#ty to everyone who voted in the poll. Daeron gets to be included bc of u

[shortnotsweet]

all bets are off [2/3]

Lucemond High School AU drabble [part 1], She’s All That (1999)

Aemond Targaryen may be the leading man of Westeros, but Daeron is the man of the hour. His date moves timidly at first, but settles into the steps of a waltz as a swan does to water.

“You’re better than I thought,” he laughs, breathless and pretty. “Better than Jace, at least. He always stepped on my toes.”

“I hope you’d rather dance with me than your brother,” Daeron murmurs into the shell of his ear. “Besides, my mother may not pay attention when it counts, but she made sure we knew how to dance. We’re Targaryens, aren’t we?”

It’s when he swoops down to kiss him—or maybe when Valeryon tilts his head to receive it—that a sudden crash can be heard, followed by horrified—no, delighted—shrieks. Onlookers witness the leading man shoving through the crowd just to get to them. The drink table is overturned on the way; in retrospect, the table was already on its way down, overloaded with spiked punch bowls as it was, and the skirt of Maris Baratheon’s dress snagged on the hinges of the folding leg and helped it capsize once and for all.

Forget Maris, forget the dress, forget the table. No use crying over spilled vodka on a gymnasium floor. This is what matters:

Daeron jumps into action when he hears about the pig because that’s—that’s just fucked. Daeron heard it from Aegon who heard it from Helaena who didn’t hear it from Aemond because he didn’t tell her, but their sister must possess some form of clairvoyance because she always knows about these things. What kind of things?

Denial runs in the family; it’s in their blood. Having lived half a life with both, Daeron can guess which side. He’s the level one, the normal one. He spots the abnormal a mile away.

He sees it in the way their mother openly tosses Rhaenyra’s family holiday cards into the trash without even opening the envelopes, but must privately fish them out later in the evening. He found them all once at the back of her fragrance drawer, stacked chronologically by the year and tucked behind vintage perfume bottles, neatly out of sight.

He supposes Aemond is much the same. Aemond, the older brother he sparsely knows, has many tells. For example: two separate underwear drawers, a jar filled with hard lemon candies he himself doesn’t touch, a journal he once tackled Aegon for opening. With him, things stay out of sight, but never out of mind.

That’s why Daeron doesn’t rat him out when he first hears about the bet. From what Aegon has said, Helaena doesn’t contradict, and Daeron has witnessed, Aemond’s watched Luke for years and wants him in every possible way. Perhaps he is like Alicent, Daeron thinks, who lovingly files away memorabilia to dissect later. Perhaps Aemond will get the right of it in the end.

Then, Daeron catches wind of the blood and sees red. Right or wrong, plotting to seduce the object of your ire over the course of a school year and humiliate him come prom night by dumping him onstage, then dumping a bucket of blood suspended from the ceiling over him is—well. Aegon says it best.

“Pig’s blood? Really, Aemond? You’re like a cartoon supervillain.”

They all know Aemond never would’ve gone through with it. The Baratheon girls, save for one, are vapid creatures. Aemond never needed Maris’s favor to secure an internship with her father, but it was always an excuse. The moment she pointed out Luke—shy, wallflower freshman as he was—Aemond hatched his own plan. They’re Targaryens in name and blood, but they’re Hightowers, too. It’s in their conniving nature.

That summer, Luke should’ve taken one look at Aemond’s outstretched hand and taken off at a sprint. Daeron would’ve taken Luke’s hand himself and dragged him away, had he known.

Luke runs track in the winter and spring and hides himself away in the summer and fall, like an inverse of seasonal depression. Luke is a good runner. He’s skinny, but has strong legs and the instinct for it; the second the starting pistol blows, he jolts like a jackrabbit and covers the two-hundred stretch like it’s nothing. Daeron watches him run from the bleachers because he’s good at it, and because Luke sometimes wears these little shorts that barely cover anything. Aemond watches too, of course, stealing glances during lacrosse practice and nearly letting the ball get away from him. After the infamous breakup—which took place behind the scenes but played out in the aftermath for the entire school to see and speculate on—Aemond is even less subtle about it. A few times he moves to abandon the field, as if to run after Luke like a hound catching a scent. Then he’ll catch sight of Daeron in the bleachers and glower.

(“Who dumped who? It had to be Aemond, right?”

“No, no. Look at him. That’s not the look of someone who escaped a relationship.”

“What are they supposed to look like then?”

“Free, I guess. Liberated. I dunno.”)

Lucerys Valeryon pulls up the driveway in the dead of night. It’s the end of April.

Daeron watches for him out his bedroom window, then hurries downstairs and out the back door when he sees the Beetle convertible emerge, a baby blue blot in the dark. Luke called him beforehand, said he had to drop off Aemond’s things before he got too attached. Borrowed shirts, origami candy wrappers, a roll of photos sheathed in an envelope. A hardcover children’s book. It is a good thing Aemond and the rest of the household is asleep; he’d been in a black mood for weeks and knowing Lucerys was so close again would have him frothing at the mouth. Who knows what he’d be driven to do.

Daeron meets him at the edge of the lawn. Luke takes one look at him—his hair, the color of his eyes—and his expression crumbles. He cries on the curb. Daeron crouches down next to him. You’re my friend. You’re beautiful. You never deserved this, he thinks. Neither does Aemond. He never did.

“I have a suit,” Daeron says instead. And both eyes. “You were excited about it, right? Go with me.”

“Huh?” Luke wipes his face. It’s flushed red and splotchy. He is so lovely. “No, no. You don’t have to keep…” being nice to me, he finishes lamely, mentally. Daeron hears it anyway. Oh, you silly boy. He watched him before this summer, but they’d become true friends by the beginning of fall thanks to Aemond dragging him home every week, much to their mother’s despair and Rhaenyra’s clear delight. It might be one of the best things to ever happen to Daeron, besides his mother finally deciding he can come home. He knows what it’s like, then, that fear. Luke must think that once Aemond is no longer in his orbit, he’ll simply blink out existence like a star burned to a quick. It’s not true. It never was.

“I know. I want to.” Daeron hopes Luke hears his conviction bleeding through, and fears he’ll hear the love there, too. Luke is silent for a moment, turning it over in his mind.

“Okay,” he says wetly, finally. “I’ll go to prom with you. Pick me up at six.”

It’s a month to prom. Aemond’s stuff is packed in a box in the back of the car. It’s a date.

“Thank you for telling me,” Luke mutters against Daeron’s shoulder. “No one else did. They didn’t think I could handle it, I bet, but you—you knew.” A scaly beast that’s lived inside Daeron’s ribcage for longer than he can remember rumbles in agreement.

Luke rests his cheek against his collarbone and Daeron is sure that if he tried, he could hear the staccato of his heartbeat through the skin of his throat.

“Would you have wanted to know? Even if you knew it would make you unhappy?” It was obvious to anyone who knew them that Aemond never would’ve broken up with Luke in the end, not of his own volition. He’d die first.

“Of course.” Luke pulls back, offended. “How else would I—I would’ve never known it wasn’t real.” Daeron almost shakes his head. It was real, alright. Realer than Luke will ever know. But this—this can be real, too. This can be just as good. Better.

“I’m glad, then.” He dips him then, hand creeping down to plant against Luke’s lower back. The speakers continue to warble in the background, but Daeron doesn’t recognize the song; it’s something about moonlight, about fireflies dancing and the silver moon watching on.

“Don’t touch him.”

Ah. Speak of the devil. Daeron’s been touching their nephew all night, but Aemond probably knows that. He’s been watching them out of the corner of his remaining eye, jaw clenched in fury. His poor date—wretched girl she is—stands behind him, clutching at her torn skirt with a mottled expression. She’d scuttled after Aemond, to no avail.

“What are you doing?” Luke asks over Daeron’s shoulder. Everyone is watching. He is not as tall as his brother, but he’s taller than Luke and shifts to angle him away. Aemond, as expected, follows like a dog chasing a tail.

“You’re my boyfriend,” Aemond hisses, wounded, reaching out for Luke’s sleeve, “debasing himself. What are you doing?”

“Was.” Luke jerks away, clinging to Daeron’s arms like he’s a lifeboat at sea. Aemond flinches. “This is my date. I came here because I wanted to.” Luke’s fingers dig into the black fabric of Daeron’s tux. “Leave us alone.” At the mention of us, Aemond’s nostrils flare.

“Didn’t you hear him?” Daeron says blandly. “Leave us alone.” He doesn’t even need to turn to know there’s anguish painted on his face, in the tremor of his lip. You’re losing him, Aemond. One more strike, you’re out.

“How dare you?” Aemond grits out, snagging a fist in Daeron’s lapel instead, to the gasps of the crowd circling around the three of them. “You think you can come back here and help yourself?” You, who was born with nothing, for nothing, shipped away like nothing.

Daeron looks up at Aemond now, at the red rim of his eye and the brokenness behind the pupil. It’s been said that all men demand their pound of flesh. They’re not men, not yet, but Aemond’s been baying for Luke’s blood (and body, mind and soul) for the better of nine years. It’s a three-man play, and the spotlight is sweltering.

Daeron only smiles at the challenge. Maybe it looks sharp. Maybe it looks bloody. Maybe it looks like he has nothing to lose.

(Wrong. He has the audacity, actually. If he plays his cards right, he gets Luke, too.)