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.
Is that not just an accord? That is no different from a manipulation. You find use and value in a joining is more worthy than desire for its own sake.
[ the inculcation of the faith of the seven runs deep in aemond, do not doubt it even if he says otherwise. he was raised in it, steeped in it from when he was still in his mother's womb; he could no more escape its reach than he could pretend to be anything but a targaryen.
every fight against his mother's faith is a conscious one, but it is both religious bias and hatred for women that raised him. ]
You have my trust. You ask me to give more of it to you. You want me to ask for it from you.
[ he understands. but at the same time, he doesn't. which is why it's perhaps very telling when he says; ]
You do do not just ask for these things, Laughlin.
[ And as he says, he doesn't want to be a passing fancy. Not as a lover, not as a brother, and not as a friend. Tim looks for things that he can lose himself in completely, for substitutes to worship that will actually talk back to him. He talks to God every day, but it's the men talking in circles back in his room while he and Aemond bicker than answer his prayers. ]
I want to feel a connection more than I want to get off. I don't think that's manipulative.
[ Tim shakes his head, softly. He doesn't want Aemond to ask for anything he doesn't want to receive. ]
You want love commingling with your lust. You invite your own ruin this way, for it is a weakness of flesh.
[ now who sounds like a religious nut? he's gone quiet, however. gotten small, in his own way. ]
I am never safe. Nor am I wanted. [ he doesn't want to talk about this anymore. his gaze slowly drifts aside, sharpening at a point somewhere behind tim. ] Do brushes have straps usually, in these gardens?
[ ...Hard to argue. Tim would rather be celibate than be driven by lust without connection to go with it. It doesn't have to be love, necessarily - not anymore, not now that he's sullied himself by offering his body to devils, not when he's still picking up the pieces of the oft-shattered part of him that believes he can be loved at all. ]
Believe it or don't. But that's what family means to me. You invited it.
[ And if he didn't want it? He shouldn't have done it so hastily. No takebacks.
Tim turns quickly on his heel, squinting at something poking out from a bush. He can't fit his glasses properly around the mask, so he's got them on a string around his neck like his grandmother. He raises them so he can actually see more than ten feet from his face. ]
[ aemond struts over to the brush, crouches down, and perhaps with more force than someone should, he snaps off parts of the shrubbery to loosen what seems like a saddle bag, but made miniature. there is a long thin strap made of some polished leather, the ends attached to rings sown into the corners of the bag.
it's fairly weighted, for something so quaint.
aemond holds it out for tim to take and inspect. ]
I imagine you'll be more familiar with the contents than I. There is a metal clasp of some sort holding it closed.
[ Thing is, Tim doesn't actually know Parisa more than simply in passing, the recognition of another who has been here since the beginning. The only thing that identifies it as hers are a couple hairs stuck in the bag's zipper, which he removes carefully as he opens it, holding them up to the light to try to tell whether they're black or brown. Black, he thinks. ]
We have her phone, a perfume, and a bunch of garbage.
[ The phone has a passcode lock. He'll start trying random combinations. ]
I don't know how useful it'll be, but maybe someone who actually knew her could tell us.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-10 04:10 am (UTC)Is that not just an accord? That is no different from a manipulation. You find use and value in a joining is more worthy than desire for its own sake.
[ the inculcation of the faith of the seven runs deep in aemond, do not doubt it even if he says otherwise. he was raised in it, steeped in it from when he was still in his mother's womb; he could no more escape its reach than he could pretend to be anything but a targaryen.
every fight against his mother's faith is a conscious one, but it is both religious bias and hatred for women that raised him. ]
You have my trust. You ask me to give more of it to you. You want me to ask for it from you.
[ he understands. but at the same time, he doesn't. which is why it's perhaps very telling when he says; ]
You do do not just ask for these things, Laughlin.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-10 05:09 am (UTC)[ And as he says, he doesn't want to be a passing fancy. Not as a lover, not as a brother, and not as a friend. Tim looks for things that he can lose himself in completely, for substitutes to worship that will actually talk back to him. He talks to God every day, but it's the men talking in circles back in his room while he and Aemond bicker than answer his prayers. ]
I want to feel a connection more than I want to get off. I don't think that's manipulative.
[ Tim shakes his head, softly. He doesn't want Aemond to ask for anything he doesn't want to receive. ]
You can. If you want them. You're safe with me.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-10 12:03 pm (UTC)[ now who sounds like a religious nut? he's gone quiet, however. gotten small, in his own way. ]
I am never safe. Nor am I wanted. [ he doesn't want to talk about this anymore. his gaze slowly drifts aside, sharpening at a point somewhere behind tim. ] Do brushes have straps usually, in these gardens?
no subject
Date: 2024-10-10 01:37 pm (UTC)Believe it or don't. But that's what family means to me. You invited it.
[ And if he didn't want it? He shouldn't have done it so hastily. No takebacks.
Tim turns quickly on his heel, squinting at something poking out from a bush. He can't fit his glasses properly around the mask, so he's got them on a string around his neck like his grandmother. He raises them so he can actually see more than ten feet from his face. ]
...No, they don't.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-10 03:08 pm (UTC)it's fairly weighted, for something so quaint.
aemond holds it out for tim to take and inspect. ]
I imagine you'll be more familiar with the contents than I. There is a metal clasp of some sort holding it closed.
no subject
Date: 2024-10-10 04:34 pm (UTC)We have her phone, a perfume, and a bunch of garbage.
[ The phone has a passcode lock. He'll start trying random combinations. ]
I don't know how useful it'll be, but maybe someone who actually knew her could tell us.
we could wrap this one soon?
Date: 2024-10-13 05:27 am (UTC)[ how. why does this place either shrinks things or enlarges them beyond taste? ]
Would the learned folk who inspected the bodies be able to discern anything from the detritus left in her belongings, do you know?
here's probably good!
Date: 2024-10-13 05:33 am (UTC)Maybe. Or someone who actually knows her. We should get back and find out.
🎀 done!
Date: 2024-10-13 02:55 pm (UTC)[ aemond takes the purse from tim, and makes a note to leave it with gideon later. ]
Come on. Mother will want to hear about this.