#stepdad!aemond

[humanpurposes]

My Heart Belongs to Daddy, part vii (final)

Series Masterlist // Main Masterlist // this godforsaken mess that you made me

modern!Aemond x step-daughter

Warnings: 18+, angst, smut

Words: 9k

A/n: Sorry it's been a month since I updated this but we made it to the end!! Just wanna say thank you to everyone who's followed along, liked, commented on and reblogged this series, I've been so overwhelmed by the amazing responses to this, just all the love 🖤 Also available to read on AO3.

It’s easy to forget just how fucking freezing King’s Landing can be in December. She pulls her leather jacket a little tighter around herself but there’s not much she can do about the cold stabbing at her legs through her fishnets— why the fuck had she worn a mini dress in the first place? It falls a little higher up her thighs than she wants it to and the bust just doesn’t fit quite right, but she supposes she has to commit now. She at least counts herself lucky that it’s not snowing.

She looks down at the pavement as it moves underneath her black boots. There’s her second mistake— one cocktail past her usual limit. Now she feels aware but somehow numb. She finds wonder in everything around her, the glare of colourful lights on the outside of the bars they rush past, the pulsing of music from every direction, the smells of smoke, vapes, and that distinct, sharp scent of winter.

She had met Baela, Rhaena, Jace and their friends at a pub near the train station. Being the last to arrive, she sat at the edge of the table. It wasn’t a big group but that only made her more nervous. The other girls introduced themselves as Coryanne, Jeyne, Jess and Floris, all beautiful, all dressed immaculately. She told them her name and they said a unanimous “hi!” but other than that it was hard to talk to them while they gossiped about people she didn’t know and reminisced memories she had no part in. Even Jace was distracted; he was clearly all over Coryanne and spent the entire evening trying too hard to make her laugh.

So she kept ordering cocktails, a different one each time, downing them in quick succession and waiting for the evening to pass.

She keeps telling herself this was a good idea. She needs the distraction, anything to get her mind off the obvious.

The others are all walking ahead of her, and she has to keep sight of them because she has no idea where Dracarys actually is. Baela keeps looking over her shoulder every so often, to check on her she assumes. She gives her a nod and a polite smile, but when Baela turns around, her face falls back to a comfortable frown. She doesn’t mean to look miserable, but she can’t help it. It must be so obvious that she doesn’t belong with these people. She’s just a stray they’ve picked up out of pity.

They turn a corner and suddenly half the street is taken up with a queue of impatient looking people, all in smart shirts and party dresses. Baela calls her name and grabs her hand, pulling her along after the rest of their group.

“Surely this isn’t the line for Dracarys?” she says.

Baela chuckles and keeps marching ahead.

They walk along the queue for a good few minutes. Suddenly they reach an old building with columns and a bell tower. It looks like it could be a Sept or a museum, until she registers the glaring red lights, the tall braziers marking either side of the entrance and the neon logo of a dragon against a blue flame.

Apparently tagging along with not one but two Targaryens has its benefits. Baela keeps her close and their whole group breezes past the bouncers without being asked for ID or charged for entry.

“Dad’s a co-owner,” Baela says in her ear as they walk towards the front steps. She can already feel the bass of the music rattling in her chest.

There’s a smoking area at the bottom of the steps, cornered off from the street by tall hedges and iron gates. It’s dotted with mostly pairs of people, each engrossed in their own conversations.

As Baela leads her up the steps she notices a solitary figure, obscured by shadows, leaning against the wall with his back slightly curved and his chin tilted down. He lights a cigarette. The flicker of flame lights up the sharp features of his face and his silver hair.

Fuck.

Aemond’s not even a club kind of guy. He hates the dancing and the “shitty” music. He likes metal concerts and late-night conversations, preferably somewhere you can actually hear the person next to you.

A plume of smoke billows from his lips, and for whatever reason, he glances towards the front steps.

After a double take, his eyes meet hers, wide and curious.

She only realises she’s stopped walking when Baela tugs on her hand. “You coming or what?” she says over her shoulder, trying to keep up with the others.

She can’t take her eyes off him. Of all the places he could have spent New Years, why does he have to be here?

Don’t engage.

His back straightens as he takes his weight off the wall.

Let go.

She shakes her head and snaps herself out of whatever trance she’s under.

She’ll just ignore him. As long as she sticks with Balea and Jace, everything will work out fine. Surely.

The inside of the club is vast like the nave of the Grand Sept. It has a high vaulted ceiling and an enormous stained-glass window on the farthest wall from the doors.

The floor before them is a sea of bodies in flashy outfits, moving in time to a low, synthy song. Colourful lights cut through the darkness, giving the faces an eerie glow. A few groups linger around the edges of the room, drinking cocktails and taking shots in booths around glass tables. At the end of the hall, under the stained-glass window, is the bar, illuminated with red lights.

Baela keeps a tight hold of her hand as they all fight their way to the bar. Someone orders for her and the bartender places a shot glass of vibrant blue liquor in front of her. Rhaena screams “Happy New Year!” as the others cheers their glasses together.

She holds her up to the light before she downs it, wincing at the sickly, sweet and sour tang it leaves on her tongue.

Her heart thunders in her chest, confused by the music and the sense of dread pooling in her stomach.

Aemond is here.

She’s supposed to be ignoring him, and she had been doing a good job of it so far.

Until that fucking call on Christmas Eve.

What did he think was going to happen? Six months of nothing, then one phone call and she was going to come running back to him?  

But she had already proved that she can’t say no to him, the night of the dinner party, while Alys and Cregan were only in adjacent rooms. All it had taken was his hands on her hips, his breath on her neck, a few harshly whispered words and the promise of a quick fuck. It was enough for her to give in, consequences be damned.

She looks back at doors on the other side of the room. She tells herself she’s not looking for a head of silver hair, but it isn’t much good lying to herself. One look at him outside a club and she can feel that hollow feeling in her chest, an emptiness that Aemond has always been able to fill so perfectly.

“How could I ever stop wanting you?”

“I just know these last couple of months have been fucking unbearable without you.”

Would he say the same now?

Rhaena screams again. She doesn’t catch what she says, but the answer to that is evident when Aegon and Daeron materialise from the crowd, hugging Rhaena, Baela and some of the girls. Jace’s face hardens and he puts his arm around Coryanne’s shoulders.

Then Aegon’s eyes come to her. “Fancy seeing you here!” she shouts into her ear over the music.

She can’t stop herself. “Is Aemond with you?” 

Aegon glances towards the door. “He went outside for a fag.” He runs his tongue over his teeth and furrows his brow. “How are things with you and your mum?”

She frowns. “Why?”

Aegon’s eyes widen and he laughs to himself to play it off. “Just asking, I thought things might be a bit awkward what with… everything that’s gone on.”

“Everything?”

He pauses. “Him and Alys.”

“Right,” she says.

He doesn’t say anything else, but he’s looking at her like he’s trying to read her mind.

She hates not knowing what other people are thinking, and it only adds to her growing restlessness. Aemond wouldn’t tell Aegon about them, would he? But part of her thinks Aegon would use the opportunity to be more of a dick about it if he knew.

They find a booth and file in. Jace is clearly trying to avoid Aegon; he sits between Coryanne and Daeron. Baela is polite with both of her cousins and Rhaena is friendly, but maybe that’s just the booze. Either way, Aegon is a charmer, and slots himself nicely beside Floris. Jenye and Jess are all over each other, whispers into each other’s ears becoming kisses to their cheeks, necks and mouths.

She slips off her jacket and sits at the end of the table, alone. It's like being at the pub all over again.

Until she spots someone walking towards their table.

Aemond stops, his eyes only on her. No one else seems to have noticed him yet.

She looks across the table, at the only empty space left.

His chest rises and his nostrils flare. He slowly sits opposite her, keeping his shoulders tense and his hands in fists.

She wishes she had a drink in front of her, if only to have something to do. She moves between having her hands on and under the table, unable to keep her fingers still. She bounces her leg, messes with her hair, tries to focus on fragments of conversation drifting from the others.

Then something brushes against her, under the table. She freezes, but relaxes as she feels Aemond’s leg settling against hers. She glances across at him while pretending to listen to something Rhaena’s talking about. Aemond holds her gaze, leaning against the back of the booth with a solemn look on his face.

She can feel his breath on her hands as he exhales a deep breath.

Baela insists that she wants to dance, and so does Rhaena. They drag Daeron with them and disappear into the mass of dancers. Aemond has to stand to let them out, and when he sits back down his leg brushes against hers again.

It’s so painfully obvious that everyone at the table is coupled up, Jace and Coryanne, Aegon and Floris, Jeyne and Jess. Aemond seems to be trying not to pay attention to any of them. He angles his head in the other direction.

She lets her eyes wander along the tightness of his jaw, the tendons in his neck, and the glint of a silver chain beneath his shirt.

She presses her lips together.

Don’t engage.

Don’t do anything stupid.

But maybe she should have thought of that before the cocktails.

She leans forward on her elbows, but as she opens her mouth to speak, Aemond calls Aegon’s name.

“Drink?” he mimes.

She doesn’t see Aegon’s reply. Aemond’s eyes move over her before he stands and heads towards the bar. Suddenly her leg feels cold at the absence.

A particularly loud giggle catches her attention. She looks down the table. Aegon is leaning into Floris’ ear with a dark look in his eye and she’s smiling, but he’s watching her. His eyes flicker over to the bar, and he grins.

Fucking pricks. The pair of them.

Only when she stands up does she realise how dizzy she is, but she ignores it, and makes her way through the crowd until she finds Baela, Rhaena and Daeron. She grabs Baela’s hands, less dancing, more stepping and swaying to the music.

But she keeps ending up turning her head towards the bar. It’s easy to spot Aemond, he towers over most of the people here, his silver hair gleaming under the red lights.

“I didn’t know they were going to be here,” Baela shouts into her ear, “it’s not too awkward is it?”

The music doesn’t make sense to her. It’s just noise. Everything is just frantic noise, and she can’t stand it. She feels restless, and so fucking angry. She wants to dig her nails into her palms. She wants to cry. She wants to scream.

“It’s fine!” she shouts back, “So fucking fine!”

She looks back to the bar. Aemond is at the front of the queue now.

“I need a drink,” she says, not loud enough for Baela to hear.

His name is a gentle hum in her throat as she gets closer to him, weaving her way through the other bodies in the crowd. She doesn’t care when they tell her to get in line and wait her turn. She keeps her eyes fixed on him.

Until he’s close enough to touch.

She watches her hand reach for his shoulder.

He turns his head around with a sharp look of surprise, but it melts away when he realises it’s her.

He mouths her name but she doesn’t hear it. He brushes his fingertips against the bare skin of her arm and she feels weightless. He’s looking at her. She can feel his heat through his shirt.

Until he withdraws his hand with an irritated huff. He leans into her until their noses are inches apart. Even in the low light of the club his eyes are only marginally blue, and she smells whisky on his breath. “Don’t start this again,” he says over the music.

She scowls until her face hurts. “You called me.”

“And you didn’t pick up.”

Her heart shatters. She thought she had done the right thing, but it seems a common occurrence with Aemond that nothing is ever right.

“It was a mistake,” he says sharply, “a stupid fucking mistake. Just forget it.”

He brushes her hand from his shoulder and storms off towards the front doors.

Panic and confusion courses through her. It feels worse because she’s drunk, she knows that, but it still hurts.

Her eyes start to sting as one song ends and another begins. It’s one everyone in the room seems to recognise.

She fights her way back to the booth and grabs her jacket, slipping it over her arms.

Jeyene and Jess are gone, and Jace and Coryanne have found their way to the dancefloor. Floris and Aegon are the only ones left, her legs draped over his lap.

“Leaving so soon?” Aegon coos.

She doesn’t spare him any of her attention. She tries to spot Aemond as she makes her way to the doors on unsure legs.

What if he’s already left? What if this is it, and he never so much as tries to speak to her again? What if she finds him and he pushes her away?

“Five minutes to midnight, ladies and gentlemen!” a voice booms through the speakers. Moving through the room is like swimming against the current as more people make their way to the dance floor, but she manages to make it to the doors.

The cold air hits her suddenly. It burns in her lungs and bites at her skin. The front steps and the street below her are quiet now, and so is the smoking area. Save for one person.

Aemond sits on a bench, hunched over himself, flicking his lighter, but never lighting a cigarette.

He looks up when she stops in front of him, his lips slightly parted, the red lights casting shadows in the angles of his chin and cheeks, and his nose.

“Are you seriously running away from me?” she says.

His mouth is in a thin line. He keeps flicking the lighter open and shut, open and shut. “You seemed happy enough avoiding me before.”

“Before? Before what? Before you left me in a hotel room?”

Aemond groans and rubs his fingers over his temple. “I’m not sober enough to have this conversation.”

“No, you’d rather ignore me for the rest of your life.”

“Look, I just want to go about doing things the right way—”

“I think we’re way fucking past that now.”

He groans. “What do you want me to do then?” he says, his voice laced with spite.

“Take some fucking responsibility!” she cries, louder than she means to.

He takes her off guard when he stands and steps into her. She takes a step back, and he keeps walking, until her back meets a wall. “And what does responsibility look like, hmm?” He places a hand beside her head leans in further still, until all she sees is the furious look in his eyes. “I called and you didn’t pick up. I try to keep my distance and look at you, you’re still practically begging for my attention.”

“Once,” she utters. “You called me once in six months.”

“And if I had tried before, after the dinner, after I left Alys, would you have listened to me?”

Her head lolls into her shoulder. All she remembers of that day is her mum, screaming and crying, storming upstairs and slamming her bedroom door. She stood there, in the kitchen, hands shaking, tears streaming down her face and her heartbeat pulsing in her head.

Her entire world had come crumbling down. Her mother hated her, and she was going to have to break things off with Cregan, and Aemond was gone. If he had called her then, she doesn’t know if she would have been able to manage a single word.

“No,” she says.

Her heart leaps as he takes her chin in his fingertips and tilts her gaze up to him.

He looks down at her with challenge, his eyes squinted slightly, lips in a smug pout. “What do you want me to do? How do I make this right?”

Her hands press against his chest, hypnotised as it rises and falls with each breath he takes. Then her eyes move to his mouth, that perfecting fucking mouth— it’s her favourite feature of his, she decides, the telling twitches of his lips and the way they feel against her skin.

Aemond clamps his hands over her wrists. “See?” he says in a low voice. “You think you’re so righteous, so perfect, but you’re just too fucking needy.”

She surges into him, grazing his lips with hers before he pulls away.

He keeps a tight grip on her wrists, and stares at her with wide eyes.

Only for him to come crashing into her, returning the favour with his own harsh and bruising kiss. He’s desperate and unforgiving, cupping her face with his hands so she has no choice but to let it consume her.

And she lets him. She lets him graze her lips with his teeth, slip his tongue into her mouth and steal the very air from her lungs.

The faint but familiar taste of whisky burns on her tongue. It’s thrilling and grounding all at once.

When they finally part from each other, he rests his forehead against hers. They glare at each other as they try to catch their breaths.

She can still feel the beat of the music from inside the club, and a voice over the speaker, gearing up for the countdown for the New Year.

“I meant it when I told you I loved you,” she says. “It’s not how I wanted to say it, but it was the truth.”

Aemond takes a harsh breath and runs his hand over his forehead, through his hair. “I can’t do this now,” he whispers.

She leans further into the wall, only to find she can’t get away from him. She pushes against his chest, but all her strength is gone.

Aemond takes a small step away from her. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I’m not thinking straight I…”

She doesn’t listen to him. She can’t, not past the pounding in her head, the retching feeling in her stomach and the crowd inside the club as they start to chant.

“Ten! Nine! Eight!”

“You must have known how much you meant to me,” she says. Her voice is clear and her tears are effortless.

“Seven! Six! Five!”

“And what did you do with it? You left me with nothing…”

“Four! Three! Two!”

“You showed me something I’ve never known and then you took it away, only to drag me back in…”

The world erupts around them. Every single voice in the city screams as midnight hits, fireworks and flares soar into the sky and burst with colour, light and noise.

“And I feel so stupid because I let you do it. But I still don’t understand… why do you have to be so fucking cruel? What did I do wrong?”

Aemond looks back at her with a face of agony. Flashes of green, red and gold glisten in his eyes.

“I thought I mattered to you,” she says.

“You did. You still do.”

Her head must be about to burst. She chokes on a sob and cradles her head in her hands.

She keeps her eyes on the floor as Aemond steps into her, and when he wraps his arms around her, she doesn’t have the energy to pull away.

“I’m so tired.” She says it over and over again.

There doesn’t seem to be a moment where they make an agreement, but she lets Aemond pry her hands from her face and lead her onto the street. He tucks her jacket tighter around her arms while he mutters about how cold it is.

She doesn’t feel the cold against her skin, but she can feel herself shivering and her teeth chattering.

A car pulls up to the pavement. Aemond opens the rear door and ushers her inside. It’s warm inside, and the seats are soft. He sits beside her and she falls into him. She closes her eyes, letting the motions and the hum of the engine lull her to a place between waking and sleeping.

Aemond’s gently shakes her awake when the car stops. Wherever he’s brought her, it’s quiet, and once the car disappears down the street, it’s almost silent.

Something cold lands on her cheek. She brushes it away and it melts under her fingers. She looks up, at heavy snowflakes against the streetlights, blinking them from her eyes as they fall.

Aemond takes her hand and she holds it tightly. The dusting of snow crunches under her boots as they walk, a short way along the street and up a series of steps. He doesn’t let go of her as he takes a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocks the door.

He marches her up a seemingly endless number of stairs before they come to a corridor, and another door. It’s dark on the other side, and it smells like him.

She blinks as her eyes adjust to the lack of light. Tall windows make up most of the outer facing walls, and King’s Landing lays out before them. They must be on the outskirts of the city, given how quiet it is, but she can see everything from here, the lights on Conquest Street, the silhouettes of the Red Keep and the Grand Sept, fireworks and lanterns, and the void that is Blackwater Bay beyond the docks.

Aemond leads her through another door. She winces when he turns on a light, but as her vision starts to settle, she realises it’s a bedroom. She’s drawn to the bed like a magnet, collapsing against the duvet.

“Shoes,” Aemond says.

She kicks her boots off and tosses her jacket on the floor. She curls her face into the pillow. It occurs to her that she hasn’t taken her makeup off, but she’s too tired to really care.

Aemond won’t let her sleep yet. He hands her a glass of water and waits for her to drink a few sips. Then he takes it from her and hands her a t-shirt.

“No…” she drawls, falling back against the bed, “wanna sleep.”

“Please,” Aemond says softly.

She drags herself up, fumbling to undo the zip on her dress. She pulls it over her head and rids herself of her bra and fishnets and lifts her arms up for Aemond to help her into the t-shirt. That smells like him too.

“Better?” he says.

She won’t give him the satisfaction. She crawls underneath the duvet, and by the time the light switches off and the door closes, she’s already half asleep.

The first feeling that hits her is a dull ache pulsing in her head.

Then comes a dry feeling in her throat.

Then a nauseating kind of hunger.

And then dread.

Her eyes dart open; it’s still dark in here, wherever here is.

She looks down at the Pink Floyd t-shirt hanging off her. It’s too broad in the shoulders to be hers.

Her lips feel strange. She trails her fingertips over them and squints, just makeing out the shape of her dress and her boots on the floor.

The memories start to fade into view, like a fog lifting from her mind. The pub, the club, the loneliness, and Aemond…

“Fuck,” she hisses.

She’s still a little dizzy as she drags herself from the bed. She finds her phone in her jacket, on the last legs of its battery. 8:55, 1st January glares up at her on the screen, along with texts and missed calls from Baela, Rhaena, Jace and Alys.

“Fuck!”

She grabs the glass of water on the bedside table and treads softly along the hardwood floor, to the door.

She hovers her hand over the handle. She’ll have to come out eventually, might as well get it over with.

The bedroom leads out to an open living space she doesn’t recognise in the slightest. In the corner there’s a kitchen and a small dining table with four chairs, then the rest of the room holds two sofas, a coffee table, a record player, plenty of bookshelves and by the window, a desk and a prayer plant with a ribbon tied around its pot.

None of the lights are on and from what she can tell, Aemond isn’t even here. The room is lit only by daylight. Beyond the windows, the sky is a dull grey and King’s Landing is covered in snow.

Nothing about the apartment is disorderly, expect perhaps for the extensive collection of shoes and coats by the door, most of them black with the odd item of brown for some variety.

The only photos on display are on the desk. One is of Alicent and Helaena, both in pale blue jeans and white blouses, with gentle smiles their arms around each other. Another is of Aegon and Daeron sitting by the pool at Dragonstone. The final one is of an arched, stone bridge, which she recognises immediately as Roseroad Bridge in Oldtown. It’s lined with statues of famous Maesters, Steptons and members of the Hightower family, and she walks along it every day to get from her apartment to uni.

He has his own place now then. She wonders if he moved in right after he left Queen’s Park.

She resists the urge to run her fingers along the desk, or over the closed cover of a notebook and the ink pen beside it.

Her head snaps towards the front door as it unlocks. Aemond walks in with snow on his jacket, a brown paper bag and two coffee cups in a drinks holder.

He raises his eyebrows slightly. “Morning,” he mutters, closing the door behind him.

She slowly makes her way to the kitchen as he unpacks the bag— eggs, a loaf of sourdough and some cherry tomatoes.

He looks up at her, and places one of the cups in front of her. “Oat, vanilla latte.”

“Thanks,” she says. It’s not quite as hot as she would have liked, but she’ll forgive him on account of the snow.

“Sit down,” he says, nodding to the dining table. “Won’t take me long.”

He plates up scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on toast and they eat in silence. After that he quietly clears their plates. She wonders if he’s scared of making too much noise.

Then he comes to sit back down, with a fresh glass of water and painkillers for her.

He sits rigidly against his chair, with one hand on the table and the other in his lap. She’d bet anything his fingers are restless under the table.

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

She considers for a moment. She’s starting to feel somewhat closer to normal, but the panic has yet to wear off. “Fine.”

She glances around the room. “This is nice,” she says.

“Rhaenys owns it. She let me move in at short notice.”

“After…”

“After I ended things with Alys.”

She hums distantly, folding her arms and crossing her leg over her knee.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he says.

“Which part are you sorry for?”

He angles an eyebrow at her. “All of it?”

She pouts her lips in irritation— a habit she picked up from him.

His mouth quirks. He clears his throat, takes a sip of his coffee and, by the look of it, struggles to swallow it.

“I’m sorry too, for being so careless,” she says.

“No, I should have left once I saw you.” He presses his lips together and taps his fingertip against the table, three times. “And I’m sorry for calling you on Christmas Eve. I don’t even know what I would have said.”

Her heart sinks, but she reminds herself that’s what she should want. “Just a stupid mistake, yeah?”

He shakes his head in disbelief. “Did I really say that? It was actually highly premeditated.”

“Why?” she asks with more disgust than she means to.

He gestures with his hands, as though it should be obvious. “I just wanted to hear your voice again.”

The tension fades from her face. She feels the pull, the hope, the way it crushes her and makes her feel lighter. That’s all she had wanted, as she watched the phone ring, for him to want her, and then she could allow herself to want him back, even though it always ends in misery.

She can still remember what he looked like when they were at Dragonstone, that quiet, reserved kid who spent more time reading than he spent talking. She remembers how excited she was whenever their eyes met or she spotted him sitting alone. She remembers that day he showed her around the house and the gallery. She thought he was going to kiss her then, but he never did.

Maybe he never cared. Maybe was just using her. Maybe she was nothing but another body to fuck.

That doesn’t explain the small things. The hours he spent studying with her, the nights they stayed up talking about anything they could think of, his attentiveness for details, her coffee order, her favourite songs, the way he celebrated her happiness and read her like a book.

“How did we end up here?” she says, “how did we make such a mess of this?”

For a moment he looks like he’s going to reach for her hand, but he stops himself. “I had such a crush on you, when you came to Dragonstone you know,” he says.

“You never said anything.”

“Yeah, well I didn’t think you liked me.”

She tries to laugh but it comes out as a breath. It seems like such a simple misunderstanding for all the pain it has caused.

“I just remember thinking that someone as wonderful as you would never want…” he absentmindedly brushes his fingers along the scar over his eye. “I was different back then; I still had a lot to learn.”

“Aemond,” she says, drawing his eyes back to her, “I thought you were wonderful too.”

“Oh.” He stops himself from smiling and ends up twisting his lips and sticking his chin out in an awkward expression. “Look, I’ve had time to think, and talk this through—”

“With Aegon?”

“And Helaena.”

She tries not to roll her eyes.

“I think I owe you an explanation,” he says.

She leans back in her chair and raises her eyebrows.

Aemond draws his tongue between his lips. “I tried not to think much about you after Dragonstone. You were just Jace’s cousin, I didn’t think I’d have a reason to see you again. And then I knew that first night with Alys was a bad idea. But everything was happening with dad and Rhaenyra, mum was still upset about Storm’s End, and it was just after Harwin got sick… it just happened.”

“Good for you,” she grumbles.

“I’m not trying to play a sympathy card, I just want to tell you the truth,” he says. This time he doesn’t shy away from reaching for her hand. She doesn’t move, and watches as he settles for just resting his hand over hers. “I never meant for things to go as far as they did, but I needed a way out. I needed to get away from my family and Targ Corp. Alys gave me a purpose outside of all that.”

“So you used her?”

“Yes. And she got something out of it too.”

She doesn’t argue against that.

“I don’t know I thought maybe I’d be over how I felt about you. We were just kids, it had been a few years, but then I saw you… and you were perfect. Nothing could convince me otherwise.”

Guilt twinges in her chest. “It wasn’t just you,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

“I kissed you first.”

He tightens his hold of her hand. “But I still wanted you. And we worked it out so well, I just thought we could keep going as we were.”

“Until I fucked it up.”

“No, that’s not it.”

“I did though. I should never have said…” her eyes are starting to sting at the memory. Sprawled out on the bed, naked and not quite satisfied. The empty feeling in her chest as he left her there.

“I couldn’t take me eyes off you at the wedding,” Aemond says. “And then you had one conversation with that Stark kid, and I was losing my fucking mind. I knew why it bothered me. I know how I felt, no matter how I tried to rationalise it. I knew how I felt about you. I always knew.”

She blinks and two tears trail down her cheeks. She can’t manage any more than that.

“I panicked. I didn’t know what it would mean if you felt the same. It just became too real, I—” He exhales heavily, and runs his hand through his hair. “I know this is my mess. I should have stayed away from Alys. I should have been honest. But at the time, it just felt easier to just… let everything happen.”

She had never seen Alys cry as much as she had, that morning when she told her the truth.

“What did you say to mum?”

“After the dinner party? She’d had a horrible night as it was. She said she wished I had defended her more against my parents. I said she should have known what was going to happen before she invited everyone over and that she should stop trying to get involved in my life.”

“Can’t imagine she took that well.”

“I ended up telling her I had rethought my priorities. I couldn’t be what she needed. I said I’d leave Rivers PR and try to patch things up with my family.”

“You didn’t tell her about us though.”

He swipes his thumb over her knuckles. “I didn’t know if you would want me to.”

She takes a shallow breath. “I told her. After you left, I went downstairs and told her everything.”

“What did she say?”

Sometimes she still has nightmares about that morning. She stands in the kitchen while her mother just screams at her.

“She was so angry. It was understandable, I guess, but we barely spoke until I went to Oldtown.”

“You’re at the university?”

“Yeah. She said Oldtown sounded like a good idea. Lots of distance, far away from her.”

“And how has it been, being back home?”

“We talked about it. I think we both realised we didn’t want to lose each other over some stupid guy.”

He half smiles, and exhales. “She called me in September,” he says. “It must have been after you left. She just said she knew. She said I was ‘sick bastard’ and that I should never speak to either of you again.”

“That’s fair,” she says. She takes a sip from her coffee and it’s cold.

“I’m sorry, for everything,” he says. “And you don’t have to forgive me, I just wanted you to know.”

She nods with the smallest movement of her head.

Aemond slides his hand away from her. He leans over his elbows and taps his fingertips on the table again.

She keeps her eyes down as he clears up the coffee cups and follows the sound of his footsteps as he walks to the kitchen, then back to her, hovering over her shoulder.

He takes a slow breath.

“Whenever you’re ready, I could drop you home.”

“Thanks,” she mutters.

“Or if you want another drink, or a shower, or anything…”

She lifts her head and turns herself around to face him. He looks so tired.

“I’ll take you up on a shower.”

He leads her back to the bedroom, handing her a towel from a cupboard, and through to an ensuite with dark tiles on the walls, ceiling and floor, and a shower cornered off from the rest of the room by a glass screen.

She hangs the towel on the back of the door while Aemond runs the water, testing the temperature with his hand.

They turn back into each other.

A hazy cloud of steam fills the room. Aemond’s skin glistens, beads of water and sweat forming along his brow and his neck, but she keeps her gaze on his eyes.

She’s not sure who moves first, but they drift into one another, until their lips meet in an effortlessly delicate kiss.

But it quickly leads to something more intense when she pulls the t-shirt over her head and slides her panties down her legs.

Aemond groans lowly, pulling her into him by her waist, tracing his hands along every inch of her body he can reach. He kisses along her cheek, neck and shoulder as she teases the hem of his t-shirt and his toned stomach underneath.

He moans into her mouth, and she delights in it. “Whose needy now?” she asks sweetly against his lips.

He tears his t-shirt off in one quick movement and surges into kiss her again, cupping and kneading her breasts and her arse.

Then he takes her hands in his, and brings them down to the fly on his jeans.

She grins as he presses his forehead against hers. They both watch as she slowly undoes the buttons and hooks her fingers around the waistband.

She keeps her eyes on him as she pulls his cock free and comes to crouch in front of him, smiling at his clenched fists and tight jaw. He’s already half-hard as she starts to stroke along his length and runs her tongue along the underside of him.

She misses the weight of him in her mouth, his fist in her hair, his praises and the noises he makes as he spills down her throat, but before she can even place her lips at the tip, he drags her up to stand.

“Daddy—”

His usual commanding façade falls to something softer. “No,” he says, “just use my name.”

“Aemond,” she sighs.

He gives her a smug smile and reaches for the side of her neck, tilting her gaze up. “You still on the pill?”

Her breath hitches. “Yeah.”

“Hmm, good girl.”

He walks her into the shower, putting her back against the wall. Her back arches at the cold and the sensation of Aemond’s hands on her hips as he starts trailing kisses down her stomach. He pries her knees apart and teases the sensitive flesh of her thighs with his lips and tongue, edging closer to her cunt.

He must be feeling merciful and doesn’t waste too much time before drags his tongue through her folds.

“Fuck,” he mutters, “missed this perfect pussy.”

It would be embarrassing enough how quickly she comes on his tongue, but what’s worse is just how many times Aemond draws climax after climax from her, circling his tongue over her clit, fucking her with it, then replacing it with his fingers.

Her legs tremble as she feels her slick trickling down her thighs, but he doesn’t need her to stay standing for long. He comes to stand hitches her legs around his hips.

With his face buried in her neck he lines himself up with her entrance and slowly pushes himself inside of her.

She hisses and tugs on his hair at the stretch, but the pain doesn’t last long as he starts to rut into her.

“’m not gonna last long,” he says against her skin, panting with the effort as he picks up his pace.

But she can feel just how responsive her body is to him, just how much she’s missed the feeling of him, his cock dragging through her and hitting that perfect spot deep inside her.

She moans his name and holds him tighter, pulling him closer, urging him deeper.

Her orgasm is a wave of warmth, a soothing relief that just keeps going as Aemond continues to fuck her.

Until his hips still and she feels his cock throb inside of her. His voice is somewhere between a groan and whimper as he comes, and it sends another thrill down her spine.

Carefully, he lowers her down to stand on her own legs, keeping hold of her waist as warm water cascades over their bodies. His eyes don’t stop moving over her face, and she can’t stop touching him, threading her fingers though his hair, feeling along his neck, his jaw, his cheeks and his lips.

He turns her around. The cap of a bottle clicks and he lathers shampoo through her hair, then tilts her head back to rinse it out. Next, he coats it in conditioner, and keeping her back against his chest and his head over her shoulder, he washes her skin with a lavender body wash.

Then he pushes her into the wall by the base of her neck. She braces herself by her palms as he takes a delicate hold of her throat and fucks her again. He reaches deeper from this angle, bullying against her sweet spot.

Aemond keeps a steady pace and kisses the back of her neck. “Tell me you missed me,” he says.

“I missed you,” she utters, “missed how good you make me feel.”

“Hmm, missed being my good little slut?”

She tries to say it back, but all she manages is a throaty moan as she comes undone around him.

Then he washes the conditioner out of her hair like it’s nothing.

After he’s dried her off with the towel, he carries her back to the bedroom and lays her out on her back.

He’s insatiable. He fucks her again with their foreheads pressed together and their lips barely brushing over each other. Every brutal snap of his hips is another step towards a burning oblivion, and his pace barely falters as he positions her legs over his shoulders.

She can feel herself twitching and clamping around him, the coil in her belly tensing and tensing until it’s almost unbearable.

Aemond presses his teeth together and hisses like it hurts. “So tight,” he whispers, “my good girl, so fucking tight.”

“Please,” she utters, “Aemond, I wanna come,”

He frowns in mocking sympathy and grazes his lips over her the sensitive spot on her neck. “I know you do, baby, I’m close too, just hold out for me a little longer, yeah?”

“Yeah,” she says, barely a breath, and she says it over and over again. She closes her eyes so she can lose herself in it all, his cock dragging through her, the wet sounds of sex, the smell of sweat and lavender bodywash, his nose pressing against her cheek as he turns into her, his breath over her mouth, his desperate moans and whimpers…

Her orgasm rises and comes crashing down, until her skin comes alight and her body starts to tremble underneath him.

Aemond lets out a guttural groan as he comes, stilling his hips against her, pushing in impossibly deeper as a warmth floods through her.

He lifts his face to hover over hers. His hair is still damp and so is hers, leaving a cold patch on the pillow that makes her shiver.

Aemond leans on one hand over her and brings his thumb to her bottom lip to pry open her jaw.

She sticks her tongue out, ready and waiting as he trails a slow line of spit into her mouth.

“Swallow,” he mutters, and she does.

He smiles vaguely as takes her legs down from his shoulders and pulls her to sit up, cupping her face in his hands and leaning in to kiss her lazily.

This is how things were supposed to be, she thinks, winter mornings wrapped up in each other, her body settled in a perfect state between bliss and numbness.

Suddenly he’s moving away again. “All fours,” he says.

She rolls over her side and props herself against the mattress on her hands and knees.

Aemond keeps a punishing grip of her hips as he slides his cock into her sensitive pussy, fingertips digging into her flesh as he pulls her into him with every thrust.

It doesn’t take long before her arms feel weak and her wrists start to ache. “Aemond,” she whines, “please, please…”

Aemond pulls her against his chest as he keeps pounding into her. One arm wraps around her shoulders and her chest, holding her against him while his fingers pinch at one of her nipples. His other hand snakes down her body to play with her clit.

“Mine,” he groans against the shell of her ear, “you’re mine and you love it. I’m never going to let you go, never.” As harsh as his voice is he sounds desperate, pleading.

She holds her arms over the arm keeping her in place, helpless to do anything but cling to him and just take it.

She’s lost count of how many times he’s made her come, and this orgasm tears through her suddenly as a broken cry sounds in her throat. She digs her nails into Aemond’s arm to take the edge off as white-hot pleasure surges through her.

Her mind is completely fucked out. Aemond lets her fall back on the bed and spreads her legs, trailing his thumb through her soaked folds and his cum as it dribbles out of her.

And he slips into the bed beside her, pulling the duvet over their bodies and holding her close.

“I might need another shower,” she says.

Aemond huffs a laugh and presses a kiss to her temple.

It’s cold but she drags herself from the bed and goes to the ensuite to sort herself out. She runs herself another shower and brushes her teeth with a spare toothbrush she finds in a basket under the sink.

And when she comes back into the bedroom, Aemond looks at her with a dazed smile and a look of wonder in his eyes. She practically runs back to join him, wrapping her arms around his torso and tucking herself under his shoulder to rest her head over his heart.

“There was something else I wanted to talk to you about,” he says.

She doesn’t reply but he knows she’s listening.

“I’ve been talking to mum and Otto, and I think I might take him up on that job offer at Beacon.”

Her heart beats a little faster, in time with his. Dread pools in her stomach again, eased by the afterglow and the satisfied ache between her legs.

“We’d both be in the same city, away from our families. I could get my own place.”

“And?” she utters.

��We could start over. We could try to make this work.”

Away from his parents and Targ Corp. Away from Alys. Away from the city she’s been trying to run away from.

“I think mum would kill me,” she says.

Aemond shrugs. “She wouldn’t have to know.”

“So what, we go back to keeping secrets?”

“No,” he says, turning on his side to face her. He places his hand on her neck, caressing his fingertips over her skin. “No, that’s the whole point, we wouldn’t have to hide anything in Oldtown. It would just be me and you.”

She meets his suggestion with silence.

“You don’t want to,” he whispers.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” she says, propping herself up and resting a hand on his chest. “But we’ve made mistakes before. I just don’t think this is a good idea.”

Aemond’s expression shifts. His mouth tenses and his brow furrows, not quite angry, but hardly innocent.

“I understand,” he says, but she’s not sure she believes him.

She pulls herself away from him and swings her legs over the side of the bed, placing her feet on the floor. “I think you should just take me home.”

They fall back to silence. She slips into her dress and her jacket, stuffing her fishnets in her pocket because she can’t be bothered to put them on. She makes sure she has her phone and her keys, and waits for Aemond by the front door.

He’s not far behind her, appearing in a white knit jumper and a pair of blue jeans.

The streets are almost empty, and a good thing too because the roads are thick with snow. Aemond drives slowly and cautiously, not that he’s ever been an especially reckless driver.

The Bluetooth on the car picks up her phone automatically. She tuts as a Lana Del Rey song plays through the speakers.

“Sorry,” she murmurs, reaching to turn to audio off.

“No,” Aemond says, holding his hand over the button. “I like this song.”

She withdraws her hand and tries not to smile. “I fucking knew it. You’re a secret Lana fan.”

Aemond huffs a quiet laugh. “I just appreciate good music. Ultraviolence is a modern masterpiece.”

The weather gives them a reason not to talk for the rest of the way. She keeps her eyes ahead, pretending to be enchanted by the snow, but she keeps stealing glances of him, with minimal movements of her head so as not to draw his attention. She watches his hands as they grip the steering wheel, his legs as he presses down on the pedals, and his face in the reflection of the windshield.

It takes twice the amount of time it should for them to reach Queen’s Park, and he pulls over a few houses before hers.

Once they’ve stopped Aemond sighs and runs his hands over the wheel. He leaves the engine running to keep the heating going.

She eyes the door handle and her fingers twitch.

“When would you be moving to Oldtown?” she asks.

“I start at the end of the month. I’m trying to find a place before then.”

“Right,” she says.

She looks further down the street, but the house is hidden by hedges. Alys should have come straight home after her gala. Most days she’s an early riser, and she doesn’t tend to overdo it on the drinks when she’s working— which to her, is almost always. She’s probably in the kitchen, trying to figure out where in Seven Hells she ended up last night.

She looks back to Aemond. He’s watching her with wide eyes.

“I have my thesis due at the end of the term, and exams after that. I’ll be pretty busy,” she says.

He nods and peeks his tongue between his lips. “If you need anything,” he mutters, “you can call me, anytime.”

“Thanks.”

“And, you know, if you ever change your mind…”

“I’ll call you.”

The possibility seems more and more likely the longer she looks at him.

But she pushes open the car door before she does something stupid.

She follows the footsteps already laid out in the snow. It must be a good few inches of snowfall; the prints are set deep. Thank the Seven she’d chosen to wear boots and not heels.

“Wait—” He doesn’t need to say it loudly, it’s quiet enough that she hears him, even when he barely utters it.

She turns as Aemond slams the car door shut and closes the distance between them in a few strides.

“What?” she utters.

Aemond nudges his nose into hers and cups her cheeks in his hands. Her skin feels like ice against him. Warmth blooms in her chest, and suddenly she’s able to forget that she’s standing out in the snow, in a black mini dress and a leather jacket.

He tenderly presses his lips into hers. They kiss like it’s their first times, with slow and cautious movements. More than anything she just feels the shape of his lips and lets them rest against each other.

This time, when she pulls away for a breath, and those careless words come out of her mouth, barely above a whisper, he doesn’t break away from her. He doesn’t abandon her. He says it back.

It’s terrifying and grounding all at once.

She crashes her lips against his to kiss him properly, tugging at the collar of his jumper and running her hand over the pulse point of his neck.

She knows she can’t lie to herself. As soon as January is done, she’ll find his name in her phone. She’ll say she missed him. He’ll tell her he loves her, and she’ll say it back. Time will tell if it turns out to be a bad decision.

“I don’t think my life makes sense without you,” she says against his lips.

Aemond smiles, with a gentle curl of his mouth and a look of intense excitement in his eyes. “I know, baby. I know.”

Tags (comment to be added to either)

General taglist: @randomdragonfires @jamespotterismydaddy @theoneeyedprince @tsujifreya

Series Taglist: @marthawrites @urmomsgirlfriend1 @aaaaaamond @boundlessfantasy @sahvlran @tinykryptonitewerewolf @arcielee @tssf-imagines @aemondsfavouritebastard @skikikikiikhhjuuh @queenofshinigamis @lost-and-founds @izzydlb @dc-marvel-girl96 @xcinnamonmalfoyx @padfooteyes @castellomargot @pet1t3 @okfashionista @khaothick @babygirlyofthevale

[bietrofastimoff23]

For every parent, their children are the best in the world.

Criston: aren't they adorable? 😍🥰

[bbygirl-aemond]

not criston jumping to get his sword when someone opens the door to protect aemond and then putting hand on aemond's shoulder when he goes to leave he's never beating the stepfather allegations i fear

[adarkandmagicalforest]

aemond being cristons bestest boy and aegon being larys' failson ❤️

[aeriondripflame]

do you think criston peels oranges for the green kids yes or no

[princeofwinterfell]

Something so compelling about how even if they hated each other in so many ways, Aegond only had each other and no other real friends.

[kingcunny]

i always forget people took aemonds “history and philosophy” line seriously cause i took it as hes read the seven pointed star (and only the seven pointed star) 37 times

[justa-personn]

being the “dad that stepped up” character is not always a positive thing. take criston cole, for example. he actively helped make the kids he stepped up for worse. his loserism infected them.

[dirtytransmasc]

Light by Sleeping at Last but its Criston being the first person to hold Alicent's youngest 2, promising to always be there, to be their sworn protector

May these words be the first to find your ears ... I hereby pledge all of my days to prove it so

Light but its Cole with little Aegon, watching him long for a father who will never want him, and doing his best to fill the gap.

I'll give you everything I have I'll teach you everything I know I promise I'll do better

Light but its Cole with little Helaena, wanting nothing more than to protect her innocence, to keep her from suffering like her mother had.

I will always hold you close But I will learn to let you go ... I will soften every edge I'll hold the world to its best And I'll do better

Light but its Cole and he's angry, he's angry because Aemond, his Aemond, the boy he was more of a father to than anyone else, was maimed, he had failed to protect him, and now he dedicates all his time to the boys training.

I'll give you everything I have I'll teach you everything I know ... With every heartbeat I have left I will defend your every breath And I'll do better

Light but its Cole loving his kids more than they could ever understand.

Cause you are loved, you are loved more than you know ... Though your heart is far too young to realize The unimaginable light you hold inside ... I will rearrange the stars Pull 'em down to where you are I promise I'll do better

[spacerockfloater]

I’m going to preface this post by saying I don’t give a flying fuck about the hate I’m going to receive for the opinion I will be sharing and I won’t bother replying to any comments attacking me for it.

I fucking LOVE that Aemond killed Luke and I wish it wasn’t accidental. I wish Luke’s death was full on intentional, lol.

As a victim of bullying, I’ve been in situations where I have had to fend off 20+ kids as a kid myself. I’ve been verbally, physically, emotionally and psychologically assaulted as a child by other children, simply because I wanted, strived for and had good grades in school, actions that did not affect any of my classmates in the slightest. Therefore, I absolutely sympathise with Aemond, whose lack of dragon and later on his acquisition of one hurt no one (dragons belong to no one, you snooze you lose), yet he still got ridiculed and attacked for it. Yes, Aegon was also a bully and I hate him for it, but ultimately he grows out of it and supports his family, unlike the Strong bastards who remain bullies and assaulters. Oh, and Aemond tried to hit Jace with a rock because he attacked him first. Accusing him for standing up for himself is victim blaming. People who defend the Strong boys are bullies and that’s final.

No, I don’t give a rat’s ass that his attackers were children. Aemond was a child, too, and they ganked him 4v1. It’s crazy how some of y’all support physically attacking someone because you don’t agree with them. It was satisfying to see him kick their teeth in. Aemond and Luke are only 2 years apart, even if the actors’ appearances suggest otherwise. Your age does not excuse you being a fucking piece of shit. Children and teenagers appear on the news daily as rapists, killers, assaulters and all kind of criminals. That’s the reason juvie exists. Children should face the consequences of their actions.

“Are you excusing child murder?” if it is by the hand of the child they unapologetically disabled, fuck yeah. Besides, at the end of the day, Aemond dies, too, so you could say justice is served.

Still, I would have given the Strong boy the benefit of the doubt if it weren’t for this scene:

Lucerys is laughing at Aemond.

He is looking him in the eye and he is laughing at him. It’s been 6 fucking years. Lucerys is 17 (confirmed by the writers) and he feels no remorse for what he did. He was not punished for his action, so he has learned nothing.

He feels safe to mock Aemond, in the comfort and safety of his grandfather’s house, where his guard and stepdad can stop Aemond, whom he cannot beat on his own, from bashing his head against the wall. He feels safe to attack Aemond when he calls him Strong, knowing that other people will finish the fight he started but can’t win.

But what happens when no one is around to protect him from the consequences of his own actions? He shits himself. His face falls, he stumbles backwards and does not object to Aemond calling him Strong.

Not laughing now, huh, you little shit stain?

[vhagarlovebot]

NO ONE HAS TO KNOW. — STEPDAD!AEMOND.

summary: getting stuck in the middle of a storm and having to share a bed with your stepdad was definitely not in your plans.

content warnings: 4k words. 18+, fem!reader, dark content, age gap (aemond is 38 and reader is in her early 20s), stepcest, dubcon, somnophilia, thigh riding, daddy kink, unprotected sex, choking, fingering, praise kink, one bed trope.

note: you can block the tag “★. dark themes!” if you don’t like this kind of content. for those who were asking about this fic, here it is. finally. hope you like it!

comments and reblogs are greatly appreciated!

YOU CHANGE THE RADIO STATION making aemond groan in frustration. 

“your mother wants us there.” he sighs, turning down the volume and giving a quick glance in your direction.

“i had plans.” you try to clean the window with the back of your hand to look outside, but the heavy snow doesn’t let you see anything. “are you sure we should be driving with this weather?”

your mother loves when both of you go to her conferences, she always says you’re her lucky charm, but you really didn’t want to leave the city this weekend. you’re sure your mother would’ve understood but aemond dragged you out of the house before you had time to message her. 

“we’ll have fun.” he simply answers.

“sitting in a room full of people for five hours?” you look at him, raising your eyebrows. aemond glances at you once again and shrugs. 

“you’re right. but we’re already two hours in, we can’t come back now. not with this weather.” he shrugs and you sigh, defeated. 

aemond turns on the ac, humming along to the song currently playing on the radio. “what plans did you have?” he asks after a while. 

“i was planning on… studying?” 

“which translates into going to a party.” he chuckles, but then his whole demeanor changes. “why don’t you trust me?” his question takes you by surprise and aemond is quick to elaborate. “i know that me marrying alys must have been weird for you.”

you giggle, turning your whole body in his direction. “what makes you say that? it is, perhaps, the fact that you’re way younger than my mother?” you don’t mean to sound so defensive but you’ve never approved of your mother’s choices of partners. not because you don’t like them but because most of them have been barely old enough to drink. it was like having younger siblings. you were thankful when she started dating older men—older than you, at least.

“that’s exactly why i want us to be friends.” his smile tells you he’s being honest and, for a second, he looks younger than his age. 

“aemond, that is exactly why we can’t be friends.” you run your hand over your face, exhausted. having this conversation with him wasn’t in the list of things you needed to do. “having you as my stepdad it’s weird enough, just… don’t make it weirder.”

neither of you says anything after that and a part of you feels bad for talking to him like that, but the other one knows you can’t lie to yourself.

hugging yourself, you try to sleep until the trip is over. 

you have the same dream you’ve been having since that fateful night a month ago when you decided to go to the kitchen for some milk, and ended up listening to your mother and aemond having sex.

it wasn't your fault, really, you were just passing by when you heard it. you froze, struggling between keep walking or get back to your room when you saw them through a crack in the door. he was behind her, one of his hands on her hip while the other one tightly grabbed her hair, hips smacking against hers filling the room with obscene sounds. 

you stood there until her moans became louder, his movements became sloppy and you felt your slick dripping down your thighs. 

that night you touched yourself at the thought of your stepdad fucking you for the first time. 

it was hard facing them the next morning. as soon as you saw your mother in the kitchen you felt guilty, dirty. what kind of daughter does what you did? then aemond appeared out of nowhere, startling you by grabbing your hips. you immediately pulled away, his touch making you feel even dirtier. 

that night you humped your pillow thinking about him. you were going to hell anyway. 

“hey,” you hear aemond’s voice and his hand caressing your arm trying to wake you. “we can’t keep driving, the roads are closed.” 

“you have to be kidding.” you groan, rubbing your eyes. there’s a big sing in front of you telling you exactly where you are: a motel. 

“we’ll have to spend the night here.” he looks apologetic and you soften your expression, he is not to blame. “i got us the last room available.”

“great.” you mumble, getting out of the car. “just great.” 

going up the stairs to the room, your heart starts beating faster than normal, only then realizing you’ll have to spend the entire night in the same room. you and aemond. just the two of you. 

you’re one second away from telling him you want to stay in the car when he opens the door revealing something you definitely weren’t expecting. 

your heart drops to the floor when you see one tiny bed—just enough to fit two people—in the middle of the room.

“i’m going to take a quick shower.” aemond says, leaving his backpack at the foot of the bed. 

you change to the only pajama you brought—a silk and very soft sleepwear dress—because you thought you were going to be spending the night in a hotel by yourself. definitely not in the middle of nowhere in a tiny bed with aemond targaryen. 

you immediately climb on the bed, covering your body with the sheets, when you hear him getting out of the bathroom. you peek a little, and see him with just a towel around his hips, drops of water dripping down his toned chest.

you hide under the sheets when he loses the towel, all the blood of your body going to your face and between your legs. 

aemond hops into bed with you, careful not to touch your body with his but failing; you still can feel his silk skin brushing against yours when he gets comfortable at a considerable distance. 

you try to think about a bunch of different things. the cold war. the big pimple your friend had last week. how cold it is. your mother with a disappointed look on her face… 

“do you have to breathe so loud?” aemond complains, turning around until he’s facing your back. you can feel his breath on your neck sending shivers down your spine. 

“oh if it bothers you i can just simply stop breathing, is that okay with you?” looking above your shoulder you see how his brows knit into a question as his confusion deepens. 

“what’s wrong with you?” he sounds sad and hurt by your words. and for the second time in the day, you feel really bad. 

“i’m sorry,” you say, closing your eyes. “this is not how i pictured my night and i’m cold. i get bitchy when things don’t go as i want them.” 

aemond moves closer to you and your heart does a backflip inside your chest. he puts one of his big arms around your waist and without any effort moves you closer to him. 

“wh—what are you doing?” you stammer. even swallowing is hard. 

“you said you’re cold,” you don’t see him but you can hear his smirk. “and we don’t want you to catch a cold, do we? besides, i’m trying not to fall from this stupid tiny bed.” 

you don’t say anything. instead, you try to regulate your breathing, once again thinking about the most disgusting things to keep you from thinking about the closeness between aemond and you, and how inappropriate it is. 

after a while of thinking about the gruesome and injustice of the both world wars, you finally give up. 

“i’m sorry.” you say softly. but aemond doesn’t say anything. you don’t know if he’s sleeping or not but if you don’t say it now, you would not say it again. “i didn’t mean to speak to you like that.”

“mmh.” 

“i, uhm, would like that.” 

“like what?” he asks, confused. 

“to be friends.” you shrug, very, very aware of the closeness. “we shouldn’t hate each other.” 

“i don’t hate you. never did.” aemond moves a little bit closer, his chest now in direct contact with your back. “we should get along… for the sake of your mother.” 

you open your eyes, big with surprise and guilt. your mother who’s probably wondering where you are, if you’re safe, meanwhile you’re in bed with her husband. 

“this isn’t right.”

“yeah, this bed is too small.” 

however, neither of you tries to do something. in fact, you move closer. aemond slips his leg between your own, and you part them to give him access while your heart beats so fast you think you’re seconds away from throwing up. 

you try to sleep but aemond’s closeness and arm wrapped tightly around your waist only helps to feed your fantasies. he, however, falls asleep in just a couple of minutes, and you try to ignore his slow, regular breathing on your neck and how that makes you feel, but you are weak. and a terrible person. because you can’t stop picturing aemond turning you around and taking you right there on the bed, calling you a good girl for taking him so well. 

you know the thoughts you have about him are not normal but aemond hasn’t left your mind since the moment one of your best friends introduced him to you. you were mesmerized by his sharp jawline and smart ass, and to say that the long scar across his left eye didn’t make an impression on you is to tell a lie, because it only added to the growing attraction. 

you had time to get to know each other a little bit, in the few occasions you bumped into each other at one of the many parties your best friend was hosting and who, you learned thanks to aemond, was dating jace—his nephew, before your mother came into the picture, and you were forgotten. 

however, that doesn’t mean that the attraction you felt for aemond vanished, you simply ignored the weird feeling when you saw them kissing after he dropped her home one night. 

you don’t know how they met, but you know aemond didn’t know you were her daughter until he visited your home for the very first time and saw you walking down the stairs. he tried to talk to you about it but you never gave him the chance, and eventually he stopped trying. 

maybe it would’ve been easier if you had slept with him, that way he would be out of your mind by now. instead, you keep touching yourself at the thought of him and his grunts as he was fucking your mother, you keep replaying the way his hips were moving and smacking against her ass, you keep picturing yourself giving him that pleasure. 

you try closing your legs but his leg between your own makes you wince at feeling the friction it creates. you slowly move your hips, trying to feel it again, and when your clit makes contact with his thigh you have to bite your tongue to hold your moan. 

you close your eyes, guilt overtaking you. but only for a moment. 

“aemond?” you whisper, looking over your shoulder to make sure he’s sleeping, and when he doesn't answer, you take a deep breath, cursing yourself for what you’re about to do. 

you slide your hand down, spreading your folds and feeling how wet you already are. you bite your lips to muffle the moan threatening to spill from your mouth as you play with your cunt, barely sliding two fingers into your entrance. your other hand follows the same path, circling your clit with your middle finger, images of aemond’s face buried between your legs making you squeeze your eyes shut. 

you try not to move too much but it becomes really hard with every passing minute, and as your desperation grows, so do your gasps and whimpers. 

adrenaline courses through your body, something you’ve felt before—at night when you laid in bed, legs spread wide open touching yourself at the thought of him. but with aemond in the same bed, his warmth emanating from his body to yours, his arm around your waist holding you tightly against his chest… that is what pushes you closer to the edge, what makes you start moving your hips against his thigh seeking for something to give you more pleasure than just your fingers. it’s slow at first, afraid it will wake him up, but aemond seems to be a heavy sleeper because there’s no hair out of place, not even the slightest change in his breathing. 

you roll your hips with more confidence, hands squeezing and pinching your breasts. but it is still not enough; you need him. carefully, you reach down and place a hand over his, moving it to rest on top of your breast. his hand is bigger than your own, and you wonder how would it be to feel his long, slender fingers in your dripping pussy or wrapped around your throat. 

you drag your clit along his thigh, nearing your orgasm with every roll of your hips. you don’t notice you’re moaning aloud, until you feel aemond’s hand pinching your hard nipple, hot breath against your neck. 

you shriek, immediately stopping. embarrassment and humiliation replacing the pleasure you were feeling just moments ago. you don’t move, you don’t talk, you’re not sure if you’re even breathing, too ashamed of yourself. 

“so fucking greedy,” aemond chuckles, pinching your nipple again. “using me to get yourself off while i’m sleeping.” he grinds his hips against your ass, thrusting into you. 

“‘m sorry,” you mumble, a shiver rolling down your neck. your whole body is on fire, a combination of shame and tingling pleasure.

“then do it,” his voice is low, and you can hear the smirk he’s wearing on his lips. aemond grabs your earlobe between his teeth, making you arch your back, a soft gasp spilling from your mouth. “use me just like you were doing before. want to hear those pretty sounds again.” 

you swallow the lump in your throat, still not moving. you can’t. the voice inside your head keeps reminding you how wrong this is, how you shouldn’t have started something you shouldn’t be even thinking about. but your body speaks a different language, and aemond sees right through you. 

“tsk,” aemond runs his tongue down your neck, and a new wave of goosebumps spreads all over your body. “suddenly you’re shy? or is that you like it more when i’m sleeping? hm?”

aemond presses his bulge into the plush of your ass, making you feel just how affected he is. you try so hard to listen to the voice inside your head but you are weak, as you’ve clearly demonstrated, and all it takes to shut that voice off is aemond’s hand sliding down, fingers expertly rubbing over your clit. 

“it seems i’ll have to do all the work.” he nips at the soft skin of your thigh as his other hand makes its way to your neck, wrapping around your throat and squeezing ever so slightly.

“stop, please.” you blink repeatedly, trying to clear the haze from your mind. 

“your mouth says one thing,” aemond spreads your folds, pressing one finger to your soaked cunt, making you squirm against him. “your body says another.” 

your body betrays you while you’re still fighting against what you want and what is right. 

“stop thinking about it.” 

you really want to pull away, but your body screams for him. and you do it.

you start moving your hips, closing your eyes to focus on the feeling of his fingers rubbing your clit as your pussy clenches around nothing. your hands go to your breasts, taking your nipples and pinching, moaning when you feel the wet spot on aemond’s clothed thigh. 

“use me, fuck yourself on my thigh.” he moves his leg up adding pressure to your needing hole. “just like that… good girl.” you throw your head back, giving him access to your neck. he bites and kiss and licks, leaving marks behind. “can’t stop thinking about how perfect this pussy would feel wrapped around my cock.”

aemond pushes one finger inside you slowly and you inhale sharply, one of his fingers feel like two of your own, yet it’s still not enough to alleviate the ache you feel deep within you; so you desperately search for his wrist, digging your nails into his skin, silently asking him to go deeper, faster. 

“what’s that?” he teases you, leaning in just a little closer to whisper directly against your cheek. “use your words, baby.”

“want more, p-please.” you whimper when he inserts a second finger, immediately curling them upward. aemond brushes that spongy spot inside of you that makes you see stars behind your eyes. but before you could let go, he pulls his fingers out, rolling you onto your back. 

“want me to fuck you until you can’t take it anymore, is that it?” aemond asks you, climbing on top of you and spreading your legs apart. when you don’t answer, he presses his clothed cock against your soaked cunt. “don’t you know it is rude not to answer when someone speaks to you?”

“so-sorry,” you don’t even try to hold back the gasp escaping your lips. 

aemond grabs your jaw, forcing you to look at him. “answer when i speak to you.”

“yes,” you exhale shakily, hips bucking furiously against him. “i want that… yes.”

“nah,” he gazes at you for a moment, then shakes his head. “be a good girl and use your manners.”

“want you to fuck me… please, daddy.” 

aemond growls, pressing his lips against yours. it’s soft at first, both of you still insecure, waiting for the other to change their mind at any second; kissing feels a little too intimate. but when he thrusts into you, dragging the tip of his cock just right over your clit, making you wrap your legs around his waist, every coherent thought goes out the window. 

he breaks the kiss, pulling away enough to get rid of his sweatpants. “you have no idea how much i’ve been thinking about this.”

your heart beats faster at hearing his words. knowing that you’re not the only one with those sinful thoughts makes you feel less anxious, it isn’t better for either of you but you’re already deep into some twisted shit, there is no turning back, so, at least, you can allow yourself to fantasize a little. 

“you knew what you were doing when you decided not to use panties to bed, uh?” aemond looks into your glassy eyes, aligning himself with your entrance, gathering some of your slick before pushing inside, slowly and carefully, giving you time to adjust to him. “went to bed thinking about this.” he pants, biting his bottom lip to stop himself from thrusting into you. 

it hurts, he’s stretching you to the point where you have to hold onto him, nails digging into his back while your mouth hangs open, moans falling from your lips. 

“so big,” you gasp, following his gaze down where your bodies meet. 

“you can take it, baby” he says, hooking your left leg up higher which allows him to slide in some more. “look at you, taking daddy’s cock so well.” 

you feel so filled already, and aemond is barely halfway in. 

aemond leans in, pressing a kiss to your cheek, warm and soft. his lips slide down until he’s kissing you again, tongue violating your mouth with such desperation and rudeness that your head is spinning trying to focus on two things at once. 

he thrust into you fully, making you cry out. you feel him so deep inside of you, you are sure you can see the outline of his cock in your stomach. 

you squirm beneath him, whimpering and moaning with his tortuous pace, the cold from the silver chain around his neck touching your cheek every time he slides his cock in, a welcome feeling against your hot face.

you can’t think about anything, you don’t remember why you were so anxious about or why you shouldn’t be doing this. there’s no thought in your mind besides how good he’s making you feel or how obscene the words he’s whispering in your ear are.

“tell me,” he grunts, pounding into you so hard you have to bite your lips to stop yourself from screaming. “since when have you been wanting me to fuck you?”

your eyes flutter shut, head thrown back in pleasure. “since-fuck! since the first time—” aemond pulls out, until only half of him is still inside of you, and then sinks back in, making you whimper. “we met.” 

aemond lets out a loud groan, violently slamming his hips, fucking you harder and faster. he holds onto your hip with one hand, balls slapping against your cunt, as his other hand moves down to rub over your clit. 

“you look so pretty like this.” aemond coos, leaning in to place a kiss to the corner of your mouth. “taking my cock like the good girl you are.”

“daddy,” you don’t even have time to warn him before you’re cumming all over his cock, walls clenching around him and legs shaking so much they fall open by his side.

you are so warm and tight around him, that his dick twitches inside of you as he approaches his own climax. he fucks you through your orgasm until his movements are sloppier and he begins to grunt aloud, face twisted in pleasure. 

then, aemond pulls out, letting out a low moan as he comes all over your stomach, hot and white stripes painting your body. 

he collapses next to you, pulling you in closer. you just stare at each other for a while, not a sound coming out of your mouths, just heavy breathing and panting. 

“you okay, baby?” 

the pet name sends shivers all over your body. “i’m alright.” you shrug, giggling when he looks at you with a frown on his face. “i’m more than okay.” 

“good. because you need a shower.” he says, getting off the bed and taking you in his arms, making you yelp in surprise. 

aemond steals a kiss from you as he walks toward the bathroom, both of you still so high and lost in the moment to worry about what this means. 

when you wake up the next morning, the bed is cold and empty, and you can no longer feel aemond’s arm around your waist. but, at the same time, you still feel him everywhere. 

you smile, fingers pulling your bottom lip down, images of what you did the night before flashing through your mind, but as quickly as they came, the anxious feeling in the pit of your stomach also comes back, erasing the smile on your face. 

you’re fighting hard not to cry when the door opens, revealing aemond carrying two cups of coffee in hands. worry crosses his face when he sees your expression.

“what’s wrong?” he takes two big steps, leaving the cups aside, and sits beside you. aemond places a warm, comforting hand over yours. but you can’t look him in the eyes. “hey,” with his free hand, he cups your face, thumb brushing your cheek. “we have a long way back home, if you want to talk… we can do that.”

you nod, tears in your eyes as you finally look at him. he has a soft expression, reassuring you that everything it’s okay, even if he doesn’t believe that himself.

tags: @namelesslosers. @teamaemond. @abecerra611. @fleurriee. @vermithorn. @aemonds-fire.

© vhagarlovebot, 2023. — do not repost, translate, plagiarise or claim any of my works as your own.

[humanpurposes]

My Heart Belongs to Daddy part vi, modern!Aemond

Series Masterlist // Main Masterlist // take the breath that's true

modern!Aemond x step-daughter

Warnings: 18+, language, family tensions

Words: 4500

A/n: Here we go, the penultimate installment! Part vii is going to be the last part and I can't really believe we're almost finished 🥲

And this is a complete coincidence I finished this today but HAPPY BRITHDAY to Ange aka @ewanmitchellcrumbs!! Consider this a little gift from me as a thank you for all your love n support 💚

Also available to read on AO3.

She wakes startled, her heart beating furiously to the sound of raised voices coming from the kitchen. 

She’s in the middle of the bed, curled up on one side with the bed sheets bunched up around her.

After the mess of last night, Cregan had gone to the pub with Jace and Baela. Evidently he hadn’t come back but his things are still strewn about her room, the brown leather holdall by the wardrobe, his t-shirt on the floor, his aftershave on her vanity.

She runs her hands over her face and forehead, groaning at the headache pulsing in her head as the shouting continues.

It’s a rarity for Alys and Aemond to get so heated, usually their arguments are a cold war of curt remarks and furious glances. She holds her breath, listening for specific words but she can’t make anything out.

It concludes with Alys shouting at the top of her lungs, “FUCK OFF THEN!” followed by the kitchen door slamming, a pair of loafers clicking against the floor of the hallway and then the front door opening and closing.

She goes to the window, pulling the curtain back just enough to see Aemond’s silver Jag pulling out of the driveway. Something about seeing him leave feels so final.

Once she’s thrown on a t-shirt and some shorts she treads carefully down the stairs, afraid to disturb the eerie silence that hangs about the house.

Alys is leaning over the counter, cradling her forehead in her other hand. She breathes deeply and slowly, the cup of coffee in front of her long forgotten. 

Finally she tries to compose herself, taking a sharp inhale through her nose, looking at her and forcing a smile, as if there aren’t tears welling in her eyes. “That’s it then,” she says, her voice hoarse from the shouting.

Panic strikes her gut like a knife, twisting and twisting until it burns. “Did he say why?”

Alys huffs bitterly. “He said it was ‘differing priorities’. Says he wants to reconnect with his family–” she licks her teeth and makes a sucking sound with her tongue– “he thinks I’ll just get in the way.”

“Is that actually what he said?”

“No.”

“Well how do you–”

“I just know!” Alys snaps and she flinches. Alys waves her hand vaguely in front of her face before she starts to rub circles against her temple. “I just… know.”

She looks down at the counter, hoping to find some way to make herself useful. There’s another cup in front of one of the stools. Black coffee, half-full. She reaches for it instinctively. She can’t see the prints of his fingertips and lips on the white ceramic, but she knows they’re there. He’s left a packet of cigarettes behind too, the same packet from the dinner party.

She pours the leftover coffee down the sink and squeezes some dish soap onto a cloth to clean it out. Her hands are shaking and she almost drops it twice.

“Gods, as if I even cared enough to interfere with his family,” Alys tuts behind her. “They never liked me.”

She can’t bring herself to disagree, but it’s not like the Targaryens are renowned for being welcome to outsiders, let alone the woman in her forties who took Alicent Hightower’s precious golden boy from her. She feels cruel for thinking that, especially because she knows she would never say that to Alys’ face. 

There’s a tapping sound coming from the counter, a nail against cardboard. She glances over her shoulder as Alys drums her fingertip against Aemond’s packet of cigarettes. Her head is tilted and she hums distantly.

“I never meant for things to go this far,” she says, “but it’s done now.”

She can still feel Aemond’s hands on her waist and stomach, pushing her against the sink and pulling her back into him.

Why end it with Alys now? Had he told her the truth? Surely this would have turned out to be a very different conversation if he had. So why didn’t he?

“I just know these last couple of months have been fucking unbearable without you.”

She slowly places the clean cup by the sink, squeezes the water and soap from the cloth and dries her hands on a tea towel.

She can feel her heartbeat in her throat, and wonders if she’ll be able to speak if she tries.

“Mum?”

Alys doesn’t look up at her, still preoccupied with the packet. “What is it darling?”

When she doesn’t respond right away Alys turns to face her. Her mother can often be distracted, even when she tries to talk to her, there always seems to be something that’s more important. Not now though. She looks at her, really looks at her, with red cheeks, dried tears and her eyebrows raised in a sympathetic expression. Focused, ready to listen to her.

There’s an old harbour down by Blackwater Bay, two tall stone walls cutting out a little corner of the shore. In the summer people like to go down to swim there because the waves aren’t as rough as they are in the open sea and the kids in King’s Landing have made a tradition of jumping from the harbour walls. She used to go with Harwin and Jace, before Luke was really old enough to swim. The wall is highest right at the end, from a slab of concrete which everyone called ‘the table’ looking out on the other side of the harbour. Every year she told Jace she would jump from the table and every year she walked along the wall and clambered up onto the concrete. She would look down at the waves, rolling, colliding and roaring as they splashed up against the harbour walls. Suddenly her body would start to tremble and she’d forget how to breathe. She never managed to do it.

Now she thinks she’d take jumping into the bay over what’s about to come.

“I’ve done something really awful.”

The train from Oldtown to King’s Landing takes four hours. Four hours when she has nowhere else to go, nothing else to do but put her headphones in and watch the snow covered hills and fields of the Reach race past in a blur of white and green.

In the end she had accepted the Masters programme at the University of Oldtown. Alys’ reaction couldn’t be described as enthusiastic, but she would have been less excited for her to stay in King’s Landing. 

Looking back, her first term had been good. She enjoyed her modules, liked all of her lecturers (even the stricter ones), was doing well on all of her assignments and she had access to the Citadel Library, which was far older and more impressive than the library at KLU.

She moved into a dorm room in the middle of the city just a few minutes from the main campus and made a few friends who all shared a flat in the well-to-do East District, which was where she did most of her socialising. On her free days she took herself to explore the city’s museums and bookshops, or she’d get herself a coffee and a cinnamon pastry and sit by the bank of the Honeywine, watching the boats and the flow of the water.

It should have been perfect, and it was in some ways. She threw herself into everything, research and essay writing, afternoons in pub gardens and parties full of strangers. Her life had become a tangle of possibilities and it was easy to let everything else slip away.

She ended things with Cregan well before she left for Oldtown. She told him half of the truth; she hadn’t been feeling like herself lately and she wanted space to feel like a person again. She didn’t tell him about Aemond or the incident at the dinner party, and she didn’t tell him that she felt like she was wandering through her own life like a lost puppy, looking for something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, something that would fill the space in her chest that seemed doomed to remain hollow forever.

He seemed shocked but he took it well. According to Jace he’s been getting rather close to Aly Blackwood, a KLU graduate from her year. Aly Blackwood is best known around King’s Landing as a goth with a heart of gold. She has tattoos and piercings, wears sleek eyeliner and black platform boots and spends every weekend going to concerts or music festivals. She’s smart and a people person, just like Cregan. If things are heading that way then she’s happy for them. He deserves someone like that, someone who doesn’t lie to everyone around her, someone who doesn’t fuck her mother’s boyfriend halfway through a dinner party, while her own boyfriend was only in the next room.

Oldtown was the perfect escape, until the 1st December came around. Everywhere she went there were lights and trees, couples huddling close together to keep out the cold, while Last Christmas played somewhere in the distance. She enjoyed as much of it as she could, especially when her new friends dragged her to go ice skating or to Oldtown’s annual Christmas market in the square. But she couldn’t shake the dread of having to go home and spending three weeks in the house alone with Alys. Three weeks of sleeping in the bed where Aemond used to fuck her.

She watches the window as the treeline of Kingswood vanishes, and the shoreline of Blackwater Bay stretches before her, which means the city is only minutes away.

She takes her phone from her pocket and looks at it with the same nagging impulse that so far, she’s successfully ignored for months. This is her last chance to call him before she gets to King’s Landing. She doesn’t even know what she would say. She doesn’t want to talk to him or see him, but she thinks it would be nice to hear his voice or just know that he’s thinking about her– if he is thinking about her.

She opens her notes app and the note titled really good advice.

Don’t engage.

Don’t listen to songs that make you sad.

It’s okay to let go.

The train emerges from a tunnel and slowly starts to halt as it comes into the glass canopy over the platforms of Central King’s Landing Station. She slips her phone back into her pocket.

Alys picks her up from the station. She’s not wearing her usual red lipstick and she’s cut her hair into a stylish bob that makes her look older– in a good way– but other than that, she looks the same. 

They hug stiffly and exchange the same mumbled greeting. “Hi. You alright? Yeah, good thanks.”

Snow drifts down from a dark grey sky, but it’s not cold enough for it to settle, despite Ella Fitzgerald’s wishes for a “White Christmas” through the car speakers. The traffic is busy so she has plenty of time to admire the lights and displays in shop windows, and the trees twinkling inside the houses as they get closer to Queen’s park.

The house is gloomier than she remembers, but then she left it in early September when the weather was still warm. That’s her least favourite thing about winter, it’s dark and it’s only 4pm. It’s cold too. She wonders if Alys came straight from the office.

She leaves her bag at the bottom of the stairs and follows Alys through to the kitchen. She squints at the harsh lights as Alys rummages through the fridge. “Didn’t have any time to think about dinner,” she says, “the last few days have been non-stop.”

“That’s okay,” she mutters, familiarising herself with the feeling of the white marble countertops under her palms. “I can walk down to the shops, if you need?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alys says, “you’re a guest.”

That’s a new feeling, being a guest in her own house.

To Alys’ credit, she’s making an effort to be around more. She comes home from the office earlier than she usually does and on the weekends she brings her laptop to the lounge and works from there. 

She has reading she could be doing for uni but she’s too tired to read. Lately, every time she picks up a book the words blur and fade into one another. When she’s bored of scrolling through her phone or flicking through the TV, she tries her hand at baking gingerbread to get into the festive spirit. They turn out surprisingly well but then she’s just left sitting in the kitchen by herself, nibbling cookies and feeling utterly ridiculous for it. Why does being alone have to be so embarrassing, surely there’s no one around to care?

The worst part about being home is how obvious they’re both avoiding a certain topic.

They’re eating dinner around the island in the kitchen. The fridge is stocked up in anticipation for Christmas day (which seems unnecessary if it’s only for two of them) and in the meantime they’re living off simpler meals, mostly pasta or something with rice.

“Rhaenyra’s coming over for drinks on Christmas Eve” Alys says after a few minutes of silence.

She pauses her mouthful. Alys hasn’t so much as mentioned Rhaenyra since the dinner party after her graduation, and before that the wedding. She dreads to think this get together might include some other Targaryen relatives.

She swallows. “Why?”

Alys frowns. Rhaenyra and Harwin used to alternate their Christmases between their fathers, one year with Viserys, one year with Lyonel and the Rivers. That tradition had apparently been abandoned after Lyonel died not long after Harwin. Last year it had just been the three of them.

Alys shrugs. “Rhaenyra suggested it. We’ll just have a few glasses of wine. You’re welcome to join us if you’ve not got other plans.”

Other plans are unlikely; none of her friends are in King’s Landing. So far the holidays have just been a waiting game, but the festive season seems to drag on when you’ve got nothing interesting to do and no one to see. 

“I’ll be around,” she says.

“Perfect.”

Then they come back to silence, apart from the scraping of cutlery. She worries if she’s chewing too loudly, it sounds loud in her head.

Then Alys starts talking about a new client of hers. She becomes surprisingly animated, clearly excited about the new venture for Rivers PR, until she mentions an issue with contracts and some legal dilemma, then she goes quiet. It was Aemond’s job to sort that stuff out, make things more manageable for her. 

She tries to change the subject by telling Alys about Oldtown, her new friends and the possibility of a graduate role at the Citadel Research Institute. 

“One of my lecturers is a partner there,” she says. “They usually reserve two placements for Oldtown students.”

“How long would it be for?” Alys asks.

“Two years,” she says, taking a quick sip of the bittersweet grapefruit soda Alys had insisted she try, “it’s paid work, and then I’ll have a job by the end of it.”

“Sounds like you’ve got everything planned out nicely.” Alys doesn’t say it like a compliment. Her voice falls as she speaks.

“I mean, it’s only a possibility,” she says, “I’d have to get accepted. I was thinking about applying for some stuff in King’s Landing too–”

“Do you like Oldtown?” Alys asks. Her expression is utterly unreadable. She might be furious. She might not care at all.

She places her glass down. Her stomach aches with hunger but she finds that she doesn’t feel like eating. “Yeah, I do.”

“Well then I see no reason to force yourself to stay here,” Alys says and promptly goes back to eating. 

Her chest feels like it’s about to burst.

She told Alys the truth. She didn’t try to justify what she did. She watched her mother cry, stood there as she screamed at her and gave her space when she wanted it. Seven hells, she had moved to the other side of the continent to give her space.

She knows there’s no version of this where she isn’t the villain, where she doesn’t wake up every morning and feel like a shit human being. Part of her is still trying to accept that her mother might never forgive her, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to try.

The edges of her vision start to blur. “You’re here,” she says.

She watches Alys’ chest rise and fall and her lips start to tremble as she sets her cutlery down. She breathes as she hangs her head, gnawing slightly on her bottom lip.

She anticipates another argument like the one before, that will leave her with a hoarse throat and a tightness in her head.

Then Alys turns her head to face her with glassy eyes. “I hope you don’t think I’ve held you back.”

“What? No, why would you say that?”

“You seem so happy in Oldtown I just… I hate to think that you only went to KLU for me. Don’t get me wrong, I loved having you at home for another three years, but I just wanted you to be happy. That’s all I’ve ever wanted for you–” she gasps a small sob but snatches it right back. She wipes her eyes with her fingertips, careful not to smudge her makeup. “I’m sorry if I’ve made things… difficult.”

She can hardly believe what she’s seeing. “No, no, no…” she utters, reaching for one of Alys’ hands. Her throat feels thick and when she blinks she feels hot and heavy tears trailing over her cheeks. “This was all my fault. Mum, you’ve given me everything, and what have I done with it but just be selfish and stupid and–”

“Oh come here,” Alys huffs. They both stand and Alys wipes her daughter’s tears away with her thumbs. 

“But you must hate me,” she whimpers, “I lied to you. I hurt you.”

Alys strokes her hands over her hair and cradles her, bringing her into her chest like she used to when she was a child. “I wanted to at first,” she mutters, “of course I did. I never would have thought…

“You know, I never actually thought I’d have kids. My parents weren’t exactly great at making me feel like a priority, and I used to think I could never be a parent because, well, I didn’t know how to be one.

“But you were so perfect. From the moment you were born I just knew I loved you, like I had never loved anyone before, and I knew I never would love anyone more than you, ever.”

She clings onto her mother like she might fade away, with the material of her blouse between her fingers and her ear pressed to her heartbeat.

“You’ve always been my everything,” Alys whispers, “I just… I don’t want to lose you.”

She pulls herself away from Alys’ embrace so she can look her in the eye. “I really am sorry, for everything with Aemond.”

Alys hums shortly. “Was it just sex?”

She’ll never forget that night in the hotel room, how stupid she felt, how empty it left her, how lost she was for months after. Sometimes she wonders, if she could, would she take back what she said? There’s no point in getting hung up on what-ifs. 

She still feels lost in a lot of ways, but the dust seems to be settling now. She just hopes things will be a little clearer now.

“I think it was for him.”

Alys frowns sadly. “Oh you stupid thing.”

She wants to cry all over again, but it’s a fair statement. “Are you sure you don’t hate me?”

Alys considers the question. “Maybe just a little.”

By Christmas Eve her mood has significantly improved. The weight has been lifted from her body. She doesn’t have to spend an hour convincing herself to get out of bed. She doesn’t lose herself under the warm, running water of the shower. She doesn’t feel so exhausted from the simplest of tasks.

She and Alys finally get not one but two trees up. The ‘proper tree’ is in the dining room, with golden lights reflected in the silver and glass ornaments. In the lounge they have a smaller one that sits in the window. It has fairy lights shaped like stars and mismatched decorations, little wooden snowmen, plush reindeer and polar bears they’ve had since she was little and golden birds that belonged to Alys’ grandmother. She likes the small tree the best because every decoration has a memory. She feels like a little girl again, buzzing with excitement to spend Christmas day with uncle Harwin, aunt Rhaenyra and her cousins.

Tomorrow, she'll wake up slowly, have mimosas with her mum, roast some potatoes, eat too much food and fall asleep curled up on the sofa. Nothing else will matter. She won’t keep second guessing someone else’s every move. She won’t cry herself to sleep thinking of every little thing about her that isn’t good enough to be loved.

Alys is adamant tonight will be nothing like the dinner party in June, thank the Gods.

She changes into a mini dress with a colourful floral pattern and styles her hair nicely. She tilts her head at her reflection and puts in some pearl drop earrings, but something still feels missing. She shrugs it off.

She helps Alys put out snacks and drinks on the kitchen island and choses a playlist of all the essential Christmas songs, just in time for their guests to arrive.

Rhaenyra looks as stunning as ever, in a black two piece that fits snugly around a growing baby bump, bright red lipstick and gold jewellery on her neck and wrists. She hugs both of them tightly and smiles beautifully in a way that makes her think she might be genuine. 

Baela and Rhaena follow behind her, which is a pleasant surprise.

“No boys with you?” Alys asks as they all walk through to the kitchen.

“Thought we’d keep it strictly pleasant company,” Rhaenyra says, “nice to have a bit of calm before we go to dad’s tomorrow.”

“Right,” she and Alys say at the same time.

They all sit in the kitchen. The twins are a year older than her. Baela’s been working at her grandfather’s company while Rhaena’s found her way into being a stylist, always posting from film sets and photoshoots. She looks the part too, she tends to wear bright, bold colours and pairs them with patterns and materials that shouldn’t work together, but somehow they do.

They ask about Oldtown and she doesn’t feel bad about repeating everything she’s already told Alys. The attention is quite nice.

Given the baby, Rhaenyra can’t actually drink but she pours some cranberry juice into a wine glass and sips it elegantly. “Jace told me you and Cregan broke up?” she says once the charcuterie boards have been finished off.

In that moment she tries to think of all the ways someone might react when they’re not bothered by something. Unbothered people smile vaguely and play with their hair without it seeming nervous. Unbothered people crack jokes at their own expense and laugh things off. Unbothered people don’t take as long as she’s taking to answer a question. “Um.. yeah.”

“Oh well, that’s life,” Rhaenyra sighs. “You know I broke up with my first girlfriend before I went to uni.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. And then she married my dad.”

She and Alys look at each other. They both try to look concerned at first, until she sees a flicker of a smile on Aly’s lips. She slips too, and they simultaneously snort into laughter. 

But once the amusement wears off and Alys and Rhaenyra retreat to the lounge, she still feels guilty. 

Baela and Rhaena are gossiping about some shared friends. She only half pays attention.

Maybe Rhaenyra meant it to be reassuring, empathetic, validating, but Oldtown wasn’t the reason why she ended things with Cregan, more a symptom of a single problem.

She has a sudden urge to reach for her phone, but she’s left it upstairs.

She was doing so fine in Oldtown. She was happy, busy, things didn’t seem to bother her as much as they do in King’s Landing.

“What are you doing for new years?” Baela asks. 

“Oh um, nothing. Mum has a fundraiser she usually goes to.”

“Are you not going to go with her?”

A ballroom full of canapés, elevator pitches and entrepreneurs making small talk sounds like a living hell. “Definitely not.”

“We’re all going to Dracarys,” Rhaena says, “you know that club on Silk Street? Why don’t you join us.”

She starts to shake her head. Hanging out with Aemond’s cousins sounds like it could be a bad idea. 

“I know what you’re thinking,” Baela says, “but don’t worry, it’s just us, Jace and a few other girls. Cregan won’t be there, he’s gone back to Winterfell.” 

She releases a shaky sigh of relief. Right. Cregan. The person she should be worried about.

“He and Aly Blackwood are a thing now,” Rhaena says.

She keeps her eyes on a space on the counter. “Yeah, I heard.”

The kitchen falls to an uneasy silence. Baela and Rhaena look at each other and she can feel the anxiety radiating off them, restless and uncomfortable without something to fill the lull in the conversation. She doesn’t mind the quiet. 

They don’t stay too late. When they go to leave the snowfall is a little heavier and leaves a light dusting over the drive and the cars.

“Let me know about new years,” Baela says, “we’ll have fun!”

She supposes so, and besides, she could do with getting out the house and drowning her sorrows with a sensible amount of margaritas. 

She and Alys stand in the doorway as Rhaenyra’s Escalade pulls away and disappears down an otherwise empty street, leaving a trail in the snow that is quickly covered again. 

Alys checks the time on her phone and shows her the time: 00:02. “Happy Christmas, darling,” she says, wrapping her arm around her shoulders.

She smiles and leans into her. “Happy Christmas, mum.”

Alys grins and nods towards the stairs. “Now get to bed or Santa’ll skip our house.”

She giggles softly as she goes, entirely pleased that Christmas isn’t turning out to be a complete shitshow. Alys has left a new pyjama set on her bed, white, fluffy and impossibly soft. It makes a difference from her old Black Sabbath t-shirt. She readies herself for bed, brushes her teeth and takes a few sips of the glass of water she’s brought up with her. 

Her phone is plugged in on her bedside table, but it must be fully charged by now. 

The moment she reaches for it, the screen lights up and it starts to ring. The glare of the white text makes her eyes sting: Aemond Targaryen.

All the months of distance are gone in a moment. All the time she’s spent trying to move on are lost for just one glimmer of hope. It would be so easy to accept the call. She doesn’t care what she should or shouldn’t say. One movement of her thumb and she’ll hear his voice. 

Don’t engage.

It’s okay to let go.

She watches the phone ring until his name disappears.

A/n: I also realised that I've been referring to Harwin's father as Simon Strong which is incorrect, it should be Lyonel, so I've gone back and corrected that.

General Taglist: @randomdragonfires @jamespotterismydaddy

Series Taglist: @marthawrites @urmomsgirlfriend1 @aaaaaamond @boundlessfantasy @sahvlran @tinykryptonitewerewolf @arcielee @tssf-imagines @aemondsfavouritebastard @skikikikiikhhjuuh @queenofshinigamis @lost-and-founds @izzydlb @dc-marvel-girl96 @xcinnamonmalfoyx @padfooteyes @castellomargot @pet1t3 @okfashionista @khaothick @babygirlyofthevale (I'm so sorry I said I was gonna add you for last time and I completely forgot 😭)

[bietrofastimoff23]

I just noticed the dragon figure crest on Criston’s helmet. I double-checked the other Kingsguard, and none of them have anything like it.

The bond between Criston and his Targaryen step-kids is so real.

[gwaynewantstofuckcriston]

When Criston get to Harrenhall, he is gonna get visions of Alicent riding him, and then sudenly Alicent takes her hair away like if its a wig and will transform into Gwayne, and all Criston will do about it is moan so loud that Aemond will hear while he is getting some titties and be like "wtf is stepdad doing?"

[venusbyline]

𝑨 𝑺𝑶𝑵𝑮 𝑶𝑭 𝑰𝑪𝑬 𝑨𝑵𝑫 𝑭𝑰𝑹𝑬 𝑹𝑨𝑵𝑫𝑶𝑴 𝑯𝑬𝑨𝑫𝑪𝑨𝑵𝑶𝑵𝑺 ☙

❥ about me • main masterlist

❥ HOTD masterlist • Game of Thrones masterlist • HOTD Horny Thoughts

: ̗̀➛ REQUESTS: closed.

❥ CHARACTERS X FEMALE!READER

Betrothal with twin!Jacaerys

5 HOTD characters most likely to enjoy period sex

Show!Aegon being caught jerking off

Sugar Daddy!Aegon II

High School Teacher!Aemond

Perverted Half-brother!Jon Snow

HOTD characters most likely to be in love with their older sister

Teenage Dad!Aegon II

Most likely to marry Rhaenyra's daughter (Jacaerys' twin sister)

❥ CHARACTERS X CHARACTERS

Summer AU - Young!Rhaenyra x Alicent

Baratheon!Aegon x Lannister!Helaena

Young!Aegon x Babysitter!Helaena

Modern AU - Alys x Helaena x Aemond

Half-Siblings AU - junkie!Aemond x innocent!Helaena

Teacher!Alicent x High School Student!Rhaenyra

Lolita AU - Young!Rhaenyra x Stepdad!Daemon

Throuple AU (Domestic Fluff version) - Helaena x Aegon x Aemond

[witchthewriter]

𝐇𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐨𝐧; 𝑆𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑇𝑤𝑜

I’m so overwhelmed by the House of the Dragon trailer and the photos and the theories and the new hair and the DRAGONS and UGH.

THE NEW DRAGONS!

Sunfyre!

Looking very similar to Syrax tbh ... I cannoot wait to see him in the sun. He's supposed to be so PRETTY.

Moondancer!

The mount of Baela Targaryen - bbys grown up! She looks a bit reptillian like in the face and we haven't really seen that in the other dragon designs and I'm here for it!

I'm not 100% sure but I think this is ...

Dreamfyre!

The mount of Helaena (and other Targaryens, Dreamfyre is very quite old). I hope she's more blue in the sunlight - oor maybe this is Vermithor??? What do you guys think?

THE NEW LOOKS!

Rhaenyra wearing her hair up seems to be the new look now. Out of her face, ready for battle, ready to take her rightful place.

Alicent doesn't seem to be wearing her more ... modest clothing. The last time we saw her, she was dressed with a large pendant of the Seven Point star (faith of the seven). To me, it feels like she's unravelling. Her faith seemed put on, and now her focus is entirely somewhere else.

Daemon back with the long hair; personally my favourite. Anyway, anyway, the trailer hinted at the battle between Aemond & Daemon... I have no idea how this is going to play out but I trust the creators.

THE NEW CHARACTERS!

(ew aegon)

These must be new members of his small council?

Jace going to the Starks for aid. Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I can't wait to see these interactions.

I really don't like this relationship. Mostly becaise I don't like Criston Cole. But I do think Criston has moved into a bit of a stepdad-like position for Alicent's children. Well, at least Aemond and Aegon. It's also insinuated that Alicent and Cole have a sexual relationship.

And look at my poor lovely Helaena, we know what's going to happen... I hope her story changes in some way. She deserves justice, and to have more screentime for the character. She's way more interesting to me than Aegon - he's so dry, boring, awful.

LOOK AT MY GIRLS, JUST LOOK AT THEM! Amongst the council, wearing the colours of their father's House. Baela & Rhaena are my sweet girls.

(can't believe all this is happening because rhaenyra & alicent were in love...)

photo cred: Dae on pinterest