«The thing about rich people—especially, men—is that they are always sure that they know better. About everything, about everyone. It doesn't necessarily mean they are bad—sometimes, it is a good person with a kind heart—but it undeniably shows how truly spoiled they are. How little they know about life. Playing with such people is easy. And to you, my descendants, I trust to use them like chess. Targaryens, Lannisters: it doesn't matter. Fool them. Trick them. And remember: it is their fault for being so self-centred, so naive, for falling on your lies. Am I making myself clear?».

— From Drusilla Tyrell's memoirs.

•

Aegon's first instinct as he hears news about the death of the king is to run. To run as far as he can, while no one notices him, until he will stop feeling the deadly claws of his mother and grandfather on his neck.

It is Drusilla who stops him.

Not exactly stops, but it is the state of hers that makes him stop.

Because she sits in front of his chambers, face hidden in her legs, all alone, and Aegon genuinely—he didn't know he even has a capacity to feel like this—feels bad for her. Because mother, grandfather and Aemond left, all in different directions, leaving her completely alone, and, well, Aegon can't do the same.

After all, she helps him so much. The first person to believe him and in him, for his whole life. How can he be ungrateful?

'Hey, Silla. Are you okay?'

She raises her head slowly, and to his surprise there are no tears, though he heard from mother that Drusilla, in fact, had a terrible panic, when Viserys died in her presence. Must be from shock or memories about her dead friend or whatever.

'Hey, Aegon,' she smiles tensely.

She doesn't answer his question, and Aegon sits down on her right, sighing.

'Are you mourning our old man? You shouldn't really. He was an asshole. Never really understand how the fuck he survived for so long.'

It is true. Once, as a kid, Aegon tried to reach his father, always seeking for attention, but quickly enough he stopped. Mother was wrong, being his final heir never meant to deserve his love, no matter what others said.

Heir or not, for Viserys, Aegon was a mistake and disappointment. A proof of his own cowardice. A living humanization of his wrongs.

'Are you running away, Aegon?' Drusilla asks suddenly, and Aegon chokes on the air, surprised. 'Aegon. I think we both know each other long enough for understanding each other from half of a sentence, hm?'

She sounds... Pacific. Aegon doesn't remember had she ever sound so quiet and calm before, but it is something new.

'I don't want to become the king,' he admits. 'I don't want to live like Viserys, doing whatever the fuck Council tells me to do. They already took away my youth and freedom, chaining me with fucking marriage and kids I had never wanted to have. I can't allow them to take even more of me.'

Drusilla finds his hand, squeezing it tightly. Her head falls on his shoulder, and she closes her eyes. Aegon finds himself mirroring this action, his own head falling on the crown of her hair.

'Aegon, what if I help you? To escape that?'

'To run away?'

'No. No, to stay here, but without becoming the King. Continue to live like this, but maybe even more freely than before.'

He snorts.

'Drusilla, I think you don't understand...'

'Aegon,' she speaks over him, 'I don't think you understand that running away means the death for you. Without money, hiding away, Aegon, how will you survive? Despite having a terrible childhood, you were always spoiled. You had an enormous amount of money. Servants for cooking and cleaning. You know nothing about the life outside these walls. Aegon, you will not survive it.'

He is so shocked by these words that he can only blink.

Drusilla sounds so... Rational?

Since when, she–

'Aegon, allow me to try to help you. Please.'

Perhaps, they all underestimate her, then? Is it what made Aemond suddenly so attracted to her? A hidden personality that they never know about? Or to ability to humble him down?

'Why? Why do you want to help me?'

'I have a few reasons. Which one you want to hear?'

A few reasons, then.

Ha.

Aegon thinks he understands now; Aemond was always jealous of his status of heir—something, Aegon wished, to never have at all—dreaming of ruling. Might Drusilla just want to help him, a good wife she is?

'Say the one that is related to me personally.' He chooses.

He doesn't care about the throne, the reigns or anything else. All these strategies, lies and deaths: they are not for him. If his little brother and his little friend are trying to get the Iron Throne, then, fine. He doesn't want to know details. Leave him out of it. He is tired of becoming the part of something he hates.

'Because you are my friend. Because I care for you,' Drusilla answers without hesitation. And then, she slightly backs down from him, only to look in his eyes. 'If you will leave, I don't know what to do. Your presence help me feel safer, Aegon.'

It is a same for me, he wants to answer.

But instead, he closes his eyes and sighs, trying to look irritated.

'Gods, of course, I knew that this house is literally holding on my shoulders, but... Hm, fine. I guess I will take pity on all of you.'

When Aegon opens his eyes, Drusilla smiles at him. Not so wide and stupid like usual, but still sincere like all this time. Even if she is different from the Drusilla he got used to, there are no doubts that with him, at least, she was and is honest. He doesn't care much if she even plans to start the whole ass revolution in Kingdom or to kill a man coldly. Because all this time she loved him like a brother. No matter about what she lies, this one is a true. 

He knows that.

'Ah, thank you, Prince Aegon. You are so kind!'

'...What I need to do?'

•

'My Lady, what are you intending to do next?'

Criston Cole has a quite beautiful voice, in fact. Drusilla thinks it's one of these that puts others to sleep with how calming and velvet it sounds. If only he didn't open his mouth, the idiocy ruining his charm.

'I...' She stops, registering sounds in the corridor, gesturing him to keep quiet.

One of the most good qualities Criston Cole has—and there are just two, by the way—is obedience. Like a good dog, golden retriever, he is easy to train. He is not a dragon—less destructible, sadly—but sometimes, beasts without wings draw their claws more effectively than the ones that travel across the sky.

The door flies open, and Drusilla visibly relaxes, offering Aemond a smile. But as soon as she notices the sour expression on his face, it drops.

Gods, she had given him one job—

'My Prince...'

'From how much you spend time, jumping around my wife, I will start to think that you are trying to bed her, Ser Cole.' Aemond hisses, voice harsh.

Now, that is bad.

Criston Cole, despite everything, is a meaningful figure in Aemond's life; not someone, who he would offend so easily. There is a mutual respect between them, and it means a lot. The last thing Drusilla wants to witness is how Aemond throws her puppy away!

'My Prince...'

'I apologise for his behaviour,' Drusilla quickly intervenes, hinting Criston to go away. As he does so, closing the door behind himself, she furrows. 'What is wrong, love?'

'I don't think it is a good idea, Lea.'

Drusilla tenses.

'About which one we are speaking?'

But she already knows the answer.

'Mother worked hard to get Aegon on this throne. She is already... You see how she is, life wasn't exactly nice to her,' Aemond sighs, fingers tugging his own collar. 'We should let her have at least one thing achieved in the way she wants.'

Oh, dear mother's boy. Of course.

Drusilla should know better that even Aegon is bolder than his brother with a right motivation.

'Am I getting that right, Aemond?' She starts, voice covered with ice. 'You are willing to refuse your own dream, you are willing to put all my life in a waste, and even ruin your brother's life, just because you want to support the illusion that Alicent lives in unwillingly, because your grandfather is an asshole, who manipulated with his own daughter? Aemond, I am getting that right?'

Another sigh escapes his lips, and Drusilla had never wished to choke the man in front of her—not in the sexual way—so badly.

Aemond has always been her feline boy. Dear, precious lover, who she owed to protect. But if says another wrong word, she is not sure that death will be the less escape for him.

'My love,' he catches her hands in his, squeezing them softly. 'I understand what you had been through, but try to...'

Oh.

Here it is.

The wrong word.

Drusilla rips out her hands so sharply that Aemond almost stumbles back. And even that doesn't save him from a surprise that arises in him as she slaps him across his face with such a loud sound that it is deafening, in some way.

'Don't you fucking dare to say that you understand what I had been through, Aemond,' her hiss reminds of snakes, all of once raising, furious and deadly. 'You had been born with a sliver spoon in your mouth, Aemond. And don't start with your father being an asshole, and your mother being sad all the time, Aemond. You are royalty. You don't understand what I've been through!'

'Dru—'

'Did I allow you to speak?!'

Gripping his red cheek, absolutely surprised, terrified even, Aemond silently shakes his head.

'I spent my golden years, thinking about you, working on fulfilling your dream, Aemond. I was made in being the change coin between different men, I was made into pretending, playing role of a beautiful and stupid woman; and that you will not understand either. Because you are a man. Having a fucking dick between your legs is, apparently, enough, to have everything, my darling!'

Drusilla lets out a panted breath, and her fingers dig in Aemond's chin, bringing him closer.

'You don't understand what I had been through. Never will. And now, when I am offering to you everything on the silver plate, just as you were receiving things all your life, you are backing down because lies are prettier that ugly truth?! Aemond, I swear to fucking Gods, I am disgusted by the most of your family. I hate the Iron Throne. If I had a chance, I would burn it once and forever, do you hear me? Yet, I am doing it for you. But if you want to be a good son, then fine. But I would rather run away with Aegon through this idiotic sea than watch you being your grandfather's lapdog.'

A dragon with uncontrollable fire in him, Rhaenyra said?

Ha.

He is just pathetic as the most of his family members.

The differences between her husband and Rhaenyra's is only the fact that for Aemond Drusilla would kill, and Daemon would be the one to die if Aemond asks from her so. But in the end, they are not so different. Not because they are dragons with fire in them, no. But because they are useless man, who are good at laying in the legs of their women.

'...I apologise,' he croaks, voice so quiet that Drusilla hardly hears it at first. 'You are right. I am grateful for your sacrifices.'

She turns her head slightly away, lips pursed.

'And your jealousy is disrespectful. I spent all my life on you, and you are daring to assume that I would leave you for some man?'

'...I trust you, just not them,' Aemond mumbles, nuzzling nose in her cheek, almost searching for approval. 'How can I not be? Look at yourself. Are you waiting for me to believe, that such a woman as you truly chose me? Fought for me?'

Drusilla clicks her tongue.

Now, that is a way to speak with her.

'Look at yourself,' she rolls her eyes, 'I scream at you for once, and you are already hard. Didn't know you liked when women are mean to you, Aemond.'

He grins.

'No. Just you.'

Fucking masochistic asshole.

That what happens with men, when mother doesn't love them right enough, hm?

'Do your job at first, Aemond. Gifts after.'

'Oh, I will.'

•

Ones can say that their love with Irellea is too unhealthy. Love, tightly tied with strings of obsessiveness and possessiveness, the urge to own each other completely, a gentle childhood love turning to absolute mess as they turned out to be one themselves.

Well.

Ones can fuck themselves.

Respectfully.

All his life, Aemond had undying hunger inside him. Not the one Irellea suffers from—he suddenly realised, very lately, watching as she stuffed her stomach with different food, until she didn't feel like throwing up—but another. A more animalish one, yet so human-like.

A hunger for love.

Not power, not the throne.

But love.

That is why he was so easy at the thought of giving up on the throne.

Because he finally has Irellea back. He feels her love. Hunger not gone—it will always stay with him as a phantom—but satisfied. And throne was always just a tool he felt could help him feel loved around his own family.

But in the end, Irellea is right. It should be her way.

'We need to coronate Aegon as soon as possible,' Otto says, hands banging on the table. 'We don't have time.'

'We do have some time, in fact,' Aemond chides in. 'And plan.'

'What do you mean?' Alicent turns to him, surprised by this sudden statement. 'Aemond?'

'I have a plan.'

'And what is this plan exactly?' His grandfather raises his eyebrow, suspicious.

'For which you need to follow my orders without asking questions.'

As it is expected, Otto shakes his head.

'It is not how we do things in this house, Aemond.'

"He will refuse. He is a stubborn man, and all of you allowed him to be the one to make decisions for years, of course, he will disagree," Aemond remembers Drusilla's words. "But he likes you, Aemond. More than Aegon. Deep inside, it is you, who he wants to see on the throne. But you are reckless and impulse. A true dragon. It is not someone he can allow seeing ruling around. So you need to prove him, that he is wrong. That you are cold-calculated, like him. Even if it is not exactly true. You need to mirror him. To say what he would say on your place. Repeat this words after me..."

'I spent all my life serving this house,' Aemond retorts, voice indifferent and stare a challenging one. 'My only wish was always to bring the glory to our family. To you, as well. And here I am, asking for one favour, the one that will help all of us, and being declined?'

Otto looks... Baffled.

In a good way.

The corner of his lips twitches up.

Always obedient grandson that simply made everything they asked him to do, it is a good. But Drusilla was right: Otto waited to see him in another role. In his one.

'And why should I agree?'

Aemond can't help but wonder how Drusilla does that; predicts actions and sometimes even words. She might know the way to crack every person's brain, and they will not even understand that. How marvellous.

"He will accept the challenge. A flick. Something between proud and astonishment. He will need you to prove your own words. Perhaps, he will ask the reasons to agree on this. And then, you answer..."

'Because otherwise, you will regret not doing it.'

A laugh escapes Otto's lips.

"And that is how you know that you won. He completely trusts you with this task."

'Fine. Let it be your way this time, Aemond. Show me what had you learned for me.'

Aemond tries to ignore the scared look on his mother's way as she silently follows their conversation, noticing the similarities. He thinks it is not him, by who she should feel betrayed.

But he is sure she will forgive Irellea.

After all, Alicent never loved them so deeply as she loves her.

With that, all of them are similar.

A/N: Aemond, looking at Drusilla, who screams and guilttrips him: I am SO in love.

Drusilla, looking at Aemond, who gets horny when she is her true-toxic-self: I am SO in love.

(Aegon and Otto in the background: being absolutely fooled and delusional)