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“It’s going to get a lot quieter without you.”
Aerion looked over his shoulder at his brother upon hearing such a strange thing come out of his wine-drenched lips. Daeron was sitting on the corner of a desk, hands locked between his knees, back as slouched as ever. His tangled hair covered his face, rendering his expression difficult to perceive. Aerion shook his head and rolled his eyes – he had no time for melancholy.
“Good. You detest noise,” was his only reply as he went back to selecting the clothes he couldn’t do without. It was a long way to Lys, and an even longer stay there. Who knew what he’d end up needing? He had to select his items carefully.
“I detest the quiet, too,” Daeron said stubbornly, a hand risen to brush some of his hair back.
Aerion looked out of the corner of his eye only to see his brother’s face. Those lilac eyes stared into nothing, his face tarnished by a torn-up scar lacked almost all color. Was he sad? Or simply craving his stuff?
“For your own thoughts are all the easier to hear?” he ventured a guess, but he already knew the answer.
Daeron hated being alone, and he hated being with people, much like he hated silences, and much like he hated excessive loudness. Daeron hated himself, and it spilled onto everything else. Aerion held no sympathy for such a sentiment, only contempt.
“What do you know of my thoughts?” Daeron uttered weakly, his hands rising to hug his own arms.
Their eyes met, and Aerion was the first to turn his gaze away. He knew not why his brother came here into his rooms, safe for having a witness to his malaise. Aerion failed to see the reason for how distraught Daeron seemed, for he wasn’t the one sent away. Daeron wasn’t the one cast aside like some mistake, even thought he was the biggest mistake of their father’s making. Yet, the heir of Summerhall felt entitled to all the sadness in the world. Poor, poor Daeron.
Aerion slammed shut the chest he was inspecting and turned around. Daeron jerked at the sound, his eyes growing wider and his hands tightening around his own arms. For as sluggish as his older brother often was under the spell of his drink, he was always quick to fright. Quick to flee, too. Only he didn’t flee now, just stared back at Aerion, the line of his brow sharpening by the moment.
“You are to be the only prince in the castle now,” Aerion said sternly as he crossed the steps that separated them. He moved himself so close their knees almost touched, their faces at a level since Daeron was still sitting atop the desk. Aerion poked his brother in the chest and added: “Do try to act with dignity.”
“You needn’t worry about that, valonqar,” Daeron smiled at him, eyes gleaming with faux enthusiasm. “I shall be the family’s perfect face.”
With a restrained breath, Aerion grabbed his brother by the chin and took a long look at the features before him. The wrinkles born of tiredness. The tangle to his hair, born of naught but laziness. The redness to his eyes, one that offset the cool and pretty lilac of the iris. His brother was a wreck. Then, Aerion turned his face all to take a better look at the terrible scar that ran across his cheek and ended in the remnants of an ear. Aerion knew the scar upset his brother. Still, he said with disdain and regret:
“It was a perfect face, I do recall it being so some years past. Now? Naught but ruin.”
“Ruin of your make,” Daeron quipped back, true amusement in his eyes and a sharpness to his voice.
“I did not strike you,” Aerion protested, but it was as if Daeron wanted such an answer.
“May as well have.”
“I still could.”
“I think the same when I see you.”
Aerion scowled. What did that mean? Daeron only smirked wider, finally attempting to turn his face despite the grip of Aerion’s ringed fingers still around his jaw. He permitted his brother’s movement, their faces now directly opposed, his fingers brushing past the unshaven cheek and up to the scarred skin on the very cheekbone.
He didn’t strike him then. But he did do so in the past, many a time. Daeron was irksome at best most days, and insufferable at worst most nights. Pulling at his hair and rubbing sharp gravel into his face seemed like fair payback for hours lost listening to his annoying nasal little voice speak of nonsense and scream of terrors.
With another restrained sigh, Aerion reached for a hairbrush that was there on the desk next to Daeron, and grabbed onto Daeron’s hair on one side to brush the tips into submission. His own eyes were tangled in the dark locks of blond but he still noticed the attentive stare his brother cast at him as he performed the task. The waves of the hair straightened out under the relentless and uncompromising brushing, and once Aerion was satisfied with the lack of knots he released the length of the hair to brush it all properly from the very roots.
He still refused to look at Daeron, but he felt more than saw the tiny, self-satisfied smirk that danced on his brother’s lips. He could smirk all he wanted for all Aerion cared. The brush finished its tour of the flaxen hair, finally put back onto the hardwood desk. It was only Aerion’s calloused fingers that arranged his brother’s hair now, flattening the dandelion-like fluffiness that the thorough brushing summoned. Aerion parted the hair slightly to the side, asymmetrically, as he always thought it was a more flattering look on his brother’s skinny face.
“You couldn’t fail to do this, at least, lēkia? Even once I am gone and you have to manage by yourself?”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Daeron replied, his smile reaching his eyes to brighten them in such a way the man almost looked younger. Aerion failed to see what was so amusing in their situation, but felt color rush to his face at the sight nonetheless.
“You’ll miss me, won’t you?”
Aerion’s own voice sounded unfamiliar to him when he asked the question, but Daeron did not seem perturbed. He cocked his head, the silken locks of hair falling in front of his face at the movement. Lilac eyes looked into Aerion’s from under, searching for something Aerion refused to relinquish.
“The septons say we must love our brothers. It naturally follows we must miss them, too. Does that mean you will miss me as well?”
Daeron’s voice was playful and low, only irking Aerion further. He huffed and placed his hands heavily atop Daeron’s shoulders. His brother relaxed his arms, his hands falling between his bony knees once again. Will he miss him?
“My heart is like to sting whenever my eyes would fall on some retch under the table sleeping in his own sick. I’ll think of you, of course, and miss you.”
“What a sweet family we make,” Daeron smiled along to his words, his voice as sweet as honey but his gaze as sharp as a wasp’s sting. “I can’t wait for you to leave so we could start the aching for one another.”
“Not much left to wait,” Aerion noted bitterly. “Only three more days.”
“True, not long.” Daeron kept looking at him for a time without saying anything. Aerion knew not what to say, either. There was comfort in holding his brother’s narrow shoulders under his palms, as well as feeling the warmth of his breath on his face – as foul as it was. After a time, Daeron’s eyes half-closed and he brought his face closer whilst his lips suggested playfully: “Kiss goodbye?”
Aerion’s upper lip curved in resent at how much of an imbecile his brother was. He asked, annoyed:
“Have you gone deaf? I said three days.”
“We could just kiss again then, too,” Daeron shrugged, unfazed. “In front of father. Or we just do so now, and then I go on pretending you’re already gone. As if it was goodbye.”
Aerion found naught to respond upon hearing such utter idiocy. Kissing Daeron in front of their father would’ve probably been delightful. Would’ve upset their father and left a mess for Daeron to deal with while Aerion sailed off to sunny Lys. That was only possible to do in three days. It seemed a long time now, suddenly.
Why not kiss goodbye now, while they were here? Perhaps there was some crumbs of wisdom left in the wine-soaked brain of his brother’s.
Decisively, Aerion leant forward and tilted his head to allow their lips to meet. He even closed his eyes, his fingers tightening around his brother’s shoulders. He heard Daeron take in a sharp breath, and he felt his lips tense under his only to relax and take a more agreeable shape after a heartbeat. Daeron’s lips even stroked his, once slowly, and another time more urgently. It was a queer feeling, kissing his brother. It felt as though it was meant to be, but also as if it was very, very wrong. Aerion found that feeling loathsome and cast it aside.
He reciprocated the last stroke of his brother’s lips over his own, right when Daeron decided to lean back and break their kiss. There was a sense of loss rampaging inside Aerion’s chest, and he frowned at how unsettled it made him feel. He cast that feeling aside, too, and focused on Daeron’s visage instead.
He looked so much prettier now, somehow. What difference a simple brushing of hair could achieve when one’s hair was as becoming as their mother’s! Daeron’s lips were tinted pink and had a sheen of spit to them – Aerion’s spit. And his eyes, his haunted, oft hollow lilac eyes gleamed with something lively for once. Aerion found himself intrigued by the sight, but not enough to prevent a scowl from crossing his face deeper upon hearing Daeron’s words.
“You should really leave now so I could start missing you.”
“It’s my bloody room,” Aerion argued stupidly. “Leave yourself.”
Aerion didn’t truly mean for his brother to leave, but Daeron loved nothing more than to win an argument. Aerion knew that for he was much the same, and more like than not learned it from Daeron when they were boys. Very predictably, just as Aerion folded his arms over his chest in indignation, Daeron stood up and looked down at him with something akin to pity in his eyes. Being looked down on was infuriating by itself, but coupled with that look… It stirred something dark in Aerion that made him wish he could extend the scar over his brother’s face to lop off his nose as well as his ear. Daeron only smiled at him, a patronizing smile of an older brother, but knew better than to tussle his hair.
Daeron turned around and left just like he was asked to do, his steps slow and assured. Aerion watched his slim figure leave, not lingering in the doorway for even a moment. The door closed, and Aerion was once again alone in his rooms, surrounded by items he couldn’t possibly take with him in their entirety. He had to leave so many of them behind. So much of his heart, as well.
He didn’t want to leave.
He didn’t want to miss him.