with aerion Is and bambi I feel like there's a lot of good angst to pull out of it if it’s not tt!aerion but just modern!aerion
because you've got bambi who has always doubted if she's good enough for Is, the stark heiress, all that she is, and then theirs aerion who keeps reinforcing that idea in her head, because he calls her their pet, has a fortune behind his own name too and bambi just doesn’t. so she starts to pull back. and ls who realises and gets horribly mad at aerion but she also can never fully push him away so she’s just different around him because she loves bambi too and now he’s pushing bambi away. and we have aerion who gets upset with the way ls looks at bambi because she only looks at him like that, and is now not getting anything even close to lady starks glare, she’s not mad, or spiteful, or something he can work with, ls is just neutral. she’s looking at aerion like she doesn’t know what to feel or what to think and that’s so much worse because when has ls never been able to make a decision. and now bambi is starting to pull away, despite her always coming back before, and that’s also a sting to aerion for reasons he has no idea why. so it becomes this sort of stalemate and everyone’s a little on edge and has no idea what to do.
I mean I guess this could work in tt!aerion au aswell but there’s just something worse about being involved with two people that could buy your whole existence ten times over but just my thoughts cus I love them and wanted to share it with you!!
this is actually a really interesting take because the cruelty functions differently depending on which aerion you're talking about.
tt!aerion's cruelty comes from lack. he has nothing. LS is the most valuable thing in his world and possibly the only valuable thing (obviously his family aside but even then those relationships are mega complex on a good day), and you are a thief. that's how he sees it. you are stealing from a man who has nothing left to lose and the desperation of that makes his possessiveness survival-coded, sharp with poverty. when he calls you "the pet" in that universe it's because he genuinely cannot afford to share and the idea of splitting the only good thing he has makes him vicious.
modern!aerion's cruelty comes from excess, and that's arguably worse.
because modern!aerion has money. has a name. has his own fortune, his own world, his own gravity. he doesn't need she-wolf the way tt!aerion needs her (or he does, but the need is buried under ten layers of privilege and performance, so it kinda looks like choice rather than desperation yk?). he's more settled. more open to sharing, theoretically, because sharing from abundance is easy when you're the one who decides how much to give.
so his cruelty toward bambi isn't "you're stealing from me." it's "you really think you belong here?"
and that's so much more insidious in a way. because it's not about scarcity. it's about worthiness. modern!aerion looks at you with your normal job and your normal flat and your borrowed blazer and your complete lack of pedigree and he doesn't see a threat. he sees something that doesn't fit. a smudge on expensive glass. and he lets you know it. not with fury but with that haughty, languid condescension that only someone born into money can really pull off.
little comments. "oh, is that where you went to school?" said with polite interest that isn't interest at all. "she mentioned you liked that restaurant, the one on the corner near your apartment, what was it called?" the emphasis on the address. the quiet mapping of exactly how far below them you live. buying something expensive and leaving the receipt where you can see it. not to impress you. to measure the distance.
but the irony is hilarious. because he knows damn well that your normalcy is exactly what both he and she-wolf are attracted to. the softness, the warmth, the way you exist in a world that isn't made of marble and legacy and ice. you're the one human thing in their predator lives. they chose you because you're ordinary and that ordinariness is a relief so profound it borders on physical need. and aerion knows this about himself and it makes him crueller because needing something soft makes him feel weak and weakness makes him mean.