holyposition | IC Inbox

It hurts me, Aemond! Because I care about you. It upsets me to see you hurt, and feel like there's nothing I can do to help you, don't you understand that?

A lot of people like to mix pain and pleasure. But there are safe ways to do that, and this isn't one of them.

Are you hearing yourself. Pain and pleasure, safely. Pain alone is not safe.

I asked for this hurt. It needs no helping, because I wanted it. This is no different from what Alicent has said and I will tell you the same thing: it changes nothing. You cannot help this. You shouldn't.

I know from experience, I'm not making things up.

It can be. With someone you trust, who cares enough about you to know when to stop. I've done it, Aemond, I understand the need to...punish yourself, or look for replacements for the love you should have gotten elsewhere.

[ Aemond seeking out scraps of his father, Tim projecting godliness onto others after a lifetime of prayers gone unanswered. Is it not the same, for how much reverence Aemond has for his family, for the crown? ]

I should, and I'll try. Maybe I'll fail. But you deserve better.

I am not punishing myself. You forget who you speak to.

[ shades of his mother rising to the surface, alicent's peerless seething bleeding through him. he's not lying, but tim isn't wrong in his judgement either. he deserves punishment for what he has done, but the executioner has already decided his fate. helaena has seen it. he knows it waits for him. why would he punish himself any further, when death comes for him and soon? ]

Anything I can take with mine own hands is what I deserve, and I will continue to take as I see fit. Just as I've taken Vhagar. Just as I've taken you. Just as I've taken my place at the Small Council, leading my armies to victory as a dragon should. A dragon does not wait for what it is due.

Do not push this, Tim. I swore to Hawkins I would explain, but you are making it very hard to do so.

I know exactly who I'm talking to.

Look, I don't want to fight with you. I want you here, eating cake. But can you honestly say that my worry isn't justified?

If Daemon kills me, you have my leave to do as you like and tell me I've been wrong. But until that happens, and it will not, I am asking you. Leave it be. I am in no hurry to die.

[ it is painful to admit it, that he might want a chance to survive his oncoming fight with daemon in future. who else would it be? no one else deserves to fight him more than aemond, and no one else deserves to meet vhagar in the field than daemon.

uncle and nephew, who are mirrors of each other. aemond will do everything he can to drag daemon with him into the stranger's embrace. ]

How can you still want me to come now?

We're arguing because you think I care too much, and you think I don't care to see you?

Let me give you a hug and a piece of cake, then we can go to the wreck room.

Is it not the way of anger, to refuse companionship?

[ aemond was never disciplined by hand — no one would dare strike a dragon prince, save for his father and his mother, and otto only dares in utter privacy. no, aemond learns punishment through deprivation: the lack of touch, the lack of attention, the lack of any kind of recognition or affection or familial warmth.

he has suffered a great absence for as long as he can remember. ]

I'll stay for the cake. I'm not like to break something tonight.

It can be.

[ He won't pretend otherwise. Tim gets hurt, storms off. Aemond knows this, it's the reason that Tim retreated into the room that Aegon occupies now, after arguing with Hawk about Danny's murder. But what he's done is no crime, is no offense against Tim, it's just self-flagellation, whether he considers it so or not. ]

But I'm not mad at you.

[ Just worried. ]

Perhaps you should be. I cause enough harm and hurt as it is, and I'm like as to do it again.

[ wouldn't it be easier to cast him aside, like all the others? it's a self-fulfilling cycle, what aemond does, and he recognises it. he doesn't know any other way to be. ]

I will join you. Tell me when you want me to be there.

Do you WANT me to be mad? Trust me, when I'm mad, you'll know it.

As soon as possible. I want to eat it.

All right. Give me an hour.

[ he has to emotionally prepare himself for this. not the cake, or the eating of it, but the sharing in tim's attention with the man he loves. aemond knows his place, of course, but he is a dragon - he knows his nature well, and a dragon's nature is to covet. ]

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🎀 done!