Chapter Text
Aemond counts down the minutes from when Lucerys's shift at the hospital ends to when he walks through his apartment door.
In that time, he imagines Luke jumping into his arms and weeping about how much he missed Aemond. He imagines Luke stumbling into his apartment wrapped around another man. Imagines him not coming home at all, heartbroken while Jace comforts him against silk sheets.
Lucerys walks in 20 minutes after 6, clunky headphones on and Starbucks in hand. Reasonable commute time, Aemond supposes, angry at the relief he feels.
Lucerys does not share that relief.
"No," he blurts out immediately, shoving his headphones down and pointing menacingly. "Get the hell out, you asshole. You do not get to come crawling back, not this time."
"Don't be like that," Aemond reasons, holding out a dozen roses between them as a peace offering. Red in the face, Lucerys takes them and throws them at Aemond's feet. Another long night of arguing then, he sighs and resigns himself to, wishing he'd had a smoke before this - but he didn't, did he? Because Luke hates the smell of cigarettes on him, whines about how Aemond is killing himself by smoking as much as he does. It's annoying but Luke does it because he loves Aemond, so he plays along.
There's a lot he puts up with for the sake of love. He's practically a saint.
Luke is yelping at him all the way through the apartment, telling Aemond to fuck off, fuck himself, fucking piece of shit, whatever. He's heard it all before. He agrees. None of it stops him from pinning his nephew against the bed as soon as he gets into the bedroom, shoving his mouth into Luke's and covering the body beneath him with his own. Lucerys wriggles and bites but it still calms Aemond, their skin touching like so. He needs it more than air.
He needs it so bad it keeps him coming back.
"Get off of me!" Luke shoves him, scrambling back to his feet. Breathing hard and scandalized. Aemond is such an animal, right? Molesting his pure virginal upstanding boy.
Wrong.
"I'm only wiping the whore off of you," Aemond growls. "How many men have you fucked since I've been gone?"
Lucerys must not value his life, laughing in Aemond's face the way he does. All this time, all the flesh wounds Luke treated him for, the stitches and blood stains hidden beneath a carpet or a new paint job - does he still not get it?
"You've been gone three weeks, Aemond. You could have been dead for all I knew! You break in here, you accuse me-"
"I had family business to attend to."
Luke goes for defiance next. "Really? That's what you're going with? Why you stormed out after we fought? On Jace's birthday, when you were supposed to be with me? Now you come sulking back with bullshit excuses like a coward."
"You know how I feel about Jace!" Aemond roars back, pushing Luke into the wall. "You know he's cancer and what you do with him is sick, but you still expect me to play happy family with him? With your brother who fucks you? If you loved me you would stay away from him!"
"If you loved me you would understand!"
Never.
He doesn't understand. He never will. Aemond hates it so much that he's found himself outside Jace's house more than once, hand resting on the gun Criston once molded Aemond's twelve-year-old grip around, said think of your family and don't miss. Aemond never makes it to the door but sometimes when he's boiling instant noodles in his microwave at 3 am, he imagines it's Jace's brains blown out. John F. Kennedy lifeless in Dallas. He would preserve Jacaerys's penis and gift it to Lucerys at the birth of their first son. It'd make him cry, no doubt. Luke's heart is too soft. Aemond would protect it from the world.
That means leaving Jace alive. No matter how much it gnaws at him.
"So it was him." Aemond grinds his teeth.
"No," Luke lifts his chin in stupid bravery. His lower lip wobbling gives him away. "I have another brother who loves me. He stayed with me. Not like you."
Aemond sees red - Jace and Luke discovered sex too young, didn't have a damn clue what they were doing until it was too late and they were both hooked on each other, but Joffrey? Overgrown pup who barks to his anyone's commands, who still chases his own tail?
By the time Aemond's calmed down, the floor lamp is broken in pieces and the scabs on his right hand knuckles have re-opened.
"You have a disease," Aemond snarls.
"Yeah," Lucerys admits miserably. Still, a spark goes off in his brown eyes. "That's why you're not supposed to leave me alone, Aemond! That's why you're supposed to stay with me - fucking take care of me like I take care of you." He grabs Aemond's wrists in his own slender hands, shaking the bruised, bleeding knuckles in Aemond's face. "See this? Family business, was it? How many times have you come back to me broken, huh? And I just take it, take your verbal abuse, and your radio silence, and your anger..."
Choking back a sob, he laces their fingers together, squeezing harder than is comfortable. "Your mommy turned you into her perfect little soldier until she couldn't even love you anymore, she treats you no better than a dog! But I do. I love you, Aemond, and I'm the one who has to watch you destroy yourself. I'm the one who hurts for you, who waits for you, who makes you a person again. You still leave me every time! If you only stayed with me, I - I wouldn't need other men, and you wouldn't need all this violence. All I ever wanted was for us to take care of each other."
"Other men would hurt you for what you do," Aemond spits, knowing he's losing this fight.
"I know," Lucerys sighs, breathing over the cuts and scrapes. "You won't though. I'll leave if you do." Later, he'll clean them with peroxide, gently shushing Aemond's hisses. Later, he'll bandage them in pure white so Aemond can sully even those. He always ruins things, in the end.
"I should punish you. For having other men in our bed."
"It's my bed," he huffs. "You don't live here. If you did, you'd come home at night."
No, Aemond doesn't come home at night. He always comes back, though. That has to count for something.
Lucerys waits, and Aemond keeps coming back.
.
Aemond has always hated Jacaerys.
Plain as he is, he shines bright like the sun. Everyone looks at him like he's the last best hope for mankind. The youngest member of City Council who ran on an education reform platform and the worst part is, he's fulfilling those damn campaign promises. Doesn't he know that's not how it works? Everyone adores him and he gets everything he wants.
One or two or three times a year, what he wants - needs, they insist - is Lucerys.
It makes no sense on paper. He's got a fiancée, his childhood sweetheart, a collection of suitably working class dress shirts he wears without a tie or sport jacket, a smile made for TV, a semi-interesting mildly sad backstory. Picture perfect. The cracks are only there when you look close. For one, that childhood sweetheart? Razor sharp sweetness has an underbelly to it. Baela's a regular at every underground gambling den Aemond's ever heard of and probably the ones he hasn't. She goes to sex parties with Jace, without him. She has a nickname that's only whispered where she can't hear.
There's a sticky rumor that Jace killed a man once, but Aemond knows the truth: Baela's the one who stabbed Thaddeus Rowan in the throat, a coked out half-naked 14 year old prostitute quivering in a corner. Jacaerys only got rid of the body.
Aemond would know. He helped.
Contemplated shoving the disgusting wanker overboard along with the unrecognizable corpse they tossed into the sea, but a favor from him who could be President one day was too valuable to Aemond's family.
He tried to cash it in right away. Said stay away from Lucerys with a patient hand on his hunting knife.
You wouldn't understand, Jace shrugged, the tiny sliver of moonlight not enough to see his face. We need each other.
Lucerys regularly said the same - you wouldn't understand as if anybody in the damn universe would - but it still hurt. That was the only time he brought it up to Jace. Gave away that he knew. Your wife, Aemond growled, you think a woman like her would understand this?
Jace laughed at him, insolent as his brother. We don't stop each other from what we can't help.
There was a body in the ocean and a body in a California King Bed that proved that true. Aemond has always hated Jace.
Once, Aemond came home after a four day stint spent smoking out a certain chatty songbird, a low-level capo of the family who'd been keeping a regular appointment at a certain time on a certain day of the week at a certain café for a few months. Shifty. Aemond cleaned it up, a bit grislier than he meant to but the bloodlust did things to him - spent an insufferable evening at the family home after that, his mother barely able to look him in the eye after the pictures of the scene were released. Aemond found that hopelessly naïve. The wife and child may not have been necessary in her mind, but Aemond was a soldier, and he knew better.
When he came to Lucerys's the next afternoon, Jace was at the kitchen table. His brown eyes were watery, like Aemond's mother's brown eyes had been watery. Jace didn't hide away though. Stared right back.
The bedroom door was shut but muffled noises were leaking out from under the doorway anyway. Normally Aemond would have either broken the door down or stormed out, but the new element threw him off balance and he wound up sat next to Jacaerys. It was complete silence between them, the sunlight fading away as Luke's sobs and the bewildered noises of a man trying to comfort him fell quiet.
Aemond has always hated Jace. Didn't say a word when a tear rolled down his cheek, or when he shook his head, mumbled, he's a good person. I can't - abandon him. Even when he's like this.
Brave, caring, Doctor Lucerys Velaryon. Perfect bedside manner - it was when he got in the bed that everything went sideways. Sex-addict slut. Emotional vampire.
Aemond has always hated that Jacaerys understands.
.
Aemond can see his cock move in Lucerys's throat when he has him like this, Luke's head hanging over the edge of the bed so Aemond can drill into him. There's drool leaking out the side of his mouth, pace brutal, but he's moaning and pinching his puffy nipples, definitely enjoying himself.
"You insatiable fucking slut," Aemond hisses, the veins on his hand prominent as he wraps it around Luke's milky throat. Luke moans, vibrating around Aemond's dick, swallowing with his lips slack. It's unreal, this feeling, this raw power he's given over his lover -
He pulls out before he can spill, leaning down and aggressively sucking Lucerys's mouth into a kiss, fucking it with his tongue. Lucerys whines, his small tongue no match to fight, instead grabbing for Aemond's hair and pulling him close. "Please, Daddy," he begs. Eyes glassy and thighs spread wide. "I need you, I need you, I -"
"What do you need?" Aemond acts oblivious.
"You! You, inside me, please. I need your cock, I'll die if I don't have it!"
Instead of answering, he throws Lucerys up against the pillow and spreads Luke's greedy cunt wide with his fingers. Spits on it too, before lapping at the clit just to torture him. Lucerys howls, grinding his hips up to seek out more. Careful what you wish for. The breath is knocked out of him when Aemond shoves two fingers inside, curling them cruelly to press against his spot. He does it fast, relentless, until Lucerys knocks the pillows off the bed in mindless pleasure.
Aemond slaps his ass once, then slaps his clit three times fast.
"Ah! Aemond!" the whore yelps, gushing a little. It's no surprise - Aemond was late, and Lucerys had already made himself cum once with one of his toys by the time he got home. Still isn't there - home isn't any apartment or house to him, no, it's the time he spends rutting between Luke's thighs along with any other tricks he knows that make Luke his.
Which is quite a lot of tricks, they've found over time.
His cunt is loose and fluttery when Aemond sheathes himself in on one stroke. Greedy hole. It swallows him and tightens down like now is the time to be doing Kegels. "Whore," he spits in Lucerys's face. His boy gets all teary at that, blubbering through ah ah ahs.
"Daddy, I'm sorry," he cries, neat hospital-conscious fingernails digging into Aemond's ass. "I'm sorry, I love you! Fuck me harder, ha- harder."
"I love you too," Aemond grunts, the wet slaps unlike any other sex he's had. This is it for him, he knows it. There's nothing else out there better than this. Big tits, thicker thighs, who cares? Nobody else has ever treated Aemond like he's their whole world like this, looked up at him with so much goddamn love like this. Kept squirting on his cock and sucking him in even overstimulated, legs shaking but cunt hungry and hips humping upwards. "I love you so fucking much, you don't even understand."
"I'm yours," Lucerys swears - Aemond gasps, thrusts lost to him, unable to do anything but grind down. There are positions he likes more than missionary, naturally, but right now... he has no control right now. Luke is sucking at his neck and telling him everything he wants to hear.
"I love you," he cries, "I'm yours, you're mine! It's all yours!"
"Only mine," Aemond groans, probably sounds pathetic but he's too far gone to care. He hikes Lucerys up by the thighs and chases his release mercilessly.
"Only yours," Lucerys lies so sweetly, eyes wide as saucers when he arches his back into an angle that rubs his clit against Aemond's abs. "Oh, fu- Daddy!"
Neither of them last much longer. They finish together. They usually do.
"I love you," Aemond bites out, catching his breath.
"I love you so much," Lucerys whimpers with his head thrown back, still rubbing himself against Aemond's hard muscles although he had to be raw by now - it's always like this. He can't stop himself, just keeps rubbing, and wriggling, and ah ah ah'ing until he cums one more time, screaming bloody murder because it hurts so much -
Aemond cleans him up when they're done. Takes a picture of Lucerys's dripping, swollen, red cunt underneath a smattering of dark pubic hair and sends it off before Luke is lucid enough to protest.
Strong boy, he types, admiring his own work. When the message delivers, he feels satisfied, as if he'd knocked on the door and pulled the trigger after all.
.
It's all wrong.
Both of them, wrong and twisted in their own ways.
That doesn't mean it's not a love story.
No, they didn't have a meet cute, or a first time under the stars. They didn't discuss Susan Sontag over appetizers, didn't send each other pictures of puppies they met on walks around their neighborhoods with thinking of you underneath.
They met because one of the Tyrell cousins was running his mouth about the family's drug operation a little too loudly, and Aemond was sent under the guise of collecting a payment that usually would've been waved off so he could scare the idiot a bit. Lowly work, but the Tyrells were an important family and Aemond's status would make the reprimand less of an insult. Yes, he was a dog, but a dog with good pedigree.
The situation was worse than he thought, Aemond realized quickly. The Tyrell cousin cut off from the family, drowning his sorrows in mountains of snow. He owed every shady dealer money, money he didn't have. Wouldn't have any time soon.
He had else something to offer, though.
His boyfriend. Tight mouth. Throat goat, Aemond was promised, as if he gave a damn. Sex was never really a selling point to him. Aemond could not be confused for his brother in that regard. But when Lucerys popped his head out of the study to ask a question, his plump lips making an "O" as he took in Aemond...
"He'll suck any dick you tell him to?" Aemond asked, taunting but mostly bewildered.
"No," Lucerys spat. "Baby, what the hell is he talking about?"
Aemond stayed silent while Tyrell wheedled and begged an increasingly irate Lucerys. Listened as arguments such as you always need it, you know I can't keep up with you. Everyone wins. He's a good guy I swear! were made. Aemond wasn't a good guy though, as Lucerys made clear he thought while he glared at Aemond throughout that whole first encounter. Eventually, that ceased to matter - Aemond kept an eye on Tyrell for long enough that Lucerys let his guard down a bit. Before long, he was blowing Aemond, complaining about his junkie boyfriend every time as if either of them cared at that point. He'd let Aemond fuck him over bathroom counters or in the backseat of his car, but never in a bed. Boundaries, he called them. Aemond yanked at this leash like a feral beast.
Soon, he became obsessed. He had that sort of personality after all, the type to be sucked in whole before burning it all down when he deemed himself done with a thing. The issue was, he never got tired of Luke. He only grew more ravenous.
The night of Lucerys's med school graduation, they finally fucked in his bed. Made love into the sunrise with Lucerys kissing all his scars, insatiable for Aemond's body in a way that made him forget the rest of the world existed. By then, the Tyrell boyfriend was gone (dead) (Aemond had seen to it but done it up cleanly, for once, the sex tape Luke was being blackmailed disappearing with him) while Aemond had made it clear he wasn't going anywhere.
Everything Lucerys threw at him, Aemond carved through like a knife through butter. Jace was a perversion but Aemond was magnanimous, able to move past anything and make anything past.
He was - to his mind - in love.
So, so in love.
Thought to himself, it'll all be ok. We have each other now.
Easier said than done.
.
Lucerys is a good doctor. He's empathetic, with a sense of humor, and he's dedicated to his work. Aemond's seen him stay up well into exhaustion to finish case notes or prep for surgery - been awakened by Lucerys's soft murmuring during nights where he's on call, meticulously pulling information from worried voices. He works long hours and he deserves the award he's being given as well as the intimate gathering Rhaenyra hosts for him after.
Aemond comes as his boyfriend, a status hard-won. He knows Luke's close family would happily see him dead rather that at their boy's side. He'll live forever for just that reason.
He wears an all black suit and his black boots that have bits of blood on them, not that anyone can tell, it tickles Aemond nonetheless. He wears his glasses too because his contact has been bothering him lately - modern science saved the eye Lucerys almost robbed from him as a child but the sight has never been what it was. Neither has Aemond, and to hear Luke tell it, that incident is what set him down the path of pursuing medicine in the first place.
Aemond thinks that is self-aggrandizing, honestly, the concept of some sprawling childhood trauma propelling you forward, but when he brought it up once to Lucerys he was asked if he had "looked in the mirror recently" which certainly shut him up.
Still, he's not convinced.
Rhaenyra has done what she can to clean up the family, Aemond can give her that much. Her sons are a testament to it. Jacaerys doesn't have clean hands but they're close enough for him to have a legitimate career. Lucerys has enough distance from the family business that he can fool himself into believing he's a civilian (a lie, names like Targaryen and Velaryon always come to collect) and it looks good admittedly, the Boy Scout son in politics and the Nonthreateningly Transgender son in a respectable, uncontroversial career. It's a new direction for the Targaryens but maybe it's right for this new age they live in. Who knows really? Aemond's own siblings are all unemployed losers content to get fat on the milk of plenty brought in by backdoor dealings - Daeron is at least doing something, getting into legal marijuana and leaving Aemond to handle overseeing the dirty smuggling that funds his lifestyle.
Daemon, Rhaenys, and Corlys are the ones elbow-deep in blood on Rhaenyra's end, reclusive and mythological. They're the real giants. There's an old grainy video Aemond's watched a hundred times where Aegon the Unifier stood before a crowd and unveiled the first nuclear power plant on Westeros's shores, hailing a new beginning in clean energy. His wife Rhaenys did the rest of the talking and she was magnificent, spell-binding, holding hands with her cherubic toddler who stole everyone's heart.
Had even Aemond believing in a brighter future.
Until he spied the silent figure of Visenya in the background, eyes scanning the crowd in the paranoid way Aemond recognizes. Reminded him that said bright future was bought with weapons deals and cocaine. Bought with the goodwill following Rhaenys's assassination, the image of a young mother taken long before her time.
He sees Lucerys in Rhaenys and himself in Visenya. Wants to put a baby in him and see how the kid turns out - Aenys? Or Maegor?
Life's unknown variables.
Such things, such people, come and go as they please. Joffrey finds him having a cigar on the balcony.
"Nice suit, Scary Spice," the boy taunts. This, Aemond doesn't know what to make of - where they stand, in relation to each other, in the world arena. Joffrey is miscellaneous in his family. His blood father Harwin's build, the same penchant for breaking bones, boring middle child. Technically he's an athlete but what his role is inside is a mystery Aemond doesn't care much about - didn't anyway, until Joffrey started sniffing around what belongs to him.
Jacaerys, at least, shows him some respect. Joffrey is arrogance incarnate.
"Piss off," Aemond dismisses.
"Testy," he laughs. "My big brother is sad we're not getting along with you, you know. He thinks we don't try at all. So here I come, trying, nice guy as I am, on Luke's big night. That's what you do when you love someone. You make 'em happy."
Little shit. Aemond tosses the cigar away, his rare treat spoiled. "That's enough small talk. In truth, I feel fucking sorry for you, kid. You're so damn disposable it's a joke. Your mother barely even remembers your name between spreading her legs for half the bourgeoisie, and your surrogate mother uses you for parts. Even you aren't stupid enough to not realize that, hm?"
"Oh no," Joffrey gasps, eyes wide. "My mommies are slores? Shove the sermon up your ass, Pope Unstableus Motherfuckerus. It's not even Sunday."
"Know your place, hatchling. You only exist when I'm not around."
"I guess I exist a lot then, eh?" He leans in so close Aemond can see where he nicked himself shaving, beneath the 5 o'clock shadow. "Lucerys loves me. He's always been there for me, and I've always been there for him. I'm not disposable."
To be mocked to his face this way... it's been a long while since anyone dared. Wonders if he's not looking at himself, when Alys was still around. Talking so big like he was working himself up to fuck in the Colosseum.
"You're microscopic."
"You're a dog off your leash," Joffrey grunts - showing his hand. "Keep messing with Lucerys and you'll be put down."
So that's the mystery solved. He's being groomed for war. One of Rhaenyra's sons needs to be the muscle, anyway.
"Lucerys and I are going to start trying for a child once his residency is done. Once he's had a baby, my baby, all these games will end."
Half-true. Luke says Aemond needs to show consistency and create distance from his family before they commit to something so important. Aemond thinks that's just a runaround but his boy said the words. Let Lucerys try and deny him now.
Joffrey's eyes flash, but he pretends aloofness. "Yeah, cause you're such a present boyfriend, aren't you? No way you won't be a present father. Can't wait. I'll love any kid Luke has, be the best damn uncle you've ever seen. All the little ones like me."
Flashes a smirk. "Uncle Joffrey. That's fun. Oh wait - I shouldn't get attached, right, like who knows? Maybe, when you fuck off, and I'm the one playing with their Papa's pussy every night, they'll wanna call me Daddy instead."
The crunch of Joffrey's nose under the glass bottle Aemond swings sings under his skin like good wine. It orients him, reminds him of who he is and what he's capable of. Aemond's glasses shatter in the scuffle but no glass gets in his eye even if the world turns unbalanced when the vision in his left eye immediately depletes, everyone running around, sounds ringing into one enormous mess. Someone's pushing him away but Lucerys scuttles into the middle of it by ducking under various limbs, yelling and holding a cloth napkin to Joffrey's bleeding nose immediately.
"Who do you think you are?" Luke screams, eyes on fire as he looks Aemond's way, cradling Joffrey's head to his chest. "You don't ever touch him, you don't ever!"
"He fucking started it," Aemond grumbles back, tossing the remnants of the bottle over the balcony. Joffrey is the devil itself, blood between his teeth and grinning while Lucerys fawns over his swelling face.
On his way out, Aemond catches Jace's eye, leaning against a pillar, in his tie-less button down with the rolled up sleeves. The cunt winks at him. Whispers, "such strong boys, aren't they?" as Aemond shoves past.
.
Lucerys walks into his apartment two hours later, exhausted and carelessly tossing his award onto the kitchen table. He glares at Aemond wordlessly before departing for the bathroom to strip down, showering away blood and grime. His body is strung tight, angled away from Aemond at every opportunity.
"Did you fuck him?" Aemond demands to know.
Lucerys laughs joylessly as he shuts the water off. He towels off and pulls his pajama bottoms on, brushing his teeth and not meeting Aemond's eyes. Aemond doesn't leave. He vibrates in the doorframe until Luke acknowledges him, sucking on his teeth. He stares as if expecting Aemond to speak first - loses his patience when no words come from his mouth.
"I'm here, aren't I? It's you, you asshole. It's been you for ages."
When Aemond reaches out, Luke puts a hand up. "Joffy is my baby boy," he warns, serious as the grave. "Jace is my world. I don't care what they say to you, you don't ever touch them. Ever."
No, Aemond wants to frown petulantly, but Lucerys allows his embrace only after he wordlessly agrees. They hold each other, Luke tucked into Aemond's neck. God, Aemond thinks, shutting his eyes so tight, the intimacy threatening to claw him open. Thank you, God.
"I want us to have a baby," he blurts out.
"So I hear," Luke snorts - Aemond could snap his neck for not taking this seriously, but he stays clinging to him instead. "That's not - no, we can't do that right now. We're not like normal couples, baby. We have to get better first."
"One day," Aemond insists. Looks down into watery brown eyes.
Lucerys's smile wobbles. "Let's figure out how to take care of each other before we try to take care of someone else. How to stay together."
"I'm not leaving," Aemond swears, leaning down for a kiss that stings at his black eye. "I love you."
"I love you too," Luke says softly, as if it's painful. His hand robotically sliding into Aemond's pants, the way it always does when they fight, and make up, and fight, and -
.
Aemond sits on the steps of the apartment building this time. He still has his key, but the weather is nice today so he may as well enjoy it, considering the storm he's in for soon. Children are hooting in a playground across the way, and Aemond openly stares - there were the bare remnants of a spring snow on the ground when he left, and no children playing. Now there are. It's only been a few days but sometimes a few days make all the difference.
The sun winks at him from between the city's sharp edges, and Aemond counts the minutes from when Lucerys's shift at the hospital ended while he sits with an enormous stuffed bunny animal in his arms. It's got purple hospital scrubs on and a carrot in the plush prescription bottle it holds. Nurse Bunny, the unoriginal name tag reads, but he'd seen it in a window on his way to the airport and couldn't leave it. Had to buy it.
It's not in the leaving, he thinks, black boot stained with bits of blood tapping the concrete below. Not really.
It's in the returning.
In the love that keeps him coming back.