Work Text:
New York State, 1931
Alicent watches her son stride across the library, drunk again and no doubt planning his next indulgence. It’s something she has seen so many times but she can see something else this time, her son striding in much the same way but with something more behind it, an anger, a greater power and a greater humiliation. It feels familiar in a way that she doesn’t quite know what to do with, a sort of familiarity in her soul rather than just her mind.
How many times have I had a son who fails like this?
The economy, the country, is not what it was and he remains oblivious. He owns banks now and he still somehow remains oblivious to what it is before him. She was married into her father’s employer’s family with a purpose, to increase her father’s control and to ensure that Targaryen Banking remains a strong and powerful force. That purpose has given her life meaning, has given her misery and sacrifice and pain meaning. And here Aegon is, to squander it on vanity and hedonism.
She had been ill all day and he never did take heed. Came to ask her for comfort and reassurance that he was as good as he thought, as he wanted to be, as he never was. Came to her after he damned himself to mediocrity and reliance on others at best by removing everything his father left behind for him to learn from, for both of them to use as guides to keep themselves afloat.
He somehow produces more wine from somewhere.
“What is it?” Alicent brings herself to ask, she knows disapproval and disdain are more than evident in her voice and yet she cannot bring herself to care.
Once again, this all feels so familiar. Like a song she heard in her youth but forget the name for, like a dream she had over and over.
“They don’t care what I think.” Aegon responds, all wounded pride and childish sniffling.
His words too, so familiar, like a play performed night after night till its tragedies and torments were simply muscle memory. Like herself at his age, younger.
“Who, Aegon?”
She’d have flinched to have heard that sort of tone from her own father. Aegon doesn’t seem to, disapproval always seemed somehow meaningless and world-ending to him. She doesn’t care that much either way, she’s never been as sympathetic to the boy as she tried to be, at least when he was first born and she was still desperate to be “good” in that nebulous, motherly way that had never come as naturally as she was promised.
“My board.”
They never cared much for Alicent’s thoughts either as soon as it became clear she could be shooed away. She doesn’t doubt they care more for Aegon’s than her’s.
“Cole. Aemond. They pursue their plans without seeking my aid, or even my thoughts.” her son continues.
Why should they, she wants to say, when you have shown no capacity, let alone interest in anything that doesn’t involve a bottle or a whore.
She went over planning on trying to comfort him. Looking at him now, his arrogance, his drunkenness, his sheer inability to see beyond himself, she can’t really bring herself to care. She gave up her life and being for him and he has done nothing to make that a worthy sacrifice.
“What thoughts would you have?” she mutters, almost without thinking, an automaton, more impulsive than she’d ever been.
She didn’t regret it though. Not yet, at least. She was in pain, she was isolated and neglected by even the one person who she thought she could find companionship with, how familiar is that, and she was right. What thoughts would he have if he had any at all?
He looks at her, shocked and hurt and as much the boy who sobbed when his favourite toy was broken as the man before her. She still doesn’t regret it.
“I’m the bank’s president.” Aegon says as if that answers her question. That same shock and hurt is more than evident in his voice. And she still cannot regret it.
A silence stretches between them then. She knows what she should do, placate him and encourage him, or at least, pretend that she meant something other than what she said. She does think through what she says. That does not mean she chooses to be kind and placating where he doesn’t deserve it.
“Do you think simply sitting at the head of the table imbues you with wisdom?”
It’s harsh but he needs to hear it. He needs to remember what he is and who she is.
Another silence, as tense and as strained as the first. This time, however, something else thrums beneath it, behind Alicent’s eyes and in her teeth, a sort of knowledge, a sort of warning. She does not heed it. She has been ill all day.
“Those men at the table with you earned their seats,” she begins again as she sits down in front of him, the thrumming inside her grows still and she again ignores it, “It was my hope that once it was inherited, you would honour the burdens of your new duties, be silent, and strive to learn from the more studied minds around you.”
She had hoped her son would grow to be more like her, as awful as that was to think. She had hoped he would be dutiful, studious, and diplomatic. She had hoped he would not turn out like his half-sister and Alicent’s once-companion, wilful, prideful, and destructive. She had hoped he would follow her example, not Rhaenyra’s. Clearly, despite their distance, physically and emotionally, that had not happened.
“In the hope that you might be half the man your father was.” she adds at the end.
She never actually thought much of Viserys once they were wed. He was peaceful and amiable and understanding of why he should listen to guidance from the men he worked with and employed, like her own father. He was just too absent, mentally and physically, to really be much for her, for a young and frightened bride, barely old enough for anything, who was simply doing what she was told to do. They were both bound by duty, however, and Alicent had expected that to transfer to their children when they were born. Clearly, it certainly hasn’t done to Aegon.
He looks up after she says that. There was anger and shock and misery in that look, and she fancied, or hoped, perhaps some shame.
The thrumming could grow stronger yet it seemed as it strengthened behind her eyes again.
“Tread carefully.”
“Or what? You can’t fire your mother. Or do you intend to throw me out somewhere?”
Alicent hoped that Aegon could parse the fury, the indignation, the vicious clawing resentment in her voice. She hoped he knew what it meant, what he took from her.
“I ran the bank in your father’s absence, throughout his long illness, and your grandfather’s as cunning a businessman as ever lived, You should humbly be seeking our opinions and counsel.”
She knows she should stop, she does. She can see that it is doing something that Aegon, something dark and painful that she never truly planned, and she can feel the thrumming getting stronger and stronger with each word, as if she is being warned of something, as if she needs to turn back. She doesn’t. Alicent never could turn back once she started down a path, could she? That was her tragedy. Always saw it through to the bitter end even though she could stop it, stop it, stop it, and fix it all.
“You have no idea that sacrifices that were made,” she continues on, hoping that he doesn’t realise the full extent of what she means and praying that he does, “to put you in that position.”
Another silence. The thrumming goes on and on and on and on.
“Wha-” Aegon starts but does not finish, like most things, not until it’s late anyway, “what would you have me do, Mother?”
“Do simply what is needed of you: nothing”
Another silence.
Something has shifted in the room, she can feel it. The air feels charged now. The thrumming is undeniable and painful and begging her to stop, to repair what she has done.
She leaves Aegon behind to sulk and for her to lie down.
That doesn’t stop it. Nothing stops it.
Every time she closes her eyes, she sees it, what she has allowed to happen again in her resentment and anger. She sees desperation and fire and spite and pain and a long, long fall. She sees in in different dress, in different languages, in different times.
How many times have I failed my son like this?
The next morning, the thrumming is gone and the visions with it and Alicent continues down the path she has chosen, the path she chose before and the path she will choose again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.