blazeshowdown

[miya-park]

Friend → Beloved → Enemy → ?

modern!Aegon x f!reafer

Warning: minors drink alcohol, quarrels, mention of death

Fandom: House of the Dragon

Summary: To be friends, to love and to hate. Could your friendship have had a different ending?

word count: 2,03k

A/N: it was supposed to be oneshot, but maybe someday I'll write the second part

Being friends with Aegon was… easy for you.

For some reason, it was impossible for the other girls who tried to attract his attention to themselves to establish friendly relations with him. But you were an exception. Having met at a school for the children of rich and famous parents when you were only eleven, you did not immediately, but attracted the attention of the rude and persistent Aegon. He was full of insults, gossip, was selfish and for some reason always thought that the whole world belonged to him. And such an Aegon disgusted you. You knew his parents, you knew they were very, very rich. But you've always asked yourself why having money and influence didn't ruin Helaena and Aymond, his younger siblings.

But at the same time you were asking yourself: how did he become your best friend? He became the person with whom you ate ice cream at eleven at night at sixteen and swung on a swing; he became the boy with whom you started going to parties at seventeen; he became the guy with whom you went to prom in a friendly way.

If for other people -and for parents - he was an ordinary drunk and an asshole, then for you he was not just your best friend. Aegon had the most comfortable hugs, he instantly picked up your jokes. He was so polite, courteous that sometimes you felt like the only person in the whole world, basking in the rays of his attention.

“You know, dude, I don't think the world deserves you,” you said one day when he came to you late at night.

The reason was banal to tears - your boyfriend decided to break up with you right before the week of final exams. Graduation passed, but there were no exams, and admission to college was ahead. Overwhelmed by stress and excitement, you fell into a violent tantrum and called Aegon, who was at his girlfriend's party.

He arrived without asking any questions with a stolen bottle of elite cognac. The privileges of the rich.

“What do you mean, dear? Aegon asked indistinctly, stroking your shoulders. You were lying on your bed in an embrace. Tears exhausted you, so you were silent in comfortable silence and shared a bottle of alcohol for two in silence.

“You're so… unreal and cute,” you muttered into his chest and refused to look up.

“Oh, baby, I think you've had enough. You're already drunk,” Aegon laughed, putting the bottle on the floor.

“And what? I'm telling the truth. Don't you believe me?” you asked in response, lifting your head. Aegon was silent. His eyes shone in the dimness of the room, and his snow-white hair made him look like an angel. Fallen, but still an angel. “They all condemn you and insult you simply because they don't know the real you.”

“Do you know?”

“Of course,” you answered importantly, laying your head on his chest again. Groping for his hand in the dark, you intertwined your fingers. “Of course I know the real you. And all the people who hurt you should beg for forgiveness on their knees.”

“I wouldn't be so sure if I were you,” Aegon replied softly, stroking your tangled hair with his free hand.

You wanted to ask him. Ask the question: why does he doubt your faith in him, but the alcohol in your blood was stronger and you just closed your eyes, falling asleep to his regular breathing.

Loving Aegon was… Not easy.

In the first year, the realization of your feelings was so sudden and deafening that you had to ignore it for several days to sort yourself out. The result was not comforting: you fell in love with Aegon Targaryen. A man with whom I have been friends for more than six years and shared so much joy and sorrow that he could rightfully call himself your soulmate. You can't think of a worse situation, right?

But at the end of the first year, the situation in the Targaryen family worsened. You didn't know the details, you knew that Aegon's mother's relationship with her stepdaughter had deteriorated. Aegon drank heavily and it became a habit for you to take his calls at two in the morning when he begged you in a drunken and smoky voice to pick him up from the house of another one-day friend. And you took him to yourself, to your own apartment, donated by your parents for coming of age and in honor of entering a prestigious college. You took care of a drunken Aegon, wiped his sweaty body, cleaned up after him when he was ill and pushed wet hair off his forehead in a fit of inexplicable tenderness. Of course, in the morning he apologized and thanked for the help, paid for the spent gasoline, and then disappeared out the door, dialing the number of a person who could arrange a party in the evening.

And you were left alone in an empty apartment, looking longingly at his back. I was left alone with a bunch of homework on my shoulders and a broken heart in my chest.

This continued until the summer holidays. And then you found out that Aegon's father had died.

You attended the funeral with your parents on that cloudy and cold day to express your condolences to the Targaryen family. And the sight of the pale, completely broken life of Aegon with a fixed gaze made your heart shrink. When it was over, you apologized to your parents and walked forward through the crowd. To where the back in the black coat stood motionless in front of the Viserys Targaryen memorial. After saying goodbye to Alicent and her children, you quietly approached him and gently took his hand. It was icy.

“He never told me he loved me.” Aegon said in a hoarse voice. His eyes were red and watery.

“He probably thought you knew about it. Without his words.” you said softly, squeezing his hand in yours. He shook his head at your words. “It's impossible not to love you, Aegon.”

“Don't, please”

“Don't what?”

“Don't lie to me”

“But I'm telling you the truth.”you protested helplessly to him. Raising your hand, you touched his cold cheek and turned his head towards you. He obeyed, looking at you as if something inside him had broken. You weren't sure you could fix it, but you'll try. “Aegon, you are the best thing that has ever happened in my life. You have been with me in both happy and sad moments. I am grateful to you for everything you have done for me. And I want you to know that I will also be there to support you.”

He was silent for a minute, and then licked his dry lips and squeezed your hand in response.

“Do you love me?”

You were confused by his question. And then you remembered all the moments when he was crying drunk in your toilet, saying that no one loves him, his younger brother despises him, and his sister feels nothing but pity for him. And your little heart was covered with a wave of love for him. Yes, he's not perfect, but he was like that with you.

“Of course I love you,” you replied. Perhaps you put a slightly different meaning into these words. Not the one Aegon wanted to hear, but as soon as the words fell from your lips, you felt relieved. “Nothing will change these feelings for you, baby”

Aegon nodded. His lips trembled and you silently pulled him into your arms, comfortingly stroking his trembling shoulders.

Your world belonged to Aegon, and even if he couldn't be yours, you still wanted to lay the universe at his feet.

“Everything will be fine,” you whispered, kissing his snow-white hair.

The first drops of cold summer rain fell on you from the gray sky.

Hating Aegon was… painful.

Your relationship soured at the beginning of the second year, when Aegon was not enough weed and alcohol. And then he started courting girls. It's not that he hasn't done it before, but his sex life hasn't touched you before and you've tried not to think at all about how many people your best friend has fucked. But now… now there were a lot of girls leaving his apartment early in the morning when you came to pick him up to go to school together. They were all different: blondes, brunettes, redheads.

Strangers.

You've never seen the same face twice.

“You know you don't have to kill your youth this way, right?”you asked him once when you drove him to a party late at night. You had no doubt that Aegon had already had a drink at home, but you still tried to talk to him. “You can make your life better, Aegon”

“What's the difference?" he replied indifferently, adjusting his sunglasses on his face. He looked great in his unbuttoned shirt, black jeans and tousled hair.

“I'm worried about you,” you whispered, slowing down in front of a private house. The roar of music could be heard even in the car. “Your mom and siblings are worried”

“Not true. I know they don't care about me,” Aegon replied, turning to you.

“What about me?” you asked, feeling like the atmosphere between you is heating up.

Aegon was silent. Your lips trembled.

“Are you just devaluing my feelings right now? Our friendship?”

“Please, let's not talk about it now,” he asked, opening the door and getting out of the car. You left the salon.

“And when will we talk? Tomorrow, when I come to pick you up at nine in the morning to watch another naked girl in your apartment? Or maybe in two weeks, when we finish the first semester, and you need all my notes to pass the exams?”

“I'm not ready to talk, okay? And I'll let you know when I'm ready.” he turned towards the house. “I'll call you tonight”

“Never.”

“What?”Aegon stopped and looked back at you. You stood with pursed lips, and tears stood in your eyes.

“I know it's ugly… To do so. But listen, if you go there now without talking to me, then I'm done here, Aegon. You're never ready to talk until you're pressed. And I don't want that.”

“And that's why you're putting me in front of a damn choice now?! Seriously?”Aegon shouts and you both freeze.

You - because this is the first time he raised his voice to you in this way. He is because something is changing in your eyes.

“All right, Aegon,” you say in a trembling voice, opening the car door. “I understand you. Don't call me… until you're ready.”

“You're not serious, are you? Aegon asks, taking a step forward and watching as you abruptly pull out of the parking lot and disappear around the corner. “Damn it!”

You abruptly wipe the tears from your cheeks, turning off the phone in case Aegon calls you. But you weren't sure he would. This quarrel has clearly broken something in your friendship now. And you weren't ready to have a dialogue with this Aegon. You wanted to get back the boy you fell in love with. With whom it was good and who was ready to give up his desires to drink in favor of you.

Aegon doesn't call at night. Not the next day, not a month later.

You begin to hate him, his actions, his penchant for alcohol and lust. You are removed from social networks so as not to see his photos, videos, posts with vanilla words. But most importantly, you start hating your feelings and the part of you that misses him. His smile, his cologne smell, his touch. Sometimes at night you cry, remembering the carefree youth when you went to the movies and spent the night at each other's. When you were at each other's.

Sometimes you catch his eyes on you. You look at him in response while his hand is on the waist of another girl and he shyly looks away and you follow his example.

Even the strongest friendship is washed away by the rain of harsh reality.