lucemond drabble that may or may not ever see the light of day on ao3
He was late.
Luke had only called him that afternoon to ask, but he was pushing thirty minutes past when he said he’d be there. It was probably fine.
The house looked as it always did. Much too big to be necessary, with real brick all over. Bushes trimmed just so, flowers perfectly manicured in their bed, not a weed in sight. Even the grass was perfectly HOA-compliant, for as much as it mattered.
He hated going there. He much preferred it when Luke dropped off, or they met somewhere to do hand-off, but he’d called. He asked. He’d said “please, Aem,” in the way he knew Aemond wouldn’t say no to.
So he’d called his mother and rescheduled dinner, and he’d gone.
“Kepa?” Baelon said as he pulled open the door, white eyebrows furrowed over his eyes. Brown, like Luke’s. The freckles were his, too. But the hair was all Aemond. “What are you doing here?”
“You’re late.” Luke came from the hallway, still pressing an earring into his lobe. His words were muffled by the matching one he held between his teeth.
“Yeah,” Aemond said, tussling his son’s hair as he walked through the door. He took in the house he hadn’t stepped foot inside of in six months. It wasn’t a mess, but three children certainly lived there. Crayons and papers were strewn across the dining table (the one Aemond had chosen and Luke had tried to veto, and still somehow ended up with.) There were maybe twenty pairs of shoes spilling over the wicker baskets by the door. At least one of them had gotten into the wooden train set and left it haphazardly all over the front room.
But it wasn’t dirty. At the very least, Luke took care of them well.
“Where are the twins?” He asked his son, turning away from the house he used to know. He couldn’t even hear them, but the house was so large, maybe they were just too far.
His son shrugged. “I think they’re giving the cat a bath.”
“What?” Luke whirled around, curls bouncing as he did. “I told them to leave Arrax alone!”
“I’ll handle it,” Aemond said and made for the stairs, but stopped dead in his tracks when he took in Luke properly. “Where are you going wearing that?”
It wasn’t inappropriate. It wasn’t. In fact, Luke was covered down to his ankles and wrists and up to his throat. He was probably too covered for the warm air outside. It was a simple light blue sweater and slacks, cinched at the waist with a black belt. But Aemond hadn’t seen him in anything but a sweatshirt and maybe jeans since the twins were born.
Luke paled and looked down at himself. He was still struggling with his earrings. “What?” He asked, looking up again. “Does it look bad? I knew I should’ve gone with something else-“
He didn’t. But the implication of where he was going was staring Aemond dead in the face, making his breath catch in his throat.
“Where are you going?” He asked again.
“Please, Aemond, they’ve probably drowned the cat-“
“Where is he going?” He asked Baelon instead.
Another shrug. God, his kid was too old for his age. He was only six, and already acted like he was a forty-year-old man. “His friend Oscar called earlier.”
Oscar. Who the fuck was Oscar?
A screech pierced the air, and two little bodies slammed into his side, nearly knocking him over. Shouts of kepa! kepa! covered the sound of his distress. They were both soaked through their clothes, and pressing their wet bodies against him.
“Who the fuck is Oscar?”
“Language, Aem-“
“Fine, who the hell is Oscar.”
Luke scowled at him the way only he could. He finally got the earring through. Were his lobes closing? Aemond had been the one to go with him to get them done before Baelon was even a thought. It had been too long for them to close, right?
“A friend. He wanted to grab dinner.”
“What kind of friend?”
“Just a friend. Don’t make it a thing.”
“It is a thing. You called me to watch our kids so you could go on a fucking date?”
“Language!”
Aemond scoffed. He couldn’t stop staring at Lucerys. He tried to rip his eye away, but it refused to budge.
“I tried Jace first. And Rhaena. and Joff. And even Aeg and Vis, but they were all busy. You were the only one free to babysit.”
“It’s not babysitting if they’re my kids.”
Luke shrugged. “It’s not your night with them. You could’ve said no.”
As if whose night was whose even mattered. They flip-flopped so much, they might as well save everyone the hassle and just move back in together. Except Luke had said no before he could even get the words out.
“How long have you had this ‘friend.’”
The twins were still climbing all over him, grabbing at his clothes and hair and shoving something into his face to see. He pushed it away as gently as he could, craning his neck to keep his eye on Luke.
Like scoffed. “Don’t say it like that. It’s not even a date.”
“Right.”
“It’s not!”
“You called it a date when you were talking to Auntie Rhae earlier.”
Luke froze, eyes darting to their son. “Were you eavesdropping?”
The boy had the decency to look guilty. “No…”
Aemond tussled his hair again and clenched his jaw. “Do me a favor, get the twins some dry clothes.”
The boy didn’t question it, he simply took the two younger children’s hands and led them away, leaving them alone in the foyer.
“You were supposed to be here a half hour ago. You were supposed to take them out to dinner.”
“And you were supposed to not let them know when you planned to get fucked into the mattress later.”
Luke’s jaw dropped and his brows furrowed. “You’re such an asshole sometimes, I cannot believe we were together for so long. He wasn’t supposed to hear anything!”
“So it is a date? Who the fuck is Oscar?”
“A friend, Aem! God forbid I go out once in a blue moon-“
“Oh, don’t give me that shit.” He sneered. “You go out with Rhaena all the time when it’s my night with the kids. You're not exactly missing out.”
“What, so I’m supposed to stay home forever and not enjoy my life just because I had kids? You’re just as much a parent as me. Don’t act like you’re turning down Dalton or Aegon. I know what kind of shit they’re into-“
“Am I into it? No! So why even bring it up?-“
“I’m allowed to live my life, Aemond! I’m only twenty-five, I shouldn’t be forced to be some old man already! I haven’t even had a date in two years!”
“What are you talking about? I was here! We were together!”
“Exactly! That doesn’t change the fact that I haven’t been on a date in two fucking years-“
There was a loud knock on the door, breaking through their argument and quieting them both. They both seethed, breathing hard, staring each other down.
“Be fucking nice,” Luke said with a pointed finger, and opened the door.
He smiled too graciously, his pearly white teeth showing. The afternoon sun was too kind to his skin, only highlighting the freckles that covered it. A bouquet of roses came into view before the other man did, and Luke laughed too nicely, too familiarly as he took them.
“Sorry, I know I’m early-“
Oscar Tully stopped in the doorway when his eyes found Aemond, brows rising up comically high. He seemed to steel himself as he took him in, and held out his hand for Aemond to shake. “Oscar. Hey.”
Aemond didn’t take it. “Aemond. Targaryen. Father of Lucerys’ three children. Does he know you have kids?”
Luke scoffed. “People on other continents know we have kids. Can you be civil?”
“It’s alright,” Oscar laughed in that way people reserved for work functions or awkward situations. “Yeah, I know about the kids. Haven’t had the privilege to meet them, though.”
“And it’ll stay that way.”
“Aemond!”
“Lucerys!”
Luke swallowed, clutching the tacky (expensive) bouquet of flowers too close to himself. If fucking Oscar wasn’t there, Aemond knew he’d be getting the ass chewing of a lifetime. But Oscar was there. In the house Aemond had chosen with Luke. The house that his three children lived in. The house that he had dumped money into to renovate when Luke didn’t like the color of the walls or the layout of the bathroom or the stain on the floors. Really, it was Aemond’s fucking house. And Oscar was intruding.
“Can you please just take the kids out? There’s cash on the table if you need it-“
“Why in the hell would I need your cash?”
“You have car seats?”
“They’re my fucking kids, Luke, I always have car seats-“
“I should be back at, like, midnight?” He looked to Oscar, who nodded, then back to Aemond. “Yeah, midnight. Obviously you have my number-“
“I’ve taken care of our fucking children before. I take care of them every other week, don’t act like-“
“Just,” Luke paused and took a deep breath. “Thank you. I’ll be back soon.”
He left with Oscar before Aemond could say anything else.
He stood in the foyer seething for several minutes, willing his breathing to steady and his heart to slow. Who was Luke, to ask him to take the kids so he could get his back blown out by that asshole? And had the audacity to act like he didn’t know how to take care of his own children. And look that good in his fucking sweater and slacks and sapphire studs that took him five fucking minutes to put on.
He shoved the heels of his hands into his eyes– both the real and the stone– and took one last breath.
“Let’s go!” he shouted up the stairs, and opened the door for the elephants bounding down.
