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Harennhal was a horribly wet place. Aemond had been to wet places before, Storm’s End, and Driftmark, but neither compared to this. The ceiling in the room he was assigned leaked, water dripped onto the stone in three places. In one of the corners, the water that fell there collected in between two specific stones and stayed there. The second leak he’d noticed was above a small table in the room, it had warped the wood over time and caused marks like tears to run down its surface. Stains. It had been stained. The third and final leak dripped straight onto a chair, soaking the cushion through. Aemond had tried to move the chair to another part of the room, but it seemed fused to the stone.
Harennhal was the most depressing place Aemond had ever set foot in. As soon as you entered, there was a sense of dread that rooted itself deep in your belly and slowly grew upwards into your chest the longer you spent within the walls of the place. For Aemond, it had already grown as big as it could, the dread had spread throughout his throat and he was sure he’d choke on it if he weren’t careful.
Aemond lay with his fingers laced across his chest and stared at the room's ceiling. Sleep didn’t come to him, he hadn’t expected it to, in all honesty. No one would be able to get sleep in a place as grey, and wet, and sad as this. He was more comfortable staring up with a tired gaze and thinking. Since he was young, Aemond had enjoyed thinking. Aegon had once asked him how he kept himself so entertained while he spent so much time alone, and he had given him a simple answer, “My mind.” Aegon had wrinkled his nose and left to get drunk, but it was true.
It was something Helaena and he could do together, sit in a room and do completely opposite things in silence, while they thought. Helaena had much more important thoughts than he did, hers usually meant something, and his thoughts never amounted to anything more than little whispers in his mind that kept him occupied. Aegon’s thoughts were drowned in wine and nothing but mush. Nothing came of his thinking.
While the rain beat hard against the stone outside, Aemond was stuck thinking about the one thing he would rather cut his other eye out than think about. He could use the sound of this storm to perfectly relive the day he chased his nephew through the skies and to his death. The rain outside did not beat down on the castle it beat down on Vhagar. It slapped against her scales and her leather wings, it stuck to Aemond’s skin, and it soaked him to the bone. The rain made a perfect wall before him, and he could no longer see Lucerys.
He did not see Him again until Vhagar sliced Him apart in her jaw, and bits of His dragon went falling into the sea. He did not even see Him during that, really, he saw parts of Him. Whenever Aemond thought about this, he would pick at his nails just like his Mother did whenever she had to speak to Grandsire. His nail beds were less bloody than hers, but still, he’d picked up the habit. He brought his thumb to his lips and tried to catch a hangnail between his teeth to tear off.
Aemond heard the scream of Arrax—that Dragon had been far too small to go off and do anything besides make laps around Dragonstone—just as he was ripped to bits play through his mind like a bad rhyme.
He did manage to catch a hangnail between his front teeth and rip it off, but his thumbnail in the process—jagged and uneven, as he’d been gnawing on it as of late—sliced open the roof of his mouth. It was a small cut and would have been barely noticeable if his thumb didn’t come out of his mouth bloody. He frowned and raised his tongue to the cut. The taste of coins spread throughout his mouth and he grimaced. Aemond rose from bed and walked over across the room to a small chest of drawers that had a mirror propped up on it. He opened the first draw on the left and found nothing. Three more drawers, same luck.
There has to be a piece of cloth in one of these, He tried to will to no avail. He opened the first drawer on the second row and watched as the shadow inside of it twisted and turned. Aemond glanced around and saw all the fires in the room dance, flick side to side and around as if being pulled on by strings. They never fully went out, but they wanted to. Finally, he found a rag, and he pressed it to the roof of his mouth.
Out of morbid curiosity, Aemond looked up at the mirror, wondering how ridiculous he looked hunched over holding a rag in his mouth.
What he was met with was not a reflection of himself at all, but in fact, an oil painting of Him with a broken nose, but not as a child, as old as He was when Aemond killed Him. In the few seconds, Aemond saw Lucerys before he fell flat onto his ass on the floor, he got to see the blood run down His lips and his chin, dripping splatters onto His white shirt, His big, brown, eyes followed Aemond’s horror.
When Aemond did fall to the ground, he stared at the chest of drawers, not daring to look up, not for a long while. After too long when Aemond decided he needed to get up, the rag had stopped the bleeding of his mouth, and he removed it. The part he’d been holding was a deep red. Slowly, shakily, Aemond rose to his feet and looked in the mirror. He saw himself, wide-eyed and crazed-looking. Aemond threw the rag onto the dresser and turned away, headed back to the bed. It was a trick of the eye. A slip of a guilty conscience.
Aemond climbed back into bed and stared at the ceiling once more. This meant nothing. Despite how he tried to will it, his eye slipped shut, and he was met with darkness. Until He appeared within that darkness, in an open field of tall, soft grass that swished against his bare legs. Yes, he was standing bare with his nephew in the field. He was bare, too, but all He did was reach up to Aemond’s face and cup his cheek, His thumb running over the lower part of Aemond’s scar. “Ao issi vēttan hen gevives,” Lucerys whispered with His lips barely moving. Aemond closed his eye and leaned heavily into the hand on his cheek. He reached up and gripped Luke’s wrist tight, to keep His hand there. He went to say something back, but he awoke before he could.
The day droned by no slower than any other day would. He spoke to Simon Strong, a cautious, yet quietly bold man who Aemond had no opinion on. He was there, he had decent wine, and the duck he served was too greasy. He wandered the castle of Harrenhal, making as little noise as possible, doing his best to not terrify the servant girls. He drank more wine than he had at any other point in his life that day, attempting to drown away images of his nephew with a bloody nose, bare, in a field of grass. They did not go away. They stayed burned into his mind like a brand.
That night, he lay in bed, on his back, and hoped that he did not fall asleep. Hours passed, the rain abused the castle, and he did not rest. During some ungodly hour, he saw light, and footsteps in the bottom of his door. Someone was walking the halls. They paused at his door. Aemond sat up and moved quickly to the chest of drawers, where he had laid his sword. He unsheathed it, and held it, ready to strike whoever entered, yet they walked away. Aemond waited, not for long, but he waited before he moved to the door and stepped into the hall. Even the stones seemed to be hushed at night. With the tip of his sword touching the ground, Aemond looked side to side and whipped his head to the left when he heard footsteps like they were slapping down in a puddle. They got closer and closer to him, and he held his sword up.
Then, a head poked around the side. Him. With His hair sticking to His face with water, and a pear necklace that clung to His neck. With His hand, He beckoned Aemond forward, and he followed. Quickly. Though, it seemed Luke was always ahead of him by four steps. Aemond was behind Him, on His tail, but he could never reach out to touch Him. He led Aemond throughout the castle and spoke no words, then, He disappeared right as Aemond was face to face with a room he’d never seen.
Warmly lit and crowded, a table with every herb, spice, and plant to ever be picked, and mixing some kind of elixir, was a woman with dark hair that fell down her back, in an apron and a red dress. She had blood on her fingers, and she looked at Aemond like she was used to men coming to her in the dead of the night, and pointing a sword at her.
“It’s a touch late to be stalking about a strange castle and putting its people to the sword.”
“You.” He said to her.
“They call me Alys.” She replied and licked the blood from her fingers. Aemond grimaced, and she washed her hands off in a bowl of water.
He looked around the table and tried to figure out what the fuck she was making. “Are you some kind of maester?”
“In a manner of speaking. I took on the duties after the last one fled in the middle of the night.”
Aemond lowered his sword, the point scraped against the floor. “Why did he flee?”
Alys shrugged. “Never settled in.” She grabbed something new, a bottle with something in it, and shook it up. “How are you settling in? I’ve come to know the face of tortured rest well enough. Sleep can be… thin in this place.”
Aemond glared at her. “And what might you know of my sleep?”
“Harrenhal’s been cursed since its first stone was laid.” She told him. Aemond knew of the curse. He’d read of it before, in a book only speaking of curses, and nothing else. At the young age he’d read that book, he’d found it weird that an entire book could be written just on curses. How many curses did one Realm need?
“Anyone who knows the name of Harrenhal will know of the curse, witch.”
“Then you know of the Heart Trees.” She said, and took a pitcher pouring liquid down into a cup. “The bed you sleep in was made from one. Have you experienced anything….of note?”
Aemond swallowed. “You’re a very strange woman.”
She looked at him, completely serious, and replied, “I’m no woman at all, I’m a Barn Owl. Cursed to live in human form.” She giggled, it was an odd noise. “You come here after you’ve earned a new title. A bad one.”
Aemond raised his sword again and pointed it toward her. She laughed at him once more, unimpressed by theatrics. “You’ve come here to regain some kind of respect from your family after taking away something sweet. A boy, that was soft.”
“You’ve forgotten that I have a sword, witch.” Alys laughed for a third time and took the cup from the table she had filled from the pitcher and stepped toward him until the point of his sword pressed to her chest.
“Your Mother is angry with you, so you decided to make yourself useful. You came here on a dragon, to draw an army of men, to make up for your wrong-doings.” She told him. Aemond dropped his sword again. He’d get nowhere killing a woman in the dead of night in a castle that wasn’t his own. She walked closer to him and handed him the mysterious drink. “Drink this, it will help you sleep.”
Even though every sign pointed to this drink being horrible, he took it, and he downed it.
If somebody had tied him down to a chair and tortured him for hours, he wouldn’t have been able to tell them even if they ripped his teeth out. It was as though he were speaking to Alys one minute, then at the table next to Simon Strong immediately after. There was a horrible dull conversation going on, and Aemond felt like he was swimming through cotton. As soon as Simon Strong’s wine glass became empty, Lucerys came holding a pitcher. He looked much the same, wet hair and, a pearl necklace, but Aemond got a chance to see what he was wearing. A white night-shirt that fell to His knees with sleeves that stopped at His shoulders, and a brown leather belt around His waist with nothing but a dagger in it. They made eye contact while He refilled Simon Strong’s cup, then, Lucerys turned into a servant girl who stared at him with fearful eyes. Aemond stared down at the table.
He did not see Alys the entire day, and he wondered if he had dreamed her up to torture himself. He tried to follow the path he’d taken the night before to her chambers, and he found dead ends, and his own door, back exactly where he started. That night, he was sure he drank an entire bottle of wine. By the time he made it back to his room, the worst storm he’d heard his entire time there was cracking and booming outside. As soon as the door closed and removed his boots, he looked in the corner and saw Him. Standing with His hand out, the water from the leak collected in His palm and ran down over the sides of his hand. Lucerys turned and faced Aemond with His bloody nose. “I’ve come to pay my debt.” He said, and Aemond felt as though he might collapse.
He put his hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to unsheathe it, and cut down his nephew’s pretty head from his shoulders. Luke walked to him, slowly, with His hands behind His back until they were face to face. He was taller than Aemond remembered Him, but not by a lot. Aemond still had to look down at Him. He gripped his sword tight, but Luke placed His hand over Aemond’s, and took it off the hilt, instead interlacing their fingers so tight that even if Aemond had wanted to pull away, he wouldn’t have been able to.
His hand was cold, as though he were submerged in snow, but he didn’t mind. In fact, he quite liked it. The cold sent shudders through his body and goosebumps rose across his arms. Lucerys stood on His tip-toes and Aemond leaned down, so their lips could lock onto each other. The kiss felt like licking ice. It confused him for but a split second, but he pushed it down. It didn’t matter. Not when his nephew kissed him like a man starved, and Aemond was sure he also kissed with the same kind of sheer desperation. Luke’s hands reached to Aemond’s belt, and he pulled away.
“Why are you here?” Aemond asked and he swallowed. His lips tingled, and his entire body begged him to walk closer to his nephew. He wanted to. Oh, how he wanted to, it was like a knife twisting his stomach every second he wasn’t touching Him.
Luke frowned at him. “I told you,” He replied. “To pay my debt.”
“You’ve paid,” Aemond told him. “You’ve paid enough. It is done. If anything, I now owe you, a debt.”
“No.” Luke walked across the room with no shadow, but His feet padded softly against the stone like the water dripping from Him was trying to seal him to the ground. “You owe me nothing, uncle.”
“You paid for your debt with your life. Your debt is paid, do not stay here if you believe this to be a transaction. A repayment.”
Luke shook his head and sighed heavily. He got close to Aemond again and took his hand into His own. “I should have been betrothed to you after Driftmark,” Luke told him. “We would have made a wonderful pair. Powerful.” Aemond said nothing, his jaw hung open. He swallowed, to think of Luke ruling over Driftmark, with himself at His side. Powerful they would have been. Great, even.
Lucerys stared at him with His big, brown, eyes. Tore Aemond open for His consumption, and Aemond couldn’t pretend like he was irritated by it. He leaned down and smashed his lips together with his nephews again. Aemond’s hands drifted down to Luke’s waist, holding on with barely a grip. Luke’s arms draped over his shoulders they kissed like they had before, like they had never been fed in their lives. Aemond could taste the blood from His broken nose on His lips, that taste from the night before last when he’d cut his mouth returned, but it was coming from Luke, so it was sweeter.
This time, when Luke’s hand moved to Aemond’s belt, he did not stop Him. It clinked to the ground, along with his sword, and Aemond was pushed onto the side of the bed with Luke straddling him. Aemond gripped His hips tighter. Luke moved from his lips to his jaw, and kissed the underside of it, before latching onto his neck. Sometimes, when he was sure no guards or anyone would come knocking on his chamber door, Aemond had fantasized about something close to this, but it was never himself with the lips locked onto his throat, it was always the other way around. Aemond was learning he didn’t mind it being reversed. Not at all. He especially didn’t mind when Luke’s teeth scraped down to his collarbone in a fantastic sting. Aemond groaned, and then Luke leaned back.
Slowly, he slid off the bed and between Aemond’s legs. Lucerys fiddled with the laces of his pants before Aemond raised his hips and unlaced them himself. They fell to his ankles and Luke gently took Aemond’s cock into His hand. Aemond groaned, he gripped the sheets as though he wanted to tear them while Luke moved His own hand back and forth along his cock before taking Aemond into His mouth. Once more, Aemond groaned, but this time it was more of a choked sound as his whole body tensed up. Lucerys’ lips had been cold, but His mouth was warm and wonderful around him. Luke worked His tongue and lips like He had done this a thousand times before. As though He were a professional. A whore, but Aemond didn’t like that thought. Luke was not a common whore.
Aemond reached down with a shaky hand and slid his fingers into Luke’s hair. His hair wasn’t quite curly, more wavy, and right now, it was wet, just like the rest of him, dripping water.
Aemond’s breath was shuddering, there was a warm pit in the bottom of his belly that had grown hotter, and harder to ignore. His fingers gripped Luke’s hair tightly, he could feel drops of water run down his wrist. Lucerys’ hands were on Aemond’s thighs, tight, and bruising to keep Himself steady while He worked whatever magic He’d had hidden, ready to weaponize. Aemond’s hand slid from His hair to his cheek and he rubbed his thumb just under Luke’s eye. The boy looked up at him, those big, doe eyes that made Aemond’s heart thunder in his chest with the same speed as a spooked horse. There were tears brimming around the edges of His eyes, they made the brown look more full, even more beautiful than they already were. He’d shed a few tears, they ran down His cheeks and left streaks of red in their wake.
Aemond wasn’t even sure if he was breathing anymore. It didn’t feel like it and any breaths he did take had to be forced out of him like a punch to the gut. Finally, Aemond did stop breathing, and by the time he could again, Luke was sitting back on His thighs, licking His lips then wiping His mouth with the back of His hand. Aemond was still shuddering when Luke climbed back on top of him. He stared at Lucerys for too long, over three minutes while he said nothing. Aemond wanted to say something, but he had a hard time coming up with what exactly, until the words poured out of his mouth quickly without him realizing it until they were said, “I still owe you a debt.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do,” Aemond argued, and dumped Lucerys down onto the bed, so His head hit the pillows. Aemond crawled on top of Him and looked down at the thin belt with nothing but a dagger. There was a clasp holding it together in front of Luke’s stomach, Aemond undid it and put it to the side. Luke watched him with curious eyes as Aemond grabbed onto the boy’s long nightshirt and pulled it up above Luke’s belly button. His thighs were toned, like a dragon rider’s should be, His stomach was smooth, not as toned as His thighs, but not all soft skin at the same time.
Aemond swallowed, he gently pushed Luke’s legs apart and felt his mouth go dry at the sight of His cunt. It was like he was being controlled by a puppeteer from above while he put his mouth between Luke’s legs, holding His thighs open with a tighter, even more bruising grip than Lucerys had on his own just a few minutes ago. Aemond was wrong, before, they had been kissing like two men thirsty, who had just been given water after not drinking for weeks, with their lips chapped and their tongues dry. Now, it was as though he were a man starved. Luke’s hands came down and tangled in Aemond’s hair so tightly he winced, but did not protest. The slight burning of his scalp made his spine buzz. In the back of his mind, Aemond wondered why Luke’s hands were cold, and His lips, but not any other part of Him. Between His thighs and His cunt against his tongue was as warm as His mouth had been, but the fingers tugging on his hand and keeping him locked in place were cold as Winter.
Aemond pushed it to the back of his head, as far back as he could push it, that didn’t matter. Not as much as the moan that tore through Luke when Aemond ran his tongue over His clit. Not as much as the pleasant, and welcome sore feeling beginning to blossom in Aemond’s jaw the more he stayed where he was, he would feel it in the morning and would loathe speaking or chewing, and he looked forward to it. It was worth it if Luke kept pushing Himself against Aemond’s mouth, with an ever-tightening grip on his hair like a vice. He could feel Luke’s legs wanting to close around his head, Aemond’s hands were the only thing stopping that from happening, and he seriously considered letting go, but he worried he would be suffocated if he did.
“Aemond—” Luke choked before His thighs tensed as well as His stomach and Aemond felt proud of himself. He sat back and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand while Luke’s legs went slack on the bed with his breathing heavy. The room was dark, mostly, save for a few lit candles. What little light those candles did cast shined on Lucerys like He had been the one to create fire. They made His skin look fantastically pearly, soft, and iridescent. Aemond was sure he looked crazed, gazing over Luke’s body like a hungry cannibal. Luke looked up at him much the same, with His pupils blown wide and His mouth agape with swollen lips.
Aemond leaned down and grabbed hold of Luke’s wet hair tightly while he kissed him. It was a sloppy thing, Aemond’s teeth caught onto Luke’s upper lip while their bottom row of teeth clanked against each other. Aemond’s leg was between both of Luke’s, and his nephew’s hands were working tirelessly to unbutton his shirt. Aemond let go of Luke’s hair only to help get his shirt off, and they only stopped kissing to get Luke’s nightshirt off and onto the ground. When their bare chests pressed to each other, Luke made a point to bite onto Aemond’s bottom lip so hard it split open, and blood flooded both of their mouths. Aemond almost pulled away, but he stopped himself, and instead bit down onto Luke’s lip, which also split open.
The taste of their blood mingling together was the sweetest thing to ever grace Aemond’s tongue, and he wanted more of it so badly he reached and took the dagger from Luke’s thin belt he’d cast to the side of the bed earlier. Luke pulled back when He realized, but didn’t move away from him. Aemond spent time studying how beautiful his porcelain skin looked with red blood spilled all over it while Luke stared at the knife. He grabbed Aemond’s wrist and slowly guided the knife to His stomach, and sliced it open, just enough so that it would bleed. He hissed when He did it, but didn’t show an ounce of regret. Aemond took two fingers and swiped the blood up, and brought it to his tongue. He was sure he could become as addicted to the taste of Lucerys’ sweet blood as Aegon was to wine.
Luke took the dagger from his hand and used it to cut a small nick in Aemond’s jaw. He leaned up and locked His lips onto it, lapping it clean and Aemond groaned, his eye fluttered shut. When Luke finally leaned back, Aemond grabbed onto His thighs again and pulled them open he looked at Luke in the eyes and forced himself to not drown in the deep brown of them. Luke smiled at him. “Neither of us owes a debt.” He said, breathless. “We are just degenerates.”
Aemond snorted at him. “Just degenerates.” He agreed and pressed his lips to his nephews once more while he pressed himself inside Lucerys. Luke’s mouth opened against his own in a moan that Aemond swallowed before it could reach the world around them. Luke’s nails dug hard into Aemond’s back, pushing hard indents into the skin that would surely bleed if they were carved in any deeper. He was holding the dagger in one hand as well, the sharp edge of the blade sliced a small cut into his back probably no more than the width of a hair.
Aemond rocked his hips back and forth with Luke’s legs wrapped around his waist. His hands were planted firmly on Luke’s hips, holding, painting, bruising. Their kiss broke, but their foreheads remained firmly pressed together. Luke’s eyes were screwed shut, and it made Aemond just a little sad. He wanted to be able to stare into His eyes. Luke managed to get His barring's enough to slide His hand with the dagger in it down and slide open Aemond’s shoulder just enough to make a few beads of blood run down his arm. Aemond was ashamed of how loud he moaned when he felt the blade slice open his skin.
He leaned down to Luke’s neck, only hiding his face there before he realized he was sucking on the skin between His neck and shoulder, and he sunk his teeth down into Luke’s flesh. Blood squeezed between his teeth and dribbled down his lips. He licked up the wound until it bled no longer.
Luke moaned, then moaned louder when Aemond sat back and pulled the boy’s leg up onto his shoulder, letting the other fall onto the bed, so he could press a thumb to His clit. Lucerys arched His back and reached up toward Aemond, trying to dig his fingers into his shoulders again, but he was too far away and instead Luke had to grip onto the bedsheets like they were a lifeline. His knuckles turned whiter than white and the dagger cut into His own hand, blood dripped onto the sheets, and little circles of red spread and grew slowly bigger where His hand gripped.
Aemond wanted badly to grab His hand and lick the blood from it, but both of his own hands were occupied with either holding onto Luke’s leg or keeping a thumb to His clit. Most people’s bodies would be flushed pink, but Luke’s wasn’t, it remained that pearly color the light from the flames bounced off so nicely. The base of Aemond’s spine was beginning to buzz and the pooling heat in his stomach had returned once more, his movements became sloppy, not as coordinated as they had been just minutes prior. He could feel Luke’s body tense around him, His stomach and His thighs.
Lucerys threw His head back with a noise from the bottom of his throat that Aemond didn’t even know He could make, and shortly after, Aemond found the heat in his belly overflow, and he fell forward into Luke, both of them sweat-bathed and sticky. Aemond was still breathing heavily when he pulled out of his nephew and they both laid on their backs, staring toward the ceiling. Aemond’s entire body was on fire and sore, his bottom lip, his jaw, and his back throbbed. Luke’s legs were trembling and the bite mark on His neck would heal ugly. Both of their chests rose and fell to the same, quick, rhythm. Luke turned to Aemond, and His eyes were no longer brown, but instead a dull, glossed-over, grey. Aemond frowned.
“ Sȳz bantis, Kepa.” He whispered. Aemond reached out to touch His cheek, and he found himself alone, in the bed, with all of his clothes on besides his boots and a splitting headache.
Aemond sat up and looked around the room. The bed sheets were with, not at all tainted with blood. Luke’s long sleep shirt was not on the ground. He brought his hand to his lip, and his jaw, and stretched his shoulders, he was not sore or scabbed. The sun was streaming through his window for the first time since his arrival, no storm. Slowly, Aemond stood up. When his feet hit the stone, he knocked something across the floor. It scraped to the other side of the room. He followed it and knelt down. It was a dagger, and it was not his own.