Ｔｈｒｅｅ
𝒸𝑜𝓏𝓎 𝑜𝓃 𝒷𝓇𝑜𝒶𝒹𝓌𝒶𝓎
╚══ ❀•°❀°•❀ ══╝
There were small, crisp, and burned-out black husks that scattered across every chipped white portion of the windowsill. It was a wonder they could have ever been alive, breathing, and Rhaenyra wondered what it was like for them to be trapped in that space. They had been real and alive and gone, watching the world outside go on, baked by the relentless sun, overwhelmed by it until even life escapes you.
There were many moments that Rhaenyra wondered who was the fly and what it could have been if only someone had just opened that window before it succumbed to the fate that awaited it. She thought about the fly when she sat at her mother's bedside, just four hours before Aemma Targaryen let out her last breath. Her belly was swollen, her face drenched with sweat, and doctors came in every half hour to check if she was dilated.
Her mother spent much of it attempting to look okay, attempting to make it all seem like it was normal. "You should have seen your birth," Aemma had told her, clutching her daughter's hand and smiling. Rhaenyra wanted to leave, but with her father still on the plane back from Paris, she wasn't about to leave her alone. "You were just as bad."
"Yeah?" Rhaenyra had said, not certain if that was true. She had always been told she was a fighter, coming out from the womb kicking and screaming and alive. Nobody ever mention what it had been like for Aemma Targaryen, but despite the assurances, Rhaenyra couldn't push away the feeling of cold dread that settled over her when she noticed every breath her mom took had looked as if she were expelling life from her lips.
When Rhaenyra looked away, sometime in the eighth hour of her stay in the hospital, her mother said, "You can close your eyes to what you don't want to see, but it's impossible to close your heart to what you don't want to feel." The squeezing of her hand was nearly enough to make them crack, but Rhaenyra refused to make a sound.
She went to answer, but that was when Rhaenyra heard her mother let out a scream, the fingers clenching down on her hand as her father finally rushed into the room. Viserys always looked put together, well groomed, but now his facial hair was unshaven, his silver hair unbrushed, and he rushed to his wife's side. Rhaenyra was trying not to flinch as she stood, taking the brunt of her mother's strength without expression.
"How is she?" Viserys asked, his fingers sliding into his wife's hair and cupping the back of her head in so loving a gesture that she felt her heart constrict.
"It's been eight hours," Rhaenyra said, her cheeks pale, her eyes heavy and sunken, when her father turned to her and kissed her atop her head.
"Rest sweet girl," he said, his eyes stricken with pain.
"I'll stay. I want to stay," she had said in return, despite the unsteadiness of her feet and her severe lack of balance, her dehydration, and her need to pee.
Her mother was breathing heavily, her lips parted in pain, her face glistening with sweat and tears, and her dad was telling her to go? It made no sense to her, so she planted an unsteady foot firmly where she stood. "My sweetling," Viserys said, shaking his head. "You've been so brave, but if you don't get some rest and some water, I'll have Harwin drag you out over his shoulder."
The very notion of anyone, no matter how tired she was, throwing her over their shoulder was incredibly demeaning. He would get two steps before she made an attempt to actively bite through his shoulder blades. "Rhae?" Alicent's voice cut through her near complaint, and Rheanyra felt her entire being go stiff as she turned to look at her friend, having not noticed her enter the room. Alicent had been through this entire ordeal with her, having driven both her and her mother to the hospital in the first place eight hours ago.
Rhaenyra felt her body relax, easing into her friend's palm as it rested on her back, in between her shoulder blades. "I'll be fine, my little fighter," Aemma assured her, and it somehow made Rhaenyra feel worse. Here her mother was, in the worst pain most people could experience, and she was worried about her, reassuring her.
"I'll be back, mum," Rhaenyra told her, walking up to her mother and pressing a kiss onto her forehead and lingering against the moist flesh as her mom's hand rested against her cheek.
"I love you, Rhaenyra, but get some rest for the both of us," Aemma whispered into her daughter's ear.
"I love you more," Rhaenyra whispered back, her voice cracking when she saw spots of blood on the blanket.
Her mother let out a chuckle, the first one in the last hour. "So you say," Aemma whispered back, her palm lingering as her daughter pulled away. Alicent slipped her hand into the awaiting grasp of her friend, urging her forward. The daughter and father spared one final, parting glance before the door closed behind her and Alicent was leading her friend to one of the sitting chairs.
"Do you need anything Rhae?" Alicent asked, and slowly Rhaenyra just lowered her elbows to her knees before cradling her head into her hands.
"The baby is early," Rhaenyra muttered, and she heard Alicent sit next to her, resting an arm around her shoulders and leaning into her. "It just doesn't feel right."
"Your mom is a fighter," Alicent whispered into her friend's hair. "And she's gonna get through this. You all are. Then, you're going to meet the most beautiful baby boy in the world."
Rhaenyra sniffed, trying to hold back the tears she had been ignoring for the last eight hours, ever since she found her mother huddled into a ball next to her bathtub. She had been screaming for help, the water in which she had bathed was filled with blood, and it dripped on the floor around her.
She hadn't spoken more than twenty words since then, despite the jokes her mother tried to use to fill the silence two hours ago. "You're going to hate him," Alicent whispered, still kneeling near her, her hands running up and down Rhaenyra's bare arms, trying to warm them. "You're going to be so jealous of all the attention that spoiled boy will get."
Rhaenyra sniffed, her eyes burning. She still saw bits of dry blood on the ends of her silver hair from when she tried to lift her mother up. The naked flesh had felt so clammy under her palms.
"But you'll spoil him too. You'll see. You'll love him as well as hate him," Alicent continued, her soothing voice easing some of the nerves that had made her friend so stiff.
"Dad's already talking about handing over Dragonstone," Rhaenyra said, laughing as tears finally slipped out. Dragonstone was the home her great grandfather had built from the ground up a century ago when the little island of Valyria had been destroyed. It was an immaculate castle, cold and desolate and she had loved it since she was a girl. "I yelled at him. Screamed that it should be mine."
Alicent was silent, her eyes red and bloodshot as she continued to run her hands up and down her friend's shoulders.
"But he can have it," Rhaenyra said, her tears slipping onto the tiles below. "He can have Dragonstone and the inheritance and succeed dad. I don't care about any of that. I just want to meet him."
Alicent's bottom lip was trembling when Rhaenyra finally raised her head, the mascara had made a trail of black down her cheeks.
"I just want to be a family," Rhaenyra said, brows drawn as she recalled the words the doctor had thrown about two hours ago after the test results had come back. Placental abruption, Rhaenyra recalled, having googled it in the bathroom where she promptly vomited the remainder of her stomach lining.
Alicent reached over and embraced her friend, both their shoulders getting wet from each of their tears. "Let's get you some coffee. Something warm to drink to keep you fighting," Alicent told her, whispering it into her neck as she helped Rhaenyra to stand.
Rhaenyra followed her, walking passed the fluorescent lighting of the sterilized hallway, feeling numb the further they got from the room where her mother was fighting to breathe. Rhaenyra wiped away tears with the hand that wasn't clutching onto Alicent's for dear life. Everything happened in a blur of motion, the sensations and the noise all feels unreal. She thought of that fly that remained trapped in the windowsill of the hospital room, thought about walking back and letting it out, dislodging it from the prison it had nearly given up to.
She did not go back, she just accepted the coffee that was handed to her without realizing that it had already been ordered and she was sitting again. She didn't take a sip, just held it close to her, basking in the steam and Alicent's half embrace.
"Do you want to talk?" Alicent asked lowly, her head resting against Rhaenyra's in a nearly peaceful manner.
"No," Rhaenyra whispered, so lowly that it was a wonder she heard it at all. The waiting room was filled with differing noises, from the occasional cough from waiting patients to the complaints about the excessive delay. Rhaenyra felt like an outsider, as if she didn't belong. She belonged with her family, next to her mum and dad and her baby brother.
Not here. Not here. Not here.
"Do you want me to talk?" Alicent asked this carefully, her own uncertainty filling the empty space. She was ever the fixer, always wanting to do everything in her power to make a problem disappear. At times, Rhaenyra would find it annoying, but at the moment, she wanted nothing more than to hear her speak.
She nodded.
"I went on a date last weekend," Alicent told her, lips pursed as Rhaenyra tried to recall her mentioning an upcoming date. "It was last minute and he was hot. The date was going great, we had dinner at that restaurant upstate that we went to for your graduation." Alicent sat down next to her, lightly tapping her shoulder against Rhaenyra's. "Then he took me to Starbucks." Alicent let out a laugh. "I think he forgot my name, Rhae."
Finally, her friend smiled, just a small one, but it filled Alicent up with warmth. "What about the star guy?" Rhaenyra asked, her voice cracking as she finally took a sip of the bitter coffee.
"I told you. If anyone ever drags me outside at 3 am to look at the sky, I'm removing them from my life," Alicent said, only for both girls to break out in laughter. "Is it okay? Do you want sugar?" Due to Rhaenyra's inconsistency in liking anything, Alicent had a hard time picking out anything for her friend. She would go from liking lattes one day to americanos the next. She'd go from needing to talk non-stop when she's sad, only to turn into a ghost the next. She was unpredictable and chaotic and a part of Alicent was just waiting for her to lash out, to do something that likely made her feel better, but Alicent feel like a criminal.
"I can't taste anything," Rhaenyra said, watching the doctor assigned to her mother rush past her without a sound, followed by two more. Rhaenyra felt a moment of panic, now standing and chasing after them, Alicent mirroring her with her brows drawn in as the two girls watched the team of doctors enters her mother's room.
"Maybe she's finally fully dilated. Maybe the baby is just finally ready," Alicent suggested but broke off when Rhaenyra turned her head with an expression that made Alicent's heart tug forward, yanking at Rhaenyra's command. She was trembling, her hands shaking, and Alicent pulled her in for a hug as they both saw the door to her mother's hospital room open, letting out the first cry of a woman in pain.
Alicent cooed her friend, running her fingers through her hair as she walked her over to the side, away from the traffic of patients and nurses and doctors. Whatever she was saying, whatever words were thrown away to make Rhaenyra feel better, she did not hear them. She could only wait, wait as her father finally exited the room, crashing into the opposite wall. He didn't look at her, he only continued to walk the opposite way, leaving Rhaenyra in Alicent's arms.
"What happened?" Rhaenyra asked, her brows furrowed together. "Where is he going?"
"Stay here," Alicent whispered, rushing after Viserys. Rhaenyra saw the first doctor exit next, turning to look towards the direction that Viserys had left. Rhaenyra's throat closed, her eyes forced open even as she wanted to close them and look away.
"You can't close your heart to what you don't want to feel," her mom had told her, and despite her trembling, her hands shaking, she clenched them into fists as she met up with the doctor in the middle.
"Where is she?" Were her first words to the man with shaggy gray hair, and dark skin. He was tall, towering over her and making her feel small. She didn't back down, she straightened her spine and pushed away the emotions that had begun to drown her. "Is Baelon okay?"
"You should sit," the doctor, who she remembered to be Doctor Bolovich, ushered her towards the seats. She didn't budge. She was afraid to sit, afraid that once she did, she wouldn't want to come back up.
"My mom. Is she-?" Rhaenyra had seen the twisted expression on her father's face, his cheeks damp, his frown firm, and his eyes bloodshot and red.
"It was a hemorrhage, she-" the doctor explained, but the words all felt so far away as Rhaenyra stood there, swaying, barely standing, barely breathing. She was drifting, she was drifting away, not yet crying.
"So you say," her mother's last words, the last she'd ever hear her say.
"Ms. Targaryen?" Doctor Bolovich and a nurse knelt down next to her, and she hadn't realized she was kneeling, that she had lost feeling in her legs.
"My brother?" Rhaenyra didn't know how she got the words out, but there they were, floating in the space between them.
"He was born pre-mature," he explained, looking as though he wanted to be somewhere else. Somewhere far away, but here he was, and if Rhaenyra had to suffer the loss of her family, he could be strong enough to tell her everything. "He's being taken to the NICU where he will be taken care of."
"Come on honey, let's get you something to drink," the nurse whispered, and her caring voice, like that of a mother, finally brought the tears forward as she let herself be helped to her feet. Her body was cradled into the nurse's side, walking forward, away from the hospital room that hung behind her like death's shroud.
Even after she held a cup of hot green tea, watching the wisping steam float up into her face, her hands still felt cold. The nurse had returned to her duties, and Rhaenyra caught her checking up on her every so often. As if Rhaenyra had anywhere to go. She was stuck in this hell and she was stuck in it alone.
Alicent sat next to her, holding her own cup of tea. They didn't say a word, they didn't even drink it. Despite the noise of the lobby, and the traffic from outside, Rhaenyra didn't hear a thing.
─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────
The Alicent Targaryen née Hightower from back then was no longer the one standing before Rhaenyra when she awoke in the morning. Her hair was stuck to her pillow as she pried herself out of bed, nearly falling over her slippers as she attempted to straighten herself out when Alicent slammed the bedroom door shut behind her. "You certainly had a fun night out."
"What are you even doing here?" Rhaenyra asked, rubbing her hands along her face as she attempted to wipe away traces of a hangover. "Weren't you getting a checkup?"
"It's four pm," Alicent said, brushing away strands of her light brown hair. Even now, with this lighting, with the swell of her belly, Alicent was a stunning show of perfection. "And you weren't answering your mobile."
"I screen your calls," Rhaenyra said with a snort, finally settling her frown at her ex-best friend now that her dad wasn't around to reprimand her for it. It was the only reason why she got to see Alicent's face fall, her perfect brows drawn in, and the mask of perfection finally crack. It didn't fill Rhaenyra with the satisfaction she had wanted and instead, made her feel hollow and bitter.
"I am sorry about dinner yesterday," Alicent said, now walking forward like a fat penguin with her hand on her belly. She sat at the edge of the bed, her long green dress wrinkling from under her touch as the little white flower design crinkled from her fists. "I didn't mean to make your father miss it."
Rhaenyra was too tired and hungover to dig out the resentment from the night before. "It's fine. I had fun without you two." At least from the bits she could remember, but she had awoken with the echo of Daemon's touch. His hands against her face, cradling her to him in a way that her intoxicated mind had decided to remember as reverent.
She pressed the pendant to her chest as if she could use it to confirm at least some part of the night was real. However, it meant the rest was real too and Daemon practically shoved her out of his limo to continue on to some club no doubt. She dropped the pendant and met her new stepmother's stare head-on.
"Some news articles are already attempting to print about you," Alicent said, and her frown screamed at her disapproval.
"What articles?" Rhaenyra asked, and she only just noticed the phone that was clutched in Alicient's dainty hand.
"Just some unsavory opinions and photos from your night out," Alicent's voice was riddled with blatant disapproval that Rhaenyra did not care for. She held out her phone, and it was already open to some photos of articles splayed out on a desk. They looked to be works in progress, but the headlines were apparent.
'The Heiress and the Rogue Seen Cozy On Broadway' it read, with very unfortunate photos of Daemon attempting to carry her back to the limo. His hand was unfortunately on her ass in that photo, but said ass was constricted by a dress and a beige Chanel coat so was it really so scandalous?
"Oh my god," Rhaenyra muttered, her lips pursed in horror.
"We pulled it from print of course," Alicent said, eyes narrow.
"How did my eye makeup come off on only one eye," Rhaenyra said, zooming in with a scowl.
Alicent clicked her tongue, but Rhaenyra didn't much care since she wasn't trying to win the woman's approval. Rhaenyra had stopped chasing that when Alicent fucked her dad.
"Listen, I'm not trying to reprimand you," Alicent began, something she usually said before she reprimanded her. Rhaenyra's lips thinned in displeasure. "Some people from the New York Times got a story and decided to run with it at your expense, I stopped it and offered a better one."
"A better one?" Rhaenyra asked, wondering why so many people cared that she got drunk outside and stumbled their way to their car as if none of them ever did the same thing. It wasn't like she drove.
Alicent's hand rubbed her belly, biting her bottom lip. "Just an announcement of the pregnancy. It's a boy."
"Ah," Rhaenyra whispered, trying not to let that sink her mood as she already airdropped the photo of Daemon holding her to her iPad. She handed it back with a silent frown.
"Listen, what do you say we have lunch together?" Alicent asked, and her voice was nearly pleading, but Rhaenyra was already standing, brushing her fingers through her hair without a care.
"Can't," Rhaenyra said, walking to her bathroom to wash out last night from her mouth. She had taken a shower the night before, trying to touch every place Daemon so much as looked at, trying to recreate the fire he lit under her skin.
She had moaned against the shower tiles, her eyes rolling back as she remembered his bare hand on her smooth back, holding her to him. She imagined what he'd taste like, how his chest would feel under her tongue, his hands sliding off her dress. She had barely managed to touch her breasts, feel the flesh on her fingers as her other hand dusted across her belly, down and down further. She had reached just barely the edge of orgasm, so close to envisioning him there with her like a dark and sinful spectator.
She never finished since she slipped on the water of her own shower and fell.
Rhaenyra entered the bathroom, rising her leg so she could balance her foot on the sink as she pulled up her silk pajama pants, rolling them so she could see the very violent-looking bruise on her knee. Alicent let out a gasp, already waddling her way after her to inspect the injury.
"How did this happen?" Alicent asked, and Rhaenyra made eye contact with her new stepmother through the mirror, lit with the beautiful industrial bulbs that surrounded them like a ring light.
Since Rhaenyra couldn't say she fell trying to fuck herself to her uncle's touch, she only said, "Drunk shower," and still earned high and mighty Alicent's disapproved snort.
"Let me get you some ice," Alicent said, watching Rhaenyra lower her leg back to the ground.
"No need," Rhaenyra told her, pursing her lips. "I just want to take a shower."
Alicent frowned, her face contorted in the hurt that should have made Rhaenyra feel nothing at all. It should have, but no matter what Alicent had done, there would always be a part of Rhaenyra that cared.
"Why did you come? You could have texted," Rhaenyra asked, grabbing her toothbrush from the crystal dish. The Theodent toothpaste came next, a reminder that she had actually paid 99 dollars for 4 grams of the product. What else was she supposed to spend money on was the excuse she used on her father when he saw the bill. Nobody nickel and dimes a bitch like a millionaire.
"You don't answer your text messages," Alicent said, her voice so far away.
Rhaenyra wanted to say 'I don't answer your text messages', but refrained. She was getting tired of her own intrusive thoughts.
"Why were they only coming for me?" Rhaenyra asked, spitting out the toothpaste. "It's like they held a ring light up to him, meanwhile, I look green. I look like Shrek."
Alicent held up her phone, zooming into the photo. There was a small smile, battling to come out, and maybe things would be different if she would let it. "Why is he grabbing you like that? You two look way too close for comfort."
"I was drunk. He was drunk. You try walking in five-inch heels when you can't pass a breathalyzer," Rhaenyra snapped, not meaning to sound so bitter, not meaning to put so much emotion in her voice. It's not supposed to be like this, she thought with shame that crackled with equal embarrassment. Her uncle had to know by now. She practically put an apple in her god damned mouth. It was no wonder he refused to help her up to her penthouse since the moment they were truly alone, she probably would have stripped off her dress and begged him to fuck her.
Had Alicent walked in to see that, Rhaenyra knew nothing she could say would fix anything.
"I'm not accusing you of anything," Alicent said carefully, and if they could go back in time, maybe Rhaenyra would believe her. "I am just saying that Daemon Targaryen is not someone you should look up to, let alone imitate."
"Daemon was the only one to show up. We had drinks. We went to Broadway, not a strip club," Rhaenyra said, the feelings rising in her gut.
"Again, I understand. You have no idea how much I wanted to come yesterday," and the break in Alicent's voice did reach Rhaenyra, somewhere deep in her resentment and thoughts about her own uncle. "I am so proud of you."
Rhaenyra began to rinse off her toothbrush, watching the water run over the bristles as her heart ached in her chest. Her migraine was returning, her arm was sore, her leg was bruised, and she just wanted to masturbate to completion, not feel guilty for being angry with a friend who betrayed her.
"The internet is cruel," Alicent said, now opening her phone to TikTok and playing a video compilation of photos of Rhaenyra and Daemon to the song 'Sweet Home Alabama'. Luckily, none of the photos were of last night. They were just trolls who would think whatever they wanted, regardless of anything she did. It just so happened that in this case, they were right.
"That's gross," Rhaenyra said, no mind that it was true. She went to grab the phone as a photo of her and Daemon hugging at her mother's funeral emerged. Alicent snatched it out of the way before she could get to it.
"I'm only warning you. I don't think it will do you any good to actually read into anything," Alicent said, closing and locking her phone.
"That's sick. What next? Do they think I wanna fuck aunt Rhaenys too?" Rhaenyra asked, hating herself for her hypocrisy. She had to remind herself that she hadn't done anything wrong, that they were just thoughts, not even something he could ever reciprocate. She was innocent. She was off to Yale, the school of her dreams, the place she would spend nights whispering to Alicent about.
"You could come with me, you know," Rhaenyra had said to her friend and had meant it too. They were going to be roommates, they were going to be everything to one another, they were going to get boyfriends and have hot college sex and everything was going to be perfect. Then her mom died and Alicent decided instead of fucking a frat boy, she'd mount Rhaenyra's father instead.
"I know. It's ridiculous. People will say anything for views," Alicent said, shaking her head with a smile. "Your father might call you. Suffice to say he is livid and rightly embarrassed by the whole thing."
"We didn't do anything wrong," Rhaenyra repeated, even as her heart screamed she was a liar. Alicent leaned against the door frame, watching as Rhaenyra put away her toothbrush and began her skincare routine.
"It doesn't matter what you did. It's all about the public's perception of you," Alicent said, rolling her eyes. "We're not human to them, just their sources of entertainment, never mind how it ruins our lives." Alicent would know, Rhaenyra thought with just a hint of sympathy. She had more articles printed about her and Viserys relationship than anything else. Now, her name was synonymous with adultery and slut. While Rhaenyra had never made any public statements in defense of her, she most certainly never released any of her criticisms. "Nobody is upset with you though."
"Just Daemon then?" Rhaenyra said, washing her face and moving on to serums. "That's not fair either."
"You and your father love your uncle," Alicent said carefully. "I love him too, but we all know what he is." Alicent sighed, opening up a news article that was printed and released this morning. Rhaenyra was still dabbing in the serum when she saw the photo of him, in black and white and in the same clothes as last night. It was outside a club that she didn't recognize, and his face was lost in a woman's neck with one hand up her dress.
There were so many feelings rushing through Rhaenyra all at once, and not a single one did she allow to show on her face. She kept up her composure, kept the hurt, the confusion, the sick envy, kept it all at bay. "What's this about?"
"Well, Daemon had a busy night," Alicent said with a roll of her eyes. "Viserys couldn't pull this from print if he wanted to."
Rhaenyra's jaw was clenched, and she placed the serum back onto the crystal tray near the vase of fresh daisies on the corner of the sink. It made an audible click as glass touched glass. "He is who he is," she said, and there was rising ice in her throat.
"I just know how you look up to him," Alicent said, licking her bottom lip. "You are on a straight path, and law isn't easy for people like us." She reached forward now, her hand resting atop Rhaenyra's that rested against the porcelain sink, elevated off the counter. "Public perception matters and I know how hard you worked, but others wont care about that. They will pull apart everything you do, you wear, you drink, you fuck, and they will rip your career wide open just because they don't think you deserve it."
Rhaenyra's hand clenched into a fist from underneath Alicent's. All this, just because she decided to get drunk in public? "So, I just never make mistakes? Easy enough."
Alicent shook her head with a smile. "No, just try not to do it so publically. Perhaps have one of your guards with you when you go out so you don't put Daemon in a position where he has to hold you up like a-" Alicent broke off, removing her hand to run it down her face. "Like a lover."
Rhaenyra just laughed, even as her stomach clenched with leftover shame and desire. "I'd sooner bite off my own hand than ever hear about him and I in that way, thanks."
Alicent finally laughed with her, despite how each sound reverberated in Rhaenyra's skull like a drum. "You'll not hear it from me again. This was not at all easy for me to say."
"Why did you then?" Rhaenyra finally asked, lips pursed together.
"You're my closest friend and I love you," Alicent said, all signs of laughter cast away. "There is nothing I can do to change how I feel, just as I can't change how you feel about me. I just thought it better you hear all this from me rather than Twitter."
Rhaenyra said nothing for a moment, the swelling of her belly a reminder of why they couldn't be friends. The ring on her finger, a diamond two sizes bigger than her mother's, a reminder of why.
Alicent must have seen it in her friend's face since her own fell, crushing and clenching Rhaenyra's heart into dust. "I know I made mistakes. I know I hurt you. But if you ever need to talk, I am right here. I never left."
Rhaenyra turned away, grabbing her moisturizer without a word. Alicent's hand went to rest on Rhaenyra's shoulder, her fingers pressed against silk with a longing touch that reminded Rhaenyra how much she used to dream of it. Before everything, it had been her that plagued her fantasies.
Alicent left without another word.
─────•~❉᯽❉~•─────
Rhaenyra Targeryen hated Twitter. She told herself she wasn't going to look, that she wasn't going to indulge the assholes with one hand on their keyboards and one down their pants. She was going to take the moral highground, she was going to enjoy her coffee and her laptop in peace as she studied.
Now, here she was, deep in the bowels of the hashtag 'Targest' which was apparently a word coined when Viserys and her mother wound up being cousins. Mind you, Aemma Targaryen was barely even that. She was thrice removed, eighth cousin at best, but the internet ran with it.
'Me everytime I tweet about daemyra
Me: You do realize that's her uncle right?'
Rhaenyra bit her tongue, hating how much her heart swelled at the combination of hers and Daemon's name.
'He's so grooming her #stopromantasizingpedos #fuckmeinsteaddaedaddy'
Rhaenyra breathed out through her nose, now biting her lip so hard that she might as well have drawn blood. She wanted to tweet in response, wanted to give in to the temptation, but her media people would literally have her ass on a hook if she tried. They also locked her out of her own Twitter two months ago when she tweeted 'does doggy style mean i get a treat afterward? #iamnotadog #rhaerhaeshowerthoughts'.
She hadn't thought it was that big a deal. Kim Kardashian can release a sex tape, but Rhaenyra Targaryen can't even allude to backdoor sex? This is some bullshit.
She was on a burner Twitter now, unverified of course, when her uncle, the object of all her ire and desire, walked in with a bag of take out from Tavern on the Green. Rhaenyra's heart leapt out of her throat, and she quickly closed Twitter and hid away the evidence that she was searching through mentions of her and her uncle in a secret dalliance.
"How does everyone keep walking in? Does everyone have a key?" Rhaenyra asked, already googling lock changes in New York when Daemon dropped the food on her kitchen island, not far from where she sat.
It smelled divine, especially considering she hadn't had an appetite all of yesterday and this morning.
"You left your bag in the limo," Daemon said in lieu of greeting, dropping her couch bag with small flowers atop the counter next to the food. "I was extra kind in delivering it to you." He dropped her keys next to it, which she hadn't noticed were missing considering she hadn't left her penthouse since the night prior. A ball of anxiety raveled itself in her gut, a melding of want and embarrassment as she reached over to her bag.
"Thank you," she said carefully, nearly knocking aside her own coffee when Daemon took a seat to her left from her on the barstool aligning the wooden portion of the island that wrapped around it in an 'L' shape. Her kitchen had been designed without a single dollar sign to be worried about, so the walls were half-planes of oak where the stove rested into the wall, and half beautiful black marble. The cupboards were all mirrors, that reflected the sun when it rose and blinded the fuck out of her.
She took a deep breath, attempting to bring forward all that she meant to say when she saw him again. She just wasn't expecting it to be so soon. She grabbed her french press and began to refill her cup with her teeth actively gnawing into her bottom lip. "Can I get you some?" Rhaenyra croaked out, now meeting his gaze, only to see he was staring at her.
His chin was resting on his hand, his eyes dark with amusement. She barely saw anything else when her cup began to overflow. She let out a "fuck," and rushed to get a rag before the coffee could reach her MacBook.
"What's got you so jittery?" Daemon asked, watching her clean up her own mess as he began to unpack the two take-out boxes in beige-colored cardboard. He placed one next to her, sliding it forward even as she cleaned up the coffee, dabbing it with a cream-colored cloth.
"I've just been stressed," she said carefully, not meeting his eyes. "What's all this?" He had bought her beautiful jewelry from all around the world, priceless artifacts, handbags from Italy, but he'd never brought her food for them both to eat.
"I heard you liked the food here," he said with a smirk, and finally she met his eyes and wished she had not. It was like she was forced back in time, to when she was drunk and had her mouth pressed into his neck. She hadn't gotten the smell of him out of her mind, the desire to just drag her tongue over the pulse of his vein, to rest her head on his chest and hear his heart beating.
"You earned me a long lecture," Rhaenyra said with a lick of her lips, and his eyes trailed down, following the motion before they raised back up again.
Daemon snorted, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out his phone. He looked so nonchalant, so unbothered with the emotions that were drowning her, as he casually unlocked it with a swipe up. He ran his tongue over his front teeth with a roll of his eyes and pressed something on the screen. The sound of her father's voice filled the empty space.
"Listen up you vile, drunk, bastard. I just spent the last four hours covering up photos of half her ass out for all of New York to see. I have been on two hours of sleep and if I see one photo of Rhaenyra so much as showing a bit of skin, drunk off her ass, I'm going to shove a ballpoint pen up your asshole."
Daemon Targaryen clicked again, and her father's screams cut off. His eyes were back on her now, head tilted, and looking every bit as dangerous as two nights ago. He was positively delectable, with his red V-neck and his Targaryen pocketwatch dangling from his breast pocket. He was freshly shaved, hair slick back, and Rhaenyra positively worshipped him.
"Daddy does care," Rhaenyra said, now letting out a bark of a laugh that helped wipe away some of the tension in her shoulders.
"Makes it seem like I took you to a brothel," Daemon said with a smile of amusement. "It was rather PG if anything. We watched knights and princesses. Not my fault you wore that dress."
She looked up at him again, lips parted with the way he stared into her now, through her, and it was as if he wanted to her to get wet. The heat pulled in between her legs, much to her irritation. I just wanted to enjoy my morning, she thought, adjusting herself and running her hands over her dress.
"That dress was Italian and gorgeous and I looked stunning," she said, walking over to the kitchen sink where she folded and placed the rag atop the metal. She didn't want to turn back around and face him when she was like this.
She wanted to be normal. To have normal thoughts.
She turned towards him again, aware of his eyes following her every move. She was aware that she was positively flush, her panties already soaked, and as she sat, the corner of the chair brushed along her sensitive clit in such a way that made her imagine his fingers instead. She thought back to that photo the night before, where he had dumped her off to fuck some hot model downtown.
The heat lessened, just enough for her to grab her food. He was already pouring some coffee in his own glass, topping it off with sugar cubes and the splash of oatmilk from the porcelain creamer bottle she had out in front of her.
"Did your handsome knight in shining armor tuck you into bed?" Daemon asked, and now she scoffed, but the memory of Criston's lips, just barely and not nearly enough, flooded into her memory.
"He needs a serious raise," Rhaenyra said, turning back to her laptop to the article on civil ligation. "I'll tell daddy to up his salary considering his guy had every opportunity to reciprocate my embarrassing advances."
"Your," Daemon said, his voice dark. "Advances?"
"You'll be happy to know, as is dad and all of Twitter, that I am still very much the innocent heiress," Rhaenyra said with a bitter frown, clicking the space bar violently. Except, of course, she was not. She may not have fucked her uncle or Criston Cole, but she certainly fucked many other things.
Her taste in men, her future, her mind. All of that was very fucked.
"He didn't touch you then?" Daemon's voice was far away, perhaps even a little irritated as she finally reached over to grab the food he had brought her.
"Why do you care? I'm not sixteen and this isn't the stone ages," Rhaenyra said with a snort, now meeting his gaze to see the molten fire that made her picture his hands gripping her thighs and ramming into her over and over again.
He let out a shaky breath and looked away first. "Your father would murder me if the person I dropped you off with did anything you didn't want."
Rhaenyra felt her heart soften, her libido pulsing, and she reached over to him, past the food, and grabbed his hand. He let her drag it to her, let her rest his knuckles against her lips. She kissed them softly, her eyes fluttering shut as she tried to shut down how wrong she was. She truly needed to join a church.
"Nobody did anything I did not want that night," she told him carefully, and he finally let out a shaky breath. He leaned forward next, the countertop all that separated them. His lips went to her forehead, lingering for a long pause that made her think the worst of things. Things that made the shame rise in her throat like seawater.
Thoughts of fucking him she could handle, but thoughts of loving him, that was too much to bear.
His other hand was pressed in her hair, the soft jazz playing from her Alexa, and their breathing in tandem.