carry you home
addict!Aemond modern!Daemon (no slash, just Daemon being a dad to his brother's incredibly horribly behaved adult son)
warning: drug abuse, substance abuse, organ trafficking, non-consensual taking of organs, hospitals, medical procedures, mentions of suicide and self-harm behavior, read at your own risk
summary: In which Aemond disappears for three years only to be found face down in a canal after putting his truck through the guardrail on the interstate.
And of course, Daemon is his emergency contact, put down in a frenzy when Aemond was ten and lost his eye.
Now he is 26 and in so much more trouble than simply fighting pneumonia in the ICU, for drugs are not cheap and men get angry when their money is not paid back on time.
As Daemon uncovers Aemond's three-year hiatus, things begin to take a disturbing turn for the worst when Aemond is discovered with a fresh surgical site and down a kidney.
And oh yeah Alicent will not stop blowing up his phone and Rhaenyra just served him divorce papers.
This is really shaping up to be the Tuesday from hell, and that was before Aemond pranced into the parking lot, buck ass naked and got hit by a Honda Civic.
He's gonna need something stronger than vending machine coffee.
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chapter five: in which Daemon yells at a doctor and Aemond takes a swing and a miss
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“You weren’t supposed to know about this.”
It feels like glass shattering against his chest, like the fragile hope for some type of reconciliation has been ripped from his hands once again to gash at his heart as Aemond flashes a quick glare in his direction before looking away again.
“What, how would you rather I have learned?” he snaps. “Perhaps when I got a call from the morgue that your body had been found?” the irritation in his voice smothering the hurt the only way he knows how; with an angry flash of his eyes and a clench of his jaw.
Aemond flinches away from his tone, shoulders coming up around his ears, and he sighs, pausing to gather his thoughts and calm his tone. Aemond cannot take his anger at this moment, that can come later, much later if the sheer number of IV lines in Aemond’s arms are anything to go by.
He pulls a beige looking chair to the side of the bed, the weird plasticky feel of the fabric squeaking gently against his jeans as he sits down heavily, suddenly feeling older than the forty-five he liked to lie about in the bars late at night when the beer was good and the girls got sloppy.
He reaches for Aemond’s hand, but Aemond pulls it away, sluggishly adjusting himself against the pillows and he again feels a stab of hurt as his fingers close on the space where Aemond’s hand had rested against the rail.
Always a step behind, always chasing while Aemond was always running, even when his legs had been knocked out from under him and he could do nothing else but crawl.
Still, he evaded him, as though he could by some sheer force of will outmaneuver the people who loved him and cared for him so that he might run straight back into arms that fed him drugs and cut little pieces of him away until there was nothing left to even discard.
“Aemond, I-“
“Don’t okay” Aemond mumbles, eye flicking away from him to stare at the wall. “I said stuff I didn’t mean because everything hurt, and I was confused and I was just…talking circles. That’s all. It didn’t mean anything, I still fucking hate you.”
Ah yes; back to that old familiar script, polished and rehearsed until he could fire off the words like they were his own, even though they both knew it was the opposite.
Aemond says it like he thinks he will actually fool him, like he doesn’t look small and so much like the seventeen-year-old who got thrown in county lock up for the first time, angry and defiant but fearful and unsure under all the blustering bravado.
His hair is dyed; badly. The cheap black looks green in some places and slightly muddy in others, the stark hospital lighting probably not helping matters much. His layers were choppy, ragged and wispy, as though he had taken scissors to his hair in the depths of some drug induced fit.
Or, he thinks dully, someone cut it for him so that he might not be as noticeable crossing the southern border; silver hair ran in the family and while it was a source of pride, it was anything but discreet and would have had to be covered so as to not draw the second glance of some hapless border agent.
He imagines the hands that buried themselves in Aemond’s hair, the dirt gathered in a thick crust under stained fingers as they savagely yanked on Aemond’s scalp and made him whimper and whine, bent over some grimy sink in a sleazy gas station bathroom as soft bunches of silver fell to the floor around him.
Feathers yanked from a bird’s delicate wings, the raw patches stinging with every swipe of dye.
He wants to say something soothing, to calm Aemond and let him know he is safe, that whatever horror he endured before all this can be cast away to become nothing but a distant bad dream, but the angry purple track marks visible against Aemond’s pale skin and the echoing linger of Elinda’s earlier words seem to posses him and the you came back to me dies on his lips as he instead reaches for the familiar anger that Aemond had come to expect from him.
“Aemond there were horse tranquilizers in your system” he says, his voice catching on the last word as horror surges up at the violence of the bruising around Aemond’s elbows. “You were drugged. Like an animal.”
“So?” Aemond shoots back sullenly, reaching over to pick at the tape securing his IV. The rattle of the handcuff against the bed rails stopping him cold and he rolls his eye in indignation.
“Those fucking pricks got me chained to the bed like I’m a felon.”
“Aemond, you are a felon” he says tiredly, reaching up to scrub at his eyes, he winces as his eyes sting at the intrusion. He has not slept and he knows he will probably not be likely to get a nap in for some time. “There is a file sitting in the county sheriffs’ office right now with your name on it that is several inches thick.”
“Okay, and? The system is fucked, I was exercising my free will, the government only exists to police bodies when it benefits them.”
He barks out a laugh, “those are some mighty high claims for you to be making, spoken like a truly privileged member of a society that only seeks to keep you from overdosing in some crack house and then being sold for parts.”
Aemond turns to look at him finally and his lips curl in a nasty grin, a maniacal gleam in his eye that he knows all too well when Aemond wants to be cruel, “would you rather I had then?”
“No, Aemond that’s not-that’s not what I meant.” His hand comes up to massage the bridge of his nose, and he belatedly wonders which intern he can bribe with a twenty to get him some medical grade Tylenol, the good stuff not the weak as piss over the counter shit that never seemed to make a dent in his migraines.
“Oh, but it is, isn’t it?” Aemond hisses, the oxygen cannula in his nose tugging violently on raw inflamed skin as Aemond surges up on shaking arms, “a neat and tidy end for the felon, for the addict.”
“Aemond” he warns, fear beginning to creep along his spine as the myriad of bedside alarms tangled in Aemond’s arms and chest begin to chirp.
But Aemond doesn’t stop, head weaving slightly as he fights to train his eye on him, “poor, poor Daemon, such a waste of a perfectly good nephew. But no matter” Aemond’s voice takes on a cheerful tone; fake, brittle, hooked at the ends like a fishhook and he the bass that took the bait and wound up with a barb in his cheek. “You have plenty of good kids you never have to worry about. That perfect fucking bitch ass Jace and his saint of a brother, never can do any wrong.”
“Aemond, stop” he cries, launching out of the chair, as Aemond’s eye suddenly rolls back again and his body goes rigid.
He’s grabbing the boy before he goes down again, screaming for the nurse as he lowers Aemond down to the mattress, holding his arms as Aemond jerks and bucks and makes breathy half choked noises that sound like he’s drowning.
“Please, stop” he’s begging, he doesn’t know who he is begging per say, only that when foamy spit begins to trickle from Aemond’s mouth and spill down his chin he’s crying again.
He would be embarrassed, he thinks, humiliated even; but he has neither the wherewithal nor the energy to give a shit about any of that and simply lets himself sob as a stampede of nurses comes charging around the corner and someone yanks him away from the bedside.
“Push Keppra and get the fucking doctor on the phone, now!” an older blonde nurse says, laying Aemond on his side, her hands cradling the back of his head and gently pushing his lines out of the way.
She carefully pulls his hair out of his mouth and then curses when a sudden trickle of bright red blood leaves Aemond’s mouth and stains the sheets, “damn it he bit his tongue. Where the fuck is Doctor Strong?”
He gapes, “Harwin?” He steps toward the nurse, “Harwin Strong?”
The nurse looks back at him over her glasses, a disapproving look in her eyes that softens slightly as he backs toward his place by the wall.
“Yes. You know him?” she asks tersely, turning back to watch another nurse inject two syringes into Aemond’s IV line.
“Fuck, yeah” he says, eyes trained on Aemond as his shaking begins to let up. He doesn’t let out the breath he was holding until Aemond finally goes slack, head collapsed against the pillow, fingers still slightly twitching.
“He’s uh, my wife’s first husband. I think-“ he steps forward shouldering his way to the bed as Aemond’s eyelid cracks open, a bloodshot eye dizzily sweeping the room before closing again. He kneels by the bed, face level with Aemond’s and strokes a hand along the sharp line of Aemond’s cheek. “I think my wife is getting back with him, I kinda cheated on her with a girl at a bar.”
“Mhm” the older nurse grunts, sweeping Aemond’s lines out of the way so she can adjust his arm, “that sounds like an issue I do not want to hear about.”
He startles slightly, looking up at her with a wounded expression but she simply shrugs. “I am not paid enough to do my job as is, I am not adding free emotional labor to a man who doesn’t know how to keep it in his pants to my quite frankly staggering list of things that need to be done.”
“I was just-“
“Daemon? Daemon Targaryen?”
“Oh, for the love of fucking god” he whispers under his breath as all six foot whatever of Rhaenyra’s first husband comes striding in like he owns the place.
“What-what is this? What happened?” Harwin’s eyebrows furrow as he takes the clipboard from the nurse as she leaves the room and stalks down the hall with a scowl that could crack concrete.
He doesn’t answer, everything feels so far away and the rushing in his ears seems to reach a fever pitch as he looks down at Aemond’s matted hair. Nothing seems real, save the oily slick of Aemond’s hair and the half rasping breathes he struggles to draw into his chest.
Daemon
How long, he wonders, had Aemond nursed this animosity toward his family?
Daemon
How long has Aemond been so adrift within his head that he cannot even allow himself to be held when he’s so obviously hurting?
“Daemon!”
He blinks, hard.
“Huh?”
Harwin is watching him from where he stands on the other side of Aemond’s bed, eyes worried and concerned.
He sneers, ripping his gaze away as Aemond begins to stir under his hand.
“M’-fu ff” Aemond mumbles, swatting feebly at his hand.
Harwin’s gaze latches onto Aemond as he gently reaches for Aemond’s wrist to look at his hospital bracelet. “This needs to updated, his chart shows a penicillin allergy and I’m not seeing that on here.”
Aemond groans and jerks his hand toward the oxygen cannula, “off.”
Harwin gently catches Aemond’s hand, “hey let’s leave that alone, okay? Do you know where you are?”
Aemond blinks, “hopital.”
Harwin nods, “close enough.”
“Can you tell me your name?”
“Fuck off” Aemond groans, burying his head under the pillow.
Harwin chews his lips, reaching into his pocket for a pen as he glances at Aemond’s chart again.
“Aemond, what year is it?”
“Mhm.”
“Who’s the president?”
“Obama.”
“Ah I wish, kid. But no unfortunately. It’s Donald Trump.”
Aemond’s brows furrow as he pulls his head out from under the pillow slightly, “still?”
“Again, I’m afraid” Harwin answers, his lips twitching in a slight smile.
“Mh, that sucks” Aemond says and slides his head back under the pillow.
“That’s good right?” he asks, turning to watch Harwin as he scribbles notes on Aemond’s chart, a chart that he realizes is rather thick; he catches a glimpse of red highlighted words and bold block letters, but his eyes are blurry from lack of sleep and he still does not know where he put his glasses.
Probably back at the house being chewed on by Caraxes, that dog had an irritating ability to grab things he knew he shouldn’t and then proudly display the remnants of whatever household object he had mangled like a war prize on his bed.
Harwin looks at him over the top of the clipboard. “Um. Well, it’s too early to know exactly…”
“Oh, don’t fucking lie” he spits out, the long night finally catching up to him as he pushes himself to his feet. “Listen I know you are feeling rather pleased with yourself because of the divorce and all that, but I’m really not here to talk to you about that.”
Harwin says nothing just bends down to gently thumb back Aemond’s eyelid before Aemond sluggishly slaps his hand away.
“And I know you probably think I’m the bad guy, and I’m the fuck up and all that fucking shit, but listen here-“
“Daemon” Harwin says gently, “no one was talking about the divorce but you. I need you to focus right now because I have three cops in the hallway outside that are waiting for me to update them on his condition because they need a statement from him.”
He shoots a quick glance toward the brightly lit hallway, the sound of boots scuffing the linoleum and the quiet crackle of handhelds making him nervous for reasons he doesn’t understand.
“He can’t-he can’t be interviewed right now, look at him” he gestures at the bed where Aemond has pulled the blanket almost over his head, “he’s barely coherent.”
“I know” Harwin agrees, “but nonetheless they need pictures of his eye and the surgical site where his kidney was taken so they can open a case file on him. It needs to be on the DA’s desk by tomorrow morning, I need to let their forensics guy in here.”
“No!” he says, sharply enough that Aemond whimpers beneath the covers.
“Listen, I don’t like this any more than you do, but I have to let them work” Harwin says, his voice strained as he reaches up to rub at his temples, “I will need you to stand back and give the photographer space, they can’t have you in frame at all.”
“No one is touching him” he snarls, stepping back toward the bed as he leans over Aemond’s body, “you can tell those cops in the hallway to stick their fucking cameras and all that shit up their asses. Aemond’s not being touched by anyone tonight, I forbid it.”
“Morning.”
“What?”
Harwin exhales, “it’s morning.” He raises his arm, pulling his coat sleeve up to peer at a sleek black Apple watch. “Three ten in the morning, to be exact.”
“Oh.”
Harwin reaches for his sleeve as a small man balding at the temples and crown enters the room, nervously flicking a glance at him as he shifts his camera between his palms.
“Is this, the uh…the dude?” the man asks.
“What the fuck do you think, guy?” he snaps, yanking his arm away from Harwin and stepping toward the smaller man teeth bared, “so help me God get the fuck away from him!”
“Daemon!” Harwin hisses and he’s dragged back against the wall again. “Stop it and let the man do his fucking job!”
He glares at the man but doesn’t make a move to push Harwin off and the man takes that as a sort of sign that he can continue.
And of course, the second the man pulls the covers back to get at Aemond’s wound site, Aemond sits bolt upright and screams, a sound so raw and gut wrenching he jerks in Harwin’s hold.
“GET OFF ME, NO NO! STOP NO” Aemond cries, swinging an uncoordinated fist at the tech, the metal handcuff rattling on the bed rails with a loud clang as the man dances back with a yelp.
“Aemond, stop” he jerks himself away from Harwin and before he can get grabbed again, he shoves the tech away from the bed, thrusting the man away by the flaps of his jacket as he puts himself between the now irate man and the bed. He blindly reaches a hand back, trying to keep Aemond from launching himself off the bed and ripping his lines out again, and Aemond, in his panic reaches back, his grip shaking and too tight as he dissolves into great wracking sobs that echo off the walls.
He cannot help the surge of relief he feels when Aemond’s hand closes on his own, can’t help the stuttering affection that rises within him as Aemond bends his head forward and rests it on his arm, hot tears running down his face to wet his sleeve.
“Get out” he growls, and the tech opens his mouth to argue, flicking his gaze back and forth between Aemond and him.
“Listen, I’m just-“
“I said” he snaps, “get out.”
Harwin steps forward and gently takes the tech by his elbow, “hey, um. Let’s step out in the hallway for a minute, here please? My patient just had another seizure, and he is not ready for any stimulation right now.”
The man blusters, going red in the face, “this is unprofessional, that kid is fucking feral and needs a muzzle!”
Harwin nods sympathetically, “please, just come with me and I’ll get this all sorted out, okay?”
The tech rolls his eyes but lets himself be guided back out into the hallway, Harwin shooting him a dirty look over his shoulder as he does so. “You and I will have words when I get back” Harwin says, and he just shrugs as he turns back to Aemond.
“I told him not to touch my boy and I fucking meant it.”
“I’m not your boy” Aemond says quietly as the room settles and once again the steady beeping of the machines fills the silence. He lifts his arm unsteadily to wipe his nose on the edge of his arm, sniffling as his tears begin to slow.
“You are now” he says, and crouches down so that he can pull Aemond into him, sliding his hand around the back of Aemond’s head and bringing his head to rest on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, you have felt this way for this long, but you must trust me. People are going to come in here with preconceived biases about you because of your arrest record and your drug usage. You have to tell me what happened, Aemond. Please, let me help you.”
Aemond stiffens at first, resisting his hold, but as he speaks Aemond melts into his hold and soon enough his face is pressed against his shoulder.
“You know, who the Shephard is?” Aemond asks finally, voice small and afraid.
His stomach seems to drop right down to his shoes, “oh, Aemond. Oh fuck.”
