Chapter Text
"Where are we going, Duncan?"
Aerion was slower than usual. The bruising had faded to yellowish green along his cheekbone, and the cut above his ear had closed, but he moved like someone whose ribs were still aching. Dunk had slowed his pace twice without saying anything.
Aerion had not commented, which was how Dunk knew it was bad.
They crossed the east lawn toward the rugby pitch. The grass was damp. Aerion's shoes were not built for this, but he didn’t seem to care.
"If this is a murder," Aerion said, "I find the location uninspired."
"It's not a murder. There's someone I want you to meet."
Aerion went quiet.
"A friend."
The tree was the same one. Big. Old. Set back from the pitch where nobody went unless they meant to.
Egg was already there.
Cross-legged on the grass. Juice box. Sandwich in precise halves. Beanie pulled low over his head.
He looked up as they approached.
His gaze went to Dunk first. Then to Aerion.
Then back to Dunk.
Dunk stopped a few feet away.
"Egg, this is —"
"I know who he is," Egg said.
Dunk blinked.
Egg was looking at Aerion's face. The fading bruise. The healing cut.
"Looks like it hurt." Egg tilted his head.
"Astute as ever." Aerion's voice was flat.
"Good," Egg said.
Aerion stared down at him.
Then something shifted. The posture, the expression — all of it moving into something Dunk had never seen on him before. Something old and comfortable.
"You little rat," Aerion said.
His voice was strange.
Egg looked up at him steadily. Then at Dunk.
"Sit down," Egg said. "I made extra sandwiches."
They sat.
Dunk between them. Aerion settled against the tree with visible discomfort.
Egg pushed a sandwich toward him without looking.
Aerion looked at it.
"Is this poisoned?"
"It's ham," Egg said.
"That does not answer my question."
Dunk looked between them. The rhythm was strange. They were talking like people who already knew each other.
"How do you two —" Dunk started.
Egg turned to him. "Don't trust him."
Aerion's head snapped toward Egg.
"Excuse me?"
"He ruins things," Egg said to Dunk. Calm. Informative. "He gets bored. He'll be nice for a while and then he'll be horrible."
"That is —"
"He broke your bridge. He got you two warnings."
"Three," Aerion corrected, biting his sandwich.
Dunk sat between them with the distinct sensation of being fought over by two people who had been fighting for ages.
Aerion leaned forward and looked past Dunk at Egg.
"And you. You've been poisoning him against me."
Egg shrugged.
"I was." he said. "Didn't work."
Aerion sat back against the tree.
It was nagging at Dunk. The way they talked. The speed of it. The ease.
"Why are you wearing that hat?" Aerion said, looking at Egg.
Egg's hand went to the beanie.
"It's cold."
"It's almost April."
"I like it."
Aerion leaned forward and pulled the beanie off Egg's head in one quick motion.
Silver hair spilled out.
White-silver, fine and straight, catching the light the same way Aerion's did.
Dunk stared.
Egg grabbed for the beanie. Aerion held it out of reach — petty and effortless and deeply familiar in a way that Dunk was only now beginning to understand.
Silver hair. The same silver hair.
The kid who lived near campus. Who knew things. Who was too clever for twelve.
The Targaryens had a place in the village.
Four boys.
And the youngest one — Aegon — he's a kid still. Twelve or thirteen. Apparently terrifyingly clever.
Aegon.
Egg.
Dunk sat very still.
The struggle had stopped. Both of them were watching him.
Dunk looked at Egg.
"You said you had no brothers."
Egg's hands tightened.
"I know."
The words hit somewhere low. Months of lunches. Months of Dunk sitting under this tree telling this kid things he didn't tell anyone. All of it fed back to the family it came from, and Egg had sat there with his juice box and his careful face and said nothing.
"Why did you lie to me?"
His voice came out rougher than he expected.
Egg didn't look away.
"Because you would have stopped talking to me."
Dunk couldn't argue with that. If he'd known the kid was a Targaryen, he'd have kept his distance. He'd have been polite and careful and never said a real thing.
He looked at the grass.
Aerion was watching Egg. The antagonism had thinned, and underneath it Dunk saw something he couldn't name. He threw the beanie back.
Then, quieter:
"How's your shoulder?"
Egg blinked. His hand moved — briefly, unconsciously — to his left shoulder.
"Fine," Egg said.
Aerion nodded once.
Egg pulled the beanie back on.
The silence sat for a moment. Then Aerion said, to Egg, in a different voice:
"I'm taking academic leave."
Egg looked at him.
"Moving back to the house. End of the week."
Egg's face didn't change. But his eyes went to Dunk, then back to Aerion.
"Why?"
Aerion didn't answer immediately. He turned the sandwich wrapper between his fingers — the restless gesture.
"Because Duncan decided to save me," he said.
He said it flatly. Angry.
Egg frowned slightly.
"Steffon had me. Knee on my chest, hitting me in front of fifty people." Aerion's voice was tight and precise. "And I had him. He threw a slur and then threw punches. He was finished. The whole courtyard heard it."
A beat.
"And then Duncan charged in."
Dunk's jaw tightened.
"He was hitting you —"
"And I had it handled." Clipped. Sharp. "I had his composure. I was winning."
The words landed wrong. Dunk looked at him — at the fading bruise, the healing cut, the eye that still wasn't fully open — and tried to make winning fit what he'd seen.
It didn't.
But something in Aerion's face told him that wasn't the point.
"Now I'm not the one who was right," Aerion said. "I'm the one who got rescued."
The bitterness in it was sharp enough to cut.
Egg was quiet.
Dunk sat with it. He hadn't thought about it that way. He'd seen Aerion on the ground and he'd moved. That was all there was.
"I'd do it again," Dunk said.
Aerion looked at him.
"I know," he said.
Dunk looked back.
"You said it's not worth it."
Aerion went still.
The courtyard. The blood on his face. His voice shaking in front of fifty people.
Dunk said it plainly. But he held Aerion's gaze when he said it, and he didn't look away after.
Aerion's hand stopped moving on the wrapper.
He didn't answer.
Egg was watching his brother. His face had changed. Dunk couldn't tell exactly how — something in the eyes, the set of his mouth.
"The leave was a practical decision," Aerion said again. Quieter this time.
Nobody answered.
Egg looked at Aerion for a long time.
Aerion's hand flexed against his knee.
Egg said, "Fine."
Reluctant. Like it was being pulled out of him.
He looked at Dunk.
"But if he hurts you, I'm telling Dad."
Aerion's head snapped toward him. "You wouldn't."
"I absolutely would."
"You vindictive little —"
"Try me."
Egg left first.
Sandwich wrapper folded. Juice box crushed flat. Beanie adjusted.
He stood up. Looked at Dunk.
"Thursday?"
"Yeah. Thursday."
He looked at Aerion. A long look.
Then he walked away across the wet grass with his bag over one shoulder.
Aerion watched him go.
"He is insufferable," he said.
"He's your brother."
Aerion was quiet for a second.
"Yes," he said. "He is."
They sat under the tree. Aerion's shoulder against Dunk's arm.
"I need help packing," Aerion said.
Dunk looked at him.
"Tomorrow."
"Yeah," Dunk said. "Course I'll help."
"Good. Come to my room at eight."
A pause.
"Bring condoms."
Dunk's brain stopped.
Aerion looked at him with perfect composure.
"What? You don't want to get me pregnant, do you?"
Dunk's face went red fast. Ears. Neck. The whole catastrophe.
He put his face in his hands.
Aerion leaned against his shoulder and closed his eyes.
Dunk's hands were still over his face.
He was smiling.