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when luke rips into his life, when they’re forced to marry and to belatedly exile to driftmark together― he isn’t expecting it. because when things finally settle and they're left alone to live their now linked lives, luke, slowly, starts doing the most unexpected things: makes dinner for the both of them and refills his glass of wine and treats him carefully and, the most terrible of all then— he listens, on those days when not even aemond can keep himself so tightly in check anymore and drinks a little too much wine than he should and then too-long-kept secrets start to slip out of his mouth (things like ‘nobody’s ever done this for me’ and ‘i. though about this sometimes, you know. how would it be. feel free of all of them. free of her’ and ‘i always thought i hated you but― i don’t really think i do’). and luke smiles at him good morning and asks him to wear his hair down sometimes, calls him pretty when aemond finally finds the courage enough to do it (for him. because that’s the scary part. doing it for him), pulls a strand back from his forehead with delicate hands. luke pulls up the collar of his jacket when it's cold and takes his temperature with warm lips when the harsh sea-winter gets under his bones, and wraps him in his arms through the worse of the fever and― it’s impossible not to crumble, not to feel broken into the right hands, when he finally asks him, one day, no need of wine or courage anymore, because it feels safe, for the first time in his life, safe to look luke right in the eye and,
‘war ended. and they gave me the opportunity to end it up with you, too. and i don’t want to live at war, aemond. i never did. and now i think you don’t either’
‘so―’ and aemond feels it, how love really hurts. pure. beautiful. terrible. but― “that’s what this is?’
―but luke just smiles bigger, sharper in that way of his that’s never really aiming to cut, soothes the pain in his chest same as he’s been soothing everything else. a little mean, a little breathtaking,
‘and you’re supposed to be the clever one, aemond? tsk. c’mon. you know it’s not’
and aemond’s never known it. love like this. something warm and bright and quiet. something gloriously simple, when luke’s hand cups his cheek and draws him close and aemond just― goes. easy. easy. lets luke kiss his scarred cheek then part his lips with his then kiss him. and aemond feels light. serene. feels docile in luke’s arms. and maybe this is how true love feels, he thinks, as he kisses luke back, as luke's hands carefully free him from his clothes as they have freed him from everything else like finally being at peace.