Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He doesn’t remember it. Maybe that’s why for five long years after the accident the wool was allowed to be pulled over his eyes, to blindfold him so completely that he was unable to see what was right in front of him. His grandfather and his scheming and his desires to run the company, the multi billion pound company that put them on the map and had them as Kings of the industry. Aegon had never wanted it, had wanted to sit back and allow it to go to his half sister who could have done a much better job than he could have but his meetings with his half sister had faded completely before he had turned six. He had never seen her children, never met them, didn’t even know their names as the Hightower side of the family was built and built for war.

He remembers that he has a problem. Hell his problem with booze and crack (occasionally) are the stuff of legend. Most people started their day with breakfast, he started his with vomiting followed by a side of vodka. Heleana had never been one to stomach it, had always left to go back to their mothers even when she had been pregnant and had locked herself in her room when their mother aware perhaps of her own struggles with an unhappy marriage had pointed out that sometimes the family required them to do things they were unhappy about.

But Aegon had been different. He had never wanted to be a father…you wouldn’t if you’d had one like his trust me. And he had never wanted to be a husband to a woman either. He was as gay as Aemond was but their father had never seen that, had never seen his own daughter having her wicked way with two of his bodyguards and then his brother while she was trapped in a relationship with an openly gay man himself. Aemond had made it clear that he was not marrying for anything or anyone other than himself and Daeron was well…Dareon.

(And when his mother found out her youngest was a private lap dancer for his nephew Joffrey and spent Saturday nights at his flat with a good dose of champagne and body glitter rather than at the library trying to become a surgeon there was going to be hell to pay)

But the point was…when it had happened…he had been drunk.

And the problem was when you lose something you didn’t realise that you wanted it quite so badly.

He had been sure he had not been driving. Aegon might be reckless, might not love Heleana or his children the bumps that they were in her stomach but he didn’t drive drunk and he didn’t want anything to happen to them. He’d had several lines in the sand that he had crossed over the years but oddly he had never driven drunk nor had he forced someone to have sex with him both things that he thought his father had inflicted on his mother more than once.

They had been out at some Hightower thing and Heleana had wanted to leave and Aegon had been three sheets to the wind before he had turned up and so he had gotten into their grandfather’s car and he had been sure that his grandfather had been in the front driving.

He had been half aware of a bright light swerving into view and then there had been nothing and when he had woken up…well…

Hel was dead.

His son was dead.

His daughter was dead.

His fault he had been told. His fault. His fault. His fault.

The thing was that he had been so, so sure that he had not been driving. So, so sure that he wouldn’t have done that. Not that anyone had listened naturally. His father had disinherited him on the spot and his mother had been barely able to look him in the eye and Aegon…

It wasn’t so much Heleana but of his children. The funny thing was he didn’t realise how much he had wanted to be a father until they had been snatched from him. Apparently his daughters body had been too broken to see but they had frogmarched him to see his son’s broken little bones, the baby curled up on his sister’s chest and he had seen tiny hands and tiny fingernails, a little foot to curve around his own and the white tuft of hair and he had realised then that he had wanted it more than he had wanted air.

Crying, screaming, hysterics…it didn’t get him much. He had done this, they were all unanimous on that and nobody had bothered to believe Aegon. After all he was the drunk of the family, the disappointment, the embarrassment. The screw up.

They didn’t invite him to the funeral, never told him where his children were buried, threw him out and that was the end of that and he had dragged himself to the nearest bottle and thrown himself in until he was unable to fund himself and then one Christmas when he had been at his lowest and his coldest he had dragged himself along to AA simply because it was warm and they had food and he didn’t have much of choice.

They say beggars can’t be choosers and the truth was that was what he was.

He had met Erryk there.

Erryk who had worked for the company until the tragic death of his brother, who had helped him in those early days as he attempted sobriety. Ten years sober himself he had not judged Aegon for the story he had eventually told, had helped him get a job and a place at sober living, had helped him get better and then finally had used his connections in the police department where he was now working to find out where his children were buried. Aegon had not been entirely sure what he would do with that information should be given it but he did know that he wanted it. For those two little souls they had been completely innocent of the Hightower side of the Targaryen shit show and he wanted to apologise to them. That their little lives had been cut short before they had even been open. That their world had ended and their eyes had never gotten to see it.

As he had painfully progressed through year one of sobriety he had found that Dearon and Aemond were the only two who would listen to his amends and Aemond he suspected through gritted teeth and Lucerys Velaryon holding his balls in his steel grip.

But carefully as he had entered year two of sobriety he had thought himself strong enough to do it.

And then he had failed.

Year three had been the same thing. By that point he was working in a local coffee shop and had the privilege of seeing one of the most stunning men he had ever seen in his life step into view. He didn’t totally know the other man’s name (well…just Jace) but his smile and the way his dark hair fell into his eyes made his heart flop a little. One of the things…the only good thing to come out of sobriety was that he was able to be himself, truly, fully himself and not the screw up drunk forced into the closet who was unable to function and who had two dead children in the ground.

He knew that Jace had a partner, knew that he was called Cragen and though he had never actually seen him (only overheard conversations) and that due to the complicated nature of his own crush on Jace he didn’t like him.

Well…that had been in the beginning. Cragen had not been mentioned for a long time and Aegon had been actively trying not to be optimistic about that considering his conversations with Jace were not what one would call long and inspiring.

Also he didn’t think the other man made Jace happy if the frown on his face was any indication to go by but then again…what Aegon knew about relationships he could fit on the back of  a postage stamp.

He had been working and not so secretly spying on Jace out of his eyeline when he saw the other man sit up suddenly as if something on his phone had caught his eyes.

Then he was gone before he could breathe.

Aegon did not see Jace for six weeks afterwards.

It stung.

He didn’t have his phone on during work but when he clocked off he saw that Aemond had called him thirty six times. His other brother had called him sixteen. Erryk eight.

Hell even Daemon had rang him. Aegon was not sure that he had even had his number anymore, though with Daemon he had learnt a long time ago that he knew everything about everyone. Well…that woman he had been seeing before he had fallen into bed with his niece had anyway.

But he ignored all of that.

Aemond was the one that made him pause though.

That in itself was odd. Aemond didn’t call him at all unless he had to preferring the aura of mystery by just turning up and expecting Aegon to deal with it. To be fair he only came by to talk about Luke, ramble about Luke, wax poetic about Luke…well…you got the picture.

“Hello?” he asked gingerly. Rebuilding their relationship they might be, brothers they might be but if Aemond had called him to talk about how he had spanked Luke raw (or Luke had spanked him) then he was going to have to put his foot down.

“Aegon where are you?”

There was a pause as he took in the edge to his brother’s voice and he paused feeling that old cold ice cub slip down his spine.

“Work…why?”

“I am coming to get you, don’t…don’t do anything until I get there will you?”

There was a tinge in Aemond’s voice before he hung up and it had him scrambling in his bag for his AA chip. He worried the edges trying to swallow down the urge that lived under his skin like a sleeping dragon. He felt sick suddenly and he didn’t know why.

He looked down at his phone to call his brother back but as his icons popped up so did the news one.

C.E.O OF KING’S LANDING OTTO HIGHTOWER ARRESTED—

He scrolled upwards immediately and began to read.

C.E.O of King’s landing Otto Hightower was arrested this afternoon as he attempted to force through a takeover of the company from Viserys Targaryen’s hold and neutralising his heir and only living daughter. Arrested on charges of fraud, racketeering reporters were also stunned to learn that he had been arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and baby smuggling. It has now become clear that Otto Hightower WAS driving the car that saw his granddaughter and great grandson to an early grave but Heleana Targaryen’s daughter a twin to her dead brother is rumoured to be alive having been put up for forced adoption by Otto Hightower—

But Aegon had stopped reading.

He let the phone drop loosely from his hands to the floor and he didn’t think in that moment that he registered what was going on. He didn’t think that he could move, didn’t think that he could breathe, didn’t think that he could communicate with the outside world whatsoever.

And that was where he was when Aemond found him.

It had taken him a day to be able to process what had happened. Even then he was so blown wide with disbelief he was unable to speak much. The urge to drink was burning underneath his veins bright and dangerous as the news set in.

His daughter was alive…

Alive.

He had not been driving the car that had killed his son and his sister. His grandfather had, he had been right…he had not murdered the only person who thought him worth something. He had not killed his son, his daughter was alive…his grandfather had sold his daughter for money.

That had, had him retching into the sink through the insanity that was his brain. Aemond had watched him with that odd expression as if he had wanted to comfort him but he did not know how. As if he had wanted to reach out to touch him but he did not know how.

Eventually he stopped and he rested his head on the sideboard sure there was nothing left in his stomach of either food, diet soda or stomach lining. He rested his head there for a second in the shitty apartment where three weeks worth of salary went on rent.

“Where is she?”

“Rhaenyra is looking”

Aegon turned to look at his brother still bent over the sink his face wet.

Aemond shrugged.

“She’s…Luke said that she was horrified by it. I mean everyone knows that the second the old coot croaks it Grandfather was going to challenge her for the throne but I doubt even she had any idea it was this bad…she…she is horrified by it. She’s buried a child too. According to Luke I mean—” he stopped speaking cheeks flushed as they always were when speaking about Luke.

“And…mo…” he couldn’t finish that sentence he really couldn’t. His mother had always despised him and loved his sister.

For Aegon the feeling had been mutual since he could walk and talk.

Aemond shrugged again.

“I don’t speak to mother” he said stiffly. “Our brother on the other hand does. Occasionally. And he said that she was genuinely stunned I don’t think she knew. And before you ask I don’t think she is that good an actor. According to our brother she seemed genuinely horrified when she found out. Besides…she would take that girl and make her into a new Heleana if she could and you know it.”

Aegon did.

He rested his head on the sideboard again and clung to his sobriety with all his might.

He had never wanted to be a father, had mourned in his soul the loss of his children, had come to terms through many, many meetings with the fact that he had killed his children, that he would never be charged with it but that it had cost him his family, he had come to terms with the knowledge that he had been driving that car and that actually he had wanted to be a father all along. That was the tragedy of the thing. He had never wanted it until he had lost it and then he had wanted it more than anything.

“I want her back” he said gritting his teeth. He turned to look at his brother.

“I want her back” he said and his voice was shaking.

Aemond nodded slowly as if he had come to this conclusion too.

“I will help you find her” he said quietly.

Aegon nodded and then he dropped his head to his hand and cried.

Aemond’s hand rested on his back as if he had to think about what the act of comfort meant to him.

Aegon’s daughter was alive he thought.

And he was getting her back.

And weather you believed in the Old Gods or the New, God help anyone if they got in his way.

Chapter Text

Aemond drove him to his home got him in the living room of his stylish apartment and then got him an Earl Grey tea. Aegon looked at it and…

“Luke is staying here then?” he said lifting the mug of tea. Aemond shot him a nasty look like he always did whenever someone dared to speak of Luke. Aegon didn’t know what to make of that relationship but he knew well enough of his brother to know that Luke was sacred to him despite the fact that Luke was the reason why he didn’t have an eye. He looked at the tea and then…

“What I wouldn’t give to have you put something stronger in this—ow!”

Aemond had just smacked the back of his head.

“You have three years sober” he said pointedly. “You are going to stay sober right now. Do not fuck it all away over this”

Aegon looked down at the mug and then.

“I don’t know what this is…did you know?”

“No” Aemond said with dignity. “I would have cut the bastard throat to scroat for our sister”

Aegon nearly choked on the tea.

“Christ you kiss our nephew with that mouth?”

Aemond shot him a look that managed to convey more violence than most nations did with an army.

“So…so what happened?” he said quietly. Aemond shrugged and then he sighed.

“I…I don’t entirely know.” He said carefully. “I know what you know and a little bit more that I am getting out of Luke who is getting it out of his mother. You know that they have been battling for control and that she finally won? First thing she did was fire him and then when mother tried to stop her—”

“Not about that” Aegon snapped. The last thing he wanted to talk about right now was his mother. Not right now anyway. He wanted to savour the moment when he hated the woman with a burning passion more than he hated anyone…except his grandfather. Right now he wanted to learn the truth about that night that had blown his entire world apart.

“Right so you know that Harwin Strong is Luke’s Dad right? And—”

“Aemond the entire world knows that. Admire our sister for making the best out of a bad situation all you like but she is not what one would call discrete”

Aemond nodded.

“Well she found out how he died”

“He died in a fire didn’t he?”

“He did but as it turns out his brother did it”

“Larys? The creepy one”

“Yeah” Aemond said with a wry smile. “The one who always hung around mother as if she held the answer to his prayers. Well as it turns out when our half sister found out about that she also found out that he was paid to do it by our grandfather. Now our silver haired bitch of a sister didn’t like that very much and you know how Daemon is spoiling for a fight most of the time so she set him on him and Larys told her that it was our grandfather driving that night. Apparently he and mother had a plan to make it so that you were going to run the company—”

Here Aegon snorts. He had known that but at the same time he had found the idea so laughable that only his mother and his grandfather had taken it seriously. He had never wanted a thing less. He had been poked and prodded into marrying his sister with a pitchfork up his ass to make that sordid little nightmare come true.

Aemond’s phone interrupted them. He looked at it scowled and then.

“Mother” he said hanging up and throwing the thing back down on the coffee table. “Damage control no doubt”

“Did she—”

“Grandfather was driving the car that night. Heleana had wanted to go home early”  Aemond said and Aegon nodded. “Turns out he wanted you sober but not at the expense of himself. When he crashed the car he moved you into the drivers seat. Larys was selling off stock, the entire idea was to burn the company down and take the best clients and set up under his own name. I think…Luke’s not too sure but he thinks that’s what his mother thinks and it doesn’t sound totally out of the realm of possibility. And he knew that drunk driving, vehicular homicide…I mean the list goes on and on and…and he was behind the fire. Larys was blackmailing him for it which is why he…”

“He sold my daughter”

Aemond shrugged again. “I don’t know if he sold her for money or if he sold her into the system” he said. “Nobody knows where she ended up.”

Aegon nods. The depths of his grandfather’s duplicity shocks him even though it shouldn’t. The old coot was always about protecting himself and his interests and his bank balance first. He had pushed his barely legal daughter into marrying a man old enough to be her grandfather and she had churned out four babies and the old bastard that was his father had never been satisfied with what he had gotten. He’d only ever had eyes for the one child by the one woman he had loved. Aegon, Aemond, Heleana and Dareon had been an afterthought really. Which would have been fine if they’d had a mother who had cared about them but in reality their mother had been obsessed with destroying their half sister who had, had the balls to marry one man, have an affair with another and then help the first come out the closet at her own revel that not only had they divorced but she had ran off with her own Uncle.

Targaryen’s. You love em or leave em.

“He sold my daughter” he said again. “He sold…Heleana’s daughter…he…she was bleeding for hours, he had to know that…he didn’t even call 9-9-9 he just…left us there. It was six hours before we were found”

“I know” Aemond said one eye flashing. “And I want to kill him”

It was said with a simplicity that only Aemond could give and a certainty that only Aemond could give.

“So…so where is she?”

“I don’t know…I feel like if he was to sell to the highest bidder—”

But Aegon had, had enough, he had turned and bolted and vomited into Aemond’s kitchen sink his whole body retching. Aemond sighed and patted him on the back as if he was still drinking. This was the first time bar a nasty bout with the flu that he had been like this without booze in him. It was true. Throwing up sober was not the same as throwing up drunk. Neither was very pleasant either.

“Thank God I had the sense to do the dishes last night” Aemond said wrinkling his nose as he turned the sink on. Aegon would have flipped him but he didn’t know what to do other than to rest his head against the marble granite and finally to start sobbing.

He had been doing so fucking good! He had…he had his sobriety, he had been working in getting back with his family, making amends, he paid the bills on time, he worked, he was sober, he had some shot at staying sober, he had buried it in the back of his mind as best he could in order to survive and so he had managed to move on as best he could and now he had a daughter out there that was what…in the system? Pushed around from pillar to post and—

Aemond patted him very awkwardly on the back.

“Look” he said ripping off some kitchen roll and passing it to him. “I know I’m not the best at this…emotional crap”

Here Aegon snorted but Aemond carried on nonetheless.

“And I know it’s a shitty situation but…but we can get her back right?”

“Can we?” he asked pushing some hair out of his eyes. “I mean what if she’s with a family and she’s happy and—”

“Did you consent to putting her up for adoption?” Aemond said sharply. “No” he said before Aegon could continue. “So it doesn’t really matter if the White Walkers adopted her. You can get her back if you invalidate the adoption. Which might sound harsh but that’s the way the world works brother. What matters is that we find her. For all we know she could be living in some den of total iniquity forced to toil beneath a brutal man with a whip—”

Aegon stared at him in disbelief.

“Can you stop putting a voice to your and Luke’s twisted fantasies please!”

Aemond shot him a poisonous look.

“I don’t even know how we get them back” Aegon said finally wiping his mouth and taking the glass of water his brother offered him. “I don’t know how to get her back and I don’t…” he shook his head.

“Do you want to?”

“Yes”

“Then that’s what we’ll do” Aemond says. “She’d be five now right? Two years living rough, three years sobriety?” Aegon nods at that and his brother nods too. “So you go and find her, at five there is still a chance that you can raise her by yourself”

“What if she has a family?”

“What if she doesn’t”

Aegon twists the kitchen roll in his hands and then takes another sip of water.

“Hel was always supposed to be the one that did the raising” he said quietly. “I wasn’t…I am not father material” he said. “Look at our own—”

“You could say looking at our parents none of us could have a solid relationship” Aemond pointed out. “But Dareon seems to be doing well and I am not doing terrible either. You my brother are many things but you are not your father, and you are not your grandfather either.”

“How can you do something like that though” Aegon said quietly. “I knew he wanted the company, I knew he didn’t love us, not really but he…he spoke that night about family loyalty and family history and then he gets plastered, gets in the car and kills his great grandson and his granddaughter and then figures the only way out is to throw his grandson under the bus…I mean…did he think you were a better bet to fight for the company?”

“Probably” Aemond says shrugging. “Fortunately fucking Nyra’s son took care of that one for him. I imagine Daeron was a last resort the doctor who—”

“Strips for Joffrey” they both say at the same time and Aemond nods.

“Exactly. Who knows what the dangerous cunt was thinking. God knows he never thought about anyone other than himself. He just didn’t want to take orders from a woman.”

“Aemond…did our mother know?”

“She says not”

“She called you”

The smirk tells Aegon that Alicent did not call Aemond.

“No she called Dareon, Dareon called me. He didn’t have a clue what was going on until she did. Apparently she was hysterical. She didn’t know what he had done and she was…I don’t know…Dareon thought she was legit but he’s always had a soft spot for her. I think maybe she was lying but…but Hel was her daughter and she was hysterical at the funeral I remember that well. I also…look I know she’s a bitch but I don’t see her selling her granddaughter for anything. She’d have kept her for herself and never let you see her”

Aegon again concludes that Aemond is right.

“So…so what do I do now?”

“My guess is that the police are going to be crawling all over them like a pack of rats. And us too. I have some feelers out…and we will get your daughter back”

Aegon nods and then Aemond’s phone goes off.

Aemond goes to see who it is.

“Oh God”

“Alicent?”

“Yeah”

“Better get it over with” Aegon says and then he slides right grits his teeth and Aemond answers the phone.

“Mother”

There is a pause and then.

“And you know that how?”

There is another long pause and…

“And you expect me to believe that you didn’t know anything when you can get me this information in six hours?”

There is another pause and…

“Aha…look Mom save the bull for our sister” and then he hung the phone up and threw it onto the sofa.

“What?”

Aemond sighed. Suddenly he looked very, very old. He turned to look at Aegon and Aegon felt that terrible sense of foreboding grip his stomach at the sight of him standing there.

Aemond ran a hand through his hair. He wore it long now and he braided some of it back but now he tugged at the ends in a way he had done when he was a child and he had, had a nightmare.

He turned to look at Aegon and Aegon felt his stomach roll again. He felt like he was going to be sick even though he knew that there was nothing left in his stomach for him to vomit back up.

“You are not going to believe this” he said finally.

“Believe what?” Aegon croaked out.

“Mom knows where she is. Apparently he tracked it.”

Aegon blinked. His hands by his side were suddenly shaking.

“Where?” he managed to get out.

Aemond looked at him and there a look in his eye that Aegon didn’t like.

“Your not going to believe this…”

Chapter Text

Jacarey’s Sundays used to involve brunch, walking his dog Vermax and his other dog Sunfyre, sleeping in with Cragan and pink gin and tonic.

All of that changed when he became a Dad. And all of that changed once more when he became a single Dad. Cragan had been the one who had wanted children. He had been the one so excited by family in the beginning. Alright Jace might have encouraged it but he had never been one to see himself holding a babe. When Cragan had come home with Jaehaera in his arms though that had been the end of that. Even Jace had been surprised with how badly he had fallen in love with the little girl. She had a big tuft of blonde hair and purple eyes that could have passed for his mother’s side of the family but seeing as with the exception of Luke they didn’t speak to that side (and Joff but who knew what the hell Joff was doing these days?) and she was a sweet little thing in a blanket that took over his entire heart inside and out. She was their daughter. He had never asked how Cragan had got her, he knew that Cragan had sighed them up to adoption agencies and whatnot a long time ago and once he had a birth certificate that had their names on it the rest of it was easy.

Except it wasn’t. Because as their daughter grew their relationship fell apart.

Maybe it was because they had never been that compatible? Jace had thought they would be together forever, Cragan had been his first real…everything really. Jace had wanted rings and then Cragan hadn’t so that had been fine, Cragan had wanted children and so they’d adopted one and then they had drifted apart even if he had hoped against hope that they would get back to themselves again until he had come home from his daughters baby swimming class to see that Cragan had gone, sighed away his parental rights and had left him with a note that said he had found someone else in the North, fallen out of love with him but that he wished him all the best.

That had been…well…hell. But now three years down the line with a five year old he adored he thought he was doing rather well. So what if his weekends were in the house all the time with his daughter or alone with a glass of red (read bottle) and the box set of Charmed? So what if he didn’t have a social life? He had his daughter and that was what mattered.

And it most certainly did not matter about that barista at his coffee shop.

Read adorable, perfect, utterly lovely barista who always knew his order at his local coffee shop.

Aegon.

Jace knew it was a popular name, half of the fucking country had names that began with A. His grandfather ran in this town a company that employed 99.9 percent of the people and everyone sucked up. Daemon had told him as much when Luke had gone to school one day and come home with three Daemon’s in his class. Even Jace’s little brother was called Aegon. His cousin was Aegon. His barista was Aegon.

And okay…he wasn’t his barista but still.

Aegon was perfection though. You would have to be blind not to notice him and Jace did. He worked quietly as if he thought each cup of coffee deserved his attention. He had blonde hair and purple eyes that seemed in much the same way his daughter did to stare deep inside his soul. He had a smile that would stretch from ear to ear and he wore sinfully tight jeans…

Jace was a single father you know? He wasn’t blind.

Sundays now were spent mostly with his daughter but he always had the morning off. Jae was often at her dance class on a Sunday with her friends and one of the older Dad’s his grandfather’s other son Addam would take her back to hers for lunch with her best friend Rhae and his wife Rhayna which mercifully gave Jace the morning and most of the afternoon off. Adore his daughter he did with all his heart but sometimes a man just needed a break and nine times out of ten that would find him in the same coffee shop with a coffee a cake and a good book where he could secretly peep at his crush who worked the same shift go around the tables and clean the cups away.

Seriously…Aegon had no business making that look sexy.

Baela had told him that he needed to get a grip and get back on the scene as she put it. And look it wasn’t like Jace hadn’t thought about it…it would be nice for someone’s hand to hold his cock other than his own from time to time and it would most certainly be nice to have a sexual encounter that lasted longer than five minutes but he also had a daughter and he knew he had to be careful. Love his mother as he did she had flipped from their father to Harwin Strong to her own Uncle in the same space of a year. Harwin had been an affair that had gone on for nearly a decade and a half but Daemon had turned up one morning and had simply not left and Leanor…well…let’s just say that his childhood had been confusing. That Hightower side of the family had not helped either no matter what Luke had said about Aemond reforming or some shit such as that. Alicent Hightower had been the one to leak to the press that his mother was a whore he was sure of it. A whore and an unfit mother she had said.

Jace may be out of that life but the truth was that for what he had heard about her sons and the fact that two didn’t speak to her and one had murdered his own sister before going on the run, one should not throw stones in glass houses.

He sighed as he entered the coffee shop.

His daughter was what was important he told himself as he looked at his phone. His mother was still trying to put out the fires that went with Otto Hightower and his child smuggling ring. Jace had walked away from the business when Luke had nearly died and Aemond had, had his breakdown which had resulted in their passionate coupling (or whatever the hell Luke wanted to call it) but he still knew enough to know that this was bad. Otto had killed his granddaughter, fitted up his grandson for the crime and then flogged one of her babies for cash or influence.

Wonderful.

Just when you thought his family couldn’t get any more dysfunctional.

He groaned and then cursed that he had done that out loud looked up and there was…

“Aegon”

Gods just looking at him made the headache go away.

Baela was right, he really did need to get back out there. Even if Aegon didn’t want to be with him he had to go and rebuild his life somehow didn’t he? Even if the sting of what Cragan had done hurt in more ways than one. He had just picked up sticks and left in the middle of the night with a note and cut him dead. Had he not had Jaehaera he was sure that he would have completely fallen apart.

And if he was being honest time had taught Jace that he deserved better. And he had too much self respect for himself to let that happen again.

Aegon looked at him though for one endless moment as if he was stunned. It was slightly unnerving if Jace was being honest. For one moment he had been sure that he had something on his face. Jaehaera was a vicious colouring in girl and she had recently discovered a love of gold sharpie and it was becoming a battle to keep that out of her hand.

“Hi” Jace said again and Aegon blinked.

“Hi” he said and then he blinked again. Aegon sounded a little winded and then he folded his plump lip beneath his teeth and then nodded and coughed a little and then managed a smile that didn’t match the eyes roving all over his face.

“Usual Jace?”

“Please. And two very large red velvet cupcakes. One in a bag please and one to eat in and throw in a Biscoff one as well”

Aegon nodded and then set the coffee machine on and…

“Three cupcakes? That bad a day huh?”

Jace smiled feeling his cheeks blush pink.

“No. I promised Jaehaera my daughter one and she’s been good all week so…were gonna have Daddy, Daughter movie night tonight”

Aegon nearly dropped the pot. He righted himself and then turned to look at him.

“Oh you…you have a daughter?” he asked slightly strangled.

Fuck…surely he had mentioned that before.

“Jaehaera, she’s five, going on fifteen if you want my opinion but—”

“Sounds like a handful”

“Oh she is but I love her so…”

“And your doing it alone so that must be hard—”

“Who told you that?”

Aegon had his back to him when he next spoke.

“You told me about your ex Jace”

“Oh”

Had he? Jace didn’t remember?

But then again when Aegon looked at him important things like time and space seemed to disappear so it was entirely possible that Jace had told him.

“Yeah well…I’m lucky” he said trying not to overly glance at Aegon’s ass. “I have the best kid there is, all I get to do is raise her”

Aegon says nothing but he turns around and passes him his coffee and then gets the cupcakes. He pauses tapping his nails on the box and then he nods to himself and grabs a sharpie as if a decision is made and he writes something down on the box lid.

Jace takes it and…

Oh.

It’s a phone number.

Oh.

Aegon bits his lip blushing which is a ridiculously attractive thing to see.

“So…I don’t drink but if you wanted to get some breakfast I do know a good place for hash browns?”

Jace opens his mouth.

“You’re asking me on a date?”

Aegon nods.

“I guess I am” he says shyly. “I…I see you in here and I…I mean…we don’t have to I was just wondering…”

A part of him, the part of him that still expects Cragan to walk through the front door of their home wants to say no, he has been burnt to close to the fire before he doesn’t want to do it again. But another part of him knows that he is nearly thirty and he doesn’t want to be alone for the rest of his life. He has a daughter and he has no sex life as Balea would tell him. Even if Aegon wants a quick tumble in the sheets it’s more than Jace has had in three years…longer really.

And…and he likes Aegon…he really, really likes him and if nothing happens then…well…he dipped his toe in the pond. Coffee is coffee at the end of the day he can get it anywhere else? Right?

“I mean” Aegon says as the light dies a little from his eyes. “You don’t have to  I mean you must be beating them back with a stick and—”

“No I want to”

Aegon shuts his mouth and nods looking ridiculously happy.

“Okay” he says. “Next Sunday I have a free shift and we can…talk a little if you want, I am due a break. I wanna hear more about this five year old going on fifteen of yours”

Jace laughs and then…

“Alright”

Aegon beams at him and he turns as Jace sends a frantic thumbs up to Balea (and to ask if she is still on for babysitting if he needs her) and goes to sit down his heart hammering in his chest, his face red and beaming as Aegon smiles at him and the taste of victory mingled in with coffee plain for all to see.

Chapter Text

“This will end badly” Aemond says to him not looking up from his book.

“Thank you for your support brother”

“I mean it. Only you would finally find the father of your stolen child and instead of doing the sensible thing like calling a lawyer, you ask him on a date”

“I know” Aegon says looking at himself in the mirror. “Does my hair look alright?”

Aemond looks at him.

“You are a fucking idiot” he says casually. “You really are a fucking idiot. And I would leave off the hairspray because if a bird flies into your hair it’s not coming out”

Aegon flashes him a long look and then.

“I don’t…I haven’t done this in a while”

“What date? You used to spend your life in an downwards position—”

“I used to be drunk” Aegon points out. “Brushing aside this is the father of my daughter Aemond I genuinely like this guy. I liked him before I knew about Jaehaera. And…and this is the first date I have done sober”

Aemond puts down his book.

“Are you okay with that?”

“Erryk and I had a chat this morning and I went to two AA meetings” Aegon nods. “I am about as ready for this as I can be but…but it’s a restaurant and what if he doesn’t like that I am sober?”

“Then fuck it, you can use it in court to get your daughter back”

Aegon looked down at his hands and…

“Do you think that’s ever really going to happen?” he asks. Aemond looks at him.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…do you really think a judge is going to vacate a five year adoption order? Tear a child away from the happiness that she has and then give her to me and the shit show that is this family? I mean, mother and grandfather aside both of whom are going to face charges there’s you sleeping with the boy who maimed you and our brother dancing around a pole for his cousin at a private party”

“I think it’s just Joff he does that for now”

“Doesn’t help”

“No but if Dareon likes kinky shit who are we to judge”

“Aemond—”

“Is this what this is all about?” Aemond asks. “You want to gauge if that side of the family are normal?”

“Well it’s not like we know them that well”

“I know…you and Jace never spoke not really. I mean…it was Luke and me in that room when it all kicked off. Jace was at Uni in the North and you were half in the bottle. I don’t think you’ve seen each other since you were five really? I don’t remember him being at the funeral that much I would have remembered”

“I mean…how bad is our half sister?”

“I never got the impression she was bad” Aemond says putting his bookmark in. “Luke adores her and I know she’s met Dareon a couple of times. I just…you know what the issue was her and Mother and the fact that Rhaenyra had a string of men as long as your elbow while married to a man who as the living definition of queer as folk”

“And the boys are Harwin Strongs right?”

“Allegedly. But yes. I think they were very much in love and then Leanor ran for the hills with his boyfriend and she married Daemon the day her divorce papers were signed and she was about three months pregnant then I think. Or that was what mother said anyway. It’s hard to say but I got the impression despite the shit show that was her personal life she lived exactly as she wanted to, she didn’t care about how she was seen by anyone and I think that was what made mother so angry with her. This reality that she could get away with whatever she wanted and always have her father’s love and support when lets face it we…did not”

Aegon snorts. No…this side of the family had never had any support from either one of their parents. It was not done at all.

“I am just going to dinner…see if he is a serial killer and if he loves my daughter and then I will figure it out…look I didn’t have a plan when I asked him he was just…he was talking about her and Sunday days where they ate cupcakes and watched TV and father daughter stuff and I was…everything was just aching and I just,…asked. I mean I know the plan has got flaws—”

He ignored Aemond’s snort and then he carried on.

“I just…I just want to see him”

“And her”

“And her”

“You know most blokes don’t bring their kid on the first date” Aemond says easily. Aegon ignores him just as easily.

“And this is going to end badly—”

“Are you going to tell Luke?”

“Please”

“Then I shall see you when I get back?”

“Stay a little late if you want, you need to get laid!” Aemond shouts afterwards and Aegon shuts the door and entertains only for a second what his life would be like if he gave into temptation and pushed his brother out of the window of his apartment down to the sidewalk below.

Jace meets him at the restaurant.

“Hi”

“Hi”

Oh God.

They sit down and order and Aegon tries to pretend that he is not shaking in his shoes.

“You want wine?”

“Eh…I don’t drink”

Jace looks at him. Aegon feels the old itch at this back and…

“I have been sober for three years so…but if you want a glass then go ahead”

Oh fuck he should have gone with coffee.

Jace looks at him and then turns to the waiter.

“Diet coke”

The waiter nods and then is gone. Aegon closes his eyes and then opens them again and tries to keep the relief of his face though he knows it must be showing.

“You didn’t have to do that” he says quietly. Jace shakes his head. “No” he says easily. “But I want to. I want you to be comfortable”

Aegon nods and then….

“Three years is impressive”

“Thanks I…it’s hard but I feel like I am getting there”

Jace nods.

“I don’t really have time to drink” he says. “Single parent and all”

“I would think that being a single parent would make you want to drink all the time”

Jace laughs and Aegon beams. This is his first sober date with someone who doesn’t have an AA chip burning in their pocket and he is pleasantly surprised with how well it is going even though there is as always an ulterior motive for this.

“No she’s not to bad”

“What did you say her name was?”

“Jaehaera which is a mouthful and a half I know but I call her Jae”

Aegon takes a sip of his coke. He is still not used to drinking it without the burn of whiskey mingled in.

“She sounds like a good kid. Or do you just bribe her with cookies and cake?”

“Nah she’s good. I mean…she’s had to be, she’s been through a lot in her life”

Starter arrive before he can ask what that means and he picks at his bread and then.

“Nothing too terrible I hope?”

“No. Just my asshole partner leaving in the middle of the night”

Jace pauses and then.

“Fuck I went and dumped that one on you huh?”

“Please” Aegon says. “I dumped three years sober on you first”

Jace laughs and Aegon tracks the long clean lines of his throat and feels like he is drowning in it.

He turns back to his pasta as main is served and then.

“You can tell me about your daughter if you want” he says and Jace smiles at him.

“I might bore you”

Aegon rolls his eyes.

“Try me”

And Jace does.

He likes him.

Fuck Jace likes him, likes him likes him.

He had told himself that this was going to be a first date and if nothing came from it then fair enough he would walk away but now he is in the middle of picking apart a desert (which he hardly ever stays for) and he knows that he is screwed.

Aegon is charming.

He’s a bit broken and damaged that much is clear but then again Jace isn’t the perfect picture of control that he makes out to be either. Cragan had left a huge hole in his heart and his life and his self worth but Aegon seems to be doing his best to put it together again. It’s easy almost…so easy to laugh and joke and talk about his daughter, about Aegon’s brothers who seem to be so insane that they should really be a part of the other side of the family that Jace doesn’t talk about not even to Luke who has always felt some kind of desire to reach to those Hightower nut jobs.

Guilt probably but then again Jace still doesn’t know what happened between Aemond and Luke more than likely just that Aemond deserved it.

He pokes at his lava cake and then.

“So I really enjoyed tonight” he says. He wants to be brave he really does but it’s not just him anymore is it? Jae was too young to fully understand the implications of what life was like when Cragen decided to up and leave and she doesn’t deserve to have someone crash into her life who might do the same thing again.

“I did too”

Jace looks at him and then…

Oh fuck it.

With this family she’s going to need therapy anyway right?

“Do you want to do it again?”

Aegon’s face splits open in a smile that looks as if it is going to split the heavens with how bright it is.

Oh God now he’s turning into his mother.

“I would love that” Aegon says beaming. “I…I should tell you I…I am…a recovering—“

“I get that” Jace says because he saw Aegon’s reaction and he knew it wasn’t a lifestyle choice to get sober but more one of necessity.

“I can’t be around it” Aegon says finally “And…and I get that can be a lot for people. I mean…I have been told I am a lot for people” he give s a little self deprecating laugh and Jace wants to find the person who told him that and throw them off a bridge into the murky waters below.

“Your not a lot of trouble for me” he says and he reaches out to take Aegon’s hand. Aegon drops his gaze to it and then looks up his expression one of surprise. Jace smiles.

“I don’t mind clearing out my fridge” he says slowly. “And If you don’t mind the ex that left in the night or the five year old that will I assure you jump up and down on you like a new puppy then I don’t see why we shouldn’t keep seeing where this is going”

Aegon looks down at him and then blushes. Jace tracks it and wonders how low that blush goes.

“I would like that” he says and Jace nods.

His phone chimes.

“Bathroom” Aegon says and Jace nods and he watches him go and then pulls out his phone.

He reads the headline and then the message from his mother. He doesn’t know why he is surprised that Otto Hightower is taking a plea. The weasel always did want to do what was best for himself. He skipped through his mother’s texts and didn’t bother to read them. He didn’t want to read what she was saying or what she was looking into he was just…done. He didn’t want the family business that she had worked so hard and fought so hard to gain, he didn’t want it, he had seen it kill his grandfather forgive him if he wanted something different.

He put his phone away and made a mental note to tell Luke to tell his mother to stop.

Aegon came out of the bathroom brushing his hair out of his eyes and Jace smiled. Those dratted butterflies were back but he didn’t care. He grinned.

Fuck the business.

He had something better to focus on right now.

Chapter Text

Jace gets home a little before midnight well and truly fucked.

Not in the good soul ending way he would like to be. But fucked over by feelings once more which would be a bad thing except for the grin on his face and the way he feels alive.

Luke is sat on the couch watching TV and sobbing a little.

“Andy’s death on Charmed?”

“Fuck you” his brother says by way of a greeting. “And yes. He and Prue were so good together!”

Jace rolls his eyes heavenwards and then kicks off his shoes locking up his house and taking the coke can his brother offers cracking it open.

“How was it?”

“Very, very good”

Luke puts the TV on pause.

“Very good like want to see him again or very good like you want to take him back to your bedroom and have him give you carpet burns?”

“Don’t offload your kinky shit on me brother” Jace says easily not rising to the bait.

Luke blushes.

It’s not that he doesn’t know Luke is gay. Luke has known he was gay before Jace did and Jace knew when he was sixteen and he had a sudden realisation that he was not watching those old boxsets of Robin Hood for Maid Marian. Luke had known before that and had come out at the tender age of ten right after he had slashed Uncle Aemond across the face for calling him gay.

That had been a lot of sobbing and crying and Uncle Daemon breaking Criston Cole’s jaw after he had called his mother a whore and Grandfather Coryls and Grandmother Rhaenys told them stories about their days fighting the good fight against the moral stigma of the AIDS crisis.

In Jace’s opinion it was more that his grandmother couldn’t stand moral purity, had wanted to cause lots of carnage and had his grandfather had been too in awe of her to stop her. But the point is that love is love and that was what they were given in spades growing up.

Hell when Jace had told his mother at the kitchen table one breakfast his Uncle reading the paper and his heart in his throat his mother had hugged him, said she was proud of him and that if she was being honest she had known for about a year. Uncle Daemon had snapped his newspaper shut had told him HIV was serious and to use a condom and that he could do better than that wolf shagger Cragan Stark.

And then Joff…well…Joff had come down one morning for breakfast and said it casually. His Uncle had put down his knife and fork and commented that it was really too early for this. His mother had ordered cake on her Tesco Whoosh app.

Suffice to say that it had been a hard pill to swallow for his mother, the proud den mother of three gay sons, to accept that Aegon his brother was straight. Even at thirteen Aegon had told her that he liked girls and she had deflated a little telling Daemon afterwards that she didn’t know what the hell to do with a girl.

They were a proud family because of it, it had been one of the reasons that they had not seen much of his grandfather. Personally Jace didn’t think his grandfather was the type to mind but the problem was that he was married to a woman who used religion as her weapon and her grandfather as her second in command. It was ironic really that she had once been his mothers greatest friend. Sad for his mother Jace thought. But since Aemond’s accident he’d had nothing to do with them. And ever since…what was his name had crashed his car with his wife and kids in the back seat he had been determined to hate them. Hate them for the pain that they had inflicted on his mother, hate them for the shame that they doled out to them in the press, the negative comments, the banning his mother from any kind of contact with her father…that…that he found when he looked at the sad gaze she gave when her Christmas and birthday presents were returned unanswered and ungiven…that was something that he could not forgive.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Luke asked softly.

“It was…it was a good date” he said quietly. “I…I think I did alright. His name is Aegon”

“We have a brother, and a cousin named Aegon” Luke said quietly.

“I know. It’s not that Aegon trust me. He doesn’t drink”

Luke snorts.

“Then not our cousin Aegon then. He was a born again alcoholic”

“This one is sober, besides Aegon is a common enough name, I had two of them in my class and Aegon is one of four in his”

Luke conceded the point.

“He…he’s really nice Luke. I feel…I feel like I did when I first met Crag—” he swallowed visibly over the words and Luke’s hand found his knee for a second. “I felt like I did then, excited for everything, like the whole world was in play and I want that to continue. I mean I spent the entire date speaking about Jae and he hung on my every word. Didn’t mind that I had a kid or an ex that was not in the picture as long as I didn’t mind that he was sober”

“Sobriety isn’t a bad thing”

“It’s not a choice for him, he was upfront with it, but he’s a recovering alcoholic, can’t be around it. Nearly melted in relief when I told him that I wouldn’t drink if he didn’t”

Luke nodded.

“That’s a good thing.” he said after a moment. “Proves he’s taken his recovery seriously.”

“True. Three years”

“That’s nothing to turn your noise up at”

“I know. I actually found it kind of hot but then I think what kind of person finds that hot?”

“Someone who hasn’t gotten laid in five years on anything other than a knackered discounted Ann Summers rabbit and a backlog of gay porn that takes five minutes—”

“LUKE!”

Luke grinned showing all his teeth. He had started doing that recently. Jace couldn’t help but think it reminded him of Uncle Aemond the last time that he had seen him, blood dripping from the whole in his eye teeth bared at his shaking brother mouthing homophobic abuse and the abuse piddled to him by his mother who had stood there denying the entire thing even though everyone but his soft in the head grandfather had known it to be true.

“Jace?”

“Hmm?”

“You went away again”

“Sorry I just…mother…texted me. It was at the end of the date but…”

“Yeah I know she messaged me. Otto Hightower is taking a plea deal with no admission of guilt”

“What does that mean?”

“Means he’ll cop to the fraud and the insider trading but not to the children. Says all of that was his daughter”

Jace is silent for a second digesting that and then…

“His own daughter?”

“Yeah”

“He is throwing his own daughter under the bus to save his own—”

“This is Otto Hightower we are taking about” Luke says mildly. “He is not known for his deep and abiding love even we knew that. He just doesn’t want to go to prison for longer.”

“Does mother think Alicent is behind it?”

“She’s not” Luke says confidently. Too confidently if you ask Jace. Maybe it shows on his face because his brother turns to him and shrugs something like a flush creeping across his cheeks.

“Come on, I don’t like her and she never liked me even before…the…incident…but she’s not going to take out one of her own children. Even Uncle Daemon who would happily spit roast her over an open fire can admit to that. And besides…why would she sell her grandchild? That granddaughter has a vote on the board as soon as she becomes old enough remember? One more vote against us isn’t it?”

Jace opens his mouth and then closes it and concedes the point.

“Yeah fair enough—I don’t—I don’t want to talk about it anymore Luke. I can’t…dead kids with Jae upstairs I don’t…” he shakes his head and then sighs.

“She’s been fine by the way”

“Please tell me you did not sit her down for a Charmed marathon?”

The pause from his brother is delicate and telling and Jace groans.

“Oh Luke…”

“Hey! She’s my only niece! I get to do the cool things that you won’t do—”

“She’s five! Can’t you just order a load of take out and do what cool uncles do with that?”

“I did. By the way I saved you some mozzarella sticks for you to warm up in the morning you ungrateful ass”

Jace swats at him and Luke grins.

“You wanna spend the night?”

Luke pauses and then.

“Maybe...if you don’t mind” 

“Nah…boyfriend not in the picture tonight”

“He’s with his brother ironically. The brother that by the way I have never met”

Jace rolls his eyes. “You like him huh?”

“Yeah” Luke says blushing and then he looks down at his hands and then back up. “Actually this might be love Jace”

Jace nods.

“Well…you better warn him” he says as his brother grins. “If he expects normal then this is the wrong family to be in”

Luke laughs and let’s Jace haul him up to bed.

As Luke is washing his face he pops his head round his daughters door and then steps into the room. Jae is on her back her blonde hair spread out around her and her stuffed dragon tucked up by her side. Jace thinks that dragon has been through hell and back and about twenty thousand washes to boot but here it is tucked up by his daughter’s side.

He bends down and brushes back some of the blonde hair and kisses her forehead smooth and uninterrupted by sleep. Her eyelids flicker. She is dreaming no doubt something to do with dragons and wolves and all the things that children dream they can do.

Jace looks at her and he thinks that he doesn’t understand. Doesn’t understand how Cregan can walk away from this, cannot understand how Otto Hightower can sell this, can sell this feeling of love and total dedication to another human being.

He doesn’t know where his cousin has been the last five years but he thinks that wherever he is he hopes he can see his daughter again. Jace doesn’t know what he would do if this was Jae.

He sighs and his phone chimes. He winces but his daughter is one of those children who could quite happily sleep through an advancing army and more than once he has not really joked that he needs to hire a brass band marching band in order to get her to crack one eye open in the morning for school.

She sleeps on as he edges out of the room.

Luke is still scrubbing his face. Seven Hells his brother has an extensive skincare routine. It’s almost laughable.

He sits on the bed and pulls off his jeans as he unlocks his phone.

It’s Aegon.

He turns at once onto his stomach grinning he knows like a teenager who has been sent a text by the cute boy he has a crush on.

I had fun tonight, real fun…can we do it again? It comes with emoji’s cute little smiley faces and Jace blushes even though he is a grown man, a father and he knows that this is ridiculous behaviour totally unbecoming.

What does he say?

He sighs and then taps his nails on his phone screen. It’s been too long since he did this and in truth he is scared shitless.

But he is a Targaryen. If his mother can sit through a press conference where Otto Hightower calls her a whore and her children bastards then he can message the boy he likes back and let the chips fall where they may.

Not like anything can come out of the woodwork and hurt him even more.

Right?

He messages back.

Me too…and absolutely!

The exclamation point might be selling it a bit strong but he doesn’t care.

Aegon sends him a little love heart back.

Fuck Jace thinks as he sits on the bed and grins.

He is in trouble…

Chapter Text

One date turns into two. Two dinner’s, more coffee than he cares to imagine and a clearing out of his emergency stash of vodka just in case Aegon comes round even though Jace doesn’t tend to invite anyone round these days. Actually he finds he doesn’t mind all that much. Aegon greets him with a smile each morning when he comes in for his morning cup as if his very presence is worth it’s own weight in gold and Jace…well…Jace is just gone…

That’s the very truth of the matter. He finds that he is just gone for this man. It’s pathetic really but it’s what it is. He has never had a man in his life make him feel the way that Aegon does, as if his very presence is worth shining gold glitter dust or whatnot. Cragen had been steady, a steady pulse of beating love…until he wasn’t. Aegon looks at him as if he is special. It takes him one long night to himself to realise that Cragen never looked at him like that. He’s always been a hopeless romantic. Not as bad as Luke who gives hopeless romantics a bad name but he has always had a streak of softness in him that makes him easy pray. Back when he was with Cragen he thought nothing off it. Now looking back through the clinical eyes of their relationship he finds that he is he was easy pray all along, it’s just a case of splitting the hairs.

The case against the other half of his family drags on. Alicent Hightower gives a press conference looking impossibly younger than she has ever looked before and says she had no idea what her father was up to. Jace watches it on his phone in the coffee shop and Aegon drops a coffee pot.

“Are you alright?”

“Hmm?” Aegon asks, his hands are shaking and Jace flips the clip off.

“Oh yeah I just…tired” Aegon says lamely. “I went to a late AA meeting the other night and it threw me a little” He manages to hide it well and Jace would ask but he’s never entirely sure if he can ask about Aegon’s sobriety.

Instead he goes with something a bit easier.

“Would you like a hug?”

The coffee shop is mostly empty, Aegon has been wiping down counters and he pauses looking at Jace as if he is shocked that Jace is even offering. That’s another thing that Jace cannot understand. He comes from a touchy feeling family. Hugs were standard where he came from. He is rapidly beginning to think Aegon is as touch starved as an abused puppy.

Aegon looks away flushing to the roots of his blonde hair and then he nods. Jace wraps him in his arms and holds him close and then.

“You know I have this thing with Jae when she has bad dreams. Kinda works if you want to try it?”

Aegon gives a small puff by his shoulder and then nods. Jace smiles back the back of his hair and then pulls back.

“Close your eyes” he whispers and he has a delicious moment where Aegon shivers as his breath ghosts over his ear but he does and Jace moves his hands to Aegon’s temples pressing down there.

“Bad dreams go away” he says feeling only a little bit foolish (there is a big difference between doing this for a five year old after all and doing this for the grown man he is arse over teakettle for). “Bad dreams go away, good dreams stay”

He does it three times and then taps Aegon on the nose and like Jae does he opens his eyes and goes crossed eyed trying to figure out where his finger is. Like when she does it, it is just as adorable if not more. Actually looking at him now there is a sudden flash of resemblance to his daughter…but no…that’s got to be a trick of the light.

Aegon smiles at him.

“Thanks” he says gently. “That makes me feel better”

Jace beams.

“Anything for my boyfriend babe” he says slinging an arm around Aegon’s shoulder and then…

Aegon stiffens and Jace pauses turning to ask him just what is wrong and then the words hit him again, what he has just said, what he has just admitted too. And what it means

SHIT.

Aegon is fucked, Aegon is totally, totally fucked. He is totally fucked.

Aemond was right.

The gravity of the situation hits him right at once like he’s in that damn car again and he felt the force of it right down into his ribs, below, under, wherever it is that makes him pause winded and wounded.

This is a bad idea. This was a bad idea.

Because now he’s gone and done it.

One date turns into two and two turns into three and hand holding and greetings in the morning and at night and flirty text messages and kisses all soft and gentle and that was…fine…Aegon had told himself and told Aemond too that he was playing the long game though he has no idea what kind of game he was playing and what the ending was going to look like but he had told himself that he knew what he was doing. And after a while he had convinced himself but now with Jace so openly calling them boyfriends and looking at him with that hopeful, soft smile, providing comfort when he doesn’t even know how badly the betrayal deepens well…that is the worst thing of all.

Jace has no idea who he is. Aegon still cannot get over that but then again the last time they met must have been when Luke popped out Aemond’s eye like a champagne cork and Aegon was pretty sure he had spent the whole of that visit passed out in bed or face down in the toilet throwing up his father’s favourite brandy in a fit of pique and teenage rebellion.

But Jace is good and Aegon has fallen for him and fallen for him hard. Which is going to be horrendous when this little charade comes out in the open. He had been actively trying not to think about it but hearing his mothers voice come out of Jace’s phone in that shitty press conference where she had tried to save her own skin had brought it home and brought it home in spades.

Eventually this was going to backfire.

And he was going to lose what he had gained. Everything that he had gained so far really.

Aegon was beginning to think that was his lot in life he really was.

Because he knows he is falling in love with this man who is giving him a chance to have a life that he thought lost to him.

And he doesn’t know what he is going to do when it ends. As all things in Aegon’s life does. In dust and ash and blood and fire.

God he is beginning to sound like Aemond as well, to add insult to injury.

Jace chokes a little and looks at him brown eyes wide.

“Sorry” he says reading the look on Aegon’s face no doubt. “Sorry…I know that…I know that we didn’t say we were labelling anything but…but we’ve been out for a while now and I thought that…” he trailed off and Aegon felt something in him break a little at the look on confusion on his face. “But it’s fine if not” Jace says shaking his head a little. “Look Aegon—”

“Boyfriend?” he says again. In his entire life sober or drunk Aegon has never been considered anyone else’s boyfriend. He is not entirely sure what that role entitles either.

God Aemond is going to be so smug about this later.

“Well…we don’t have to be” Jace says with a small self deprecating shrug. “It’s been a while Aegon I don’t…I don’t know all the labels and—”

Aegon doesn’t think, he just does.

He kisses him.

He tries to say a lot into that kiss that he fears he can never say normal and Jace after a little oof noise grins against his lips and melts into the kiss. Aegon wraps both arms around him and hauls him closer and this…this feels right. This thing here with Jace it feels right. It really does.

Of course what that means for him when the truth comes out is enough thing entirely.

Jace laughs pulling back.

“Is that okay?” he asks.

“Very” Aegon says grinning. “I just…took me by surprise.” And then a little bit of the truth. “Nobody’s…er…ever called me that before.”

“Never?”

Aegon pauses and then goes with half the truth.

“I…I haven’t been out of the closet long I mean…I always knew with my preferences as did my brother but both of us…our family…it wasn’t the best place to be in, and when I broke away I realised how bad things were and I got sober and part of that was admitting to myself everything I had been hiding and…well…I came out of the closet.” He finishes that lamely but Jace makes a noise that he doesn’t understand.

“Oh sweetheart” he says stroking back some of his hair and it threatens to send Aegon to his knees. His eyelids flutter closed against his cheek and he pauses as he takes in the feeling. He wants Jace to call him that for the rest of his life. And right now it is taking a great deal of his virtually non existent self control not to sink to his knees.

“I am sorry” Jace says quietly. “I don’t know what that’s like.”

“Your mother didn’t care you were gay?”

“Please. When I told my mother she made pancakes. She has me and two others with her first…partner…and two with her…my…her second husband, and until my second youngest brother we were all gay. I don’t think my Mom knows what to do with a straight son to tell you the truth never mind a gay one”

Aegon thinks of what little he remembers of his half sister and concludes that is probably true. Rheynera was a law unto herself and she lived her own life the way she chose and he cannot see her standing in the way of someone else doing that.

Actually to be honest he thinks if he met her now he would kind of like her. Now that his mother’s poison is slowly seeping out of his system like scotch. Detoxing that side of the family has been the best thing he has ever done even though it wasn’t something that he wanted to do in the first place.

“Your getting lost in your head again Aegon”

“Yeah” Aegon agrees with him. “I guess I am…I…I was thinking—”

“Do you want to meet my daughter?”

 Aegon staggers forwards almost.

Does he…does he want…YES! Yes he wants to meet his daughter! Aegon’s daughter, the one that was stolen from him by his grandfather, he wants to meet her so much his entire body aches with it. He wants it down to his very soul and in his very bones…

The whole point of this is how much he wants to meet his daughter…

“Eh…you…you think I should?” he manages to choke out. Jace smiles.

“I don’t see why not” he says. “I will warn you she will be ridiculously excited. She…she’s a very excited girl I…I should warn you if your attached to your eardrums she might shatter them but…Wednesday night we do chicken fajita’s its like a tradition in our house and….well…it might be a good place to introduce my boyfriend” he smiles again the tips of his ears pink.

Might be a good place to introduce my boyfriend Aegon thinks like a  lovesick fool. He has never been that before.

“I would love too” he says truthfully. Jace beams and goes to grab his coat and Aegon smiles and then pulls himself together as best he can wondering if he can get through dinner tonight with Jace and then get to an AA meeting stat. He feels like he needs his sponsor there with him too.

This thing is out of control.

He is going to meet his daughter.

And he is totally irrevocably in love with Jace.

Who doesn’t know who he is.

And who is going to hate him when he finds out.

Wonderful.

Chapter Text

“I will warn you she will be ridiculously excited. She…she’s a very excited girl I…I should warn you if your attached to your eardrums she might shatter them but…Wednesday night we do chicken fajita’s its like a tradition in our house and….well…it might be a good place to introduce my boyfriend” he smiles again the tips of his ears pink.

Might be a good place to introduce my boyfriend Aegon thinks like a  lovesick fool. He has never been that before.

“I would love too” he says truthfully. Jace beams and goes to grab his coat and Aegon smiles and then pulls himself together as best he can wondering if he can get through dinner tonight with Jace and then get to an AA meeting stat. He feels like he needs his sponsor there with him too.

This thing is out of control.

He is going to meet his daughter.

And he is totally irrevocably in love with Jace.

Who doesn’t know who he is.

And who is going to hate him when he finds out.

Wonderful.

Aegon steps out of the uber and breathes.

He feels sick.

He feels like…like he did the first time he went to an AA meeting and he realised that the only way up was from here. He feels like his skin is on fire. He’s been to three AA meetings a day in preparation for this listening and not sharing unless he has to, he’s had a phone call with his sponsor…he is clutching his chip with his fingers. He is about as prepared for this as he is ever going to be and so he breathes in and breathes out and goes up the steps to the little house and knocks on the door.

He's gone for casual, jeans and a blue polo and a jacket but Jace opens the door and Aegon feels his mouth drop open. Jace is always attractive, way more than when they were children but now he stands there with his hair brushed back from his face with a fucking headband and in a t fighting v neck and sweats his feet bare and Aegon wants to drop to his knees and tell Jace to use him however he wants to be used.

“Hey” Jace says beaming. “You came”

“I didn’t know what to bring” Aegon says holding up the tub. “So I went with cookie dough”

Jace stares flatly at him for a second and then he rolls his eyes. “Oh she is going to love you” he mutters and then he pushes open the door and Aegon steps inside feeling very out of place.

The hallway is littered with shoes and he notes that his daughter has thrown hers haphazardly in the corner. Jace sighs and bundles them away in the shoe rack.

“If I had a dollar for every time I nearly broke my neck on these things I would be filthy rich” he mutters to Aegon who laughs. He takes his jacket and hooks it onto the peg next to Jace’s grey coat and a smaller puffy jacket in purple.

“Eh do you mind shoes and socks off?” Jace asks. “Sorry I just…”

“No problem” he says passing Jace the ice cream. He gets rid of his shoes and socks and tucks them away in the shoe rack. He thinks it looks so nice, his daughters boots next to Jace’s battered ones and his old converse that have seen better days. He looks at it and resists the urge to snap a photo because…that is just wired. Instead he looks at it and sees what he could have and what he wants and he nods. Aemond continually bleats on about how free men make their own destiny (his sexual awakening came somewhere between Luke taking his eye out and Spartacus War of the Damned coming out on DVD) and how they should fight back from their families clutches and make their own way in the world and take what they want. Aegon wants this. Aemond wants Luke with a whip in his teeth.

You know looking at it from a sober perspective they really are one hell of a fucked up family.

He stands up and follows Jace into a spacious kitchen and there—

He swallows and reminds himself to not let his hands shake.

Because there is she is.

Jaehaera.

She looks up to see him standing there and Aegon…Aegon is lost.

His daughter has his looks right down to her purple eyes and mass of blonde hair. Looking at her though he can see his sister in her face, he can see Heleana’s chin and her nose. He can see her eyes rove over his face in that clever way his sister did when she was thinking something. She is sat on the counter stirring something with a child’s spoon and Jace nods his head and steps between them sticking the ice cream in the freezer before it melts like Aegon has done all over the floor.

He knows now that he would have loved this, he would have done whatever had been required of him if he’d been allowed to keep this, getting sober would have been nothing if he had Jaehaera in his life. He…he looks at her and thinks of the brother that she will never meet buried in the ground and he has to look away for a second before he loses the tight grip on his composure.

He looks back after a second and those purple eyes are still on him

“Jae…this Aegon…this is my…”

“Boyfriend” Jaehaera says and she stops stirring. Jace makes a leap for the spoon before it clatters to the floor and then she jumps down and hits the tiles in a way that has Aegon flinching and Jace hissing under his breath and then bare feet with toes painted in sparkly pink nail polish she pads to him and looks up at his face. Aegon looks down at the face of his daughter and though he knows it’s physically and mentally impossible he finds himself hoping that she somehow recognises him. He knows that it is not going to happen but he finds himself hopeful for it nonetheless.

“Jae”

“What? It’s what Uncle Luke said he was”

“Uncle Luke uses a few labels that he shouldn’t” Jace mutters blushing. Aegon wonders how much of Luke’s life with Aemond Jace actually knows and makes a mental note to never tell him. There is a reason he doesn’t eat food at the kitchen table anymore and he knows there is a stain on the wooden floor that is never going to come out and he knows why.

“Jae this is Aegon, Aegon Jaehaera”

“Hello” Jae says sticking out her hand. “You can just call me Jae. Jaehaera is a nightmare—” she says rolling her eyes. “You try spelling it on your homework”

Aegon nods.

“I hear you” he says bending down to shake her hand. “I used to get called Egg a lot because of my name”

Jace turns and looks at him for a second surprise etched on his face and Aegon has a moment of fear where he wonders weather or not he has slipped up and said something he shouldn’t but Jaehaera laughs.

“Egg” she says bouncing up and down. “Can I call you that?”

“If you like” Aegon says. “I hear from your Dad that you make the best chicken fajita’s known to man”

“Oh” she says beaming at Jace who is grinning from the fridge. “I do but he doesn’t let me sea…sea…son anymore. Not after I put the red powder in it”

“Yes” Jace says with a grin. “The red powder that nearly sent Uncle Joff to the emergency room”

From his grin Aegon takes that to mean chilli and he catches Jace’s eye.

“Well…I know there gonna be delicious” he says and Jae beams.

“Aegon brought ice cream for afterwards as well” Jace says and his daughter’s head swivels to look from one father to the other.

“What kind?” she asks Aegon and he gets the sense that this is a very important question.

“Cookie Dough” he says truthfully.

Jaehaera looks him up and down in a move she has gotten installed in her from generations upon generations of Targaryen woman. It reminds him of his half sister staring at him when she found him in the bathroom covered in his own vomit that one time.

“Alright Daddy” she says nodding to Jace. “He can stay”

Jace laughs out loud and Aegon grins and Jaehaera takes his hand and drags him to the table where he helps set up while she uses her little stool to clamber back up onto the cabinet and she keeps stirring.

Jace comes round the table and kisses him softly on the cheek.

“First hurdle down” he says and Aegon blushes.

Yes he thinks as he puts down the knives and forks.

First hurdle down.

He learns a lot over that dinner, he learns that Jae has her own mug and drinks diet coke and not the full kind, he learns that she likes English and reading and she loves dragons, she has a stuffed toy collection full of them and her Grandma Rheynera has a dragon tattooed down her back and she wants one just like it.

Aegon thinks that one must have taken place during Rheynera’s ‘Harwin Era’ but he doesn’t comment. He would remember if he was old enough to remember that because his mother wouldn’t have shut up about it. Part of him wants to be there when she realises that Dareon has a full leg and sleeve done.

But he learns that Jae likes gold over silver, that she wants her ears pierced for her next birthday, that she prefers Christmas over Halloween and that she wants a puppy if Jace can’t get her a dragon.

“Not happening” Jace says spooning some sour cream onto his wrap. “I’ve told you Jae I am not having a dog underfoot, bad enough with you”

“But I’m not underfoot” Jae says pouting. Aegon takes a sip of coke to hide his smile. “Besides…Egg could keep him and I could visit him”

“Could I now?” he asks Jace.

Jace shakes his head. “What makes you think that E—Aegon wants a dog?”

Jaehaera turns her gaze to him.

“Don’t you like puppies then? She asks her purple eyes big in her face and Aegon wonders what Aemond will do if he brings home a puppy and then winces.

“Eh…help?” he asks and Jace laughs.

Jaehaera tuckered out on ice cream goes to bed without complaint and Aegon tries not to stare to much at the baby photos when Jace comes back down. He can’t help it though.

His daughter is loved, that much is clear to see, she is loved, she is happy. Taking her away from this home will do more damage and he knows that. What that means for him and his cause and this thing with Jace, Aegon really doesn’t know.

But he knows he cannot take this girl away from this home. And he also knows that he cannot let his mother know where she is. He doesn’t know what Alicent will do if she finds out that Rheynera’s son has her grandchild but he knows it won’t be good.

“Hey” Jace says wrapping his arms around him and Aegon leans back into him. It’s time he thinks, he has to tell Jace…he has to tell him and so he soaks in the touch and the gentle kiss…

“That went well”

“She’s amazing” Aegon says truthfully.

Jace huffs his kiss under his ear enough to make him shudder.

“I know…It’s not all me…”

“Oh it is” he says and he turns around because he is a greedy bastard and he wants to kiss Jace one last time.

Jace grins and then…

“How quiet can you be?”

“Beg pardon?” Aegon asks.

Jace’s hands sneak down his back to his ass.

“How quiet can you be?”

Aegon raises an eyebrow.

“How quiet do you need?”

“She’ll sleep through dragons” Jace says and his hand comes down his front to where his cock is and Aegon gasps. He can’t…this wasn’t part of the plan but my God it feels good.

“Okay…”

“You wanna take this upstairs?”

He should say no…he really should but Jace looks at him with that bright eyed gaze riddled with desire and he can’t…he just can’t.

“Alright then…” he says grinning. “I just…it’s been a while so…”

Jace laughs full of light and Aegon hates himself.

“It’s been a very long while for me” he says and then with another kiss he leads Aegon back up to bed and Aegon goes willingly wishing that this was his life and wondering just how he has found another rod to whip himself with here in this warm house where everything seems to be golden and good.

Chapter Text

Jaehaera tuckered out on ice cream goes to bed without complaint and Aegon tries not to stare to much at the baby photos when Jace comes back down. He can’t help it though.

His daughter is loved, that much is clear to see, she is loved, she is happy. Taking her away from this home will do more damage and he knows that. What that means for him and his cause and this thing with Jace, Aegon really doesn’t know.

But he knows he cannot take this girl away from this home. And he also knows that he cannot let his mother know where she is. He doesn’t know what Alicent will do if she finds out that Rheynera’s son has her grandchild but he knows it won’t be good.

“Hey” Jace says wrapping his arms around him and Aegon leans back into him. It’s time he thinks, he has to tell Jace…he has to tell him and so he soaks in the touch and the gentle kiss…

“That went well”

“She’s amazing” Aegon says truthfully.

Jace huffs his kiss under his ear enough to make him shudder.

“I know…It’s not all me…”

“Oh it is” he says and he turns around because he is a greedy bastard and he wants to kiss Jace one last time.

Jace grins and then…

“How quiet can you be?”

“Beg pardon?” Aegon asks.

Jace’s hands sneak down his back to his ass.

“How quiet can you be?”

Aegon raises an eyebrow.

“How quiet do you need?”

“She’ll sleep through dragons” Jace says and his hand comes down his front to where his cock is and Aegon gasps. He can’t…this wasn’t part of the plan but my God it feels good.

“Okay…”

“You wanna take this upstairs?”

He should say no…he really should but Jace looks at him with that bright eyed gaze riddled with desire and he can’t…he just can’t.

“Alright then…” he says grinning. “I just…it’s been a while so…”

Jace laughs full of light and Aegon hates himself.

“It’s been a very long while for me” he says and then with another kiss he leads Aegon back up to bed and Aegon goes willingly wishing that this was his life and wondering just how he has found another rod to whip himself with here in this warm house where everything seems to be golden and good.

-

Aegon wakes up pleasantly sore and aching.

Gods above he bottomed…

Well…if there was any doubt that he was in love before it’s been eradicated now.

Aegon could count on one hand the number of times that he had bottomed for a man. Well…at least sober. Actually no he couldn’t even when drunk.

Shit…

He woke up pleasantly sore in the ass and stretched out on his belly like a fat cat in the sun and grinned into the pillow that smelt so much like Jace that it was impossible not to breathe in and then breathe out the smell.

He wanted to rut against the pillow like a dog but at the same time…well…he was sober now and with that came some degree of respectability.

He turned onto his back arm over his head and…

“Hello stranger”

He turned to see Jace stood there watching him in those low slung boxers that he was pretty sure were put on this earth to drive him to drink.

Seriously…it should be illegal to have hipbones that good.

“Hello” he says sitting up and running a hand through his hair. Jace offers him a cup of coffee and Aegon wants to marry the man. Jace knows his coffee by now and he grins as the man slips onto the bed watching him over the rim of his own cup.

“Jace”

“Aegon”

Aegon stretches out and then…

“I do hope your daughter is not outside”

Jace rolls his eyes.

“Please. She’s at dance class. Funnily enough when I have a lover that is prepared to sleep through the night and most of the day it gives me time”

Aegon laughs.

He doesn’t know what else to say to that.

“Well…I hope that means we have time now?”

“Well…Jae goes to her friends house after dance so I guess we have until one to keep ourselves occupied”

Aegon looks at the clock. To his delight it is barely after ten. He kicks the sheets back so that he is naked and on display. He raises one eyebrow at Jace who looks delighted.

“Well” he says stretching out and putting his coffee to the side. “I guess you better make yourself useful then shouldn’t you?”

Jace at least has the decency to grin before he tackled him to the bed

“Put that tongue of yours to go use”

“Pillow princess”

“Don’t pretend you don’t love it so”

Jace won’t because he does, Aegon on his back legs spread wide like a wanton whore hands in his hair while Jace nibbles at his neck like it’s a meal from the Gods…it’s the best thing ever.

In an ideal world this would be different.

But this is not an ideal world. Far from it. So he sucks it up and he makes do.

Aegon grinned.

He wouldn’t have it any other way.

Really…he wouldn’t.

-

Jace is in love.

He is totally in love.

Its ridiculous considering his relationship with Cragen.

Jacarey’s Sundays used to involve brunch, walking his dog Vermax and his other dog Sunfyre, sleeping in with Cragan and pink gin and tonic.

All of that changed when he became a Dad. And all of that changed once more when he became a single Dad. Cragan had been the one who had wanted children. He had been the one so excited by family in the beginning. Alright Jace might have encouraged it but he had never been one to see himself holding a babe. When Cragan had come home with Jaehaera in his arms though that had been the end of that. Even Jace had been surprised with how badly he had fallen in love with the little girl. She had a big tuft of blonde hair and purple eyes that could have passed for his mother’s side of the family but seeing as with the exception of Luke they didn’t speak to that side (and Joff but who knew what the hell Joff was doing these days?) and she was a sweet little thing in a blanket that took over his entire heart inside and out. She was their daughter. He had never asked how Cragan had got her, he knew that Cragan had sighed them up to adoption agencies and whatnot a long time ago and once he had a birth certificate that had their names on it the rest of it was easy.

Except it wasn’t. Because as their daughter grew their relationship fell apart.

He flips on his back and looks at Aegon and Aegon looks at him through hazy eyes.

“What?” Aegon mutters almost like he is drunk. Considering Jace has spent a ridiculous amount of time with his face burrowed somewhere near his cock it is not totally out of the realm of possibility.

Or maybe this is Jace thinking wildly beyond his means.

He stretches out and feels his back pop with delight at the movement.

“Your so not like my ex” he says before he can stop himself.

Aegon turns on his side and looks at him.

“I don’t know if that is a good thing or a bad thing” he says quietly.

Jace stretches out and sighs looking up at the ceiling and…

“It’s a very good thing”

“How so?”

“My ex wouldn’t dare go near my cock”

It’s part genuine when he says stuff like this, part truth but at the same time it is also part shock and awe.

Aegon for the most part takes it in stride.

“Well” he says flipping onto his front and scooting downwards so that his chin is inches away from his cock.

“Good thing that I am not him”

Jace thrusts an arm over his shoulder and a leg over Aegon’s shoulder. Aegon grins.

“Damn straight” is all he says.

“I hear you” he says bending down to shake her hand. “I used to get called Egg a lot because of my name”

Jace turns and looks at him for a second surprise etched on his face and Aegon has a moment of fear where he wonders weather or not he has slipped up and said something he shouldn’t but Jaehaera laughs.

“Egg” she says bouncing up and down. “Can I call you that?”

He wont think on it because to think on it means making something more of a nickname that doesn’t exist.

He had a cousin named Aegon once

Jace thinks this as Aegon curls up next to him sleeping on his chest hands still twirling around his nipple as if it holds the secret to life.

He had a cousin named Aegon. He was the one married to Heleana.

Well…they all know how that ended.

He had been half aware of a bright light swerving into view and then there had been nothing and when he had woken up…well…

Hel was dead.

His son was dead.

His daughter was dead.

His fault he had been told. His fault. His fault. His fault.

The thing was that he had been so, so sure that he had not been driving. So, so sure that he wouldn’t have done that. Not that anyone had listened naturally. His father had disinherited him on the spot and his mother had been barely able to look him in the eye and Aegon…

It wasn’t so much Heleana but of his children. The funny thing was he didn’t realise how much he had wanted to be a father until they had been snatched from him. Apparently his daughters body had been too broken to see but they had frogmarched him to see his son’s broken little bones, the baby curled up on his sister’s chest and he had seen tiny hands and tiny fingernails, a little foot to curve around his own and the white tuft of hair and he had realised then that he had wanted it more than he had wanted air.

Crying, screaming, hysterics…it didn’t get him much. He had done this, they were all unanimous on that and nobody had bothered to believe Aegon. After all he was the drunk of the family, the disappointment, the embarrassment. The screw up.

They didn’t invite him to the funeral, never told him where his children were buried, threw him out.

Jace had heard the story a hundred and one times and he held no thoughts on it.

He looked at the man sleeping against his chest and he hugs him closer, presses a kiss against dirty blonde hair and Aegon, HIS Aegon, no other Aegon throws a leg over his hip and shifts so that Jace has got a handful of plump arse. He grips it tightly and feels the tight muscles under his fingertips bunch together.

Aegon, this Aegon is not the one he remembers not the one that Cregan pushed him to forget. This Aegon is different. Aegon is a popular name, everyone seems to name at least one son after their ancestor.

He sighs and huffs as he drags Aegon closer to him. He inhales the strawberry shampoo and wonders weather or not he is running to fast, running before he could walk so to speak. He wonders if this right…if this is the right thing to do, to drag this stunning man into his shit show of a life…his shit show of a family.

He sighs and hauls Aegon closer. Aegon wraps one arm tighter around his shoulder and Jace sighs.

He is happy.

He is ridiculously happy.

He wants nothing more than to be happy forever.

And with that thought he looks at the clock and realises he has two and a half hours to go before he has to get dressed to go and pick up his daughter.

Well he thinks sliding his hands down to the large cock that is mostly soft.

It would be a shame to go and waste it.

Wouldn’t it?

Chapter Text

He looked at the man sleeping against his chest and he hugs him closer, presses a kiss against dirty blonde hair and Aegon, HIS Aegon, no other Aegon throws a leg over his hip and shifts so that Jace has got a handful of plump arse. He grips it tightly and feels the tight muscles under his fingertips bunch together.

Aegon, this Aegon is not the one he remembers not the one that Cregan pushed him to forget. This Aegon is different. Aegon is a popular name, everyone seems to name at least one son after their ancestor.

He sighs and huffs as he drags Aegon closer to him. He inhales the strawberry shampoo and wonders weather or not he is running to fast, running before he could walk so to speak. He wonders if this right…if this is the right thing to do, to drag this stunning man into his shit show of a life…his shit show of a family.

He sighs and hauls Aegon closer. Aegon wraps one arm tighter around his shoulder and Jace sighs.

He is happy.

He is ridiculously happy.

He wants nothing more than to be happy forever.

And with that thought he looks at the clock and realises he has two and a half hours to go before he has to get dressed to go and pick up his daughter.

Well he thinks sliding his hands down to the large cock that is mostly soft.

It would be a shame to go and waste it.

Wouldn’t it?

Jace Targaryen is the first to admit he has an oral fixation.

So when his boyfriend (labelled, stamped and sealed) wakes up to find him playing with his cock it doesn’t come as a surprise. This is not the first time that with a house to themselves (Jae has been spending a lot of time with friends and also Auntie Baela—and Jace is going to pay for that in a clever cunning way because Baela’s revenge will come in the form of sugar or make up or  something that he doesn’t like) and he takes great delight in taking his boyfriend apart inch by inch. It’s petty to use the things that he used to do for Cragen with Aegon but with each passing touch and kiss and caress and moan he finds himself pushing that nightmare out of his mind and focusing on this lovely dream instead.

Aegon wakes up and peers down at him thrusting an elbow under his head and he groans through heavily lidded eyes.

“Man can get used to this” he says easily. “Your so pretty like this Jace”

Jace laughs around a mouthful of Aegon’s dick and Aegon groans.

“I need you” he says finally. “I need…fuck I need you so bad Jace I just…”

“Yeah” Jace purrs (and the fucker that he is he has the audacity to purr like some kind of cat whose got the cream) and he takes a step forwards thumb brushing up against his hip.

“You need me to take care of you?” he whispers in his ear. “That what you need? You need me to take care of you darlin? Need me to get you all nice and loose and relaxed. Where’d you want me sweetheart?”

He says that last bit in Aegon’s ear licking the earlobe and then he swoops back down so he can rest his head on his hip and Aegon whimpers, honest to Gods whimpers as if Jace is just that good…just…the best, the very, very best.

Well…that’s what Aegon has been saying anyway.

Ever the good solider.

“What do you want Jace?”

“You” Jace says quietly hoping it doesn’t come out too pathetic. “Just you, anyway that you want”

Damn.

“I want you to suck me dry” Aegon says and Jace’s smile widens victorious.

The shit.

Well too can play at that game. He can see the cogs in Aegon’s brain working and he knows that he is in for a treat in the best way possible.

“And then I am going to push you against the wall and fuck you and I don’t care if you beg for it, you don’t get to cum until I tell you too. And then I want your ass….”

Jace groans. If he has an oral fixation Aegon has an ass one and it’s been most enjoyable. Relearning sex after so long on a dry spell has been almost addicting, he needs this man in his bed for the rest of his life. He had mentioned one handcuffing Aegon to the bed and then just leaving him there while he went about his life coming back and using him however he wanted.

He had meant it as a joke but Aegon had gone so hard so fast and then had flipped him over and rimmed him until Jace was sure his ass was numb and Aegon had wrung everything out of him that he could.

It had been the best thing ever and Aegon had been gleeful the next morning over his coffee when his daughter had asked why he was looking so pained sitting down.

But back to the present.

Jace grins all white teeth and swallows him down like a champ.

Aegon throws his head back and groans watching as the dark head bobs up and down.

Jace slurps him down moaning obscenely and the sound is enough to do him in, he has to grip the hair tightly watching as Jace hollows his cheeks running his tongue down the prominent vein there and he swirls his tongue around the head and then sucks it back down. Fuck…Jace has always been good at this, he was always so good at this and Aegon slides his hand down Jace’s neck until he can press it and green eyes flutter upwards.

“Your mine” Aegon says simply. “You are mine”

And then he blows his load down Jace’s throat.

Jace’s eyes flutter closed and he swallows him down and then he bobs off his cock with an obscene popping sound that echo’s over the noise of the shower.

“Fuck” Aegon  says shaking his head. “Fuck that was good. You are…fuck your amazing at this, I…” he doesn’t speak for a second and then. “I think you’re a new addiction all in itself. Think of it…I battle alcoholism and then become addicted to your magical deep throating skills”

Jace grins.

“You think they will give you a meeting for that?” he teases.

“Not without experiencing it themselves” Aegon says and he crawls over Jace’s body to lean over and snag a kiss or two or three for himself. “And they are not getting to taste this…this is mine…” he grins looking soft as if the fact that the gets to have this, gets to have nice things in general is still something that he doesn’t understand.

And then Aegon bends his mouth and worries at his neck like a dog with a chew toy.

Jace takes his fingers and angles them into his mouth.

“God you’re a slut for anything in your mouth aren’t you?” he whispers into the ear and Jace grins against his fingers and nods somehow managing to look shy and devious all at the same time.

God how did he get this lucky?

He yanks his fingers out and Aegon grins lifting his hips as easy as if it’s breathing and he spreads him out on his fingers again so he can see all the pleasure on Aegon’s face. He grazes over the little bundle of nerves that makes Aegon gasp mouth half open and looking so pretty and yet…so dumb and he grins in victory.

He wants to take a photograph of that look on his face and keep it as his screensaver. Odd questions asked by his mother be damned.

“Do not” he says taking an earlobe between his teeth and biting down. “Cum. You do not get to cum before I tell you too you understand?” Aegon moans nodding his head and Jace lines up his cock, takes his fingers out and pushes in, in one long swoop. It’s hot, intense and burning, a stretch that is borderline painful because spit is not lube no matter what you say and Jace takes stock of Aegon’s face to make sure that he is comfortable before he starts moving.

“Ready?”

Aegon looks at him.

“Just fucking move” he pants out looking every bit a wanton whore.

This time it’s Jace who sticks his arm under his head to look at him with an even gaze, it’s smug, it’s teasing and Aegon grins at him through hazed eyes when he sees it as if he knows that he is in trouble and he cannot bring himself to repent.

Jace raises an eyebrow and he rocks him back and forth cock slipping out and Aegon whines.

“Sorry sunshine what was that?”

“Please” Aegon amends immediately and then as soon as the first word is out then as if he can’t stop himself he starts babbling over and over again. “Please Jacey, please, It’s been…it’s been so, so long. I just…please fuck me, split me open, make me forget everything and anything other than you”

It has not been so long, it has been about twelve hours but Jace loves it. Loves that Aegon is so desperate for his cock that he is gagging for it. It’s powerful and it’s intoxicating and it’s addicting and he wants nothing more than to cling to it for the rest of his life.

It's a plea but it’s too close to what Jace has been feeling. He is not one hundred percent sure this is a good thing but he pushes his cock back in Aegon before his conscious can kick in and overthink and he starts thrusting.

It’s messy and he licks into the warm cavern of Aegon’s mouth as they come together and he feels the coiling in his stomach and Jace groans doing his best to keep from exploding all over them both.

Aegon keens again that high pitched wail that says he is once again on the brink of coming but he won’t…he won’t…not yet…not until he is told to and Jace smiles.

“Come for me Aegon”

And with a groan Aegon does. Jace climaxes too and it’s all washed away in a haze of happy pleasure that has them both gasping. Aegon flops on top of him holding him close and Jace runs his hands over his back before they turn over and Aegon moves off him cuddling him close. Aegon snuggles closer and—

“I never want to fucking leave this bed”

Jace laughs.

“Well…sorry to disappoint you but in an hour my daughter is coming home and you promised to make her fairy cakes”.

“Oh yeah…you know I can’t bake right?”

“Well you did offer…besides…baking with a five year old is going to be hell regardless of weather or not you make anything. Its like paint…or glitter…” he shudders. Actually he woudlnt put it past Jae to hit up Baela for glitter bath bombs and…

“Shower?”

“You go first, need to check with Baela and make sure my kid is still alive and not out on some protest for woman’s rights or something”

Aegon laughs and then kisses him soundly on the back of the neck sauntering out of the bedroom and to the bathroom not a care in the world as naked as he was when he was born. Jace watches the movement of his ass for a second and opens his phone to message Baela. It’s on seven percent charge—perks of not charging it the night before and he scrolls through emails, text messages and fires one off to his cousin before he sees an unnamed, unknown number flash up at him.

He scrolls right and puts the phone to his ear.

“Yeah”

“Hello Jace”

The voice of his ex partner, the man who left him five years ago hits him like a ton of bricks.

Cragen.

Cragen.

Cragen.

Cragen is calling him, five years of fucking radio silence and Cragen is calling him…

From a long way away the shower runs. Aegon will be there washing.

“Cragen” he chokes out.

“I…we…Jace” Cragen says finally. “We need to talk…it’s about our…your…your daughter. We…we need to talk…”

Chapter Text

“Shower?”

“You go first, need to check with Baela and make sure my kid is still alive and not out on some protest for woman’s rights or something”

Aegon laughs and then kisses him soundly on the back of the neck sauntering out of the bedroom and to the bathroom not a care in the world as naked as he was when he was born. Jace watches the movement of his ass for a second and opens his phone to message Baela. It’s on seven percent charge—perks of not charging it the night before and he scrolls through emails, text messages and fires one off to his cousin before he sees an unnamed, unknown number flash up at him.

He scrolls right and puts the phone to his ear.

“Yeah”

“Hello Jace”

The voice of his ex partner, the man who left him five years ago hits him like a ton of bricks.

Cragen.

Cragen.

Cragen.

Cragen is calling him, five years of fucking radio silence and Cragen is calling him…

From a long way away the shower runs. Aegon will be there washing.

“Cragen” he chokes out.

“I…we…Jace” Cragen says finally. “We need to talk…it’s about our…your…your daughter. We…we need to talk…”

He doesn’t know why he is doing this, he doesn’t know what he is doing this for. Maybe it’s perverse. Maybe it’s stupid but here he is sat in some random bar wondering if it’s worth day drinking while he waits for his good for nothing ex—the man who broke his heart into pieces and left him with a baby five years ago to come back and see him.

He doesn’t know what he is doing. He doesn’t know what he is doing meeting Cragen here. He hasn’t told anyone about why he is here, hasn’t told anyone, he knows what his mother would do if she got wind…Daemon would be there holding the shovel, Luke would try and call some kind of family meeting…and Baela would…well…Baela would show up with a bottle of vodka while her sister would sit there and try patiently to explain to Jace about how this was a terrible idea.

And Aegon…well…other than his daughter that is the one uncomplicated, good thing in his life and he does not want that ruined by the return of this man. Better that he does this alone, better that he does this himself and keep the carnage to a minimum.

No…better he does this alone.

That is the mantra he keeps telling himself, that is the intention he set himself. And that last bit is entirely Joffrey and his hippie I Do Yoga Five Times A Week crap.

He sighs and stretches out and contemplates does he want a drink. He came here and ordered a coke but the truth is that right now he wants a drink. He knows that it’s the reality of dating an alcoholic and he accepted that. Aegon was clear, very clear that he didn’t like the stuff, that he didn’t think that he could be around it and Jace to be fair doesn’t mind but right now he really wants a drink.

If he has to meet Cragen again then he wants a drink in his hand. Weather he is going to drink it or throw it is another story entirely.

And then the door opens and Cragen comes in.

His hair is longer Jace realises dimly from a long way away, his hair is different and he is looking around as if he is expecting something. For a second their eyes meet and Cragen sighs and then nods his hands in his pocket. He seems to be acting as if this is very awkward for him and Jace grits his teeth against the presumption. Cragen was the one who walked away after all.

“Hello” Cragen says coming over. “I didn’t think you would come”

“You said it was about Jae” he says by way of an introduction.

“You look…well…” Cragen says.

Jace has a moment to think about Aegon last night sucking his cock moaning around it like a whore as Jace had one foot on his shoulder and the other one wrapped around the headboard as he tried to banish all fear from his mind and then changes the subject at once before he does something stupid.  

Aegon who does not know he is here.

And he has to again remind himself that this is not cheating.

“I did I…do you want a drink I was thinking of ordering red—”

“I don’t drink red anymore.”

Cragen looks him up and down and then.

“Nice hickey”

Jace raises an eyebrow and tries to go for as cold as he feels.

“You don’t get to judge me on that anymore” he says truthfully and as politely as he dares. “I am no longer required to live up to your standards”

Cragen flashes him a grin and then.

“Oh God you and that damn pride…I…I didn’t come here for a fight you know.”

“Then what did you come here for”

Unbidden is his worst nightmare come true. That Joffrey  (who he shamelessly asked to babysit because yeah…that is the line in the sand that he has right now) will open the door to find court papers, that Cragen wants custody and even though he knows that he could not legitimately take Jae from him (thank you Google Law) he knows the Stark family are a powerful force to be reckoned with.

He watches Cragen as the wine is dropped in front of him and…

“I got a letter from a lawyer”

“You are not taking Jae” Jace says flatly.

Cragen looks at him a little wildly and then he rolls his eyes.

“Seven Hells I don’t want…that is not why I am here. I…I am here because…do you remember your cousin Aegon?”

“Yeah”

“Well…you remember the twins that died in that car crash he caused?”

“Yes”

“Well…the girl didn’t die”

“I know that I saw the news just like you did—”

“And Alicent Hightower’s lawyer tracked me down. Turns out your Jae and her granddaughter”

He makes a gesture with his hands and Jace stares at him.

“Your kidding”

“No” Cragen says downing his wine.

“I wish to God I was Jace but no I am not kidding. As it turns out the man sending the letters out was Aemond”

“Fuck”

“Yeah, on behalf of his brother. Aegon”

Jace stares.

“Aegon my drunk Uncle?”

“Aegon as in the man your bedding Jace”

Jace is silent for a long time and then.

“Beg pardon?”

A part of him wants to argue on the point that for reasons he doesn’t understand Cragen apparently seems to know that he is bedding someone. But the other part of him, the part of his brain that sounds alarming like his mother is screaming at him.

“I’m sorry” he says evenly “What the fuck did you just say?”

Cragen sighs.

“I did the research” he says going into his bag. “And you’re really not going to like it. Are…you sure I cant buy you a drink”

Jace looks at the stack of paperwork.

“I get my own drinks” he spits.

Cragen laughs.

There is no humour in it.

Two hours later and three glasses of red Jace is all but seeing red. He feels dirty and diseased, it’s the betrayal he thinks oddly that hurts worse than the actions and he thinks back to what caused the divide between his mother and her best friend and he thinks he actually might understand why Alicent is the way she is. Love his mother as he does she has skipped through life as if nothing has ever wronged her and usually because Dameon or his grandfather or even his own father or her first husband has covered up the consequences. Now he is staring at the depths of a betrayal so deep he doesn’t know…

It's…

Why sleep with him?

That’s the bit he can’t understand, why be a stranger? Alright Jace is a realist he knows that he might not have been in the best mood if Aegon had knocked on the door but seeing Aegon as he is, sober, lovely…he might have…he would have been alright with it?

Or is this a ploy. Is this a way of seeing his parenting up close to see if he has grounds for a custody challenge?

Oh God he feels sick.

“I should go” Cragen says finally as if he has not dropped the bomb on him. “I shouldn’t have…I wanted you to be prepared. Especially with Aemond and Luke—”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Look” Cragen says awkwardly. “I know that it’s awkward what with the whole…” he gestures to his eye. “And I won’t pretend to understand Luke but…but Aemond…I mean…Luke is too precious for Aemond.”

Jace personally agrees but seeing as he did not know until now that Luke and Aemond were a thing he does not comment.

Did Luke know?

The thought is so awful that he doesn’t know what to do with it. Aegon betraying him is one thing. Luke is quiet another.

“Why did you leave me?”

Oh Seven Hells why did he ask that?

Cragen sighs.

“We weren’t happy”

“I thought we were”

“Alright, I wasn’t happy. And it was a shit excuse perhaps but I wasn’t happy Jace. I…I handled it badly but I wasn’t happy and you paid the price but I knew I had to get out before that girl remembered me I don’t…I am not the man for children Jace. You are. And I am sorry that I didn’t say that before but…you wanted children and I did not and I kept thinking that I could force myself to change my mind and love her but I couldn’t. I am…I don’t want children, I don’t hate them, I respect them, I just don’t want any of my own”

Jace looks at him and nods.

In truth at this point Cragen is not important.

“I am with someone now”

“Good for fucking you” he snaps.

Cragen smiles.

“I…I thought you should know Jace.” He says finally. Jace nods a bit distracted and then…

“You know…you could just set Daemon on him, the way he feels about you boys, I remember when Alicent wanted that Cole twit to have Luke’s eye out, I remember the way he stood in front of your mother, raised his eyebrow and told Cole to try it, fucking legend man”

It’s worth pointing out to the average reader that Cragan and Daemon never liked each other, this is as rare of a unicorn as it’s ever going to be.

Cragen swallows his wine and then.

“Jace I didn’t come here to ruin this for you—if Aegon is your happy ever after then the two of you should be able to work through this and nobody will be more happier for you than me, but…but if he is using you to get to that daughter of yours then—”

“I know”

“Jace—”

“Crag…” he trails of because what can he say, there are years of love between them, pain, angst, heartbreak, always underpinning this moment here.

Cragen meets his eyes and his smile is twisted.

“Take care of yourself Jace”

“You too” Jace manages.

And then the once love of his life is gone.

Jace does not miss him.

He knows he will not see him again.

He goes to Luke’s place. Or what he think is Luke’s place.

Aemond in his boxers opens the door.

For a second the two of them stare at each other and then Jace laughs.

It is not a happy sound.

He pushes past Aemond and there is Luke in Aemond’s shirt scrambling upwards and…

“Where is he?”

“Where is who?” Aemond asks coldly.

“Jace-“

But he ignores his little brother.

“WHERE IS AEGON!”

There is a pause as Aemond straightens himself up to his full height.

Luke scrambles to be next to him.

“Jace—”

“YOU DON’T FUCKING SPEAK TO ME YOU LITTLE TRAITOR—”

“DON’T SPEAK TO HIM THAT WAY YOU BASTARD—” Aemond yells and it's the word, the word from his childhood, the one that Aemond in particular copied from his mother as a word to hurt him. Jace. Luke. Joff. All of them. Because even though her own father was evil incarnate Alicent Hightower still knew how to wound everyone but herself. Jace opens his mouth and he genuinely thinks he might take Aemond's other eye and then-

And then the second bedroom door opens and…

“What the fuck—”

And there is he is, Aegon in all his glory. In his jogging bottoms and naked waist up looking at him, hair brushed back off his face.

Aegon looks at him and then the look of confusion sharpens and he stares at him open mouthed.

“Jace”

“Aegon” he says and then he throws the file at Aemond who catches it the lazy slutty, brother fucking bastard with ease.

“Do you want to explain why my ex told me you might be planning to steal my daughter?”

Jace’s last coherent thought is that if it was anyone else in this situation then the look on Aegon’s face might be classed as funny.

But it’s just him.

Just him and his stupid broken heart.

Lucky him.

Or unlucky so it seems…

Chapter Text

“Where is he?”

“Where is who?” Aemond asks coldly.

“Jace-“

But he ignores his little brother.

“WHERE IS AEGON!”

There is a pause as Aemond straightens himself up to his full height.

Luke scrambles to be next to him.

“Jace—”

“YOU DON’T FUCKING SPEAK TO ME YOU LITTLE TRAITOR—”

“DON’T SPEAK TO HIM THAT WAY YOU BASTARD—” Aemond yells and it's the word, the word from his childhood, the one that Aemond in particular copied from his mother as a word to hurt him. Jace. Luke. Joff. All of them. Because even though her own father was evil incarnate Alicent Hightower still knew how to wound everyone but herself. Jace opens his mouth and he genuinely thinks he might take Aemond's other eye and then-

And then the second bedroom door opens and…

“What the fuck—”

And there is he is, Aegon in all his glory. In his jogging bottoms and naked waist up looking at him, hair brushed back off his face.

Aegon looks at him and then the look of confusion sharpens and he stares at him open mouthed.

“Jace”

“Aegon” he says and then he throws the file at Aemond who catches it the lazy slutty, brother fucking bastard with ease.

“Do you want to explain why my ex told me you might be planning to steal my daughter?”

Jace’s last coherent thought is that if it was anyone else in this situation then the look on Aegon’s face might be classed as funny.

But it’s just him.

Just him and his stupid broken heart.

Lucky him.

Or unlucky so it seems…

There is a deathly silence that seems to seep into the room and then Aegon blinks.

“Jace—”

“Don’t even think of lying” he spits. Aegon shakes his head slowly his eyes wide. Jace suddenly remembers when he was in the car with Harwin Strong that one time and he hit a pigeon. Aegon has that same look on his face that the pigeon had when he realised the car wasn’t going to stop. Jace had been six…nearly the same age as Jae…it’s funny the things that you remember when your world is falling apart at the seams.

Aegon blinks and then.

“I don’t…” he looks at Aemond and Jace wants to laugh because since when did the Aegon he knew look to Aemond for fucking support.

“You tricked me” he says not taking his eyes of Aegon’s face even as the violet ones slam back into him, “All this time you were trying to steal my daughter-“

“No” Aegon says “Not…it wasn’t like that I…”he wets his lips “Please let me explain Jace I promise you It wasn’t like that I didn’t…”

“Did you want custody?” he says. “Lie to me and say you didn’t…”

“I didn’t…Jace I just wanted to see that she was…”

“DID YOU WANT CUSTODY?”

“I…” Aegon closes his eyes and opens them again. “Originally I did but I don’t…I mean not…I just…please Jace just let me tell this story from my side?”

“YOUR SIDE?”

“Yes!” Aegon snaps. “Yes my side because my fucking side is the one point of view nobody, no-fucking-body seems to want to hear! So will you please just fucking listen to my side of the story? Please?” he scrapes a hand through his blonde hair and Jace…

Look a part of him wants to tell Aegon to fuck off, wants to be cruel and petty and vile, wants to go away and lick away the wounds that has been created but at the same time he…he…

He sits down on the couch and throws one leg over the other and stares up at Aegon.

“Oh do sit down” Aemond mutters.

“Ae—” Luke starts. “Jace do you want a drink?”

“What I want from you right now is for you not to speak” Jace snarls to his little brother. “You fucking…how you could fucking do this to me…”

“Jace I didn’t know about this!”

“He didn’t” Aemond says conversationally. “He didn’t—”

“Why are you sleeping with him?” he asks Luke though God knows why he is having this conversation. “Why are you sleeping with him? You tried to kill him and then he tried to kill you and…Luke if this is about the eye—”

“It’s not” Luke says as Aemond scoffs into the glass of water. “It’s not…we…Aemond and I talked all of that out, were good, were…were good, were…” he turns to Aemond and smiles and Aemond gets this strange soppy look on his face that looks totally out of place and takes his brother’s hand flushing to the roots of his long blonde hair as if Luke’s smile is the only thing that matters to him.

“Were good Jace…we…were good…and I didn’t know that your Aegon was…Aemond’s, Aegon, it’s the number one popular name around here for boys. We have about nine of them in our family…we…I didn’t know”

Jace scoffs, he will he is sure feel like a dick later at the way Luke’s smile drops of his face. Aemond glares as if he wants to take his glass and break it and ram the shard in his eye. Seven Hells, it’s hard to tell which one of them is more whipped than the other.

There was a pause as he turned back to Aegon. He wishes that Aegon had found a shirt.

“Well” he says as belligerent as he dares.

Aegon nods and then he pulls out of his sweats his A.A chip and he twirls it around his fingers and then he nods as if he needs to see it to gain some strength. He nods his head and then he begins to speak.

He doesn’t remember it. Maybe that’s why for five long years after the accident the wool was allowed to be pulled over his eyes, to blindfold him so completely that he was unable to see what was right in front of him. His grandfather and his scheming and his desires to run the company, the multi billion pound company that put them on the map and had them as Kings of the industry. Aegon had never wanted it, had wanted to sit back and allow it to go to his half sister who could have done a much better job than he could have but his meetings with his half sister had faded completely before he had turned six. He had never seen her children, never met them, didn’t even know their names as the Hightower side of the family was built and built for war.

He remembers that he has a problem. Hell his problem with booze and crack (occasionally) are the stuff of legend. Most people started their day with breakfast, he started his with vomiting followed by a side of vodka. Heleana had never been one to stomach it, had always left to go back to their mothers even when she had been pregnant and had locked herself in her room when their mother aware perhaps of her own struggles with an unhappy marriage had pointed out that sometimes the family required them to do things they were unhappy about.

But Aegon had been different. He had never wanted to be a father…you wouldn’t if you’d had one like his trust me. And he had never wanted to be a husband to a woman either. He was as gay as Aemond was but their father had never seen that, had never seen his own daughter having her wicked way with two of his bodyguards and then his brother while she was trapped in a relationship with an openly gay man himself. Aemond had made it clear that he was not marrying for anything or anyone other than himself and Daeron was well…Dareon.

Jace raises an eyebrow but says nothing. Aegon carries on speaking in a dull monotone as all the memories keep coming back.

He had been sure he had not been driving. Aegon might be reckless, might not love Heleana or his children the bumps that they were in her stomach but he didn’t drive drunk and he didn’t want anything to happen to them. He’d had several lines in the sand that he had crossed over the years but oddly he had never driven drunk nor had he forced someone to have sex with him both things that he thought his father had inflicted on his mother more than once.

They had been out at some Hightower thing and Heleana had wanted to leave and Aegon had been three sheets to the wind before he had turned up and so he had gotten into their grandfather’s car and he had been sure that his grandfather had been in the front driving.

He had been half aware of a bright light swerving into view and then there had been nothing and when he had woken up…well…

Hel was dead.

His son was dead.

His daughter was dead.

His fault he had been told. His fault. His fault. His fault.

The thing was that he had been so, so sure that he had not been driving.

“That…I didn’t realise what had happened, I still…until I saw the headlines I didn’t know what had happened. I thought I had done it, I got sober because I thought I had done it, I…I hadn’t…I was working through the program fully aware that my rock bottom had been my killing my sister/wife and my children and…Jace…It never occurred to me that Otto…that my mother…would allow such a cover story…” he shakes his head as if he still finds it beggars belief. To be honest so does Jace but that’s a story for another day.

C.E.O of King’s landing Otto Hightower was arrested this afternoon as he attempted to force through a takeover of the company from Viserys Targaryen’s hold and neutralising his heir and only living daughter. Arrested on charges of fraud, racketeering reporters were also stunned to learn that he had been arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving and baby smuggling. It has now become clear that Otto Hightower WAS driving the car that saw his granddaughter and great grandson to an early grave but Heleana Targaryen’s daughter a twin to her dead brother is rumoured to be alive having been put up for forced adoption by Otto Hightower—

But Aegon had stopped reading.

He let the phone drop loosely from his hands to the floor and he didn’t think in that moment that he registered what was going on. He didn’t think that he could move, didn’t think that he could breathe, didn’t think that he could communicate with the outside world whatsoever.

“I remember” Jace says finally. “I remember what it was like…look…I don’t…I am not diminishing what that  must have been like for you Aegon”

He could but Jace isn’t that cruel. He had felt like he had been having his lungs scooped out with an ice cream scoop when he had seen the pop up on his phone and he could count the number of times he’d been forced into Otto Hightower’s company on the fingers of one hand.

“I didn’t know it was you until Aemond found out and then…I mean…I remembered you” Aegon said quietly. “I remembered you even when you didn’t remember me, I remembered you when you came in for coffee I was just…I didn’t want to draw attention to myself then, I had thought…my father had been so clear that everyone hated me and I had thought that the truth. So when you came in I kept my head down and when you didn’t hurl abuse at me I realised that you didn’t remember me. And then when you kept coming in…Jace I was already in love with you before I married Heleana I never really stopped” he shrugs a little no doubt at the look on Jace’s face.

If his face is anything like how he feels he dreads to think about what is being shown.

“You…you were the first person to treat me with any kindness in that family…don’t roll your eyes Aemond” he says without even looking at his brother. “And you were…you were so nice to me and I let my mother poison  it all and…and then when I saw you I was one year sober and I couldn’t…then when I found out about Jae I planned to talk to you I just…I wanted to talk to you I didn’t have a plan, hell Aemond will tell you that, I didn’t have a plan to do anything…I just…I wanted to speak to you and…I don’t know see what was on the table if anything was on the table. I…I knew Jae would be settled I just…I didn’t want her thinking that I was a drunk who killed her mother because at the end of the day Jace, I wasn’t the drunk that killed her mother!”

And there are tears in his eyes and Jace can see it, he can see how much weight and guilt that the man has had. He can see how it’s crushed him over the years. Gods knows that out of all of them, Rheynera’s side and Alicent’s, Heleana had been the only person who had been too good for all of them. She had not cared for family alliances, she had cared for her bugs and her babies and she had wanted nothing more to do than to be left alone and at peace.

And then she had been gone.

“He is right” Aemond says casually. “He was a wreck meeting you and it wasn’t about Jae”

“This will end badly” Aemond says to him not looking up from his book.

“Thank you for your support brother”

“I mean it. Only you would finally find the father of your stolen child and instead of doing the sensible thing like calling a lawyer, you ask him on a date”

“I know” Aegon says looking at himself in the mirror. “Does my hair look alright?”

Aemond looks at him.

“You are a fucking idiot” he says casually. “You really are a fucking idiot. And I would leave off the hairspray because if a bird flies into your hair it’s not coming out”

Aegon flashes him a long look and then.

“I don’t…I haven’t done this in a while”

“What date? You used to spend your life in an downwards position—”

“I used to be drunk” Aegon points out. “Brushing aside this is the father of my daughter Aemond I genuinely like this guy. I liked him before I knew about Jaehaera. And…and this is the first date I have done sober”

“So when I started to talk about my daughter and you let me—”

“I wanted to…Jace I just wanted to see that she was loved and looked after and you…my God you…when I saw you…”

He trails off and Jace can remember only too well.

He was there after all.

He swallows and reminds himself to not let his hands shake.

Because there is she is.

Jaehaera.

She looks up to see him standing there and Aegon…Aegon is lost.

His daughter has his looks right down to her purple eyes and mass of blonde hair. Looking at her though he can see his sister in her face, he can see Heleana’s chin and her nose. He can see her eyes rove over his face in that clever way his sister did when she was thinking something. She is sat on the counter stirring something with a child’s spoon and Jace nods his head and steps between them sticking the ice cream in the freezer before it melts like Aegon has done all over the floor.

He knows now that he would have loved this, he would have done whatever had been required of him if he’d been allowed to keep this, getting sober would have been nothing if he had Jaehaera in his life. He…he looks at her and thinks of the brother that she will never meet buried in the ground and he has to look away for a second before he loses the tight grip on his composure.

He looks back after a second and those purple eyes are still on him

“Jae…this Aegon…this is my…”

“Boyfriend” Jaehaera says and she stops stirring. Jace makes a leap for the spoon before it clatters to the floor and then she jumps down and hits the tiles in a way that has Aegon flinching and Jace hissing under his breath and then bare feet with toes painted in sparkly pink nail polish she pads to him and looks up at his face. Aegon looks down at the face of his daughter and though he knows it’s physically and mentally impossible he finds himself hoping that she somehow recognises him. He knows that it is not going to happen but he finds himself hopeful for it nonetheless.

“Jae”

“What? It’s what Uncle Luke said he was”

“Uncle Luke uses a few labels that he shouldn’t” Jace mutters blushing. Aegon wonders how much of Luke’s life with Aemond Jace actually knows and makes a mental note to never tell him. There is a reason he doesn’t eat food at the kitchen table anymore and he knows there is a stain on the wooden floor that is never going to come out and he knows why.

“Jae this is Aegon, Aegon Jaehaera”

“Hello” Jae says sticking out her hand. “You can just call me Jae. Jaehaera is a nightmare—” she says rolling her eyes. “You try spelling it on your homework”

Aegon nods.

“I hear you” he says bending down to shake her hand. “I used to get called Egg a lot because of my name”

Jace turns and looks at him for a second surprise etched on his face and Aegon has a moment of fear where he wonders weather or not he has slipped up and said something he shouldn’t but Jaehaera laughs.

“Egg” she says bouncing up and down. “Can I call you that?”

“If you like” Aegon says. “I hear from your Dad that you make the best chicken fajita’s known to man”

“Oh” she says beaming at Jace who is grinning from the fridge. “I do but he doesn’t let me sea…sea…son anymore. Not after I put the red powder in it”

“Yes” Jace says with a grin. “The red powder that nearly sent Uncle Joff to the emergency room”

From his grin Aegon takes that to mean chilli and he catches Jace’s eye.

“Well…I know there gonna be delicious” he says and Jae beams.

“Aegon brought ice cream for afterwards as well” Jace says and his daughter’s head swivels to look from one father to the other.

“What kind?” she asks Aegon and he gets the sense that this is a very important question.

“Cookie Dough” he says truthfully.

Jaehaera looks him up and down in a move she has gotten installed in her from generations upon generations of Targaryen woman. It reminds him of his half sister staring at him when she found him in the bathroom covered in his own vomit that one time.

“Alright Daddy” she says nodding to Jace. “He can stay”

Jace swallows because…yeah he remembers.

He wipes his eyes on the back of his hand. He didn’t even remember when he started crying.

Aegon is crying too.

“I didn’t want to lie to you Jace I just…I didn’t know how to do this, I didn’t…I didn’t have a plan to deceive you and I was…just…I fell in love with you and—” he leans forwards and takes his hand in his own.

“I know that your mad at me but I don’t want to take Jae away from you I don’t…I just…I want to be with you and maybe I went around it the wrong way but I love you, I love you and I love her and…can we please just start again?”

Jace stares at him, a part of him wants to fall into his arms, a part of him wants to slap him.

Fuck Aegon he thinks viciously, and fuck Cragen for putting him in this situation.

He wipes his eyes on the back of his hand and stands up and buttons up his jacket. Aegon looks at him with his wide eyes and Jace can feel the tears come. He blinks them back. He is not going to let them fall here.

“I am going to go” he says quietly. “I am going to…I need a fucking…I need to not be here and I need you to not contact me until I am…until I have time to think and…” he takes a step back and then another and then another until he is back against the door.

He turns to Luke.

“Don’t fucking call me either” he says and then he is gone. He shuts the door and how he gets home he honestly doesn’t know.

He makes the decision looking at his daughter in Balea’s spare bedroom and he flips his phone open.

She picks up after two rings.

“Jace my love it’s three am so and I say this with love, you had better be on the verge of dying”

“I need to come and see you” he says. “I need…I need you”

“What’s happened?” she says and there is a yelp which means that she has yanked on Dameon’s hair to get him to wake up. Jace wipes his eyes on the back of his hand and yet the tears keep coming.

“I need you Mumma” he says and his voice is cracking. “I need to bring Jae to you and I need…I need you”

Rheynera Targaryen is silent for a second and then.

“I’ll have Syrax fired up and ready to go in ten minutes” she says and her tone is not one to be messed with. “Whatever this is my love we will fix it, I promise you”

Jace laughs. There is no humour in it.

“That’s the thing Mumma” he says thinking of Aegon’s wide eyes and the way he smiled at him in bed and the way Jace was totally, one hundred percent in love with him.

“I don’t think you can…”

Chapter Text

Daemon Targaryen was asleep.

He was having a nice dream, a nice good dream which involved not being disturbed by his step son.

But then Jace had rang and his wife had been out of bed and by association had kicked him out of and even though Daemon had tried to point out that this was more a mother and son thing and surely she didn’t need him—she had shot him such a look that he had groaned and stumbled out of bed to go and put the coffee on.

He never had to do this for his girls. Baela had only ever needed him to bail her out of jail that one time she had thrown a rock at Alicent Hightower’s car during a power protest and Dameon had taken her for coffee afterwards and his youngest…well…she was just sweetness personified. She would never be so rude as to wake him up at the crack of three thirty to come and cry on his shoulder. She would wait until a respectable time like nine before she would do that.

“Tell me what he said exactly?” he asks as his wife paces around the kitchen as if she can fly any faster and get Jace to her.

“Jace my love it’s three am so and I say this with love, you had better be on the verge of dying”

“I need to come and see you” he says. “I need…I need you”

“What’s happened?” she says and there is a yelp which means that she has yanked on Dameon’s hair to get him to wake up. Jace wipes his eyes on the back of his hand and yet the tears keep coming.

“I need you Mumma” he says and his voice is cracking. “I need to bring Jae to you and I need…I need you”

That doesn’t sound good. Daemon has to admit that doesn’t sound good.

“That’s not what worries me” she says quietly. “It’s what he said afterwards that scares me”

Daemon takes a sip of coffee and waits her out. Daemon has always been good at waiting people out and his niece is no exception. Hell he waited nearly a decade and a half to be with her again and it was well worth the blue balls.

Or so he tells himself anyway.

“I’ll have Syrax fired up and ready to go in ten minutes” she says and her tone is not one to be messed with. “Whatever this is my love we will fix it, I promise you”

Jace laughs. There is no humour in it.

“That’s the thing Mumma” he says thinking of Aegon’s wide eyes and the way he smiled at him in bed and the way Jace was totally, one hundred percent in love with him.

“I don’t think you can…”

Dameon nods.

“You think it’s Jae?”

“I don’t think it can be anything else” she says tapping her nails on the wooden table. “And Luke isn’t picking up my calls and—”

“Do you think that boy doesn’t know still that he’s with his Uncle?”

“Luke doesn’t believe in private investigators”

“Yes…that might be a bit awkward at family dinner” he said.

“I hired the investigator to follow Alicent’s sons” Rheynera hisses her defences up. “I didn’t know that it was going to lead me to one son paying to watch hers dance around a pole and the other one bedding down with the Uncle whose eye he took in that unfortunate accident”

Daemon doesn’t roll his eyes with incredible difficulty.

“I can’t believe Dareon costs that much to rent” he mutters. “Are you sure—”

“You cannot tell Alicent her son is a professional stripper no”

“Not even in lieu of an anniversary present?”

A smirk plays on his wife’s face and Daemon pulls her down into his lap.

“Whatever is happening with your boys we will fix it” he says soothingly. “I promise you my love”

“Why did I have them?”

“Don’t ask me, you were the one who romped around with that Strong man for a long time—”

“That was because you were banished from my sight”

“Aha that’s why. Nothing to do with the fact that you’re a randy—”

“Finish that fucking sentence and—”

But she is smiling and the door opens and Jace comes in with his child on his hip. The blonde girl is fast asleep and it reminds him of his own girls when they were small. It makes him oddly sentimental and he doesn’t like that.

Maybe its time to check in with them tomorrow morning. Both of them are being far too quiet at the moment.

Jace points to the stairs and Rheynera nods.

He goes up no doubt to put his child down and—

“Well that was dramatic”

“Daemon now is not the time for sarcasm.”

“Aha”

Jace comes down looking exhausted and he bits his lip.

His wife holds out her arms and he falls into them sobbing quietly into her shoulder.

Mumma’s boys all of them.

Daemon sighs and goes to grab another mug for the coffee.

He has a feeling deep in his gut that this is going to be a long night.

“Where is he?”

“Where is who?” Aemond asks coldly.

“Jace-“

But he ignores his little brother.

“WHERE IS AEGON!”

There is a pause as Aemond straightens himself up to his full height.

Luke scrambles to be next to him.

“Jace—”

“YOU DON’T FUCKING SPEAK TO ME YOU LITTLE TRAITOR—”

“DON’T SPEAK TO HIM THAT WAY YOU BASTARD—” Aemond yells and it's the word, the word from his childhood, the one that Aemond in particular copied from his mother as a word to hurt him. Jace. Luke. Joff. All of them. Because even though her own father was evil incarnate Alicent Hightower still knew how to wound everyone but herself. Jace opens his mouth and he genuinely thinks he might take Aemond's other eye and then-

And then the second bedroom door opens and…

“What the fuck—”

And there is he is, Aegon in all his glory. In his jogging bottoms and naked waist up looking at him, hair brushed back off his face.

Aegon looks at him and then the look of confusion sharpens and he stares at him open mouthed.

“Jace”

“Aegon” he says and then he throws the file at Aemond who catches it the lazy slutty, brother fucking bastard with ease.

“Do you want to explain why my ex told me you might be planning to steal my daughter?”

Jace’s last coherent thought is that if it was anyone else in this situation then the look on Aegon’s face might be classed as funny.

“Jace—”

“Don’t even think of lying” he spits. Aegon shakes his head slowly his eyes wide. Jace suddenly remembers when he was in the car with Harwin Strong that one time and he hit a pigeon. Aegon has that same look on his face that the pigeon had when he realised the car wasn’t going to stop. Jace had been six…nearly the same age as Jae…it’s funny the things that you remember when your world is falling apart at the seams.

Aegon blinks and then.

“I don’t…” he looks at Aemond and Jace wants to laugh because since when did the Aegon he knew look to Aemond for fucking support.

“You tricked me” he says not taking his eyes of Aegon’s face even as the violet ones slam back into him, “All this time you were trying to steal my daughter-“

“No” Aegon says “Not…it wasn’t like that I…”he wets his lips “Please let me explain Jace I promise you It wasn’t like that I didn’t…”

“Did you want custody?” he says. “Lie to me and say you didn’t…”

“I didn’t…Jace I just wanted to see that she was…”

“DID YOU WANT CUSTODY?”

“I…” Aegon closes his eyes and opens them again. “Originally I did but I don’t…I mean not…I just…please Jace just let me tell this story from my side?”

“YOUR SIDE?”

“Yes!” Aegon snaps. “Yes my side because my fucking side is the one point of view nobody, no-fucking-body seems to want to hear! So will you please just fucking listen to my side of the story? Please?” he scrapes a hand through his blonde hair and Jace…

Look a part of him wants to tell Aegon to fuck off, wants to be cruel and petty and vile, wants to go away and lick away the wounds that has been created but at the same time he…he…

He sits down on the couch and throws one leg over the other and stares up at Aegon.

“You…you were the first person to treat me with any kindness in that family…don’t roll your eyes Aemond” he says without even looking at his brother. “And you were…you were so nice to me and I let my mother poison  it all and…and then when I saw you I was one year sober and I couldn’t…then when I found out about Jae I planned to talk to you I just…I wanted to talk to you I didn’t have a plan, hell Aemond will tell you that, I didn’t have a plan to do anything…I just…I wanted to speak to you and…I don’t know see what was on the table if anything was on the table. I…I knew Jae would be settled I just…I didn’t want her thinking that I was a drunk who killed her mother because at the end of the day Jace, I wasn’t the drunk that killed her mother!”

“I didn’t want to lie to you Jace I just…I didn’t know how to do this, I didn’t…I didn’t have a plan to deceive you and I was…just…I fell in love with you and—” he leans forwards and takes his hand in his own.

“I know that your mad at me but I don’t want to take Jae away from you I don’t…I just…I want to be with you and maybe I went around it the wrong way but I love you, I love you and I love her and…can we please just start again?”

There is very little in this life that has ever left Dameon Targaryen shell shocked.

This has done it.

He swallows. His wife is white.

“Seven Hells” he mutters. “Why the fuck does this keep happening to us?”

Jace shoots him a look.

“I love him” he says flatly. “I love him Aegon…I…I’ve been sat thinking about it on the plane ride over. I love him Daemon”

“Course you do” Daemon says conversationally. “Your too much like your mother, you ooze love like a giant butterball”

“You’ve never complained” his wife hisses at him. Jace smirks self deprecating in his coffee cup.

“Well…if the question is not that you love the question is do you trust his story?” his wife says tapping her nails against the table again. Something about how she does them reminds Daemon of the distant beat of the drums of war.

This is what he gets for not getting enough sleep.

He chews his bottom lip for a second.

“I don’t think he’s lying” he says.

Dark eyes flicker to his.

“I…it sounds like something Otto would do. Blame the boy…he…God knows he was never going to run the company and Otto knew that. But he would have to do something terrible to get the spotlight shifted onto Aemond. So you frame him for murder…I don’t know I just…it never sat right with me that Aegon was responsible for that crash. The boy was a drunk don’t get me wrong but if you look at his record he never drove drunk. He always got rides home or he simply never went home. And I don’t see Alicent behind it either. She doesn’t have the brains for this kind of master plan and in her own bizzarro way she does love her children. And Aegon…Aegon doesn’t have the brains to make up this kind of story. He spent most of the last decade pickling them in vodka”

His wife nodded her head.

“I want to believe him, I want to believe that this was a…but what happens does…does he get custody?”

“Not legally” Daemon says sternly. “Son…no judge is ever going to end a five year adoption…even without Aegon’s record. He might get visitation but it seems like he wants that anyway. But he is not going to get custody if that is what you are asking. And…and I think from what you make it sound like he knows that too.”

“It was a stupid plan” Rheynera points out.

“Darling Alicent didn’t raise any of those boys with a lick of common sense did she?”

“Have you spoken to her?” Jace asks.

His wife shrugs looking down at her nails.

“She…is working her way through the system. She is…innocent…”

Daemon snorts into his coffee but his wife ignores him.

“She is innocent of most of it. Well…what she knows and what she did are two different things. But she is mostly innocent. She says she didn’t know about the baby and I do believe her on that she’s…she…she was destroyed at Heleana’s funeral. Nicest conversation we’ve had in months”

“What is going to happen to her?”

“She is going to resign from the company. She is going to take one cheque of me and then she is leaving the country”

“Seven Hells mother how did you manage that?”

“She has been having an affair with Cole for six years”

“Her head of security?”

“Yes”

Jace sighs.

“Well…we are not going to get anything more tonight” Daemon says looking at the clock and wincing. “Why don’t you put your head down for a bit Jace. Couple of hours sleep and we can chat again, it might do you the world of good”

Jace sighs and nods.

“Thanks for letting me come here” he says to his mother. Rheynera smiles and takes her son’s hand in her own.

“You are always welcome to come here” she says and Dameon nods.

“Just next time son pick a fucking reasonable hour!”

“Daemon!”

But Jace is already laughing.

Dameon supposes that is a start.

Chapter Text

Dragonstone is lovely. It really is.  

It always has been. The breeze and the sunlight and the waves crashing against the sand. His mother spends time with her granddaughter forgoing all company business. Dameon keeps a phone on him at all times and a gun as if he is expecting Otto Hightower to come swooping down and shoot at them but he hides the gun in his wife’s beach bag when he catches him looking and Jace doesn’t comment. It doesn’t suit his Uncle he supposes but he looks at his mother and her granddaughter making sandcastles and skipping in the water and he thinks that this normality is all that he ever wanted.

His childhood for lack of a better word, was not.

He walks around the castle taking in the views and he tries to think. Dameon and his Mum give him the time to think by distracting his daughter and he turns his phone off and walks around and tries to think very hard about what he is going to do next. Jace is a realist he cannot hide here for the rest of his life no matter how much he wants to.

“I don’t think he’s lying” Daemon had said.

This was Daemon, Daemon who would like nothing more than to dance around all Hightowers with and see them burn to a crisp on the pyre.

“I…it sounds like something Otto would do. Blame the boy…he…God knows he was never going to run the company and Otto knew that. But he would have to do something terrible to get the spotlight shifted onto Aemond. So you frame him for murder…I don’t know I just…it never sat right with me that Aegon was responsible for that crash. The boy was a drunk don’t get me wrong but if you look at his record he never drove drunk. He always got rides home or he simply never went home. And I don’t see Alicent behind it either. She doesn’t have the brains for this kind of master plan and in her own bizzarro way she does love her children. And Aegon…Aegon doesn’t have the brains to make up this kind of story. He spent most of the last decade pickling them in vodka”

Aegon had said pretty much the same thing he knows.

He doesn’t think…the more he thinks about it the more he can kind of see it from Aegon’s perspective. Did he go around it the wrong way, yes…but to be fair Jace is a realist and he knows what his reaction would have been if he’d have opened the door and got this shit dumped on it, he knows what his reaction would have been if he’d gotten a letter telling him and he knows what he would have done.

And…and he can see why Aegon wanted to check…he supposes if their roles had been reversed he would have wanted to check as well. That his daughter was loved and respected and taken care off, that his daughter was not close to being buried alongside her brother…

Fuck…

Jae has a brother.

A twin brother.

Seven Hells how is he supposed to deal with that?

He sighs and drags his fingers along the stone of the walkway.

“I want to believe him, I want to believe that this was a…but what happens does…does he get custody?”

“Not legally” Daemon says sternly. “Son…no judge is ever going to end a five year adoption…even without Aegon’s record. He might get visitation but it seems like he wants that anyway. But he is not going to get custody if that is what you are asking. And…and I think from what you make it sound like he knows that too.”

“It was a stupid plan” Rheynera points out.

“Darling Alicent didn’t raise any of those boys with a lick of common sense did she?”

He huffs with laugher and then.

Well…he supposes that is true.

He doesn’t want to tackle the mess that is her twin brother right now. The son that he might have ended up having or not having. He thinks even if it is selfish that is one problem that can wait until his daughter is older. When he can sit down and tell her everything…or not tell her depending. He is not going to tell his little five year old girl that she is adopted or that she has a dead twin brother or that her mother was cut open like a pig and gutted all for one man’s ambitions.

No…if Aegon wants to tell her that then he will have to go through Jace to do so.

Okay…first decision made.

Now for the next one.

That’s day one by the way….it works out better that way. One decision a day. Otherwise he is pretty sure that he is going to lose his marbles even more than his ancestor who had seven wives and went so mad he tried to burn down King’s Landing because he didn’t like the weather.

Or…something like that anyway.

He calls Luke on the third day.

“Hello” he says evenly.

“Hello” his brother says back just as evenly.

There is a noise in the background and—

“Are we alone?”

“Aegon isn’t here if that’s what you mean he’s…at a meeting”

Jace pauses.

“Is he okay?” he asks.

“Do you mean it?” Luke asks critically.

“I don’t want him to fall off the wagon” Jace points out. “I…is he alright?”

“He’s…been going to a lot of meetings” Luke says quietly. “Aemond took him to this one he’s…he’s not been…well…it’s not like he’s fallen off the wagon but he asked for help and Aemond gave it to him. He doesn’t really come out of his room. And he keeps playing Lana Del Rey to the point where even I might commit bodily harm if I hear Young and Beautiful one more time. For lack of a better word brother he is pining”

Jace sighs.

“Fuck”

“Yeah well…are we…are we talking about this?”

“I…can you…can you tell him that I don’t want him to fall of the wagon, and that…that I am working through it all in my head”

“Okay—”

“I don’t know when I am going to be home Luke”

“Okay”

“Mom knows about you and Aemond”

His brother yelps like a startled cat.

“Oh shit did she find that video?”

“What video?”

There is a pause and then…

“Nothing” Luke says too quickly. Jace pulls the phone away stares at it, quickly calculates in his head and then decides that he really doesn’t want to know.

“Is that where you are? With Mom and Uncle Daemon?”

“Yes”

“How is it?”

“It’s Dragonstone Luke how do you think it is?”

“Still the same?”

“Yeah…I…”

“I love him Jace. I know I should have told you, but I love him, I always have and by some miracle he loves me too”

“I don’t think it’s a miracle—”

“I took his eye”

“He bullied you mercilessly”

“Because that was all that they were taught to do!” Luke says passionately. “Look” he says after a pause. “I know it’s very easy for us to judge them but…they didn’t have a family like we did. That side of the family…our grandfather wanted them but didn’t want them, treated Alicent like dirt and we both know it, used her like a brood mare and then ignored her most of the time and Mum…well…even Mum admits she wasn’t her best when she was a teenager. But they don’t know the love that we had, I talk sometimes when I’m cooking about what life was like in Dragonstone and they both look at me as if I speaking a different language. Aegon and Aemond are hard wired to do things the complicated way because it’s all they’ve ever known. They…they are just so love starved Jace…I…and look by my own admission I am a huge butterball that oozes love but…but what Aegon feels for you is real. You haven’t seen the man the last couple of days, I have. And what Aemond and I have is real. If I asked him to gouge his other eye out I think he would”

“You do know that’s not a sign of a healthy relationship right?”

Luke rolls his eyes. Jace can hear him down the phone.

“Will you just…will you tell him that I am alright and that Jae is alright and I don’t want him to fall off the wagon?”

“I will but…you can always tell him yourself. I think just one text message from you will do the world of good for him”

“Luke…no”

Luke sighs.

“Fine” he says flatly. “And…look I didn’t know about what was going on, I knew that Aegon was Jae’s…I knew that but I didn’t know about the custody bit even though he isn’t going through with it, I…I hope you know I hauled Aemond over the coals for that little secret”

He nods down the phone as if to sell the point. Jace thinks that Aemond the randy little shit probably liked that and—

“What did you do?”

“Kicked him out of bed for two days”

“Two days?”

“Well…Aegon begged me to take him back after the second one, said he couldn’t deal with Aemond whimpering outside of my door like a crying puppy on top of everything else that he had to deal with”

Jace laughs.

“Yeah sounds like him” he says and he thinks that this is the first time that he’s though of Aegon and his whip sharp sarcasm with something other than fear or confusion or anger.

Luke sighs and…

“Oh I think their back—”

“I have to go. Love you Luke”

Luke sighs.

“Love you too” he says and then he hangs up the phone. Jace drops his head to his hands and—

He thinks about what his brother has said as he looks out into the waves and…

The worst thing Cragen ever did was take out his self esteem. Jace never thought he was the most attractive man on the planet but he did think that he was quite good looking. When Cragen left him it sent him spiralling. Aegon…Aegon fixed that, Aegon had a way of looking at him as if he was gold.

“We weren’t happy”

“I thought we were”

“Alright, I wasn’t happy. And it was a shit excuse perhaps but I wasn’t happy Jace. I…I handled it badly but I wasn’t happy and you paid the price but I knew I had to get out before that girl remembered me I don’t…I am not the man for children Jace. You are. And I am sorry that I didn’t say that before but…you wanted children and I did not and I kept thinking that I could force myself to change my mind and love her but I couldn’t. I am…I don’t want children, I don’t hate them, I respect them, I just don’t want any of my own”

“Jace I didn’t come here to ruin this for you—if Aegon is your happy ever after then the two of you should be able to work through this and nobody will be more happier for you than me, but…but if he is using you to get to that daughter of yours then—”

Jace sighs replaying that last bit again.

If Aegon is your happy ever after then the two of you should be able to work through this.

If Aegon is your happy ever after then the two of you should be able to work through this.

There is no If for him he realises.

Aegon is his happy ever after.

He’s never felt like this before…

He…

It’s terrifying. To take a leap like this on trust after the last time but he…he can’t…he can’t help it.

It’s time to be brave.

He finds Daemon stood looking out over the waves.

“Can you and Mum keep Jae for another few days?”

Daemon turns to look at him.

“Are you staying or going?”

“Going”

“To file a restraining order or to get your dick sucked?” Daemon asks in that crude and clinical way of his that is so beautiful it has made grown men weep and woman applaud.

Well…it got his Aunt Alicent to crack a smile and that was saying something.

“I am going to get Aegon”

His Uncle looks him up and down.

“He’s your Rheynera” he says simply.

“What?”

“I remember you when you were kids” he says and then he reaches out and he passes him a photo. “I remember you when you were kids and…well…I’m not surprised. How long do you think you will be?”

Jace calculates.

“A day maybe?”

“Aha. Well…we will tell Jae that you are going to get her a present from the mainland. And no…Aegon does not count.”

Jace rolls his eyes and goes to see his daughter as Daemon fires up Craxes who is faster than Syrax.

You know a man is privileged when he and his wife have arguments about whose private mode of transport is faster don’t you?

Anyhow.

He finds he is smiling.

Decision made he now knows what he has to do.

And he is going to get the happy ending he damn well deserves.

Chapter Text

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

Aegon looks up at his ceiling and repeats the words to himself it’s a pledge, a mantra and it keeps him going and in moments like this he clings to it because if he doesn’t have this then he has the vodka bottle and more than he wants to admit he finds that he has been thinking of the vodka bottle more.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

Jace.

Seven hells the look on his face…

He sighs as there is a knock on the door of his bedroom.

It’s Aemond and he looks him up and down.

“Luke and I are going out?”

“Alright” Aegon says evenly.

“Are you going to be alright on your own?”

“I am not going to slit my wrists brother”

“Are you going to drink?” Aemond asks flatly. Aegon looks at him and—

“No”

“Is your sponsor—”

“I know what to do if I have a slip or feel like I am going to have a slip” Aegon says quietly. “I know what I have to do. I did not claw my way to five years of sobriety to lose it now brother”

He tells himself this anyway, he has to tell himself this, has to keep telling himself that this is the right way to go otherwise he is going to lose it.

Aemond is silent and then—

“Tell me again?”

“Aegon—”

“Tell me again” he says firmly. “Please”

Aemond is silent and then.

“He told Luke that he wanted you to stay on the wagon, that he wasn’t mad and that he still needed time to think, but he wanted you to stay on the wagon. So you have to stay on the wagon for him”

Aegon nods. He wonders if he is replacing one addiction with the other.

Aemond sighs and then he steps fully into the room and shuts the door.

 “Luke heard from Jace about…Mot…Alic…her” he says finally. Aegon pauses in twirling the chip around and then finally sits up. His back and his hips ache at the movement but he blinks at his brother who is watching him as if he doesn’t want to fully open the can of worms that is already slithering on his floor.

“Oh?”

“Our half sister and her had a little reckoning apparently and—” Aemond gives a sigh and then words pour out “She is innocent of most of it. Well…what she knows and what she did are two different things. But she is mostly innocent. She says she didn’t know about Jae…I…I think she might be right there Aegon, you didn’t see her at the…she’s…she…she was destroyed at Heleana’s funeral.”

Aegon doesn’t know what to say to that. His thoughts and feelings about his mother are very different to Aemond. Aemond though he would smack Luke around than admit it still hopes for that little bit of love that their mother never gave him and he…well…Aegon knows that one is supposed to be kind and considerate to his mother and indeed from the outside looking in he supposes that her life has been one giant pile of shit after another but…

But he wants to set her on fire and dance around her as she screams for mercy and quite frankly it is taking him a great deal of energy not to drink so he doesn’t have time for that right now.

“What is going to happen to her?” he asks dully

“She is going to resign from the company. She is going to take one cheque of Rheynera and then she is going to leave the country”

Aegon pauses and then.

“How the hell did our half sister manage that?”

Aemond shrugs.

“I don’t know. Cole is going with her”

Aegon laughs. Cole would follow his mother to the ends of the universe. He’s the one thing that she has had. It would be sweet if she hadn’t have made their half sister’s life hell for doing the exact same thing with Harwin Strong.

“Wow”

“Aegon—”

“You go and have fun” he says smiling. “I think I might…do you have anything shitty on the TV I can watch?”

Aemond scowls.

“Delete my Teen Wolf and I will end you” he says with no shame whatsoever.

“Please…you and Luke live vicariously through Derek and Stiles”

“Well they should be together”

Aegon agrees. But then again without narrow minded writers what would the poor fanfiction authors do in their spare time?

“Have fun” he says and Aemond scowls and then goes. He’s wearing his tight blue jeans tonight…Bloody hell and they say Aegon was a slut.

He stretches and goes and orders some Thai and loads up an episode. Everything tastes like carboard now but he supposes that he needs to keep his mind busy.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

Yeah.

That.

He is halfway through debating is he depressed enough for a whole double stuffed oreo cheesecake Krispy Kreme pack when the doorbell rings. He answers it without caring and—

Jace is there.

For a second Aegon thinks he might be having a stroke.

Because Jace is there.

And Aegon has not really put a brush through his hair in three days.

“Hello” Jace says evenly. He looks windswept cheeks pink and eyes bright and—

“You’re at Dragonstone” Aegon says like an idiot

“I was at Dragonstone” Jace corrects him still smiling. “Now I am here I…can I come in?”

Aegon nods.

As if there was any other answer to that question.

Jace takes off his jacket and puts it over the couch as Aegon locks the door behind them.

“Luke and Aemond are out—”

“Yeah I saw them leave, they didn’t see me…those jeans are a bit tight aren’t they?”

Aegon smiles and…

“I am sober” he says just in case Jace was here for that. “He holds up the AA Chip”

“Worried this so much it’s almost smooth but…I am sober” he repeats.

“That’s good…I…I am really glad and I…”

“Jace—”

“Aegon—”

They both stop and then Jace sighs.

“Jae is with my Mum and Dameon, fair warning she might come back loaded up like a sarcasm drug and she will probably like coffee and think that it’s okay to spend a hundred dollars on serum—”

“I knew your mother didn’t have skin that smooth—”

“Nah you see the labels Daemon has in the shower. He spends more on haircare than Aemond does”

Aegon spares a moment to think about Aemond’s hair care routine and grins unrepentant.

“Wow” he says and Jace laughs. Aegon feels it warm through his soul like good brandy used to.

“I did some thinking” Jace says finally. “And…that’s why I’m here”

And just like that the good mood is over.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

Aegon clings to it because he is about to enter his own agony right now and he needs to cling to this thing that has kept him going for five years as he is dealt another body blow and—

“Daemon gave me this” Jace says over the panic in his brain. “I…I’ve been staring at it the entire time I came over and—”

He holds out the photograph and—

Wait. What. Photograph?

He takes the photograph in his shaking hands and—

“I remember this” he says thickly.

It’s him and Jace when they were kids, right before the world went to shit and they didn’t speak to each other in ages. They had been laughing Jace turning his head to look at something in the distance and Aegon…

Aegon had been looking at Jace.

He knows what he had been thinking in his own teenaged way back then too.

And that had been the last genuine happy memory that he had.

A year later it had all gone to shit. Luke had taken Aemond’s eye and his mother and his half sister had been at war.

“I remember it too” Jace says quietly. “I remember how I used to feel about you—you were happy when you were with me—”

“I was always happy when I was with you” Aegon says thickly. “I…I am happy now when I am with you I…I am so sorry Jace—”

“No” Jace says before he can start sobbing. “I am sorry. I…panicked” he says with a small smile. “I guess I overreacted…Cragen always did have that effect on me” he says with a warped smile and Aegon frowns at the mention of the bastard ex who has ruined his life.

“Aegon listen I…I wont pretend that this is not complicated, we have a lot of things to talk about I…I don’t want Jae to know she has a brother not yet” he says when he sees Aegon’s expression no doubt. “I mean I know that we have to tell her at some point and I get that but…but right now she believes in dragons and fairies and unicorns and I don’t want to take that away from her, part of the reason why I think we are all the way we are is that both your side of the family and mine is that we never really got to be children. Our parents wars became our wars you know?”

Aegon does.

“I don’t want that for Jae. I don’t want her to know about Otto. Far as I am concerned he can crawl under a rock and die. And Alicent…I mean that’s a harder topic but I don’t want her to know about it, we can tackle Heleana another day but Aegon right now I just want her to be a kid”

Aegon nods slowly.

“As do I” he says fervently.

Jace nods and then.

“I love you” he says simply.

Aegon drops the photograph.

His fingers feel numb.

“I love you” Jace says simply. “I tried to deny it but I couldn’t. I love you and I will always love you, I think I’ve loved you since before I knew what love was. And I cannot promise that this is going to be easy, you me and Jae but this happened for a reason” he says pointing between the two of them. “And I have spent so much of my time being angry and being scared and thinking that I’m not good enough and I don’t want that to hold me back. Not to sound like Luke when he’s in one of his moods but you gotta break the cycle at some point right?”

He nods to himself and Aegon swallows. It seems to him he thinks dimly, that he might be on the edge of getting everything that he ever wanted…a happy ending…happiness with the man he loves and the daughter he thought lost to him and all he can do is stay fucking silent!

He clears his throat and then…

“You have to mean it” he says quietly. “You…you mean it Jace? Because…because I am not strong enough for you to say this and not mean it…”

It’s as close as he can get to saying that if Jace is fucking with him it will be the end of him.

Jace looks at him and then.

He holds out his hand.

“I mean it” he says quietly.

Aegon doesn’t wait t be told twice. He takes the hand on offer and…

And he is lost.

Chapter Text

“You have to mean it” he says quietly. “You…you mean it Jace? Because…because I am not strong enough for you to say this and not mean it…”

It’s as close as he can get to saying that if Jace is fucking with him it will be the end of him.

Jace looks at him and then.

He holds out his hand.

“I mean it” he says quietly.

Aegon doesn’t wait t be told twice. He takes the hand on offer and…

And he is lost.

Jace drags him forwards by his hand and then curls his other hand around his back and into his hair and—like he said before-- Aegon has not really put a brush through his hair in three days—but Jace doesn’t seem to mind, actually he doesn’t seem to notice. He curls his hands through his hair and his mouth is on his and Aegon doesn’t care about anything or anyone else. Seriously…Aemond could come back in with Luke naked in his arms and race to his own bedroom and he would not care about anything other than Jace’s tongue which seems to be dividing and conquering rather well at the moment succeeding in taking over Aegon, heart, mind, soul and body.

He groans into the kiss as their tongues dance together and then finally Jace yanks his mouth away so that they can both breathe.

Aegon smiles dopily.

He should have done this years ago he thinks randomly. Save himself the trouble of pickling his liver in vodka and filling his lungs with cigarette ash.

Jace attaches his mouth at his pulse point where there was a mark slowly fading from what feels like a long time ago when the world was happy and shiny and bright.

Jace is a biter in bed, a scratcher, a marker. Aegon had already decided that if that was what Jace wanted he would lie back and take the pain with the pleasure. He had been staring at that mark for days wondering when it was going to fade, one last final, one last final reminder of the man that had come to mean everything to him and the encounters that were worth more than their weight in gold.

And people thought Aemond was the dramatic one.

Aegon personally thought he could knock Daemon off the podium with his dramatics.

Jace dropped his head to his collarbone and smiled.

“You want me to go?”

“Never” Aegon said quietly.

“You…I don’t want to move too fast for you Aegon”

Aegon runs his hands through the dark curls. “Take me to bed” he says quietly. “Or lose me forever”

There is a pause and then.

“Seven Hells did you just quote Top Gun at me?”

Aegon laughs.

“Yeah well…you try growing up without any fit gay role models” he says and Jace laughs and then he slowly leans back and pulls off his shirt showing Aegon the mass of fair skin that he wants to mess up as soon as humanly possible.

“Put that tongue of yours to good use” Jace says in an opposite mirror of how it used to be with them. Aegon grins and bends down to swirl his tongue around a nipple capturing it in his teeth before letting it go.

“Pillow princess”

“Don’t pretend you don’t love it so”

“Take me to bed” Jace says as he pushes Aegon’s head up and Aegon nods, grins and then yanks him close by his arse and somehow manages to get them back into the bedroom into his bed without killing or injuring themselves.

A miracle if ever there was one.

Jace Targaryen is the first to admit he has an oral fixation.

So when he wakes up to find Aegon mouthing at his dick he sighs and stretches out and allows himself to enjoy the moment.

“Man can get used to this” he says easily. “You’re so pretty like this Jace. I love you so much”

Jace reaches out with one finger and tucks his arm back behind his head and lifts Aegon’s chin.

Aegon looks at him through hazy eyes.

“Your beautiful” Jace says softly and he can see the shudder Aegon gives and he wonders how little he has been told that he is beautiful in his life, how little he has been told that he is precious, wanted, desired, needed, loved… Aegon who is beauty personified, who was a snarling little pitbull puppy just in need of someone to love him back to life.

“You need me to take care of you?” he whispers in his ear. “That what you need? You need me to take care of you darlin? Need me to get you all nice and loose and relaxed. Where’d you want me sweetheart?”

He says that last bit in Aegon’s ear licking the earlobe like he did the first time that they fucked. He knew then what Aegon’s tells where, knew then what got him going and he knows now.

And this is not fucking…this is making love. Jace knows in his soul that this is making love.

He thinks he understands it now. Aemond and Luke and their bizarre obsession with the other, the way his mother doesn’t talk about his father, the way Daemon looks at her with that steady look as if he has grounded his heartbeat to hers. He thinks he understands his grandfather who could never speak of his grandmother, he thinks of Dareon and Joff and their odd little set up that nobody knows about, he thinks of Criston Cole (oddly) and that way his eyes would follow Alicent looking without speaking all the things that he was desperate for her to say. He thinks of Aegon’s mother forced into a marriage she did not want, forced to have children she did not want, forced to play a role she did not want and he thinks that right here in Aegon’s arms he understands more than he has ever understood before about love and desire and happiness….

This is happiness Jace thinks as he brushes some of Aegon’s hair back.

This is happiness…and this is his. And he is going to keep it no matter what.

“What do you want Jace?”

“You” Jace says quietly hoping it doesn’t come out too pathetic. “Just you, anyway that you want”

Aegon is silent and then,

“Nobody has ever looked at me the way you have before” he says quietly.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m worth something” he says with a little self deprecating shrug. Jace brushes some of the blonde hair back and drags him in for a kiss and Aegon beams happily going adorably cross eyed as Jace bops a kiss onto his nose.

“Well I am going to look at you like this forever” he says dreamily.

“Sounds nice” Aegon says simply then he is crawling over Jace’s body and then.

“Lube?”

“Don’t want it”

“Aegon”

“I don’t want it” Aegon says quietly. “I don’t want anything but you, I just want you, want your smell and your taste and your cum…don’t want anything to water it down, I want to feel it for days…I want…I need to know that this is not a dream. I…I mean it Jace we can do soft and gentle afterwards but right now I need you to fuck me raw”

And well…Jace is only human.

He flips Aegon open and lifts both his legs around his hips and proceeds to do just that…

Aemond finds them the next morning looking pleased for all of two seconds.

“So you made up then?” he asks pouring himself a cup of coffee. Luke has not bothered to get out of bed which is so not the image that Jace needs.

“Yeah…gonna pick Jae up today, take Aegon with me”

Aemond pauses as he stirs in the milk.

“Aegon agreed to that?”

“Yes”

“Your mother agreed to that?”

“She did”

“Let me rephrase then” Aemond says flattening Jace with an unamused one eyed gaze.

“Daemon agreed to that?”

“He did”

Aemond says nothing but then. “Wow. Best closer in the entire company and then your mother gets her hands on him and he doesn’t mind if Aegon, tramp, tramps all over Dragonstone. Wow”

“She knows about you and Luke”

“I know” Aemond says scowling. “Luke told me”

“She’ll be alright with it” Jace says thinking of his mother and her undying adoration of her boys. “Eventually”

“Hmm….”

“You love him right?” Jace asks and Aemond looking down at his coffee suddenly looks up.

“Very deeply” he says and there is not one hint of sarcasm or irony or anything else that has made Aemond the self-aggrandizing little shit that he has always been previously.

“Good” Jace says and then.

“He’s always loved you”

He hates that he has to be nice to this prick but this is his brother and Aegon’s and he supposes he has to try.

Aemond flushes.

Ugh.

“Hurt my brother and I will take your other eye” Jace says with no humour whatsoever. Aemond looks at him with his one eye with the same tone and expression.

“Hurt mine and I will do the same to you” he says easily. Jace eyes him and then nods.

Aemond nods too. The whole thing is strangely domesticated for them both. Aemond then pours a cup of peppermint tea and then…

“What?”

“Nothing just wondering whose the tea is…Luke doesn’t drink peppermint tea he drinks—”

“It relaxes me” Aemond says throwing him a look that just dares him to make something off it. Considering he is standing there in his boxers with his hair down and missing his eye patch and Luke has apparently scratched his back raw the threat does not entirely work but Jace just nods because…well…what’s a guy to do?

Aemond nods and then.

“This is the nicest conversation we’ve ever had” he says and then he turns and walks into his room shutting the door behind him with his two coffee mugs. Jace chalks this down to being a strange night and then he goes back into Aegon’s room and proceeds to flip him onto his stomach and eat between his ass until his lips go numb, Aegon is horse and broken and Aemond has banged three times on the wall to tell them to shut up.

They go slow because they have to. Aegon gets it, there is a whole load of trauma that he has to work through. But he goes through the programme, shares his deepest secrets, works his steps and then there is Jace. He works a shitty shift and then there is Jace at the end of it, he walks in on his brother lying naked on the bathroom floor clutching Luke to him in a fit of emotion and he sidesteps him and gets into the shower and at the end of it is Jace.

They spend time together, he tucks Jae into bed some nights, they make love, he stares down his half sister who gently hugs him as if she knows he needs it. He spends time with his brothers and their boyfriends. He even finds himself celebrating seven years of sobriety by sending his mother a birthday card.

Aegon doesn’t know how he got here but he gets there nonetheless.

One day Jace turns to him and offers him a box with a key in it.

“I want you to move in with me” he says. Aegon doesn’t even let him finish the sentence before he is kissing him curling around him so that he can say with that kiss all he cannot say with words.

Jace kisses him back.

There is a crash from downstairs.

Aegon starts.

Jace sighs.

“Bloody hell. She…she wanted to make you something nice for breakfast…I told her not to start without me” he rolls his eyes and gets up and Aegon pauses.

“Jae wanted to make me breakfast?”

“She thought it would help you get used to the idea of moving in”

Jace looks at him and Aegon looks back before he lets his gaze drop to the key. He is smiling.

“Aegon?”

“I love you” he says to Jace. “I love you” he says again though it is inadequate for the depths of the love that he is feeling.

Jace smiles.

“I love you too” he says softly.

There is another crash from downstairs and Aegon laughs and allows himself to be pulled up out of the bed to go and see what his daughter is up to.

He is happy.

He has Jace. He has his daughter. He has a key.

He is happy.

Who’d have thought it?

And he smiles all the way down the stairs.

Reborn, renewed, reunited.