s for his grandfather to use against his inevitable war against their half sister.
Instead there was this, his brother on one half of the room and him on the other and an agreement to go their own way in this sham of a marriage.
He thought of Jace and had to swallow back tears.
Maybe Aemond was right. Maybe this could work.
Aegon scoffed to himself.
Because Aemond had a history of being right didn’t he?