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“I think your brother’s husband is a brute.” Aemond finished re-braiding his hair then turned around. Lucerys was buttoning the last button on his night-shirt. Both the shirt and the shorts were a light blue with thin, dark blue vertical stripes. Aemond thought he looked ninety-seven in the outfit, and he had told him as much the day he bought it. Lucerys said he didn’t care, and nobody besides himself and Aemond would see it anyway.
“They’re not married.” Aemond frowned. He’d thought they were.
“Never mind the details. I think he’s a brute.” He stood from the dreadfully uncomfortable chair he had been sitting in. Besides that, their hotel room was nice enough. Warm lighting came from lamps on the two nightstands. They had a large window, covered by thick, green, curtains. The bed was soft, and Aemond’s only complaint—minus the chair—was that the pillows did not offer nearly enough neck support.
Lucerys climbed into bed and made himself comfortable under the comforter. “Please remember that Cregan, brute or not, could break your jaw with a single punch.”
Aemond huffed. He took off his silk robe and set it to drape over the horrible chair. The knowledge he would sit in it the next morning to properly fit his eye patch soured his mood. “You don’t think I can take a punch?”
“I know you can take a punch…” Aemond slid under the covers next to Luke. “From Jace. From me, from Rhaena, barely from Baela—” “I beg your pardon—” “—but certainly not one from Cregan. Whether or not he’s as barbaric and violent as you seem to think he is, I have no doubt he has handled men larger and stronger than you before with as much effort.”
Aemond rubbed at his temples. “For God’s sake, you’re beginning to sound like my mother.”
Luke rolled his eyes. “I don’t mind that right now because you tend to listen to her.” Aemond was almost offended. He would have been if Luke hadn’t added, “Just keep whatever judgments that you have whirling about in that dark mind of yours restricted to facial expressions and out of your pretty mouth.”
“Understood.” Aemond found himself simply staring forward with nothing to say in response besides that one word. It would have bothered him six months or so ago, how quickly he was willing to obey Luke.
He was once again reminded of Aegon clapping him hard on the back and saying, “You’ve become that little cunts’ whipped dog, haven’t you?” Then laughing hysterically. His breath had stunk of wine and his hand had been burning Aemond through the coat he was wearing. “Now that I think about it, it is quite fitting. A collar would look good on you.” Aemond had shrugged him off after that and punched him in the nose. It had broken, shattered, actually. Mother drove Aegon to the hospital. A doctor asked what happened, and Aemond told them,
“A bar fight.” While hiding his bruised fist behind his back. It wasn’t the first time Aemond had broken Aegon’s face. Now, the very first time happened when they were children, but he’d rather think about pesticides and maggots than that.
The first time he had broken Aegon’s face because of Luke, was after the dreaded family dinner at which Jacaerys had bruised his jaw with a punch, and Aegon slammed Lucerys’ head into the table so hard the silverware clattered and everyone fell silent.
Harwin grabbed Aegon by the back of his shirt and threw him into a pillar. Rhaenyra’s face remained stone the entire time as she watched the carnage. Helaena stood cowered in a corner behind Otto. At least he cared for one of them, Aemond was glad for it, that day. Mother had her elbows resting on the table and her head in her hands. She had done nothing. Said nothing. Only put her head in her hands.
That night, after Aemond looked at Luke’s face to make sure he wasn’t hurt badly. (The left side of his lip was split. There would be a bruise above his left eyebrow.) He found Aegon in a bar right at the edge of downtown. He had seen him through the doors. He was laughing and drinking, so Aemond walked inside, grabbed Aegon by his hair, and dragged him outside. A few people in the bar looked over at them, but nobody did a thing.
He took Aegon behind the building and punched him. The bridge of his nose split open. Aegon laughed at him hysterically while blood ran down his face. “It’s nice to see you belong to someone.” His words were slurred and almost sincere sounding. If he hadn’t been laughing, Aemond might have construed it as something besides mockery. He punched him again and this time his mouth ended up bloody. Aegon kept laughing. Hysterical cackling that weaved its way into Aemond’s memory like worms in an apple.
Aegon propelled forward and knocked his face into Aemond’s. He stumbled back and Aegon tried to move forward, but he was so drunk and disoriented, that he just sort of hung his head and shuffled his feet with his arms wrapped around his stomach. Aemond surged forward and grabbed his hair in his fist. He slammed his face into the brick wall, once, twice, then he scraped his cheek against it and held him there. Aegon cried out. “Mind yourself.” Was all Aemond said to him before letting him go, and walking away before he saw his brother fall to the ground among all the garbage the bar threw away in a pathetic heap.
“Aemond.” He looked down and saw Luke grab his hand away from his mouth. His nail was bitten down the quick. The bed of it was bloody and raw. “I’ll get a band-aid.”
Luke scrambled out of the bed, and he looked at the rest of his nails. They all looked very similar to this one, except they weren’t bloody. Some of the edges of his nails were jagged, and some of them were smooth. Some of them had been shaped by a file, and some of them weren’t. Either way, they were all short. Luke came back to bed and sat on his knees while he wrapped a bandage around his thumb. “Thank you.” Aemond’s voice was thick, and he wondered how long he’d been staring at the yellow wallpaper.
Luke sat under the covers again. Aemond leaned back onto the too-soft pillows and drummed his fingers on his chest. Out of his good eye, he saw Luke steal occasional glances. Though, he was worried. He was looking because he was worried. “Take your eye patch off.” Or, perhaps not.
Aemond leaned forward and took it off. He set it on the nightstand. “Look at me.” Aemond did. Luke slowly moved his hand to his face and dragged his thumb delicately over the bottom of his scar. Aemond swallowed. “I like seeing you like this, and I see it so seldom.”
“You like looking at your handiwork.” Luke frowned deeply at him. Aemond reached forward and traced the thin scar across Luke’s nose and beside his eye with his pointer finger. “It’s okay. I do too.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Luke whispered. “I meant calm.” Aemond raised an eyebrow at him. Luke sighed and dropped his hand. Aemond almost whined. “Yes, you’re biting and tearing at your nails, but you’re thinking. You don’t allow yourself to think about anything besides work and ways to make good on threats, promises, and grudges often. When you do, you stare at something bland like that wall, and you go quiet. Your breathing is even and afterward, after you’ve torn your nails to Hell, you look beautiful.”
Aemond’s stomach filled with an intense warmth and he swallowed. He’d pay so, so, much money to hear Luke say what he had said in his head all the time. He would sell his soul to go not a moment in his day without hearing the words “you look beautiful” in Luke’s smooth voice echoing about his brain.
He was repeating the words to himself mentally with such intensity he hadn’t noticed Luke’s hand reaching up to the tie on the end of his braid until his fingers wrapped around it and started to slide it away. Aemond whipped the braid from his shoulder to hang down his back once again. “I don’t like my hair down.” He said, rather quickly.
Luke pulled his hand back like he had been burned and frowned, though it was light. “I know. I’m sorry.”
Aemond sat up again. He reached behind himself and grabbed a hold of the braid. He had managed to undo part of the tie, but not all of it. Still, Aemond went to redo the bottom part again. While he did, he stared at the covers, not the wall. “Why?” Luke asked.
Aemond swallowed again. It was a much bigger lump in his throat this time. “Why do you not enjoy sucking cock?” He asked.
Luke sputtered for a moment then replied, “That is so not the same question.”
“Yes, it is.” Aemond wrapped the hair-tie, once, twice, thrice, then leaned back against the pillow. Luke made more sounds of confusion before he went quiet.
“I suppose it is.” He said, finally. He reached and clicked the lamp on his nightstand off. Aemond did the same. The room became dark, save for the tiniest bit of moonlight peaking out from beneath their large curtains. Luke put his head on Aemond’s chest. “I just like your hair when it’s down, is all.” He mumbled while pressing a soft kiss to Aemond’s knuckles.
So much warmth pooled in his belly that it rose to his chest and he smiled. Perhaps he did look good with a collar.