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selfproclaimedunicorn · 2 months

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Prompt: Daddy Daemon and Mommy Rhea finally find common ground and maybe fall in love through mutual violence against the bane of their existence: Viserys.

Enjoy the absolutely unhinged AU we entertained the idea of one time. Feeding you well with nearly 3.3k of Daemon being mentally unwell & Rhea being a mama bear

Adrenaline had not stopped coursing through him since he had found Rhaella sobbing in the gardens, wailing and carrying on worse than when he’d taken Yorick to squire. Words tumbled forth from her, muffled by his chest as she desperately clung to him; as disgusted and angry and hurt by betrayal as he’d been nearly fifteen years earlier.

Daemon had gone to Viserys, had unburdened himself of his feelings about being tossed aside to be further forgotten and ignored by their father, and he’d nodded and hummed and patted his shoulder in a bland attempt at comfort. That his elder brother would turn around and wound him so, would do to his child what was done to him–worst of all by his own hand. Hells, this was worse! Daemon had at least drunk himself into compliance so he could make nice for a day while the realm watched him put a black cloak around that bronze bitch’s shoulders, and she had at least been willing and girlishly excited enough he’d thought once would not hurt. There was no complacency from Rhaella, she had not wanted anything more than to aleve her brother of the duty of giving sympathy to the king.

She was wrapped in the blankets from his bed, and curled in on herself on a couch with her head on his lap. Daemon wanted to get up, to pace and spit venom, to go to his brother and smash his face into the model of the old empire he fancied so; he wanted to curl protectively around what was his and not let anyone touch it, hissing and snapping like The Blood Wyrm with anyone who came too close. He stewed in his anger, fingers curling into one of the black blankets.

He wanted and he ached and he yearned. Power some days, recognition and respect all of them, affection too. No one he wanted to gave him that one, not how he desired; but Rhaella so desperately clinging to him for protection and love like how he had done with Prince Baelon and then Viserys…maybe that was how he had wanted it? To be a first choice, to be needed.

There was a pounding on the door, and Ella startled in his lap before huddling in on herself more.

“Leave!” He barked the order as his head snapped towards the door. The knocking did not stop.

“Daemon, open the fucking door!”

“Mother!” Ella’s call was broken and achingly familiar, drawing foggy, half-remembered visions of Vermithor setting a pyre alight to the front of his mind.

“Ella?!” It was Yorick who burst through the door, one of the infrequent flashes of real emotion on his face: outrage and grief–the most common combination Daemon had ever witnessed from his older son. Their mother followed behind him, only to bump into him a moment later. They both stood only a foot into Daemon’s chambers, staring at him and Rhaella.

“You, you–” she pointed at him, face twisted with blind fury for only a moment before her gaze fell to their daughter, “my sweet girl.” She rushed to where they sat, dropping to her knees to take Rhaella into her arms. It was strange and uncomfortable seeing the Lady of Runestone in such a position, to feel her arms brushing against him as one of the children they shared held onto her without getting up from where she laid on top of him.

“I am sorry! I am sorry! I didn’t think that–I just wanted to help!”

“It isn’t your fault.”

“It is mine,” Yorick mumbled. He was always mumbling if he was dejected.

“It is Viserys’s fault,” Daemon snapped.

A strange look passed over Lady Rhea Royce’s face as her eyes, brown and terribly common, darted up to him. Their gazes met, briefly, and then she looked back down to Rhaella. “Go to your brother, sweet girl.”

“But, but–kepus.” Her voice sounded so small when she twisted around to look back up at him, her mismatched eyes watery and pleading.

“He will keep you safe, just over there,” Daemon pointed to the tall divider painted with dragons that separated his chambers in half, and he glanced at Yorick when he continued, “jātās.” Rhaella sniffed hard as she slowly sat up and slid off the couch, and she still held the blankets tightly around herself as she shuffled over to Yorick’s side. Neither of them touched the other, but she was still close enough it was as if they moved as one.

Daemon sprang up immediately, standing at full attention almost before Lady Royce could get herself out of the way to not be knocked in the face by his knees. When she was standing and looking up at him there was anger on her face again. His lip curled and he turned towards the door, but before he could leave to go do something, she grabbed his arm.

“Will you fucking think for five minutes?”

“All I have been doing is thinking, and I decided the best way to off him is to cave his head in.” Daemon pulled his arm further away to try and get her to let go, but the Lady of Runestone held fast to him. He could have pulled harder, yanking his arm from her to go do what he needed to do as she fumed, but he knew she was not mad at him this time. Their anger shared a common goal that served something besides staying away from each other, probably for the first time ever.

“Something has to be done! I will not just sit here and let Viserys marry my daughter!” Not when his brother would treat Rhaella as little more than a broodmare to replace him with, not when Rhaella had flung herself into his arms and screamed her hurt that he could fix.

“Do you think I want that to happen?! Do you think I want our daughter to go through what Aemma did?! We just–gods you are so stupid!”

“I am not stupid!”

“When have you ever had a fully formed plan? Tell me quickly.”

“Going to Dragonstone when Viserys exiled me for Yorick cavorting with that boy from the brothel was a fully formed plan. It is not my fault he brought you to the island and hardly made a decision he was not pushed to.” Sometimes Daemon forgot his brother had barely been primed to rule, and that their quarrels as boys would end with Viserys acting as if he had indigestion.

“Yes, of course, hinging your bets on that cunt making a decision is a perfect, well-formed plan and not some malformed stillbirth of an idea.”

His lips went tight as he glowered down at her. Lady Royce’s insults would be funny if they were not so often pointed at him. “Do you wish to help me save Rhaella, or not?”

***

It took everything in Rhea to keep her expression calm. Her heart hammered in her chest and her hands felt clammy. The weight of the gold ring with its raised emerald felt like it should keep her from raising her hands as she attempted casual gesticulation, and she wanted nothing more than to look at her good brother with disgust after everything he'd done. She hated him, had for years. He was ineffectual and weak and as fickle as the day was long, preferring to stick his head in the sand instead of making any kind of firm choice or resolving a single issue that arose. He had spent years making one of her dearest cousins miserable, keeping her from rest and subtly blaming her for each lost prince as he put on a show to make everyone feel more sorry for him than they did Aemma. He was not going to do the same to her daughter–his niece–no matter how much she “reminded him of Princess Alyssa.” Ella was not dying in the child bed after promising anyone an army of sons.

“A shame Daemon could not join us.”

“You know how he is,” she replied with a noncommittal shrug.

“He is prone to going into moods,” a disarming, almost bland, smile pulled up the corners of his mouth, “he has been since we were boys. There is dragonfire in him.”

Kinder words than she would have chosen on most days, although they were not untrue. That “dragonfire” had been part of why Daemon had been so exciting…then he decided to point it at her. Things usually lost their charm when their worst parts were aimed in Rhea’s direction.

“One could still hope the king’s brother would be pleasant enough that Ser Westerling and Ser Marbrand would let them speak to each other.”

When Viserys let out his annoying little chuckle Rhea wanted to punch him in the face. Nothing about this was enjoyable or casual, and laughter would not divert any tension. Although, if he was so at ease she must have been doing a decent job at pretending to not be bothered. Her father would have been proud of his little girl playing politics so well.

“Have you told him of my announcement? Surely such joyous news would see Daemon’s mood improve.”

“I tried to talk to him earlier, but you know how he is, Viserys,” Rhea stood up and turned away from him so she would not have to see his satisfied smile for another moment, “something wedged itself into his mind and he will have to wait it out.” She traced a finger over the decanter on the small table near their chairs, the digit easily gliding along the neck and crest of the glass dragon.

“But that is enough about my husband, there are other things to talk about than him.”

“Like the rejoining of the two halves of House Targaryen.”

Bile rose in her throat. He'd said as much when he betrothed Yorick and Rhaenyra, ignoring her father’s petitioning of Jaehaerys to have at least Rhea's heir known as a Royce, and now he said the same thing about his wanting to marry her daughter–the girl who so often went by Ella Royce. Not that any of the Targaryens seemed to care what her sweet girl wanted. She took the stopper out of the mouth of the dragon, and placed it on the table. Rhea needed both hands, and she was not going to back down now. She poured wine into two glasses, her hands hovering over one of them a bit longer as the powder her husband’s bastard had snuck from the grand maester’s chambers poured out of the well under the emerald in the ring and into the dark red liquid filling the goblet.

Rhea turned back around to face Viserys, both goblets in her hands and a fake smile plastered across her face. “Indeed. Something so joyous as your honoring House Royce twice over by betrothing Yorick and Rhaenyra, and then announcing your intent to have Ella as your new queen requires much discussion. And perhaps, also celebration?” She extended one of the glasses towards the king, and he gladly accepted it.

She smiled into her own goblet as her good brother drank some of the tainted wine. King Viserys could not content himself with trying to take her oldest son, pretending Yorick was his and snatching him away to saddle him with her fate: an outsider married to one of them. This was for Yorick and Ella, and Aemon eventually. The Targaryen dynasty would not take anything more from House Royce, not unless it was willingly given.

Rhea barely paid attention as the minutes passed, letting the king talk himself in circles. She would nod where appropriate, blow smoke up his ass if his pause seemed to be for a response. Eventually he grew listless, and Rhea excused herself under the guise of attending to her duties, whatever her good brother assumed those even were when she was away from home.

“Seven hells,” Rhea grumbled just loud enough to be heard, “you would think he would want to be at least a bit moderate if he wanted to speak with me.” She paused in her walk from his room to look over her shoulder at the two kingsguard stationed outside Viserys’s chambers.

“Do let me know when His Grace will have had enough time to recover his faculties for a conversation. I do not know his tolerance for wine as well as the two of you would.”

***

Daemon glanced over his shoulder for a brief moment to see if she was keeping up, they needed to move quickly if they wanted to make it to Viserys’s chambers before the kingsguard checked in on Viserys’s progress with “sobering up,” and he was not above simply leaving Lady Rhea behind. She kept pace with him though, trotting along behind him as he led her through the secret passages of The Red Keep.

She had insisted on coming even though her part in the affair of saving their daughter from the angry despondence they had been shafted with was over. But she had said that she wanted to see the whole thing through, and that she wanted to make sure he actually did it. As if Daemon wasn't full of righteous fury, building up over years and finally spilling forth after being given a taste of what he craved; as if he could not be trusted to do what needed to be done.

He stopped before a spot in the wall where light filtered into the secret passage between a small gap in the bricks, and pushed, opening the hidden door just a crack. He pressed his face against the door, peering into the room beyond to make sure he had remembered the correct paths to the king’s chambers. When his eye landed on his elder brother, softly moaning and bent over the great, oblong table where his model of Valyria sat, Daemon felt a mixture of sympathy and rage bubbling up inside him. That was his brother, the person who had raised him when their father withdrew from the world. That was his betrayer, the person who constantly sent him away and had put his hand on Daemon’s daughter.

He pushed the door open and stormed past the tapestry hanging over part of the secret door in order to conceal it. Viserys was slow moving and clumsy when he sat up, and his pale eyes were bloodshot.

“Wha–Daemon?” His words were slurred, and the look on his face was far away. Viserys seemed so fragile under the effects of the poison that Lady Rhea had slipped into his wine.

“Don't just stand there.” Her whisper came out as a hiss, and she shoved him from behind so he had to take a step towards Viserys. Daemon looked back at her, both of them frowning and full of fire. She was right; they needed to act quickly, he needed to let years of carefully tended anger carry him forward like he always did.

Daemon crossed the floor and hauled his brother out of his chair by the shoulders, the extra fabric of his black and red coat bunching in his fists. The king, just a hair shorter than him, was dead weight in his arms, ineffectually struggling against Daemon’s hold on him as words, all mumbled mush, spilled from his mouth.

His bright purple eyes flitted from his elder brother’s neck, to the model of Valyria, to the fireplace. It had seemed so simple before actually being in his apartments, but now his wife’s warnings of the consequence of not thinking nagged at his mind. It was strangely less grating than usual.

“The balcony.” Her words, still hushed to not draw undue attention to their actions while the kingsguard continued to wait out “His Grace’s drunkenness” just outside, were matter-of-fact and unexpectedly calm. She had always been quick to think, and when it was aimed towards collaboration Daemon actually welcomed it was an admirable quality. He followed Lady Rhea as she walked quickly to the other end of the room, throwing open the glass doors that blocked their path. As he was dragged into the twilight something seemed to pierce the fog of Viserys’s mind, and he moaned again, louder than before.

He adjusted his hold on his brother, letting go of one shoulder to stand beside him and wrap the free hand around his mouth. Lavender eyes darted up to meet Daemon’s brighter gaze, searching and desperate and only slightly less far away than before. His heart beat impossibly fast, and he knew that somewhere in the depths of the dragonpit Caraxes was restless and grumbling.

“You do not get to push me off for years, ignoring me until I do some trick to please you and then discarding me as soon as you’re upset, and then believe yourself entitled to putting your hands on my daughter. Rhaella wants you as much as you do me.” With that, he finally freed Viserys from his hold on him and shoved him in the chest, sending the listless king easily over the railing of the balcony.

His wife came up beside him, one hand on the railing and the other on his bicep, as she looked over the balcony to see the last of Viserys I’s fall and broken landing. Daemon didn’t look down at his brother, instead glancing over at Lady Rhea as she winced. The weight of what he just did, what they did, felt heavy. It needed to be done though. Viserys had had as much coming all his years of selfishly casting him aside, at least that’s what the hurt and adrenaline was telling Daemon.

“Come on, you cannot get distracted now,” he stepped back from the balcony and grabbed her hand, pulling her back into the interior of the late king’s apartments and towards the door to the secret passage, “you said we needed to not be suspects, and we will be if someone sees you gawking at the body.” She huffed from behind him, but she did not say anything or fight his hold on her. Pliant as the night at Storm’s End she’d gotten drunk enough to open her legs to make a child to claim Silverwing, but without blushing or giggling like the night of their wedding. Strangely, Daemon liked this better.

His nerves still raced when they slipped into the tunnel hidden between the walls of the keep and closed the door, leaving them in the almost-dark of the secret passages. He walked quickly, navigating back towards his own apartments and their hidden door in the false back of the wardrobe that he’d discovered as a boy. Daemon must have been going faster than when they were going to the chambers of the king, because Lady Rhea took hold of his hand again and stopped him in his tracks.

He looked back at her, and her expression was unreadable. It was soft though, softer than it had been for over a decade. Her eyes were amber when they met his, warm and almost golden in the dim light of the hidden passage. How had he never noticed that before?

“I…I appreciate your–”

That ignited something in him, and Daemon cut her off with his mouth, taking her face in his hands and pressing his lips into hers. Rhea let out a sound of surprise that was muffled by their kiss, but soon she met his enthusiasm with her own.

They were all teeth and tongues and soft moans as he pinned her against the wall. Her hands threaded through his hair, and Rhea gasped when he pressed himself against her. Their lips met again, and he growled into her mouth when she rolled her hips against his.

#asks #my writing #nat tag #sotf extras #at what cost au #nat come get your juice #GOD this is so long #3k words to get to ''daemon targaryen has a praise kink''#but y'know what? good for them i guess #make that forbidden 4th Roycegaryen

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