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It happens again.
Lucerys sits on the edge of the bed, staring at the little carved wooden token in his hand as if sheer hatred will change what it means. It was left outside his chamber in a bone-laid chest by the maesters before the sun had risen and with so little fanfare that some might think it symbolized the birthing of a new calf and not a new Driftmark heir.
Across the room, Aemond, lazily toweling off his hair from morning training, is absolutely not helping. Not with the light hitting him just right from the northern window, a study in alpha pulchritude."Well?" he asks, already smiling like he knows the answer, “Is there to be another babe?”
A step too far. Lucerys aims the token at his head. "You did this to me, again, you miserable son of a—"
Aemond catches the token easily and inspects it, unbothered.The little seahorse carved on one side was meant to indicate a successful conception. Lucerys had examined it thrice over before tossing it, flipping it over hopefully, but no, still the seahorse.
"Five," Lucerys says hollowly. "Five times, Aemond. In six years."
"You're welcome," his husband says cheerfully, crossing the room to kiss Lucerys square on the mouth.
He won’t have it, after all that’s how they got into this mess in the first place. Lucerys shoves at his chest—firm, smug, annoyingly beautiful—and growls, "This isn't normal."
"It’s perfectly normal," Aemond says. "You're a most bountiful creature."
"I am not a fucking orchard."
Aemond tilts his head thoughtfully. "Mmm, Orchard. I do like the idea of planting you full of seed every season."
Lucerys screams into his hands.
Of course, the worst part is that Lucerys did try to stop it. They’d tried every method known to maesters, old wives, and suspicious-looking madams in Flea Bottom. He swallowed down brews that smelt like cheese, worn charmed lockets around his neck, and even attempted bedding that other way that Aemond suggested, which had hurt a little at first but ended in baby number four anyway. After that particular incident, Lucerys had ended up tying a ward-stone around Aemond’s cock, and Aemond just laughed and called it jewelry.
It seemed, surely, that there was nothing to be done.
"You have an unfair advantage," Lucerys accuses one morning as he buttons his tunic angrily over the newly swollen belly. "You’re sneaking sun tea into my meals. You…you, conspire with the maesters. Whatever it is, I know you’re doing it on purpose."
"Of course not," Aemond says, already dressed and slouching in the doorway, hands tucked innocently behind his back. "You're simply very fertile."
"You say that like it’s a good thing but I would like a single fucking council where I am not leaking milk from my tits like a cow."
"It’s a great thing." Aemond crosses the room in three strides and wraps his arms around Lucerys’s waist, hands sliding down to cup the curve of his belly with obscene possessiveness. “You’re a masterpiece, tits and all.”
Lucerys kicks him in the shin.
"Masterpiece my ass," Lucerys hisses. "I look like a waddling goose. I can’t remember the last time I could even see my toes."
"You're glowing," Aemond insists, utterly unrepentant. "You’re radiant, my beauty. You're—"
"You're sleeping on the floor tonight," Lucerys snaps.
"How will you ever be with child again if I'm sleeping on the floor?" Aemond purrs.
Lucerys goes for the nearest heavy object.
It becomes such a source of gossip that his own mother decides she must stage an intervention. She visits during midsummer when Driftmark is at its boiling point and Lucerys can no longer stand long periods on the sandy beachfront like he could in his first moon.
"You have duties, Lucerys. You are also a prince of the realm—,” she says, massaging her temples as Lucerys lounges sullenly on a couch with his feet up, looking like an overripe peach. "Not a broodmare."
"I know," Lucerys says mournfully. Though they are sequestered alone in his chambers it seems somehow inappropriate to tell her that this last babe was entirely not his fault. If it were not for Aemond’s provocative form-fitting riding leathers Lucerys would be enjoying the sunshine with the rest of the family.
"Then stop it ."
"I'm trying! " Lucerys cries.
Some things, Lucerys wishes he never knew. Like the fact that the servants have taken to exchanging coin over each new announcement. He hears a rumor that the next babe will pop out with a miniature eyepatch already on, which starts in the kitchens and travels all the way to the docks like wildfire. Lucerys refuses to dignify it with a response, he just glares at Aemond over dinner as he chokes down another helping of fatty, pregnancy-approved stew.
"This is a conspiracy," he says darkly. "You're trying to keep me too round and slow to run away."
Aemond smiles at him over his goblet of wine. "Of course not," he says sweetly, then, "You’d never leave me. Not when you’re carrying our entire battalion."
Lucerys plots Aemond’s murder that exact night, unfortunately, he’s far too tired—and much too in love—to follow through.
Seven moons into the pregnancy, a solution occurs to Lucerys like sun rays through a cloudy sky. There’s a brief moment, while Aemond is crouched on the floor, attempting to retrieve one of Visenya’s wooden swords, that Lucerys realizes, this is his chance. With Aemond distracted and vulnerable to an attack, he levers himself up with a grunt, stands towering over the foot of the bed, and declares in a clear, resounding voice: “No more sex.”
Aemond freezes.
Slowly, he straightens, the length of his white hair full of dust bunnies. His good eye blinks once, twice, like maybe he misheard. "Pardon?"
"You heard me," Lucerys says, crossing his arms with great dignity over his enormous stomach. "I'm instituting a new rule. A boundary."
Aemond tilts his head, the way Vhagar does when deciding whether or not to set a small village ablaze.
"No more," Lucerys repeats, stabbing a finger into the air for emphasis. "Not until at least a year after this one is born.” He sees Aemond’s face twist, “And no variations either. Knowing you, you’ll find a way to impregnate me with your tongue."
"You’ll never survive."
"I’ll survive," Lucerys snaps. "I’ll thrive even. This is your punishment."
There is a pause. Lucerys can see the gears turning behind Aemond’s stupidly handsome face.
"I say you won't last a single moon."
"I'll last two years to spite you."
Aemond’s lips pout. It’s really rather fetching. "Should we make a wager then?"
Lucerys almost says yes, out of pure spite—then catches himself. He squints suspiciously at his husband, “What are your conditions?”
"If you break first," Aemond says, all sly menace, tiptoeing forward, "you owe me anything I ask for."
It’s annoying that that alone already has Lucerys rethinking his terms. He continues, determined nonetheless, "And if you break first?"
Aemond leans down, hands on his knees, getting eye-level with Lucerys' belly. "If I break first," he murmurs, "you can name the next child."
Lucerys' brain short-circuits. Aemond’s heir named something truly ridiculous. Something common, that will send Alicent’s hair grey with streaks. The pink dread will seem a dream by comparison.
“Deal,” he says immediately.
They shake on it and Aemond kisses each of his fingers delicately after, which Lucerys firmly tells himself doesn’t count.
The first day is easy. Lucerys locks his door and refuses to let Aemond in. He sleeps alone, smug in his righteousness.
On the second day, Aemond leaves little offerings outside the door: fresh flowers, a tray of lemoncakes, a polished dagger with a bow tied around the hilt. It’s a confession of weakness and Lucerys gleefully kicks them all into the hall.
For his third attempt, Aemond resorts to love letters. Or at least that’s what Lucerys thinks they are until he discovers that Aemond has left him pages and pages of terribly inappropriate Valyrian poetry slid under the door. Lucerys burns them without reading past the first line ("Ñuha zaldrīzes, ñuha prūmia—" My dragon, my heart —absolutely not).
When the forth day is quiet, Lucerys awaits a congratulations on his victory. When none arrives and there is no Aemond at his door pleading for mercy, Lucerys panics. The late hours are spent with two fingers in his cunny and a resolute determination to find relief without calling on his husband for the satisfaction.
He needn’t have worried, for by the end of the week Aemond starts lounging around shirtless. Everywhere. In the training yard, their solar, and for a man who has worn a tunic buttoned to the very top on his chin since childhood, it’s a low blow.
Lucerys nearly breaks, himself. Nearly.
But he is strong. He is righteous.
He is, unfortunately, also very, very wet.
The seventh day was supposed to be a time for peace and quiet contemplation, but unfortunately for Lucery it was also his breaking point. He’d come back to his chambers after a long morning of dealing with unruly council lords (and even unrulier children), thrown open the door and stopped dead.
Aemond is sprawled naked across their bed, silver hair haloed on the pillows, reading The Complete Transcribed History of Visenya Targaryen like he isn't the vilest creature to ever exist.
Lucerys slams the door shut again so hard the handle bounces.
Through the wood, he hears Aemond say, amused,"Just wanted to make sure you remembered what you’re missing."
Lucerys sits down on the floor outside the door and puts his head in his hands.
Naturally, he wakes up in the middle of the night, sweaty, miserable, thighs aching for reasons entirely unrelated to pregnancy. Throwing back the covers, he stomps with as much dignity as he can muster down the hall barefoot, and kicks in the door to Aemond’s study.
Aemond looks up from where he’s writing another treasonous letter to some unfortunate lord, and smirks.
“Come to surrender?”
Lucerys launches himself into Aemond’s lap with all the grace of a falling boulder. “Shut up,” he snarls, grabbing Aemond by the collar and hauling him down into a kiss.
Aemond obliges, warm and laughing against his mouth, already reaching beneath Lucerys’ nightshirt with greedy hands. When they finally break apart, panting, Aemond bites gently at Lucerys’ ear and says, “Start thinking of another name, taoba.”
Lucerys would have hit him if he wasn’t so busy tearing off his breeches.