⋆˚࿔ Venomous Surrender ⋆˚࿔
Aemond Targaryen x fem!reader ₊ @hotd2025bingo ₊
tags. [sfw] toxic relationship, poisoning, slight mentions of sex and dub-con, angst, dark love.
The woman could have sworn that she was different from him. She really would have. She would’ve gambled the soil at her feet, her ability to enjoy the warm water of the stream that the Red Keep hides and her favorite winter duvet.
Eventually, though, she had to come to the realization that she would have made a fine Targaryen. It must have rubbed off, after all those years of marriage.
It started as a funny, harmless idea at first.
She saw the way his eyes darkened when he spoke of the throne, noticed the cruel, judgmental gaze upon everyone but himself, heard the rumors about her husband’s plotting with Ser Criston Cole. And, she got a glimpse of Aegon’s decaying body, too.
When the news reached his wife’s ear, in a moment of blissful innocence, she allowed herself to thank the Gods for Aemond’s safety. But when she saw the King’s burnt, fragmented body, it hit her. Who else could have possibly done that? And while her husband had always been devoted and kind, and she had grown to be madly in love with him, she still feared the old Targaryen legend that folks told.
A coin, flipped, tossed in the air. Was his husband turning? If that was the fate he had prepared for his own brother, —albeit a cruel sibling—, his own blood, what could be thought of her? If she ever strayed in his path?
It frightened her, of course. She threw a fit of quiet panic as she watched him turn into something monstrous. But it was something strangely familiar. She supposed she had always known what type of man he was, but it did not matter, as long as he loved her. What harm could someone do if they are devoted to your cause? To your future together?
The problem expanded when his attentiveness branched out into a distant land, foreign to family matters, foreign to marital matters. A rather vain reason, perhaps. But it was the honest truth. Aemond’s wife feared that he loved the thrill of power more than he loved her, and that he, suddenly enlightened, would decide that forming a family and spending time with his wife had become inconsequential matters, unfit of a wise, unattainable ruler.
And it’s not like she did not try other options. She really did. The woman orchestrated passionate appeals to his late promises, to old memories of devotion. These often ended with her falling down on her knees, with shameful tears running through warm cheeks.
She desperately tried to kiss the malice off his skin, making silent pleas to the meat that covered his heart. She tried to reason and compromise, taking an oath to never interfere with his antics, if it meant that they could have those long conversations again, if they could dance and laugh again, if she could feel his tender gaze and feel his protective hugs just once more.
Had all those moments, all those years been a lie?
And then she saw them grow in the garden. Insidious, small, poisonous. The thought of hurting him had never crossed her mind, but she did wonder what it would be like to slow him down for a split second, just enough for him to have the time and energy to lower his gaze and look at her again.
A part of the woman even hoped that she had been mistaken, that they wouldn’t have the intended effect. But oh, they did. And for a couple of days, Aemond was hers again. All of him. He turned into the boy that she had learned to love so many years ago. And she turned into the girl who would stop at nothing to see him content.
Of course, the guilt was extreme and it was there. And she made up for it. Or, at the very least, she tried to.
She would not pry in his atrocities, she would be a decorative statue, but now and then, when she missed him, when she wanted him to feel some semblance of humility, she’d slip a tiny dose of belladonna in his drinks, in his food. And he’d be pure again. Like it was supposed to be.
Naturally, Aemond knew. He was anything but stupid. And Aemond let her. He loved getting nursed back to health, he liked relenting control, he liked how intense her devotion was afterward. Although she did take it out on her. Whenever they went to bed after he’d been sick, he’d be particularly rough. But when the poison would settle in, she’d used him as a prop and ride him until she was satisfied. It was a dance. One of balance.
Notes. Another prompt done! I was super inspired by the Fathom Thread. This is far from finished but i promised myself i would post again