Chapter:
A Hard Day's Griff
Part 1 of 9.
Griff: Noun: news or reliable information: late 19th century: abbreviation of the slang term griffin 'a betting tip', of unknown origin.
Warnings/Tags: Modern AU. A/B/O Dynamic. Modern Incest (but they're Targaryen's, banging each other is what they do best and the rest of the world just sort of shrugs and lets them get on with it). Het & Femslash. Slightly comedic. Maybe some Manic Pixie Dream Girl vibes (but in the sense that Fem!Harry could still crush someone's head between her thighs if she wanted to). Architect Rhaenys. Culinary Arts Student Harry. Ranch Worker Jon. Bosun Griff. Modern royal family. The whole 'oh, no, I'm actually royalty *surprise Pikachu face*' trope. Background Wolfstar. Media circus's. Paparazzi being Paparazzi. Westeros as a country in our world. No Magic AU.
Aegon VI & Haraella & Jon & Rhaenys
I
Aegon Targaryen, known affectionately as young Griff, or simply Griff when his godfather Connington wasn't around, never really cared about genealogy. He never really had to. The Targaryen family tree rooted itself back nearly three and a half thousand years. Far before the Norman conquest of the British Isles, before the settlement of America, before, even, all the pyramids in Egypt were built, and was a rich and deep, and already heavily, recorded history.
Griff could name, at the very least, seventeen generations back from the top of his head thanks to his Grandmother's Sunday lessons in the glass parlour. There were Aegons, plenty of those, Daemons and Rhaellas, Aerys and Maegors, Rhaegars and Aenys's. The names went on and on and on and on.
The Targaryen family was big.
Big and old.
Big and old and wealthy.
Big and old and wealthy and positively tedious.
As only one of two surviving families from the primeval domain of Valyria, which had crashed catastrophically in volcanic hellfire while the Roman empire was still a little village between two hills, you could, and likely would, stumble cross the Targaryen name in school history books or political talk shows.
His father was a King, after all.
The Targaryens were a prolific, paranoid, and popular bunch, and there wasn't much more to know than what had already been said. The Targaryen's survived, and the Targaryen's thrived, and Aegon didn't really care for it all, even if he was next in line for the Westerosi throne, which didn't mean an awful lot now the country was run under a constitutional monarchy thanks to Griff's father installing a congress on his ascension to the crown.
Perhaps that was the Martell in him, the hotblooded disregard for social hierarchy, anarchy embedded in his bone marrow like the sands of Dorne were golden. Maybe it was the Targaryen in him too. They had a sordid past of marrying those deemed 'unfit' for the crown as well, of rebelling and raging civil wars and going bloody insane.
The fact remained, nevertheless. Aegon had not cared about his ancestral history one little bit. So how did he end up with the DNA matching ancestry kit, you may ask? The one that spent several months catching dust in the bottom of his desk draw at home? Why buy it at all if he knew his bloodline inside and out as he claimed?
For a gag, obviously.
All he had to do was spit into a test tube, get the results back, falsify Rhaegar's name with some Tipp-Ex and a steady hand to some distant Blackfyre cousin perhaps, and then freak his poor mother out on April Fools. It was the perfect plan, and he'd finally get her back for that April Fool's in 09' where Elia shoved Jolly Ranchers in all the fucking shower heads and caused every to be a sticky-multicoloured mess for a week straight.
Easy.
Splendid.
Disastrous.
Griff signed up on the Friday he got home. He sent his DNA off by the Monday. By a fortnight later, he had the results.
Names all in a pretty row stretching down, and down, and down.
There were his grandparents. Rhaella and Aerys. There were his father and his mother, Elia and Rhaegar and their other Bondmate Lyanna Stark, and their siblings, uncle Viserys and aunt Daenerys, Uncle Oberyn, Griff's favourite, and Uncle Doran with Ned, Benjen and Brandon, and their children. There was Aegon, just beside his older sister, Rhaenys, and before his youngest brother Jaehaerys, dubbed Jon by Lyanna and the Stark side of the family. Polygamous marriages made the Targaryen tree as fat as it was tall, Alphas predominant in their blood, often having to marry out for the Omega, typically bound in marriage in quads, and-
And.
There shouldn't have been an and.
That should have been it.
Should.
Then why, on this long slip of text, was there another name?
Along the line, down the way, dropping below from Rhaegar and a woman called Lily Evans, another surprise, a name.
A sister.
Haraella Evans
31/7/2000 –
Nineteen. She was nineteen. Nearly seven years younger than Rhaenys. Five years younger than himself. Four less than Jon.
That was impossible-
Wasn't it?
II
Aegon spent most of the afternoon in his room, peering over a lit laptop screen, reading the same line of text until the letters blurred together into unidentifiable black blobs. He only came down when Lyanna called them for diner. He sat at the table, before the roast, fork in hand, beside his siblings, both of whom were back home too, Rhaenys from her Architectural firm in Dorne and Jon from helping at the Winterfell Ranch, and he-
Sat there.
Just sat there.
Numb and dumb and something else entirely.
The question came spiralling out as Rhaegar brought a slice of lamb chop to his lips, back from a skype call with what he nicknamed his 'Privy Council'.
"Who is Lily Evans?"
There was a clatter of silver on porcelain, but it did not come from Rhaegar, frozen, static Rhaegar. It came from Elia. Elia with wide-eyes and trembling hand, and-
Wet eyes. Wet wide-eyes.
"Where did you hear that name?"
There was an urgency in his mother's voice that Griff could not quite place, a force to the question that demanded an answer. Aegon did what he didn't normally do, and he did not quite understand why.
He lied.
"I heard it from a new cabin-boy as we sailed back from Cape Town. They said I should know who it was when I asked who they were talking about exactly and-"
Elia bowed across the table, rigid, careening as if she were a tall tower with her foundations shook.
"What cabin-boy? Tell me what cabin-boy, Aegon."
Aegon. Not Griff. His parents only ever used his full name when he was in trouble. Like when he came home when he was seventeen with brightly dyed-on-a-dare blue hair.
Nevertheless, Aegon wouldn't get to answer, wouldn't get to splutter out a half-hoped lie, because Lyanna was dashing her own fork down, and grasping his mother by her silk sunshine yellow shirt, pulling her back, close, voice low and soft and-
Sad.
It sounded incredibly miserable.
"Elia, love, not now."
The Alpha tone Lyanna wore was… Shocking. Unexpected. His parents were Alphas down to the bone, Elia, Lyanna and Rhaegar, and yet, they never really used that voice. There had never truly been a need to, as there was supposed to be no reason for Aegon to be interested in genealogy, yet here they all were.
The last time Griff ever remembered hearing one of them employ that command was back when he and his siblings were all toddlers, and Rhaegar had yelled for Jon to hold so he couldn't go running into the busy road after his ball that had been kicked too far.
As it had back then, it works immediately now.
Elia halts, holds, and then bolts. Her chair screeched across the hardwood as it is unceremoniously shoved back, as his mother flees, Lyanna hot on her tail.
Rhaegar, in the end, lowered his fork to his untouched plate.
"Go to your rooms."
Rhaenys grumbled.
"Dad! Can't you just kick Griff-"
"Rooms. Now."
There was no Alpha tenor lurking in his tone, but that did not mean Rhaegar's voice left any space for argument to be waged.
One by one, the siblings left.
Elia and Lyanna were nowhere in sight in the hallway, but Griff heard his father's brisk pace down the opposite hall, heading for their private chambers echoing out behind him.
Jon's elbow met Aegon's rib midway up the stairs to their wing of the house.
"Well bloody done, Griff. You couldn't have waited for-… Whatever that was after I had finished my mashed potatoes?"
Griff did not answer. He felt as if he was still in his room, still before his laptop, still reading those two words again and another time and once more.
"Who is Lily Evans anyway? And why would the name send mother into such a state? Do you think dad might have had a mistress once upon a time?"
It felt as if he was walking in static, static that drowned out his footsteps, his siblings voices arguing back and forth, all but the thump, thump, thump of his heartbeat.
Alpha voice. His parents had used an Alpha voice. And it was funny, wasn't it? Targaryens and their Alpha blood… Marrying in quads, that was the tradition, that was the practice, that was-
Elia. Lyanna. Rhaegar.
Three. Not four.
"Mistress? Dad? You're having a laugh, aren't you Rhaen?"
"Then what else do you think it was?"
"A friend, maybe? They seemed… Despondent at the name."
"More than despondent. I haven't seen mother cry in… I can't remember when. What do you think Griff? An old friend? Griff? Griff?!"
He stopped at the top of the stairs, a long drop down from high, one slip backwards and he would plummet, and-
"Griff! Are you even listening? It was your new cabin-boy who mentioned the name in the first place, at least tell us if they said anything else?"
Demanding, his sister was. It was the Alpha in her. The Alpha in him. The Alpha in Jon. They could never let anything go. Let anything rest.
Alpha. Alpha. Alpha.
Same as his parents.
Quads.
"The cabin-boy didn't say anything at all. There was no new cabin-boy."
Jon blinked over at him, his gaze dark and brooding.
"Then were in the Seven Hells did you get the name from?"
Three Alphas, no-
"Ancestry. com."
Rhaenys frowned as she stalled on her step.
"Ancestry. com? What were you doing on there? Wait… Is this Lily Evans related to us? Sounds a bit… Tyrell-ish, doesn't it? Didn't think we ever Bonded into them, did we?"
Griff was holding onto the landing banister, felt the knots of wood beneath his palm, the tangle of life, tied-
Bonded.
Quads.
Alpha, Alpha, Alpha, Om-
"No. Her name was in red. Bonded… I think-… I think she was our parents Omega."
Jon huffed at him, Rhaenys cocked her head, the world flickered at him, the mahogany wood and the velvet drapes and great aunt Nettles vase, tipsy-turvy and not the same as it had been only that morning. Strange how one email could turn a life upside down like that.
The Targaryens bonded in quads.
Daenerys, Viserys, Drogo and Missandei. Aerys, Rhaella, Tywin and Steffon. Daemon, Rhaenyra, Leana and Leanor. Rhaegar, Lyanna, Elia.
Griff had never really thought of how… odd his parents' marriage had been. Three Alpha's, no Omega.
A puzzle half finished. Unbalanced. Lopsided.
Or was it?
"But… But Lily Evans would only appear on Ancestry if she were blood related to us. That's the point of the whole DNA match thing, isn't it? Why would she be… Aegon?"
Rhaenys, brilliant, shrewd, keen Rhaenys. Of course she understood first. She had always been the smartest out of them. Jon, however, was left in the dark.
"But how would Griff know the name if she didn't appear and… Hello? Are you two listening to me?"
Rhaenys had their father's eyes, lilac and cool and bright in her sunkissed face.
"Because, if she had any children Jon, any children related to us and in the database, they would appear with her name above theirs. Isn't that right, Griff?"
That's it.
That's how it feels.
Not as if the world had been flipped upside down, or everything had changed, but as if the viewpoint had… Expanded. His world had enlarged, opened up like a camera pulling backwards, spread, including things in frame Griff had never thought were there.
"Haraella. Her name is Haraella."
III
"She's nineteen."
Griff, Jon, and Rhaenys were in his bedroom, huddled around the laptop perched precariously close to the edge of his desk, around that damned family tree, face aglow by the screen, reading that same line over again. It wouldn't change, give answers that were not there, no matter how hard or long the Targaryen brood stayed watching it like Willas Tyrell's hawks watched field mice.
"She was born in July, exactly eight weeks and four years after your birthday in May."
Rhaenys's point was mute, as unspoken as her low voice. What was four years and eight weeks in the life of a surreptitious sister?
Jon kicked away from the desk, crossing his arms over his solid chest. He may have been shorter than Aegon, nearly everyone was to the six-five Alpha, but he was broader.
"Are we sure this is correct, and they haven't just… gotten it wrong? Tacked on a name that was meant for a few generations ago?"
Rhaenys scoffed and glowered, the screen light making her cheekbones look deadly sharp.
"Why would mother react the way she had if that was the case, then?"
Jon, helplessly, shrugged, picking at his blunt fingernails.
"I don't know. I just… Don't know. I mean, what does that symbol mean?"
Leaning back over Griff's shoulder, he pointed to the flashing icon in the tab dashboard. Aegon shook his head, silver hair lapping at his back.
"Don't kn-"
Rhaenys, unceremoniously, shoved his shoulder hard, rolling the chair to the side so she could fit into the desk, over the laptop, tapping away.
"Ow, Rhaenys-"
"It means she's on this site too and she's sent a message. Here-"
Suddenly the palpable focus shifted down to another line of text that appeared from a little chat bubble next to Aegon's profile picture.
Harry4DSnitch: Hello. Sorry to be a bother, but I think we might be related? At least that's what my tree says, and I hope it isn't some sort of glitch on my end. My name's Haraella Black, but I was born Haraella Evans. Do you recognize the name by any chance?
The message was sent four minutes ago. The green tick by her name said she was still online.
"Black? Do we know any Blacks?"
"What do we write back? I know, ask her how tall she is-"
"No ask her where she lives, that way we can go and-"
"See if she likes seafood. Mum likes seafood and we could go get some before we head to where she lives and-"
"What's her favourite band? I like-"
Rhaenys, at her brothers torrential flood of inconsequential questions, waved Griff from his seat and slipped onto the cushions with a bounce and a roll of the wheels, pulling up tight, fingers flexing over keyboard.
GriffVI: Hi, yes, I recognize the name. It's on my tree too. Sister, actually. I think you might be my sister. Do you know how this could be?
"Do you have to be so blunt? Couldn't you have led into it softly? Maybe ask her how she's doing first?"
Rhaenys shot a frown at Jon from over her shoulder
"If we want answers, real answers, we need to be blunt. If she's scared off by that, imagine what would happen when she figures out-"
Griff cut her off, arm jutting out so his hand could point at screen.
"Look! She's typing back!"
A little chime of a ding came along with the pop of a new message.
Harry4Snitch: Sister? That would make you my brother? I don't really know what to say to that. My adopted fathers brought me this as a present for my birthday, thinking I might get to meet a distant second cousin or a third removed uncle. I never really expected to find a brother.
Immediately, the little three dots appeared again.
Harry4Snitch: Not that it's a bad thing. Unless it is for you? I mean did you expect to find a sister on here? It's not a surprise is it? I mean of course it's a surprise, but not a bad-surprise, right?
Rhaenys went to reply, but it seemed 'Harry' wasn't quite finished, and another message appeared before Rhaenys could get a single word keyed in.
Harry4Snitch: Which asking so frankly would, of course, come off a bit rude. Sorry again. I'm just a little bit side-lined by this. My friend Hermione calls me a Witch because she said whenever I open my mouth my foot seems to magically get shoved in.
Ding.
Harry4Snitch: Which is also completely off track. Right, yes, how? My mother died before I was born. I know that sounds strange but they call it a coffin birth. The morgue worker heard my cries just before they cremated the body. Good spot of luck, I suppose, that he did. My mother was out of country on a PHD research position and lost touch with her friends and family back home for a couple of years. She was pregnant by the time she came back to visit when her parents passed away. She died in an accident two days after the funeral. No one really knew who my father was so her old school friends took me in. Her name was Lily Evans. Does it ring a bell?
Rhaenys sagged back into the desk chair, swivelling around like, clearly, her thoughts were spinning, leaving Griff just enough room to steal in from her side.
GriffVI: Was she doing a PHD in Valyrian History by any chance?
"Why'd you go and ask her that?"
"Because-"
Griff replied to his terse sister with a shrug.
"Dad's been doing guest speeches at the University of Westeros on Valyrian history since his early twenties. Lyanna and mum have also appeared at conferences on House history there."
Ding.
Harry4Snitch: Sirius and Remus told me she was researching trade routes of the Valyrian empire and the old tribes of Scotland. There was some Pict ruins found in the Highlands that showed Valyrian influence in their architecture. She was studying at a place called the University of Westeros when she dropped out of touch with them. That's really all I know. Sorry if it's not helpful.
Rhaenys hummed low and long.
"Maybe if we ask her-"
"Fuck this."
Jon cut in with his Northern accent thick on his tongue, barrelling between the two siblings to seize control of the laptop with a curse and a yank.
"I ain't letting you two tie us all up in some game of Cluedo wondering who did who in what room and with what weapon. This could be our sister."
By the time Jon pulled back, the message was sent, checked, and marked read.
GriffVI: Fancy meeting up for a cuppa tomorrow? I'm in London at the moment because my family is on a business trip, so if you're close by I know this little coffee shop off Euston called the Leaky. The tea and coffee is shite but they give you free cinnamon buns with every order.
Business trip was a succinct way of saying our parents are on their yearly diplomatic relations visit with the UK by meeting the Prime Minister and Queen, Aegon supposed. Succinct and timely, and yet, unlike the last four messages, the three dots didn't appear immediately in response. Rhaenys blindly reached behind her and smacked Jon across his arm.
"Now look what you've done! You scared her off! If you'd just let me talk to her a bit longer, show her we're actually interested in what she has to say and not some sort of serial killer posing as a lost relative to lure her into an alley, we might have gotten together at some point and-"
Ding.
Harry4DSnitch: I live in London. Noon tomorrow good with you?
Rhaenys spluttered on her own spit.
"Does she not know how dangerous it is to meet people from online? We could be anyone saying anything! I better tell her not to come and send her a link to online security and safety measures-"
Before Rhaenys could lurch for the laptop, Griff nodded silently at Jon, who was quick to tug Rhaenys back from the keyboard by her chair in time for Griff to snatch the entire computer for himself, typing in the havoc of Rhaenys shirking Jon off her.
She meant well, their sister. But she was blunt and could be abrasive, protective in the way Alpha's typically were which sometimes rang overbearing to strangers, amped to the ten by being the oldest in three-
Maybe four children, Rhaenys could come off… domineering.
"Too late."
Griff grinned as Rhaenys finally stole the laptop back, eyeing the screen with a new bubble of text flashing in the bottom.
GriffVI: Meet you there! Wrap up warm, it's meant to be raining tomorrow.
Haraella's online check box flashed blue. Offline. Rhaenys sighed.
"At least you told her to wrap up warm. I suppose that's something."
"We may also have a little problem-"
Jon interjected as he fell back on Griff's bed with a flounce, kicking his feet up and over the edge. Rhaenys slapped his boots which were on Griff's sheets back off promptly, earning herself a scowl.
"Her profile pic is a blobfish in a top hat. Griff put his as Connington's ship. Ancestry doesn't show us each other's trees, only informs you that you're related to this person and how you are. How are we going to know who she is or she us? The Leaky might make the worst coffee in London, but it's cheap and it's going to be packed on a weekday afternoon. Plus, we step foot in central London and the media will swarm the place in twenty minutes max. "
Right. Griff hadn't really thought about that, hadn't really noticed the profile pictures at all. Bashfully, he scratched at the back of his neck.
"We could make one of those signs they do in the movies where people meet at the airport? Wait… Did you say us? I'm meeting her. It was my profile after all. We never mentioned you two."
Rhaenys rolled her eyes.
"Don't be ridiculous, Griff. Of course we're coming along, as for the profile pictures and paparazzi… we'll figure something out. The real question is what are we going to tell dad and our mums?"
The long-suffering silence that followed the loaded question was broken by Griff, now folding his arms over his chest and squaring his feet for the inevitable fight to come.
"I found her and went through the trouble of setting up the profile and sending my own DNA away, so it shouldn't be me who comes clean-"
"You tried dunking on mum and spat in a test tube, don't make it out like you solved the enigma code-"
"And what did you do, Rhaenys? Typed a few words in-"
Jon, nevertheless, groused and trudged across the bedroom, flinging open the door, shouting through the hallway.
"Mum! Dad! Elia! Griff's gone and found a sister!"
It was the same whiny voice Jon used when they were children and Griff broke one of his wooden swords in their play fighting, rushing off to rat on him.
"Oi! You little bastard!"
Griff snarled as he shifted gears and darted out the room, running for his brother who in turn, by the sound of quickening steps reverberating out, tried to leg it.
Rhaenys let her gaze drift up to the ceiling, tried to breathe through her nose and out her mouth.
"The Seven save me from their stupidity. Please."
Next Part: When Aegon and Jon are late to the coffee shop due to a breakdown, Rhaenys, in the best disguise she can use, is left waiting there early only to run into a rather delightful Omega with the greenest eyes she had ever seen and the most charming freckles across her nose. Her red hair was rather pretty too, and would you look at that, she was sitting all alone. It would only be polite to go over and say hello, wouldn't it…
A.N: I'm ill and I have a cold, and this is the best I can offer right now lol. I don't think I need to warn you too hard not to squint or you'll see the plot holes, but please don't, it's riddled with them. Terminally so, really, but this is just for some fun, so we'll hook it up to life support and try to get a few kicks out of it while it lasts. A/B/O's aren't really popular with my readers by consensus, but they're one of the more easier things to write, and I'm just looking for something a bit fun to do right now, and I'm watching ratatouille on loop (don't judge me), so I'll be getting back to the other stories on this fic soon. Maegor's one is likely the next one I'm going to try and get a chapter out for after I've finished having fun with this fucking fever dream. I'll try and get Jon's out soon too.
As always thank you for taking the time out to read this, I hope you all liked it, if you want to see more please drop a review, and I will hopefully see you all again soon. Until then, stay beautiful! ~AlwaysEatTheRude21
