[ He feels the pull, and despite his confusion, he doesn't fight it. Tim would struggle to explain why if you asked - every emotion is running high, he feels newly bonded to him, he's weak and afraid and ready to cave to any genuine affection - he hasn't thought about Aemond this way, hadn't considered any of Alicent's family, on principle. His web of entanglements is messy enough as it is.
Still, he kisses back, softly, held in place right where Aemond wants him. Tim trusts that he would unhand him if he wanted him to. Maybe that's why. ]
...and yours?
[ That's gay behavior where he comes from, brother. ]
[ pillowing a man is fine, as long as he isn't receiving. some useless wisdom heard from the whorehouses his brother so loves. aemond doesn't care that he remembers it now. ]
I am ever loyal to House Targaryen. Blood of my blood, kin of my kin, dragons us all.
I welcome you now, Tim Laughlin. [ and tighter, nails digging into the skin of tim's neck, just enough to remind him of his hold. ] If you betray my mother, I will never forget it.
[ he kisses tim again, more forcefully this time, more teeth and a grasping need to devour. ]
[ Tim is ready this time, willing to match the energy aemond is giving him, clawing at the front of his shirt, biting sharply at his lip not to harm or to threaten, but to show himself not docile. He's proven his loyalty to Alicent several times over, it's insulting to have to listen to this warning. He'd be a coward to go back on it now, and even if he's no true knight, a coward he is not. ]
I would give the same warning to anyone here.
[ Defiant, pulse thrumming still in Aemond's hand a second longer before he firmly pulls his hand away and takes a step back. ]
If you want me as a brother you'll have to believe that. Quit wasting time.
Edited (I'm smarter after my coffee) Date: 2024-10-07 09:24 pm (UTC)
[ blood, the copper taste of it on his tongue. this may well be the first time he's truly smiling in his stay here in the balfour's keep. ]
I do want you, Laughlin. But you might want to be certain that you want what we offer you. The words of the Hightowers are We Light The Way, and my mother has led you to us for true. But I am Targaryen, and our words are Fire And Blood.
[ he licks the blood off his lip, savouring the sting of spit meeting an open cut. ]
I'm glad to know you bite, Tim. Thank you for this gift.
[ he raps on the door, then, and opens it for tim to enter. he'll see queen alicent within. ]
[ Hours later, when the team meeting disperses (let’s not think too hard about timelines okie dokie?), Tim agrees to go...looking for the blood. A plan which makes him question his sanity perhaps more than anything else that has transpired in the last week, but Aemond was right about one thing for sure – it's better than standing idle and waiting out the clock. He’s withheld his vote against Alia in hopes of new evidence, so better get to finding it. ]
Thank you for not saying anything in there.
[ Around Hawk, and Alicent, Koby and Quentin too. Murder drama is more than enough, Tim’s on edge as it is without adding anything on top of it. But it was...weird, weird that it happened at all, weird that he allowed it, let himself get absorbed into the fucked up power play of it all, that he glances at the small mark at the corner of Aemond’s mouth and feels satisfaction where the shame should be. He doesn’t have time for that. Every waking moment (which is most moments) has to be about figuring this out, so that as many people survive the game as possible. The rest can wait. ]
I have to remind you though, of what I said when we met. I don’t care about House Targaryen, or Hightower, or Atreides. I care about Alicent. And you, and Alia. Your histories and your mottos don’t apply to me, even if you call me brother.
[ Fire and Blood. That’s not him. It won’t ever be. If that’s a mark against his loyalty, Aemond should have said so before...well, before whatever all that was in the hallway. ]
What is it that you worry for, Tim? Was there a lover amongst the men present earlier? I do not intend to keep you as one, if that is your worry. Mother wants me to make an advantageous match, however that should happen.
[ he wears the cut on his lip with an arrogance, to be true. he appreciates the pain of it; it's something to focus on, something to feel that is different from the impotent rage he's been nursing all day.
that said; ]
My mother holds love for an old friend who has betrayed her. I cannot speak for the nature of it, though I have my suspicions.
I will not tell my mother. You are free to, if you like. But you received me. Did you mislike it?
There was. Hawk. [ And Quentin, but that’s casual, there’s no possessiveness or expectations between them other than friendship and protection. Perhaps that Tim have a little better sense of self-preservation. ] And I don’t think you’ll be doing any marrying here.
[ The question of Rhaenyra? Bypassed. Not his place to speak on it. ]
It’s not about liking it or not liking it. It’s not appropriate, and you shouldn’t be doing that with anyone while everyone’s emotions and tensions are through the roof. Your mother and I betrayed a friend to both of us to keep you from being named. Don’t make this any more stressful than it is.
[ it sounds like an accusation, the question itself, but aemond asks it with true curiosity. true that there is some judgement wrapped around the question; do you presume gratitude from a prince? but he is vowed to their house now. aemond has accepted him.
what is the matter, then? ]
Tell me why I should not have, then. Give your reason.
I expect for you to not make things more difficult on purpose.
[ Tim didn't do it for thanks. He did it because he believes, genuinely, in Aemond's innocence, and he knew that if a better name was not offered, his would be. But he doesn't like this tone, as if he should be grateful to be spared Aemond's violence, as if he's a tagalong and not the one who, at risk of losing Alia and Quentin, offered the name in the first place. He demands no gratitude, but will take no disrespect. ]
I just told you. We need to stay focused. That wasn't brotherly. [ The first ones, the soft ones to his forehead, his cheeks, those don't trouble him. ] If a brother is what you want, you have it. That means you need to respect me enough not to put my other relationships at risk.
[ he can't help the disbelieving, disparaging laugh that escapes him. ]
You are not so blind to have missed that Rhaenyra's husband is also our uncle. Or that mine own sister and brother are themselves married to one another, or that my cousin Baela is betrothed to our nephew Jacaerys. Would that our father married Rhaenyra to Aegon, Helaena would be my wife, my sister of only two years my senior.
You wish me treat you as family? Should I take you to a whorehouse, then? Have you stripped and made to fuck a woman as old as your mother with your friends watching? Should I barge into your quarters and humiliate you in front of a lover by calling you an animal of base and immoral desires?
Family is grief and offence and torment and—— We rise above each other's faults, accept each other's deviances. A united front, as our upbringing insists upon.
You should be happy for the distance still afforded to you.
None of that is normal, Aemond! I am sorry, that all of that has happened to you and your family. I am.
[ It's genuine, even in the face of his mocking laughter. Family doesn't have to be grief and pain and betrayal. Tim shows his off with smiles and pictures and love, the only liar among them being himself. If he is abandoned it will be a result of what he's done to satiate that base and immoral desire, the consequences of his own actions, not a treatise on family as a concept.
Tim's sincere sadness for the tragedy that's befallen them doesn't stop him raising his voice, getting flustered and wound up. Exactly what he didn't want. ]
It isn't any of that to me. And it won't be, here. You have the opportunity to learn something here that isn't pain, you should take it.
[ this time he's looking at tim like he's grown a second head. or become something truly foreign to him, something utterly confounding. ]
I'd prefer we kept the pain, truthfully. I liked that you bit me. The audacity of it was thrilling.
[ he speaks it plain and simple, as if he's only reminding tim of the weather. ]
You act as if I've begged you to kneel at my feet and become slave to my whims. Is your lover so insecure that he will judge you for a wandering interest?
[ Tim just rolls his eyes, internally doubling down on not doing that. He’s accustomed to pain, he expects pain, it’s all he can recognize or respect. That’s no way to live. If Tim withholds it, maybe he’ll realize that. ]
It’s complicated between us. But he won’t judge me. [ Probably. Tim’s demanded enough space to ensure he knows the truth of what he really wants, but that was before all this. Before Embry. How many wandering interests until he’s just made a whore of himself and abandoned Hawk when he needs him the most? He’s not interested satisfying Aemond’s need to play little power games, pushing him for no reason other than to try to prove that he’ll break. Tim's been toyed with and made a fool of enough. ] I don’t like being a passing interest.
I'm not interested at all. [ is he? who knows. ] Not the way you think I might be.
It is not a lover I seek from you, Tim. You'll find that elsewhere as you already have, and I'm certain your current paramour would prefer it over your entangling with someone like me. You will burn; that is what we do. One of the reasons we marry blood to blood — we are born from fire, the last of our people to have dragonblood after Old Valyria was claimed by the Doom.
[ he's still surveying the grounds as he speaks, noting the pristine nature of their surroundings enough that slight disturbances would stick out immediately. misplaced gravel here, scuffed stone there. no blood yet. ]
I want a brother I can stand. Someone I won't desire to burn to a crisp, or suffocate in his sleep. Would you not welcome a kiss from your family?
He will burn. He is burning. He's been burning. When Tim arrived in this place, he was certain that it was purgatory. A last-ditch effort to save himself from his sins, to cleanse his soul and make himself worthy of light, of love - not the mortal kind that says one thing and does another, that scolds and flees and muddles the head, but love that is divine and eternal. Without argument. Without fear. It's not what he was taught this place would be, but nothing else made sense.
He's been mocked for this, disbelieved. Tim hasn't cared. The trickery, the illusions, the wolfman that rampaged through the grounds and threatened the lives of two of the people he cares about most in this or any world - tests, a measure to see if they're good enough to do the right thing in horrible circumstances. He hasn't cracked, he hasn't doubted, he hasn't missed a prayer.
And suddenly, in the last week, seven people have been killed. The chapel desecrated, blood still thick in his nostrils, paranoia and screaming and fear everywhere he looks. The chaos will only get worse as the game continues. The bodies will pile higher. The flames licking at his heels will only get hotter.
They're in Hell. And he will burn. He deserves to, for his part in enabling this exact same thing back home, the slower, more insidious, more subtly violent version of it. The witch hunts on little to no evidence that ruined lives, had people turning on friends and family alike. Years of this. Tim was filling glasses of water at the head of the table then, complicit, and he's no better now for actively participating.
He fingers the cross around his neck as they turn the corner to peek into the alcove. ]
Where I'm from, kisses between family aren't so heated. Do you really not know the difference?
You are asking a son born from blood of blood intermarried for a hundred years — who is exempt by the law of exceptionalism designed to preserve the bloodline — if he would know the difference. We are the ruling house of our kingdom for whom the Faith of The Seven allows what you call incest solely to keep us pure.
My father neglected my mother for many reasons, among them her being who she is — not his blood. She has not flown on dragonback. She does not speak our language. She is not privy to the many things that I and my cousin and my uncle and the rest of my family are well-learned.
Why would I wish to give my passion to someone who isn't family?
[ he sees the cross, how tim grips it like his mother does the seven-pointed star of her faith. will it help him? like it's helped his mother? ]
You talk as if your home and your customs are the only ones that matter. They're not. I am not judging you for yours.
[ He isn't. He knows that they're only doing their best with the information that they have, just like anyone. Transported into Hell and having your worldview challenged so frequently isn't easy, he knows. ]
But I need you to respect mine, too. Meet me in the middle. You're a long way from home, Valonqar. Learn from other people and places while you can. If we're lucky and allowed to go home, we can take those lessons with us.
[ does tim forget he speaks to a prince? a prince who holds the crown as regent, at that? he's never had to think of anyone else except himself and his immediate family, dragons included. ]
What does kissing you have to do with learning this place? You are not from here, either.
[ but he sombers, too. ]
I'm going to die when I go back. Mother knows half of it. What I haven't told her is that I arrived her on the eve of a campaign against— well, the details won't matter to you. What does matter is that back home, when the morrow comes, I will fly for the last time to certain death.
And my sister speaks true with her visions. She tells me there I cannot change it, that I will from the sky and drown.
I know all of this and I will still do it when I get back because my brother must become king, else our very lives become forfeit. My mother will die. My grandsire and my sister and my niece, my brothers and I above all, even the men who stand with us — my dead sister should she come alive again will make sure our side is decimated because that is the only way she can cement her rule.
You do not care to hear this. I do not care to hear about your god or your faith.
So tell me — how do I disrespect you by kissing you? You refuse to answer my question.
I'm sorry, Aemond. For all that you've been through, and the pain you'll suffer after this. If there even is an 'after this'. But it's not a good reason to close your mind to everything here. I know more than just faith.
[ Tim knows who he’s talking to. He doesn’t care. Those titles hold no weight here, and this deadly game won’t discriminate. Rhaenyra a princess, Erik a refugee. Aemond’s father a king, Tim’s an accountant. It doesn’t matter. Neither is any closer to beating the game than the other, and the longer they keep bickering about nonsense, the longer it will take for that to change. But it’s like talking to a wall.
A wall that’s only known pain has to have a crack or fissure somewhere. ]
Who I choose to share my body with is important to me. Not because of Hawk's jealousy, or because of God, but for me. My own agency. That's all we have control over here, ourselves.
[ and sometimes not even that. ]
You disrespect me by assuming that it was offered.
Was it not, when you allowed me to name you as a brother?
[ he doesn't understand this. he doesn't understand desire that is separate from duty, because all he's known is that they are one and the same. why should he want anything else but the iron throne? why should he want anyone who isn't family? why should he want to defend someone who is not kin?
everything that matters belongs to his blood. his dragon, his name, his very existence. all of it is owed to house targaryen from the moment he was conceived — even the act of it is duty that his mother had borne.
the first time he desired anything for himself and took it, the realm demanded his eye and humiliation. the second time he desired recompense and apology, vhagar swallowed lucerys whole. the third time he'd asked for anything at all, his sister pronounced his death, and his alone.
My God, are you even listening? Kissing, on the mouth, with heaving and teeth is not an assumed brotherly gesture, where I come from. How much clearer can I possibly be?
[ How hard-headed can one person be? They don’t have time to stand here bickering about the nuances of incest. This is ridiculous. ]
I’m not debating this with you anymore. You’ll ask first, or you won’t do it.
[ what a concept. to ask first. aemond has stopped walking and is glaring with his whole being at tim. ]
You would dare have me beg you for—– Is that what you want? To have me on my knees? You wish to be equal but you do not accept anything unless it is on your terms.
[ unfortunate that he doesn't have vhagar here. he wishes to take flight, to burn. ]
You truly are like a brother to me. Even Aegon would not be this cruel.
but he can't seem to actually answer. just freezes in place like it's a test, because all questions are a test, every answer is a weight volleyed between approval and denial, and aemond does not want to play this game any more. ]
[ The tiniest turn of his lips, an amused huff. That’s...halfway to getting it. More like a fifth. In any case, ]
I will not command you, either. That’s the point I’m trying to make. It’s better when both people want it.
[ In terms he thinks Aemond might actually understand: ]
It’s more fulfilling to receive something from a loved one or an ally as a gift than it is to take it. Just as I would happily share the food from my cupboards with you, but I'd be disturbed if you stole it in the night. To share of your own will builds trust. Trust builds intimacy. It’s better that way. The bond is stronger, and the pleasure greater.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2024-10-07 03:19 pm (UTC)Still, he kisses back, softly, held in place right where Aemond wants him. Tim trusts that he would unhand him if he wanted him to. Maybe that's why. ]
...and yours?
[ That's gay behavior where he comes from, brother. ]
no subject
Date: 2024-10-07 03:35 pm (UTC)I am ever loyal to House Targaryen. Blood of my blood, kin of my kin, dragons us all.
I welcome you now, Tim Laughlin. [ and tighter, nails digging into the skin of tim's neck, just enough to remind him of his hold. ] If you betray my mother, I will never forget it.
[ he kisses tim again, more forcefully this time, more teeth and a grasping need to devour. ]
Do you understand me?
no subject
Date: 2024-10-07 04:23 pm (UTC)I would give the same warning to anyone here.
[ Defiant, pulse thrumming still in Aemond's hand a second longer before he firmly pulls his hand away and takes a step back. ]
If you want me as a brother you'll have to believe that. Quit wasting time.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-08 02:02 pm (UTC)I do want you, Laughlin. But you might want to be certain that you want what we offer you. The words of the Hightowers are We Light The Way, and my mother has led you to us for true. But I am Targaryen, and our words are Fire And Blood.
[ he licks the blood off his lip, savouring the sting of spit meeting an open cut. ]
I'm glad to know you bite, Tim. Thank you for this gift.
[ he raps on the door, then, and opens it for tim to enter. he'll see queen alicent within. ]
no subject
Date: 2024-10-08 04:11 pm (UTC)Thank you for not saying anything in there.
[ Around Hawk, and Alicent, Koby and Quentin too. Murder drama is more than enough, Tim’s on edge as it is without adding anything on top of it. But it was...weird, weird that it happened at all, weird that he allowed it, let himself get absorbed into the fucked up power play of it all, that he glances at the small mark at the corner of Aemond’s mouth and feels satisfaction where the shame should be. He doesn’t have time for that. Every waking moment (which is most moments) has to be about figuring this out, so that as many people survive the game as possible. The rest can wait. ]
I have to remind you though, of what I said when we met. I don’t care about House Targaryen, or Hightower, or Atreides. I care about Alicent. And you, and Alia. Your histories and your mottos don’t apply to me, even if you call me brother.
[ Fire and Blood. That’s not him. It won’t ever be. If that’s a mark against his loyalty, Aemond should have said so before...well, before whatever all that was in the hallway. ]
no subject
Date: 2024-10-08 04:31 pm (UTC)[ he wears the cut on his lip with an arrogance, to be true. he appreciates the pain of it; it's something to focus on, something to feel that is different from the impotent rage he's been nursing all day.
that said; ]
My mother holds love for an old friend who has betrayed her. I cannot speak for the nature of it, though I have my suspicions.
I will not tell my mother. You are free to, if you like. But you received me. Did you mislike it?
no subject
Date: 2024-10-08 05:00 pm (UTC)[ The question of Rhaenyra? Bypassed. Not his place to speak on it. ]
It’s not about liking it or not liking it. It’s not appropriate, and you shouldn’t be doing that with anyone while everyone’s emotions and tensions are through the roof. Your mother and I betrayed a friend to both of us to keep you from being named. Don’t make this any more stressful than it is.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-08 05:05 pm (UTC)[ it sounds like an accusation, the question itself, but aemond asks it with true curiosity. true that there is some judgement wrapped around the question; do you presume gratitude from a prince? but he is vowed to their house now. aemond has accepted him.
what is the matter, then? ]
Tell me why I should not have, then. Give your reason.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-08 05:50 pm (UTC)[ Tim didn't do it for thanks. He did it because he believes, genuinely, in Aemond's innocence, and he knew that if a better name was not offered, his would be. But he doesn't like this tone, as if he should be grateful to be spared Aemond's violence, as if he's a tagalong and not the one who, at risk of losing Alia and Quentin, offered the name in the first place. He demands no gratitude, but will take no disrespect. ]
I just told you. We need to stay focused. That wasn't brotherly. [ The first ones, the soft ones to his forehead, his cheeks, those don't trouble him. ] If a brother is what you want, you have it. That means you need to respect me enough not to put my other relationships at risk.
cw: child marriages, sexual humiliation
Date: 2024-10-08 06:11 pm (UTC)You are not so blind to have missed that Rhaenyra's husband is also our uncle. Or that mine own sister and brother are themselves married to one another, or that my cousin Baela is betrothed to our nephew Jacaerys. Would that our father married Rhaenyra to Aegon, Helaena would be my wife, my sister of only two years my senior.
You wish me treat you as family? Should I take you to a whorehouse, then? Have you stripped and made to fuck a woman as old as your mother with your friends watching? Should I barge into your quarters and humiliate you in front of a lover by calling you an animal of base and immoral desires?
Family is grief and offence and torment and—— We rise above each other's faults, accept each other's deviances. A united front, as our upbringing insists upon.
You should be happy for the distance still afforded to you.
let's add internalized homophobia regular tim stuff
Date: 2024-10-08 07:10 pm (UTC)[ It's genuine, even in the face of his mocking laughter. Family doesn't have to be grief and pain and betrayal. Tim shows his off with smiles and pictures and love, the only liar among them being himself. If he is abandoned it will be a result of what he's done to satiate that base and immoral desire, the consequences of his own actions, not a treatise on family as a concept.
Tim's sincere sadness for the tragedy that's befallen them doesn't stop him raising his voice, getting flustered and wound up. Exactly what he didn't want. ]
It isn't any of that to me. And it won't be, here. You have the opportunity to learn something here that isn't pain, you should take it.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-08 07:36 pm (UTC)I'd prefer we kept the pain, truthfully. I liked that you bit me. The audacity of it was thrilling.
[ he speaks it plain and simple, as if he's only reminding tim of the weather. ]
You act as if I've begged you to kneel at my feet and become slave to my whims. Is your lover so insecure that he will judge you for a wandering interest?
no subject
Date: 2024-10-08 08:26 pm (UTC)It’s complicated between us. But he won’t judge me. [ Probably. Tim’s demanded enough space to ensure he knows the truth of what he really wants, but that was before all this. Before Embry. How many wandering interests until he’s just made a whore of himself and abandoned Hawk when he needs him the most? He’s not interested satisfying Aemond’s need to play little power games, pushing him for no reason other than to try to prove that he’ll break. Tim's been toyed with and made a fool of enough. ] I don’t like being a passing interest.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-08 11:52 pm (UTC)It is not a lover I seek from you, Tim. You'll find that elsewhere as you already have, and I'm certain your current paramour would prefer it over your entangling with someone like me. You will burn; that is what we do. One of the reasons we marry blood to blood — we are born from fire, the last of our people to have dragonblood after Old Valyria was claimed by the Doom.
[ he's still surveying the grounds as he speaks, noting the pristine nature of their surroundings enough that slight disturbances would stick out immediately. misplaced gravel here, scuffed stone there. no blood yet. ]
I want a brother I can stand. Someone I won't desire to burn to a crisp, or suffocate in his sleep. Would you not welcome a kiss from your family?
no subject
Date: 2024-10-09 02:58 am (UTC)[ You will burn; this is what we do.
He will burn. He is burning. He's been burning. When Tim arrived in this place, he was certain that it was purgatory. A last-ditch effort to save himself from his sins, to cleanse his soul and make himself worthy of light, of love - not the mortal kind that says one thing and does another, that scolds and flees and muddles the head, but love that is divine and eternal. Without argument. Without fear. It's not what he was taught this place would be, but nothing else made sense.
He's been mocked for this, disbelieved. Tim hasn't cared. The trickery, the illusions, the wolfman that rampaged through the grounds and threatened the lives of two of the people he cares about most in this or any world - tests, a measure to see if they're good enough to do the right thing in horrible circumstances. He hasn't cracked, he hasn't doubted, he hasn't missed a prayer.
And suddenly, in the last week, seven people have been killed. The chapel desecrated, blood still thick in his nostrils, paranoia and screaming and fear everywhere he looks. The chaos will only get worse as the game continues. The bodies will pile higher. The flames licking at his heels will only get hotter.
They're in Hell. And he will burn. He deserves to, for his part in enabling this exact same thing back home, the slower, more insidious, more subtly violent version of it. The witch hunts on little to no evidence that ruined lives, had people turning on friends and family alike. Years of this. Tim was filling glasses of water at the head of the table then, complicit, and he's no better now for actively participating.
He fingers the cross around his neck as they turn the corner to peek into the alcove. ]
Where I'm from, kisses between family aren't so heated. Do you really not know the difference?
no subject
Date: 2024-10-09 06:00 am (UTC)My father neglected my mother for many reasons, among them her being who she is — not his blood. She has not flown on dragonback. She does not speak our language. She is not privy to the many things that I and my cousin and my uncle and the rest of my family are well-learned.
Why would I wish to give my passion to someone who isn't family?
[ he sees the cross, how tim grips it like his mother does the seven-pointed star of her faith. will it help him? like it's helped his mother? ]
You returned my gift, do you deny it?
no subject
Date: 2024-10-09 02:00 pm (UTC)[ He isn't. He knows that they're only doing their best with the information that they have, just like anyone. Transported into Hell and having your worldview challenged so frequently isn't easy, he knows. ]
But I need you to respect mine, too. Meet me in the middle. You're a long way from home, Valonqar. Learn from other people and places while you can. If we're lucky and allowed to go home, we can take those lessons with us.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-09 02:47 pm (UTC)What does kissing you have to do with learning this place? You are not from here, either.
[ but he sombers, too. ]
I'm going to die when I go back. Mother knows half of it. What I haven't told her is that I arrived her on the eve of a campaign against— well, the details won't matter to you. What does matter is that back home, when the morrow comes, I will fly for the last time to certain death.
And my sister speaks true with her visions. She tells me there I cannot change it, that I will from the sky and drown.
I know all of this and I will still do it when I get back because my brother must become king, else our very lives become forfeit. My mother will die. My grandsire and my sister and my niece, my brothers and I above all, even the men who stand with us — my dead sister should she come alive again will make sure our side is decimated because that is the only way she can cement her rule.
You do not care to hear this. I do not care to hear about your god or your faith.
So tell me — how do I disrespect you by kissing you? You refuse to answer my question.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-09 03:35 pm (UTC)[ Tim knows who he’s talking to. He doesn’t care. Those titles hold no weight here, and this deadly game won’t discriminate. Rhaenyra a princess, Erik a refugee. Aemond’s father a king, Tim’s an accountant. It doesn’t matter. Neither is any closer to beating the game than the other, and the longer they keep bickering about nonsense, the longer it will take for that to change. But it’s like talking to a wall.
A wall that’s only known pain has to have a crack or fissure somewhere. ]
Who I choose to share my body with is important to me. Not because of Hawk's jealousy, or because of God, but for me. My own agency. That's all we have control over here, ourselves.
[ and sometimes not even that. ]
You disrespect me by assuming that it was offered.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-09 03:51 pm (UTC)[ he doesn't understand this. he doesn't understand desire that is separate from duty, because all he's known is that they are one and the same. why should he want anything else but the iron throne? why should he want anyone who isn't family? why should he want to defend someone who is not kin?
everything that matters belongs to his blood. his dragon, his name, his very existence. all of it is owed to house targaryen from the moment he was conceived — even the act of it is duty that his mother had borne.
the first time he desired anything for himself and took it, the realm demanded his eye and humiliation. the second time he desired recompense and apology, vhagar swallowed lucerys whole. the third time he'd asked for anything at all, his sister pronounced his death, and his alone.
duty and sacrifice. that's how he survives. ]
If you mislike it then say it plain.
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Date: 2024-10-09 04:47 pm (UTC)[ How hard-headed can one person be? They don’t have time to stand here bickering about the nuances of incest. This is ridiculous. ]
I’m not debating this with you anymore. You’ll ask first, or you won’t do it.
when massive misunderstandings happen
Date: 2024-10-09 05:25 pm (UTC)[ what a concept. to ask first. aemond has stopped walking and is glaring with his whole being at tim. ]
You would dare have me beg you for—– Is that what you want? To have me on my knees? You wish to be equal but you do not accept anything unless it is on your terms.
[ unfortunate that he doesn't have vhagar here. he wishes to take flight, to burn. ]
You truly are like a brother to me. Even Aegon would not be this cruel.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-09 05:38 pm (UTC)[ God help him. He rolls his eyes, and then squeezes them shut, takes a breath, turns towards Aemond. Let's try again. ]
I know that we don't always get it, but you deserve to have a say in what is done to you.
[ Tim takes a step forward, earnest. Not on his knees, no pain in his eyes, no groveling. Just an easy, simple question. ]
Can I kiss you, Aemond?
no subject
Date: 2024-10-09 06:02 pm (UTC)but he can't seem to actually answer. just freezes in place like it's a test, because all questions are a test, every answer is a weight volleyed between approval and denial, and aemond does not want to play this game any more. ]
Do as you like. I will not command you.
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Date: 2024-10-09 06:56 pm (UTC)I will not command you, either. That’s the point I’m trying to make. It’s better when both people want it.
[ In terms he thinks Aemond might actually understand: ]
It’s more fulfilling to receive something from a loved one or an ally as a gift than it is to take it. Just as I would happily share the food from my cupboards with you, but I'd be disturbed if you stole it in the night. To share of your own will builds trust. Trust builds intimacy. It’s better that way. The bond is stronger, and the pleasure greater.
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From:we could wrap this one soon?
From:here's probably good!
From:🎀 done!
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