Chapter Text
The bay was lively today, it smashed against the rocks in a concussive, never-ending volley. The sound had drawn Valarr's attention over and over as he'd walked to his father's rooms. When he'd stopped to peer out and down, he'd watched as the inky, roiling waves beat down against those poor little ships until Valarr was sure the very tips of their sails must be dripping.
He stared over Baelor's shoulder now, eyes drawn to the balcony as the thunderous crash of the waves drifted in on the breeze.
"Your uncle and cousins departed Summerhall some days ago now, they should arrive in a few more."
He blinked and looked to his father's slouched form, the older man's fingers worried over the crease in a tome he had laid out before him. When Valarr's eyes flickered from his hand to his face and he realised his father had withheld word of his family's imminence, he felt a pit form in his stomach.
They had only just been here, he thought.
"Is something the matter?" he asked, losing the interest he'd held in the waves in favour of whatever he'd been summoned for. There was a name instantly on his mind that he dared not think too much about, schooling his face into the same bemused calm he saw on his father's own before him.
"Nothing new, I'm afraid," Baelor answered with a teasing edge that did little to quell the nervous quiver in Valarr's chest. "I was told little more than that they were on their way," he continued, ceasing his repetitive movements over the book to grasp at his goblet of wine, bringing it to his lips with a hum, "I would perhaps be concerned for your uncle's wellbeing if I didn't think his being away from Summerhall was beneficial for him- I can't imagine it's a very cheery place now—"
Dyanna, Valarr thought with a passing sadness.
His father seemed struck by the same moment of grief, clearing his throat as he sipped more at his wine, "I won't question his interest in spending more time with his family. It's good for his youngest, as well. I doubt his brothers make good company, the children within the Keep may keep him better entertained."
"Of course," Valarr agreed, unconvinced by the casual tone his father had fallen into, not when his eyes so often scanned over Valarr's face like he had something stuck to his eyelash.
"I'd not expect you to herd the rest of them about like a flock of difficult sheep, but you know well by now that I appreciate your watchful eye over Aerion and Daeron."
"What of Aemon?"
Baelor chuckled and waved his hand, "he's a fine boy. He'll sit in the libraries, I'd wager."
Their eyes met and many long moments passed. Valarr could see the question in the reflection of his father's eyes. The pit in his stomach only grew larger.
"You're fine with this arrangement?"
"I am, father."
Baelor tilted his head slowly, expression unreadable but his eyes looking as if they saw straight through to Valarr's centre. "It's no bother that we'll be hosting them all again so soon?"
The natural response would be to question whether there was any point in caring about hosting them again when there was no alternative, given that they would be well past the halfway mark of their journey, but that wasn't the point of the question posed. "It's no bother. As much as it can be a test of patience and tolerance, I enjoy my cousins' company, father."
More silence, and Valarr cursed the urge he had to shift on the spot. He wished Baelor would say whatever was on his mind and put them both out of their misery; perhaps he wanted an admission, but he wouldn't get one, even if he elected to keep Valarr here all day.
"Daeron," Baelor stated, tone perfectly balanced and passive.
"What of him?" Valarr asked, though by now the guilt bleeding into his voice was plain, and he'd never been good at hiding anything from his father besides. Baelor caught everything- prided himself on it- and it made him invaluable at his job as well as inescapable in moments like this.
"You seemed particularly glad to see him upon our last gathering."
He wanted Valarr to say it outright. Valarr's next thought was that his father must be furious to be ripping and tearing at him like he was. Baelor never rose to anger and shouting and violence like other men, but for him to be so focused in on Valarr, to be wearing at him as if he were trying to crack him open, his father must be truly incensed beneath this protective shell of indifference.
He had every right to be, Valarr supposed.
Valarr tried to recall the last time he'd angered his father like this and could only think of an argument after his mother's funeral. It had ended with him sobbing, curled into his father as he forced out his grief through every tear. He wouldn't cry now as he did then.
"We grew up together, that would be expected, would it not?" his tone had turned to one of nervous frustration, and he cursed himself for only seeking to dig the pit he laid in even deeper. "When he isn't drunk he is still a pleasant enough man. Forgive me but I do not find much common ground with his brothers."
What had given them away? After so much routine and restraint to try and keep this exact situation improbable- impossible, even.
It could not be that they'd sought one another's company so doggedly- would he have them act as strangers?
"It would, but I know you, my boy. Do not think I've lived alongside you for so long now without learning anything of you." He stood then, the scrape of the chair against the floor jolting Valarr with its abruptness. Baelor stepped around the desk and moved to rest a hand against Valarr's shoulder. When he spoke, his tone was grave, "you're my first, as Daeron is Maekar's. You have value and responsibility many could never fathom and I urge you to keep that in mind whilst you conduct yourself however you wish to conduct yourself."
Valarr was nodding, but he was sure it was more instinct than conscious effort.
"I'll remind you that your wife lives in these halls and though you both may not favour one another yet, I won't have you make her look discarded or put aside in her own home, do you understand? I have allowed her her own chamber in the Tower but it was never my intention for her to remain in there forever."
Kiera became another weight in his gut. His eyes drifted to the balcony over Baelor's shoulder, listening in to the growling waves within the bay, still resolute in their apparent mission to bring the Keep down from its perch. "I understand," he murmured, feeling as if he were untethered and swaying on the spot.
He'd thought he'd done a better job of masking it.
Baelor's hand fell away from his shoulder, and Valarr finally took a breath.
"I intend to pray that his father never finds out. I assume he hasn't if they're alive and intending to stay on in the Keep once more. I cannot imagine how this may unravel in that head of his…"
Daeron had worn bruises and welts for years after doomed outings and poorly stolen moments with the serving girls, when wine made him adventurous at the cost of his common sense. I only kissed her, he'd say, tonguing a bleeding gum or wincing around a cut on his brow. To learn that his eldest had fallen into the bed of his brother's own son may be a hit Maekar wouldn't get up from.
Maekar had never liked Daeron, but he seemed to like losing his grasp on his boys even less.
"Are you…" Valarr couldn't force the final word out: angry, furious, disappointed. They all filled his throat with burning bile and he felt nauseous feeling the weight of them on his tongue. He knew it was likely only his value as Baelor's eldest and only son that protected him now- that he may have well been shipped off to rot on Dragonstone by now if he wasn't.
Baelor sighed and leaned back against the table, fingers slotted together atop his lap. "You and he are intimate, then?"
He opened his mouth and felt the hiss of breath against the back of his throat, but by the time it passed his lips his voice was all but mute. Baelor didn't press him, though Valarr could feel his eyes against his face, watching him silently. "Yes," Valarr tried again, voice hardly above a whisper, though the short intake of breath that his father tried and failed to mask let him know he'd been heard.
"Very well…" Baelor trailed off, "you're rather fond of him, then?"
"He's fam—"
"Which I'd argue makes it much worse," Baelor interrupted, though the regret on his face for having raised his voice is immediate. "I sense there's little point in hoping to encourage you to cease whatever it is that you two have fostered, but I won't stand by if I sense that it's impacting your duties."
He was right, Valarr could make all the promises his father wished and say all the words he hoped to hear, but he knew the moment he saw Daeron it could all very well become null and void. It was easy to swear off temptation when temptation was not before him.
"As eldest sons we are not often given the chance to marry for love, and whilst I hope you will find such a thing with Lady Kiera, I recognise that to try and press you into loyalty to her may only serve to hurt the both of you."
"What am I to do, father?" Valarr strained, finally summoning the courage to look his father in the eye.
"Be careful."
~~
He was restless for much of the day after that; he felt too ill to eat and too worked up to rest. He walked in repetitive paces about the Godswood and felt his heart beat itself to exhaustion in his chest over and over. The excitement that Valarr would typically feel to see Daeron again had been swallowed up by the knowledge that they'd be watched closely by his father, and that however discreet he'd thought they'd been was evidently not enough.
Expecting Daeron to be discreet was a joke; he thrived in irking his father and lying just poorly enough that his deception was obvious and infuriating though not completely damning. Valarr wondered if he'd even tell the other man what had happened and that their relations were now a secret stretched three ways. The only thing that seemed obvious to him was that he'd not put his own feelings aside; he'd have his whole life to follow in his father's footsteps and become the husband that only procreated out of duty than out of love.
He felt flushed with anger, then. That his father could sit and stare and lecture him on marriage and sacrifice and love when he'd never loved Valarr's mother as he should made Valarr feel exposed and raw with frustration.
He caught himself and fell against an elm, feeling the bark scrape at the back of his doublet as he slid down until he sat heavily in the grass, head tilted back until the surface of the trunk poked uncomfortably against his scalp. You're not being fair to him, he told himself.
Indeed, his father was a rare an exceptional man. He'd loved her, even if he'd never truly been in love with her, and he'd raised Valarr with a warmth that his cousins could scarcely dream of. He could have offered Valarr a far worse deal than a demand for discretion and respect towards his wife.
Valarr pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes and dragged his fingers up against his scalp, sighing until he felt his lungs fully wrung of air.
He would think more on it when he had Daeron before him. Though he wasn't often a great use for weighty decisions, Valarr could at least derive comfort from him before he agonised himself to an early grave.
He and Baelor spoke no further on the topic, even when they both returned to the tower once the sun began to sink and ate their supper in strained silence. They remained at the table even once it was cleared, each pretending to be enjoying the taste of their wine too much to be bothered to rise and take themselves to bed.
"Will you speak with him?" Valarr asked once the room had finally cleared.
Baelor looked tired and worn thin in the orange glow of the candlelit room. The shadows cast over his face filled the hollows of his cheeks and eyes and gave the impression that he'd been as tightly wound as Valarr had over the course of the day.
"Do you wish for me to speak with him?" Baelor replied softly, his ringed finger flicking over and over as he twisted the band with the pad of his thumb.
Valarr almost laughed at the notion- Daeron wasn't ever fully at ease around Baelor, and had always kept a wide berth even before he and Valarr had grown closer. "I can. I'll make sure he knows to be more careful."
How to bring such a thing up would require careful consideration, even more so if he didn't wish to turn Daeron's often over-imbibed head inside out. He knew upsetting a parent had never dissuaded Daeron from anything, but knowing they were known would put them in a new light, one that shone continuously and invited others to stare at them and perceive them. He forced his eyes shut, resolving to let the problem rest until there was something to be done about it, when he could speak to the real Daeron, and not some thought up phantom.
He wouldn't have to wait long, at least.
~~
Word reached the Keep quickly once Maekar and his caravan passed through the King's Gate. The staff had been flustered and frenzied for much of the morning and the day previous, but somehow grew only more panicked once his uncle and cousins were imminent. His father sat within a small council meeting, leaving Valarr to pretend to look busy as he walked the corridors and battlements of the Keep. He brought himself to the outer courtyard, though by now it was choked full of guards and goldcloaks and house staff and all manner of merchants and craftsman being shoved aside to make room for Maekar's household and guards.
Valarr lingered by the steps to the grand hall, tucked aside as people funnelled in and out around him. He would greet them in his father's stead so long as he or the King did not appear at Valarr's side before then.
He was anxious to see Daeron- anxious to see any of them, really. He was thankful that it had only been a spare few months since he'd seen them all last; previous occasions had happened years apart and had rendered his cousins entirely foreign to him each time they met again. He remembered seeing Aerion not long after he'd turned six-and-ten and not knowing what to make of this new, unpleasant boy that kicked at the cats about the Keep and shoved Aegon with hardly a regard for where he may land.
"He grew up," Daeron had said with a defeated sort of sigh.
The heavy pound of hooves reached his ears before any sign of Maekar's caravan, and a fuss kicked up in the courtyard anew, preparing to have possibly dozens of horses spill into the courtyard. Maekar had always brought large swaths of his guard with him- call it paranoia or a yearning to keep some semblance of familiarity about him in such a place as King's Landing.
Valarr's heart only began to beat harder, and he swore he felt the thunder of those hooves within the cage of his chest as it grew nearer and nearer. He dropped his gaze and saw how his hands had fisted in the fabric of his cloak as he'd waited and he cursed as he unravelled his grip and forced his hands to his sides.
The first riders appeared at the gate and in spilled his uncle's caravan. He rode in on the same large, black palfrey he'd ridden last time, its feathered hooves caked with mud and spitting up the gravel laid in the courtyard as it slowed from its trot. Maekar's face was twisted and unpleasant, and only served to become moreso as he reined his horse in and realised his reception was that of Valarr and the guard captain.
"Where's your father, boy?" Maekar asked as he swung himself from the saddle, shoving the reigns into the waiting hand of a stableboy. Valarr stepped forth off the steps to greet his uncle, though there were no embraces or clasping of hands, just a scowl and a question.
"The small council, uncle. He and the King shouldn't be much longer, I'm sure."
Maekar snorted, "only would have known how fucking far off we've been for the past day." He shoved on past Valarr, waving off the prying hands of house staff as he marched into the grand hall, no doubt to stare petulantly at the throne until the council dismissed and he could be given a more 'fitting' reception.
Aemon and Aegon were helped from their saddles, though the horses they rode could hardly be considered so with their diminutive stature when compared to the taller mounts their brothers and father rode. Aerion and Daeron filed in last together, the dark circles under Daeron's eyes and the wineskin gripped limply in one hand told Valarr all he needed to know of their travel.
"Cousin," Aerion called out as he dropped from the saddle, passing the reigns off into the first begging pair of hands as he stepped towards Valarr. His hair was shorter than it had been- cut close to his skull and sticking out all about his head save for a longer strip down the nape of his neck. It suited him in that it made him look sharp and mean. He approached Valarr with a deceptive sort of smile, clearly unphased by the ride from Summerhall and looking about ready to wreak havoc, "how pleasant to see you again so soon. Where might your lady wife be?"
He was unsure what Aerion could possibly want with Kiera, but he didn't let himself rise to the taunt, "the Godswood, I'm sure."
Aerion squinted at him and chuckled before reaching out for Valarr's shoulders as he yanked them into a hug, his shoulder sharply jabbing Valarr in the throat. "Still taking after old uncle Aerys? Don't tell me you've worked up the courage to finally speak with her after so long," Aerion murmured close to Valarr's ear, "I'll start to get jealous."
Valarr didn't have to think up some dismissive retort that wouldn't come across as overly defensive, nor did he have to try and extricate himself from Aerion's embrace as a hand clapped against Aerion's back and another wedged itself between their chests, wrenching them apart and Valarr into Daeron's arms instead.
"Leave it, Aerion," Daeron snapped as he pulled Valarr against his chest, "you'll have plenty of time to remind him why you never leave Summerhall- no need to do it all at once now."
Valarr let his arms slip around Daeron's waist, nose tucked against his chest as they embraced. He could smell the wine on Daeron and felt the heaviness of his arms around Valarr's shoulders, and knew that he must have been drinking for hours. "It's good to see you again so soon," he said under his breath, sweeping a hand up Valarr's back and into his hair before they parted from their embrace.
Aerion watched them both, his lips pressed together into an unpleasant smile as he nodded towards the great hall, "underwhelming reception, I'm sure father is pleased with that."
They turned and started back up the stairs into the hall, Aegon and Aemon jostling behind them to follow as they went after Maekar. Daeron's hand had lingered at Valarr's waist after their hug, and brushed down low on his back before he let his arm drop. The great hall sounded alive as they walked towards the doors before the throne room- it was likely that Baelor and the King had met them before that great hulking lump of twisted metal.
Several of the small council had come alongside his father and grandfather to greet Maekar and his sons, though as always, Valarr noted that Maekar hardly ever turned his eye to someone he deemed inferior, and he must deem all of the small council inferior.
Aegon and Aerion lurched forward towards Baelor and the King, both with enthusiastic greetings and all the sweetness in the world on their lips. Daeron and Aemon remained by Valarr's side, Daeron swaying on the spot and Aemon curled in on himself like a beaten dog.
Baelor greeted Aerion and Aegon, though as his gaze swept up and over Valarr and Daeron, it became clear that Baelor would not be turning a blind eye to them. He looked between them and nodded in a withdrawn greeting as he held his arms out to embrace Aegon, ruffling a hand through his hair.
"Still not fond of me?" Daeron muttered under his breath, not looking at Valarr as he watched their fathers. "Can't imagine what I've done to him… besides the truly unforgivable sin of 'wasting my potential.'"
Valarr hummed in acknowledgement, painfully aware of himself and the man at his side. "He doesn't not like you."
"Hmm, my potential then."
Daeron reached behind Valarr to shove Aemon towards the king. In defence of the younger boy, Valarr swatted at Daeron's hip for offering up his little brother like some sacrifice. Aemon had yelped at the shove, but trudged on to sink into Aegon's side.
Valarr chanced a sideways glance at Daeron, taking in the sight of him so up close: he looked several days without a shave, his hair was messily gathered with a leather tie at the back of his head as though it hadn't had a comb run through it first, and his eyes were indeed lined with exhaustion. He'd need a proper sleep and a wash- a thorough one.
"How much have you had to drink?" Valarr asked, still speaking in a hushed breath.
Daeron shrugged and Valarr watched him turn to look the younger man over, a sly smirk curling at his lip, "not too many- I had to ride here, mind you."
Valarr let his tongue flick out to wet his lips, dragging his teeth quick over the bottom one. He watched as Baelor tried and failed to tempt a conversation out of Aemon, Maekar glowering over his shoulder. "So you'll be able to get it up, then?"
He heard Daeron attempt to mask the half cough, half chuckle he forced out of the other man. "It happened once and I was sincerely apologetic. Your house staff must have forgotten to water down my wine."
"The only watered down wine you'll find here is that which is served to Aegon and Aemon. I'm not sure I wish to ask just how much wine you've been stealing from your brothers, I'd fear for your dignity."
Daeron hummed lowly and a shock ran up Valarr's back, closely followed by a rush of embarrassment. "I wasn't aware I had any dignity left to spare, anyway. Did you find some for me?"
He clenched his jaw together as their families attention finally turned to them, their grandfather beckoning Daeron and Valarr closer for bone-rattling pats on the back and the typical fanfare, though Valarr was spared most of it, given he was not currently an honoured guest. When one didn't have a wife or litter of children or land of their own, their grandfather quickly ran out of questions to ask. Maekar wanted a drink and a soft cushion under his arse if Valarr had to guess by the way Baelor quickly sought to dismiss them.
Aemon would run along to whichever room presently held the most books in the Keep, and Aerion would no doubt be off to the cellars to stare longingly at Balerion's skull. Aegon had always been an odd one, but an independent one.
He'd steal Daeron away and tell him his hands, lips and cock needed to behave- he just hoped Daeron's uneasiness towards Valarr's father made him more willing to do so.
"I can show them to their rooms, father," Valarr offered as the King parted from them, his steward already abuzz in his ear. Maekar tossed his coat at the servant that had been standing at his elbow and waiting to take said coat likely since he'd entered the room.
"I'd hope by now they remember where it is themselves, Valarr," Baelor argued, though his tone was every bit measured and pleasant; ordinarily, Valarr would see the humour in it, but today had been a trying day and could very well only become more so.
"Gods be good, let the boy take them. I need some wine and a fucking hearth at my feet, I'll not stand about like a cunt any longer," Maekar snapped, waving a dismissive hand at Valarr and already starting off towards the door to see himself out.
Baelor held Valarr's gaze, then nodded, "we'll see you all for dinner." He trailed off after Maekar, leaving Valarr with his cousins, though it was clear in their faces that they'd all already made up their mind about what they were to do.
"Do what you wish, I need a bath and clothes that don't smell of horse or poverty," Aerion declared, shifting his belt and scabbard, "I hope you've found some prettier serving girls since we were here last."
Valarr curled his lip as Aerion dismissed himself, Aemon trailing along after him, though Valarr would wager it was because they were likely headed in the same direction, rather than any desire on Aemon's part to hang around his older brother.
Aegon walked with them to the royal apartments, filling the silence with talk of the many sights they saw on their long ride. His hair was cut short much like Aerion's, though Aegon's didn't look as much like he'd taken to it with shears himself.
"We had to spend a night in Fawnton- father looked wroth from the moment he laid eyes upon it, but there wasn't much choice between here and home," Aegon explained, arms clasped behind him like a little Lord, though the bounce in his steps sat in stark contrast.
"He's been wroth every day for years now, Egg," Daeron sighed, using a bunched sleeve as an excuse to let his hand brush Valarr's at their sides. "It's beyond me how he seems to forget the poor range of accommodations every time we travel."
"Can Lord Cafferen even afford to house you all? Even for just a night?"
"So long as it isn't winter, only a quarter of the town will go hungry," Daeron answered dryly, the picture of amusement when Valarr raised a brow at him. "The man runs off to cavort at hastiludes he has no business attending if he can't feed his own people. I would say he may find himself able to feed his people if he merely stopped boozing their coin away, but… well, we all know how hard up I'd be if father wasn't so good at clearing my debts."
"And dragging you out of ditches," Aegon muttered, just quiet enough that Valarr would heart him but Daeron would not.
Aegon had already started pulling at his cloak and cape by the time they approached the apartment he'd be sharing with Aemon, "Valarr, is Ser Gwayne Corbray still amongst the Kingsguard?"
Valarr and Daeron paused, the former humming with a polite shrug, "that he is, why?"
"I'd like for him to tell me of the Redgrass again," Aegon answered simply, to the tune of Daeron's bemused chuckle.
"Best not let him hear you singing that ballad you're so fond of, he'll hate it more than father does," Daeron warned, reaching past Aegon to open the door to the apartment, "likely won't let you see Lady Forlorn again, neither."
Aegon rolled his eyes and smacked at Daeron's arm as he stepped into his apartment, mouthing the words to the ballad without daring utter a sound. The door closed slowly, the boy singing silently until it shut with a click, thus leaving Valarr and Daeron in the hall.
"Horrid boy," Daeron sighed, pressing a hand to Valarr's elbow as they continued on. His fingers trailed down Valarr's arm, holding softly at his wrist for a spare few seconds before he dropped it.
"He's far cheerier than the rest of you put together and doubled," Valarr scoffed, nodding politely at a serving girl as she passed, her airy giggle echoing against the tall ceilings. "If I were you I'd be grateful for him."
"Such an easy thing to say for one without a brother of his own- even when they're lovely they're nightmares."
Valarr rolled his eyes, though he was sure Aegon could be quite the pest, he very much doubted he could be nearly as bad as Aerion on his best days. Surely Daeron could be grateful for that?
They reached Daeron's apartment and Daeron let himself in with the comfort and ease of a man that had been staying in the exact room for years by this point. Valarr found himself stuck before the door, watching Daeron cross the threshold and pull off the light cloak he'd been wearing over his doublet. He looked at Valarr curiously, tilting his head with that broad smile, "are you waiting for an invitation in your own home?"
Valarr stared at him, blinking as he turned over the thoughts stuffing his head full of indistinguishable noise. He had felt so set upon catching Daeron at the first instance and telling him they needed to exercise restraint and caution and discretion, but now the concept felt daunting, and Valarr's desire not to frighten the other man off an unshakable weight on his shoulders.
Daeron's pale eyes darted over Valarr's face before he took several steps back towards the younger man, reaching out a hand for Valarr to take into his own. He ignored the shake in his arm as he reached up and took it, stepping into Daeron's room with the door pulled quietly shut behind them.
"Something bothering you?" Daeron's hand laid against Valarr's jaw, his nose brushing Valarr's cheek as he leaned in in lieu of a kiss, "haven't upset you already, have I?"
Why was the smell of sweat and wine so intoxicating now? When had he become so attached to it? He huffed as Daeron stole the slightest hint of a kiss from him, his hair tickling at Valarr's cheeks when he pressed their foreheads together. "I need to speak with you on somewhat of a serious matter, Daeron."
Daeron pulled away, but only just enough to look at him, his eyes scanning Valarr's own, "well don't leave me in suspense. What is it?"
Valarr walked them further from the door, "my father knows."
The other man was silent, his eyes narrowing into a squint, "what? How— Maekar cuts our damn letters open and reads them and he still has not a clue."
"Father is perceptive, we must have… he must have seen something."
Daeron cupped a hand to Valarr's cheek and brushed his other up over his hair with a sigh, "no wonder he's always looked at me as if I've pissed in his boots… Seven Hells… fine, what's there to do?"
Valarr blinked, having convinced himself Daeron would forfeit it all for being too much trouble, "do?"
"If he's let us wander off together, I'd assume he's not looking to ship you off somewhere hot and sunny until you get over it. So yes, what are we to do?"
Daeron's jest almost made him laugh despite the pressing weight in his chest and the continuous cacophony of panic in his head. "Well we have to be careful, clearly. Try not to be on your best behaviour, perhaps."
"Letting me drink to my heart's content, then?"
Daeron had a point. With the promise of fucking and kissing and sneaking about to fondle one another, he often drank much less than he may have at Summerhall- enough to keep the nightmares at bay, he always said. Perhaps Maekar had made comment of it, and Valarr's ever observant father merely put the pieces together from there.
"I'm sure a cup or two more wouldn't hurt…" he conceded, lifting his eyes to Daeron's as the man chuckled. He looked so tired, and for a moment, Valarr wished only to be able to wash him and put him to bed.
Suppose he could, if they were careful and Daeron told the servants to make themselves scarce.
"Do you think your wife knows?" Daeron had pressed another chaste kiss to Valarr's lips and stepped away, fighting against his hair again as he palmed up over his hairline and tried to tuck it behind his ears. A pitcher of wine sat ready for him on a table and he walked eagerly towards it, taking it in hand and pouring the nearest goblet full to the brim.
Valarr trailed after him with hardly a second thought, though he had no taste for wine in this moment. "I'm unsure… Aerion is not completely wrong when he compares me to that of our uncle Aerys."
"Nonsense, uncle Aerys only ever takes his smallclothes off to bathe, they say," Daeron winked at him as he pulled his goblet to his lips, slurping down mouthful after mouthful of wine until he slammed the cup down near empty, "I've got it on good authority you take them off far more often."
He seemed renewed by the wine, and he took two great steps towards Valarr, reaching out to grasp him by the elbows again to drag them back until his arse hit the back of a settee. Valarr's hands found his waist, then his jaw as he pulled the other down into a proper, lasting kiss. Daeron hummed in satisfaction as their lips slid together, his tongue nudging at Valarr's own without any real rush or insistence.
"I missed you," Valarr sighed into the kiss, pressing Daeron more firmly into the back of the settee, palm grazing over the stubble on the older man's cheek; he yearned to put his own against it and rub until his skin was raw and pink, but now was a poor time for it. He settled for feeling it scratch over his hand, rasping in a quiet hiss as he felt over it.
"You missed my cock."
His teeth caught at Daeron's bottom lip, a teasing sort of warning as he sucked it into his mouth, "can't have that without the rest of you."
It proved a satisfying enough answer, if the soft gasp Valarr pulled from the other's throat acted as any indication. He chased the sound, leaning harder into him until their chests were near touching, Daeron's roaming hands doing all they could to assist in making it so. His palms were broad and soft when they brushed Valarr's bare skin and his fingertips cool to the touch. Each breath he sucked in between kisses felt warm and moist, as if Daeron had breathed the very same air he hoped to claim; it should make his skin crawl and stomach turn but it only put an ache low in his gut.
"I want to bathe with you this evening," Valarr whispered against Daeron's mouth, parting from their kiss to lay one against the underside of Daeron's jaw, then the centre of his throat where it bobbed with each swallow and breath. "After supper, have them draw you one and send them off. Don't undress."
The skin of Daeron's throat buzzed against Valarr's lips as he hummed, "is that wise? I thought you wished to be more discreet. The Holdfast isn't exactly cheek-to-cheek with the Tower of the Hand."
"Father and uncle will be occupying one another long into the night, I'm sure. They're more attached at the hip than we are."
"Do you think they're respecting the ways of old Valyria as we are?" Daeron asked with a grim chuckle, slipping a hand down Valarr's back to grasp a firm handful of his arse, dragging them ever closer together. His tongue had become an insistent presence in Valarr's mouth, sliding over the insides of his cheeks and teeth and dragging over the roof of his mouth. It made him feel dizzy and slightly drunk and he cursed the moments when he had to ruin it all for another breath. It made what should have been a foul and discomforting question almost compellingly perverted.
Perhaps they were, but they very likely weren't.
"Don't say such a thing," Valarr hissed against Daeron's mouth, catching the tip of that roaming tongue with his lips to suck at it until Daeron groaned and the hand against his arse squeezed.
"If Maekar hasn't jumped at your father yet, Aerion may very well do it himself."
Valarr pulled back and fixed Daeron with a hard stare, "I sincerely hope you are saying this in jest, Daeron."
He palmed over Valarr's cheek and pressed a kiss to his brow, "we learned it from somewhere, didn't we?"
Daeron's lips were curled up at the corners in a goading smirk, and Valarr fought off the ache in his cheeks to mirror it as he shoved at Daeron's chest, separating them with a petulant huff, "there must be some dark magic at work in Summerhall to have made you this way." Daeron shrugged, returning to his pitcher and goblet to wet his lips with more wine, "I should leave you. I should see Kiera and warn her of Aerion's presence if she's not already aware."
"He won't do anything to her. Nothing beyond his usual ankle biting and poking at bruises," Daeron said into his cup. He lowered a hand to unbuckle the thick belt around his waist, sighing in relief as he dropped it heavily atop the table. "Do I get another kiss before you go? Or are you still thinking of our father's—"
Valarr lurched across the room to kiss him if only to shut him up. He could taste Daeron's amused giggle and let his teeth flash against the other's lips- a sharp parting kiss. When they separated he leaned in for one more brisk peck and turned for the door, though he felt colder and colder with every step of distance he put between them.
He was relieved, at least- relieved that Daeron seemed largely unbothered by their being discovered, or at least was electing to keep his panic hidden. He supposed if anything was to happen, it would be at tonight's supper.