Archive of Our Own

It's a lonely road full of tired men

And you can see it in their faces

You'll be home in spring

I can wait 'til then

Luke is in the Stormlands finishing his internship when the world ends. 

It’s a bit poetic really, because Luke has been counting down the minutes on the clock, ready to leave the Stormlands in the dust once his last shift as an intern was over. Six weeks of sheer misery in a place that never stopped pissing down rain, fetching coffees and photocopying for a guy who definitely could not read. Luke has never read more incriminating text messages aloud in his life.

There are three hours left of his shift when the power flickers once, twice, before shutting off entirely. Borros looks confused when the backup generators don’t immediately kick the lights back on. Outside the huge, plate glass windows, the storm has picked up. “Is it snowing?” Luke asks, peering through the storm

“I’m not a meteorologist,” Borros snaps. His feet shuffle the rolling chair beneath him until he is turned to face the windows. “Oh, that’s funny, innit?”

Funny weird, not funny haha. Funny because Storm’s End doesn’t really get cold enough for snow in the middle of January, let alone the tail end of August. Fat flakes of snow—more like sleet, Luke corrects—smack audibly into the window. 

The lights flicker back on. Borros looks up in surprise. “Not often we get a storm that’ll knock our power out,” he huffs a laugh, feet shuffling on the carpet to spin him back around. “Now, I’ll take a kidney pie—”

“Sir,” a voice interrupts, Borros’s assistant Mya peeking around the doorway. “There is a weather alert out. It’s saying people should head home.”

Luke’s phone starts to buzz in his pocket. On the large mahogany desk, Borros’s lights up with the same alert. The lights flicker again, but they stay on. “Well lad, it’s your lucky day,” Borros says, and in hindsight, that is probably what jinxed Luke.

“What do you mean the plane can’t fly?” Luke whines.

He is absolutely aware of how petulant and rich-kid he sounds when he says it, but Seven Above he hasn’t been home in what feels like ages (three weeks—he went home for a weekend to celebrate Jace and Baela’s engagement), and he already has a reservation for drinks. He’ll be charged a cancellation fee now.

Rhaenyra sighs. “This storm has come out of nowhere, Luke. Half the country is out of power and buried under six feet of snow, and they think the other half will soon follow. We aren’t prepared for this sort of weather, and if I charter a plane to pick my son up, what do you think people will say?”

“What a thoughtful and loving mum you are?” Luke tries.

“What a terrible Prime Minister I am,” Rhaenyra says drily. “But nice try. Damn, the phone is going again. Daemon, would you...Mother save me. Sweet boy, I need to—”

“Yeah, I know,” Luke sighs, “Love you.”

“I’ll see you soon,” Rhaenyra promises. “And keep you updated. Love you.” The line goes dead, and Luke drops his phone onto the couch, slouching further into his hoodie. The heating is on full in his apartment, but it doesn’t stop the chill as wind rattles his windows in their frames. Luke hadn’t brought anything warm from home, really, just a couple jumpers, and he regrets it now. Arrax had taken one look at Luke when he finally made it back to the apartment half an hour ago, drenched and freezing, and had fled to lie beneath the radiator. 

The TV is playing in the background on mute, newscasters looking more and more harried as new reports come in of the storm. Luke filters through his messages, but it makes him too sad. He plugs the phone in across the room and slumps back onto the couch, turning on a movie about robots.

Eventually, he falls asleep.

When Luke wakes next, his nose is freezing, and the lights are off. 

Actually, all of him is freezing, except where Arrax has wormed his way into Luke’s hoodie, curled against his belly. When Luke exhales, he can see the ghost of his breath.

Arrax grumbles his annoyance at his movement, but Luke cradles him to his belly, glancing about the room. It is not wholly dark—pale light filters in through the window, and when Luke steps closer he can see that ice has formed along the edges.

Outside, the wind howls, his view of the building opposite him, the street, anything completely obstructed by the whiteout. “What the fuck?” Luke breathes. Arrax squirms inside his hoodie, enough that Luke lets him drop out. Arrax mewls up at him questioningly, but Luke just shrugs. 

It isn’t until he looks at his phone that he realises something terrible is happening. It stopped charging somewhere around 87% or had been full before he got an influx of messages, missed calls, and alerts. Luke’s hand is shaking as he scrolls through them, messages from Jace, Baela, Harwin and Daemon, his grandparents. 

His mum’s message, the last one to come through an hour earlier, just read stay inside. Lock the door.

The nation-wide alert on his phone says something about the weather, how bad it will get. The newest one, sent twenty minutes after his mum’s text says something about people being infected. Infected with what?

Now, his phone is showing no service, no wifi. When Luke tries the light switch, it doesn’t work. 

A litany of thoughts are racing through his head, but above them all at increasing volume is what the fuck, what the fuck, WHAT THE FUCK?!

Panic settles like a blanket over Luke, familiar and suffocating in its intensity. He moves to his bedroom, fingers grasping numbly at his bedside table and the empty bottle sitting there. Another reason he was eager to go home—he needs a fucking refill. 

Arrax twists around his ankles, rubbing along the fabric of his joggers comfortingly. He is so cold, and so, so worried. 

He doesn’t know how long he stands there, empty pill bottle in his hand, before he hears a brisk knock at his front door. Long enough that his fingers are stiff when they peel away from the bottle. Long enough that Arrax has burrowed beneath the blankets on the bed, pale yellow eyes blinking at Luke owlishly. 

The knock comes again, and it kickstarts Luke’s heart rate. He is halfway to answering it before he remembers his mother’s text: lock the door.

He hesitates, creeping closer to the door. Are people out looting? Did mum actually send someone to get him? He didn’t pay much attention to the alerts on his phone, too focused on the messages from his family, but they’d said something about people staying indoors, right? 

When he tentatively looks through the peephole, all he sees is a heavy black jacket, a hood covering the person’s hair as they survey the hallway. Oh, absolutely not. Luke isn’t a fucking idiot; he isn’t opening the door to the sketchy dude in the middle of a national crisis. He’s seen this horror film before.

Only, Luke’s shadow must have given him away because as he pulls back from the peephole, he feels the door rattle as a fist pounds into the wood. “I know you’re in there, you bastard.”

No fucking way. Luke presses his face to the hole again, eye practically bugging out of his head as he spies his uncle’s miserable face glaring back at him. “Open the fucking door,” Aemond hisses at him. 

Luke’s fingers are stupid as they work at the chain on the door, twisting his keys and pulling the door open. Aemond shoves him back before Luke can open it all the way, slipping in with his fuck off big dog on a lead.

Aemond passes the lead to Luke, who takes it dumbly. He watches Aemond twist sharply, closing the door with the utmost care, only a soft snick as the bolt slides home once more.

Vhagar sits, ass landing directly onto Luke’s socked foot. She looks at Luke’s arm like she’d enjoy another chance to tear it off. “What the fuck is—”

A hand presses to his mouth, clamping it shut. Luke tastes copper as he bites down on his tongue and he wants to bite Aemond too, only his hand is so tight on Luke’s mouth that he can barely move. Aemond stands at the door for a long moment, ear pressed to the wood, before he relaxes a bit. 

When he turns to face Luke, he is far closer than he should be. Between him and his fucking dog, Luke can’t move. They stare at each other for a long moment, though Luke keeps his gaze strictly to the right side of Aemond’s face, gut twisting at the sight of Aemond’s scar and eyepatch.

“Are you packed?” Aemond asks, voice low that Luke nearly misses his words at first. He worms Vhagar’s lead back out of Luke’s hand, twisting it around his gloved one. At Luke’s blank expression, Aemond says slowly, “Daeron said he texted you.”

Is Luke having a stroke? His brain is not firing the way it fucking should, because it sounds like Aemond has been sent to...retrieve him? Leave it to Alicent to charter a plane in a fucking blizzard.

“My mother isn’t chartering a plane, you knob,” Aemond snarls. Oh, had Luke said that out loud? Probably said it in exactly the same shitty way he thought it, too. Gods smite him. Aemond moves further into the apartment, casting a wary glance at the door. He lowers his voice once more. “Are you high right now or something?” He zeroes in on Luke’s phone, still sitting and not charging on the table. 

“Excuse you,” Luke says, too loudly, and Aemond shoots him a scathing glare. “I am not high, I just have no idea what happened. I woke up from a nap and it’s freezing fucking cold, the power is out, and I have text messages that sound like the world has ended.”

“Basically has,” Aemond shrugs, tossing Luke his phone. It hits Luke square in the chest, and he fumbles to catch it, hissing at Aemond. “Pack a bag and keep your voice down and I will explain.” 

Luke is about to argue again when there is a commotion in the hallway outside. A low rumble erupts from Vhagar, but a hissed word in High Valyrian from Aemond quiets her. Aemond’s lone eye is wide as he stares at the door, hands clenched into fists at his sides.

Luke sees the gun attached to his belt just as the screaming starts. 

Aemond isn’t all that shocked when Daeron calls to tell him the world is ending. 

He’s been out of the loop for three years and change now, but it’s easy as piss to fall back into the familiar territory of yes sir, no sir, even if it’s Daeron calling the shots now. His brother is relatively calm when he calls the sat phone Aemond has stored in his front hall closet just before the emergency alert buzzes from his cellphone. “Zombies,” is the first thing he says when Aemond answers.

“No shit?” Aemond says, shock colouring his voice. “You’re sure?”

“Just watched CCTV footage of a man being torn apart by his kids, mate. Where are you, Storm’s End?”

Aemond passes a hand over his face, checking the front door to make sure it’s locked. “Yeah.” He’s been here for six months now, three months longer than he planned to, only he’d been in the lobby the day Lucerys Velaryon moved in and, for reasons he refuses to justify to himself, Aemond had put off searching for a new place in King’s Landing. He’d seen Luke racing into the building earlier today, soaked to the bone while Aemond took Vhagar out for a wee. Hadn’t said hello, since they don’t really do that sort of thing. Mostly Luke guiltily avoids Aemond when he sees him in the building or, occasionally, at the local pub on a Sunday when they are both too lazy to make their own tea. 

Daeron is speaking again, voice a bit strained. “Things are bad, Aemond.”

Things are never bad for Daeron, so Aemond straightens up, already moving to his bedroom. “What do I do? Want me to come to you?”

“I’m up North,” he answers in a way that Aemond takes to mean that is a very bad place to be. “I want you to go to King’s Landing and then to Dragonstone. Bring Luke. I’ll text him,” he says, almost as an afterthought. “You have a gun?”

Aemond is already twisting the dial of his safe. “Yes. Mum and Hel? Aegon?”

“In King’s Landing, last I heard. Told mum you’ll be coming to them, though, so unless something comes up and they can get away earlier, they should be there. Communication has been spotty, with the storm. I think that’s what’s bringing them.” Them being the zombies. What the fuck. “Dress warm, mate. Keep the phone on you. I’ll call with any updates I can.” 

“Daeron,” Aemond says. The gun is ice cold in his hand, but startlingly familiar. “Be safe.” 

The electricity goes out. 

His brother laughs as he ends the call, and Aemond begins to pack. 

Now, Aemond sprints forward to catch Luke around the waist, a hissed command to Vhagar to stay. The screaming outside is frantic, fearful. There is a pounding sound, like someone is knocking on each door, and Aemond has to clamp a hand over Luke’s mouth once again when they reach his apartment. “Please help!” A woman shrieks on the other side. “Someone please let me in, I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t—no, no, NO, NO—”

Luke trembles in Aemond’s arms like a bird, fingers coming up to twist into the sleeve of Aemond’s jacket. Aemond can feel the movement of Luke’s lips against his hand, muttered words that seem to mimic the cry for help outside. 

If asked later, Aemond would not be able to describe the sounds he hears as he and Luke stand in the darkness of his apartment. Some things can’t be told. 

In the moment, though, Aemond knows exactly what is happening, and can hear everything as if he were standing in front of the massacre that is surely happening in the cheerily painted hallway. Luke sobs in his arms, slumping, weight pulling them off balance. Snot drips onto Aemond’s hand, but he doesn’t mind. 

“Shh,” Aemond hushes Luke, pulling him deeper into the apartment. He clicks his tongue lowly at Vhagar and she lumbers to her feet, following. Aemond’s voice is barely a whisper as he says, “sit on the bed. I’ll pack.”

Luke collapses onto the bed, hands covering his face as he panics. At least he’s doing it quietly, Aemond thinks, just as a small white cat slinks out of the sheets and Vhagar catches sight of him.

Aemond catches Vhagar by the lead, his whispered command not quick enough. Her bark is loud as a gunshot, Luke’s cat’s answering yowl echoing around the room. 

The silence in the moments that follow is too loud, Aemond’s heart a pounding drum behind his ribs as he realises that there is no sound at all, even from outside the apartment. It feels like too much to hope that whatever had been feasting out there is gone.

Scraping, at the front door. Aemond shuts his eye. 

Luke’s face is pale, wet with tears and snot. The cat is held so tightly against his chest that Aemond can count its ribs. Vhagar pants between Aemond’s knees, body straining towards it. “Enough,” Aemond commands in High Valyrian. “Calm.”

“Calm?” Luke whispers. He is in joggers and a hoodie, his socks mismatched. One has tiny suns dotting a blue background, the other is white. “I can’t be calm, what the fuck is happening?!”

“I was talking to the dog, you cunt. Does your cat have a lead?”

Luke’s face twists in anger, but he seems to think better of it, loosening his grip on the cat. “Yeah, yeah, Arrax likes to sit on the balcony, but I worried he would slip off the railing—”

“I don’t care,” Aemond snaps. “Get it sorted while I pack for you.” More scraping at the door, harder this time. Luke, if possible, looks even paler. Aemond tells Vhagar to sit and stay, releasing his grip on her as he makes his way to Luke’s dresser.

They make quick work of it, even if Luke wants to bring a bunch of stupid shit he will surely not need. Aemond trails him, pulling out shorts, t-shirts, a pair of soft pyjama pants. Replaces them with a tightly rolled blanket, Luke’s reusable water bottle. Luke unearths a clear backpack with holes punched into the top, looking victorious. Aemond knows it’s for the cat, and he’s not surprised Luke would have something so fucking ridiculous.

The scraping slowly stops, but the awful, terrible sounds are back. 

“You need to change into something warmer,” Aemond murmurs, standing beside the window and looking down. It’s difficult to see, but there are people out there. Some cars. Do people know the world is ending? The alerts only said conditions were terrible; an infection was running rampant. Nothing about zombies.

Luke frowns. “I don’t have anything warmer, it’s summer.” Like Aemond is stupid. 

Aemond shoves past him to look through the closet. “That thing isn’t going to eat Arrax, is he?”

Looking over his shoulder, Aemond eyes Vhagar. “Probably not.”

“Fuck,” Luke whines, fastening the harness and lead around the cat. It matters little; he scales Luke’s hoodie and perches on his shoulder. 

Aemond tosses a windbreaker and another sweater onto the bed. “Put those on top of what you have. And another pair of joggers. Do you at least have boots?”

He does, miraculously, have boots. Expensive hiking boots that Aemond thinks he has probably never worn. While he gets dressed, Aemond and Vhagar drift into the kitchen. Vhagar inhales Arrax’s food and water, while Aemond peers through the cupboards.

Seven save him. He pulls out a sleeve of party rings, the only occupant of his cupboard that is actually edible. “Do you live off biscuits?” Aemond asks when Luke comes into the kitchen, giving Vhagar a wide berth. He reaches into one of the lower cupboards, pulling out a large, sealed tub of Arrax’s food.

“I order out a lot,” he says defensively. He’s scrubbed his face clean, leaving behind red cheeks. Aemond has to look away. “And anyway, I was supposed to leave today. My internship finished.” 

“Congrats.” The caustic reply is meaner than Aemond intends, but to take it back would be a waste of time. His nephew already thinks Aemond is cruel. 

They stand in the kitchen for a long moment, silence stretching between them. The pale light from outside makes Luke look ethereal, ghostly and blue. If he were a different person, he might embrace Luke, smooth away the worried furrow of his brow. Luke might sink into the warmth of his chest, comforted by the gesture. 

But that’s foolish. 

“What’s happening?” Luke whispers, turning his brown eyes back on Aemond. They are nearly black. His cat’s tail curls around his neck like a scarf. 

Aemond swallows, left hand reaching out, Vhagar’s furred head bumping against it. She settles against his left side, and it is muscle memory that allows him to take up her lead, wrapping it once, twice around his hand. “Daeron says it’s the end of the world.”

Luke swallows visibly, Adam’s apple bobbing. Aemond can’t tear his gaze from it. “And out there?”

The smile Aemond gives him isn’t nice. “That’s what comes after.”

Luke stands back as Aemond peers through the peephole, a wicked long knife out and trained on the floor. He was surprised when Aemond reached for that instead of the gun, but Aemond had only said, it’s quieter.

Aemond has his own backpack on, and under normal circumstances, Luke would mock him for having it on ergonomically correct. However, Luke has his own strapped on the same way, and can still feel the quick, confident adjustments Aemond had made against his chest.

Arrax’s carrier is turned backwards, sitting flush to Luke’s chest and clipped tight in the centre of his back. He also holds Vhagar’s lead. Don’t you need her for balance or something? Luke had asked, a whine in his voice when Aemond practically tied the lead to his wrist. The dark look Aemond gave him reminded Luke that oh, yeah, he had, because Luke fucking blinded him as a child. 

All he’d said was, not anymore.

Aemond turns slightly so Luke can see his lone, purple eye. He mouths to Luke, one, two, three—

The door is pulled open swiftly, soundlessly. At first, there is nothing to see, just apartment 12D’s door, a welcome sign lying crooked against its blue surface. It isn’t until Aemond takes a quick step into the hallway, twisting to look down both sides, that he pauses. 

His knife shakes, just once, before Aemond turns back to Luke, free hand cupping his chin. “Listen to me,” he says quietly, calmly. “When you come out, don’t look to the right, okay?”

“Why?” Luke breathes. Dread settles like lead in his belly. 

Aemond shakes him slightly. “Luke, promise me you won’t look.”

Luke has barely nodded before Aemond drops his grip on Luke’s chin, reaching out to take his hand instead. He drags them both forward, Luke’s feet hesitating for only a moment before he matches Aemond’s pace. The urge to look is suddenly so strong that Luke can feel his head turning before Aemond tugs on his hand, and Luke only catches the briefest hint of red. 

He can’t tell if it’s his hand or Aemond’s that is shaking. 

They make it down the hallway without incident, Vhagar trotting along merrily beside them. Aemond hesitates at the stairwell, wincing at the wail the hinges let out as he pushes the door open. The darkness is like a living thing, dense and full of terrors.

“We need to make it down to the parking garage,” Aemond whispers. He flips the knife in his hand, knuckles white around the hilt. “Follow my lead, and don’t hesitate. Do you want a knife?”

Luke stares at him. “Do I look like I would be useful with a knife right now.”

Aemond’s hand tightens on his own, startling them both. He pulls away quickly, shaking his head. “No, probably not.” He reaches into the side pocket of his backpack, pulling out a torch. “Alright, let’s go.”

Their footsteps are too loud, despite the care they take to be quiet. The stairwell is barren, devoid of any life; it could be a normal day, if it wasn’t also black as pitch. More than once, Luke stumbles, throwing his hand out to catch himself on the railing. The painted metal burns, it's so cold, and he can’t bite back his whine.

Aemond spins, torch glare blinding Luke momentarily. “Good?”

“Fine,” he snaps, “move the fucking light.” 

Far above them, hinges squeak. 

Aemond presses his palm over the face of the torch, his palm going pink. Luke scuttles closer, Vhagar pressing against his and Aemond’s legs as she looks up the stairs. “Could be another person,” Luke whispers.

But they both know it’s not. When Aemond turns to sprint down the stairs, Luke is quick to follow. Vhagar nearly tears his arm from its socket with the burst of speed she puts on, Luke’s legs cramping as he tries to keep up with both of them. Poor Arrax is hissing in the carrier, being jostled about. 

They burst through the last door and into the parking garage. Aemond skids to a quick stop, almost falling, as he turns to slam the door shut behind Luke. It might not stop the thing following them, but it may slow it down. 

“Come on,” Aemond gasps, racing down the line of cars. Luke’s breath is punching out of him, lungs seizing. Fucking hells, Luke should really look into restarting his gym membership when this is all over. 

Aemond leads him to a massive black Land Rover, lights flashing as he touches the door handle. “Get in,” he barks when Luke stares stupidly. It takes a second for Luke to untangle Vhagar’s lead and guide her into the back seat. 

“Leave it to you to have a car like this,” Luke mutters, climbing into the passenger seat. He glances down at Arrax in his carrier, the cat puffed up like a snowball, yellow eyes menacing as they meet Luke’s. “The roads in this country can barely fit a bicycle and you have a truck.”

Aemond pulls himself into the driver’s seat, punching the keys into the ignition. He winces when the vehicle comes to life with a roar, immediately throwing it into drive. Luke peers through the windows anxiously, looking to see if they attracted anything. 

Aemond says, “You’ll be glad of my truck when we don’t get stuck in the snow.”

“Maybe,” Luke says, shitty attitude arriving in the comedown of his fear. Aemond punches his finger into the touch screen, fans turning on full blast as he wheels his way through the parking garage. Luke can see the exit, and he isn’t even surprised when Aemond blows through the security arm. 

The outside world is awash in white and grey. The winter storm Luke raced home in earlier today is gone (and how fucking mad, Luke thinks wildly, that it’s only been several hours at most since the end of his horrible internship), replaced by snow flurries that come down just as quickly.

Storm’s End is a major city, but it’s not as developed or busy as places like Lannisport, King’s Landing, or Highgarden. Still, Luke has never seen it so barren, so devoid of life. Aemond drives slowly through the snow, his windscreen wipers moving overtime to clear the glass of ice and snow. “Take the bags off and put your seatbelt on,” Aemond tells him, shrugging his own off as he stares out at the road ahead.

Luke is stiff as he puts Arrax in the footwell, unclipping the bag and turning to toss it into the back. Vhagar lets out a snarl when he accidentally tosses it on her hip, and Luke tosses an apology over his shoulder as he buckles in. The second he unzips Arrax from the carrier, his cat is clawing his way up to Luke’s face, tail massive.

They drive in silence for a long time, after that, both too occupied with looking at the world around them. There are some signs of life: a man walking his dog despite the frigid temperature, the flash of police lights around a corner. The thing at their apartment building seems almost like a dream, except Luke can still see the splash of red when he closes his eyes. 

“Don’t,” Aemond breathes when Luke spots them.

A man is standing by the side of the road, haphazardly dressed in a weird mix of winter gear. His car is obviously stuck, and he waves his arms frantically, shouting for help. “Just look forward,” Aemond says.

“Easy for you to say,” Luke snaps, heart picking up as they pass the man, his voice growing louder, angrier when he realises, they won’t stop. 

“We can’t stop,” he says, but it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself. 

Luke’s breath hitches on his next inhale. “There were kids in the backseat, Aemond.”

“Yeah,” Aemond says gruffly. “I know.”

Silence isn’t something Aemond usually dislikes, but if it’s between listening to Luke’s muffled sobs in the passenger seat and the static of the radio, he’d take the latter. 

“Flip through the stations,” Aemond commands as they amble down a country lane, the kingsroad too clogged with traffic. They’ve seen a handful of cars since they turned off the main roads, but fewer than Aemond thought they should. Maybe people were taking the hold and secure order seriously.

Luke scrubs at his face with a sleeve, reaching forward and dislodging Arrax. The cat stretches languidly, stepping lightly across the middle console to settle in Aemond’s lap. He gives it a dirty look, but Luke is smiling slightly when he looks at him, so Aemond permits it.

The first few stations are nothing but static, but a voice cuts through it on the fifth jab of Luke’s finger. 

“—OT A DRILL! All citizens outside the storm zone are advised to travel further south. All citizens within the storm zone are advised to barricade themselves inside their homes. Do not approach the infected, they are considered armed and dangerous. If you are bitten or scratched by one of the infected, you must quarantine. This stream will be update every four hours. THIS IS NOT A DRILL! All citizens—”

Luke isn’t sure how many times they listen to it. As they get further and further away from Storm’s End, the broadcast loses connection, until static fills the car once more. 

It’s late, going on half three in the morning, when Aemond finally pulls onto the shoulder of the road. He twists the keys, and the truck goes still and quiet. If the world wasn’t going to shit, Luke thinks it would be almost peaceful. The snow has slowed to a trickle, just the odd flake falling and melting off their windshield. 

“It’ll take longer to get to King’s Landing if we aren’t taking main roads.” Aemond runs his hands over his face, then drags them back through his hair, tying it into a loose knot at the back of his head. “And I want to stop to get petrol when we see a garage.”

Arrax is asleep in Aemond’s lap, chin resting along his thigh. Luke softens a bit. “Why are we going there?”

“My family are there,” Aemond mutters. “Daeron said we should head to Dragonstone afterward.”

Luke nods. When he turns to look at Vhagar in the backseat, he blinks. “How do you have all this shit?” 

Luke pokes around the back of the car, seatbelt straining to keep him in his seat. It flies back and slaps against the plastic when he undoes it. The back of Aemond’s car looks like a pantry. The backseat itself is gone—folded away into the boot, Luke assumes. Blankets and a couple pillows are folded neatly, and there are two duffel bags fit to burst. Two red petrol cans are tied with string and secured near the tailgate.

There are boxes in the footwell, stacked two high. He lifts up the flap of a box, silver lids staring back at him. “Gods, are you a survivalist?”

Aemond sits in stony silence. Luke twists to look at him. “Wow, mate. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, yeah?”

“You’ll be grateful I’ve prepared when you’re freezing to death.”

Luke hums, noncommittal. Arrax stretches in Aemond’s lap, paws rubbing over his face. “Don’t be embarrassed for him, Arrax. He does it to—”

Aemond throws his door open, sending Arrax leaping for Luke’s lap, all claws.

Aemond takes a piss, stretches his legs. It’s too cold outside to really linger, but he needs a minute to think and breathe and plan. 

Zombies. That thing on the floor of the apartment building—whatever it used to be—didn’t look like a zombie; it looked like a ritual sacrifice. Torn apart, eaten, only the edges of the bites looked blue, the skin dead and flaking away. 

Aemond knew the kingsroad would be too fucked to travel on it, but he hadn’t the time to go over the other options beforehand. He knows vaguely the direction to go in, but he’ll need to take a look at the map in the glovebox before he knows for sure. 

And Luke...Aemond looks back at the truck, hands deep in his pockets. A sigh erupts from him, misting into the night. 

When Aemond makes it back to the truck, he opens the liftgate, watching Vhagar jump down and scamper off for a wee. Luke is blinking at him from the front seat, hesitant. “Arrax took your spot,” he informs Aemond. 

“That’s fine,” he answers absently, keeping an eye on his dog. “I’m going to sleep for a few hours back here.”

“Oh.”

Oh, Aemond mocks, reaching for the sleeping bags he’d stored. They’re cumbersome but necessary, and he’s glad he brought two since Luke clearly wasn’t prepared for any sort of crisis. He tosses one to Luke, hitting him square in the face. “Enough room for two, if you’d rather stretch out.”

By the time Luke and the cat have both pissed and sorted their shit, Aemond is tucked into his sleeping bag, one of his own pillows from home tucked under his head. He’s still in his jacket, and Vhagar lies on the other side of him, closest to the wall of the truck. 

The hesitance hasn’t left Luke. In fact, it seems to have only increased as he contemplates the narrow slip of space left to sleep. Arrax gently makes his way through the middle, perching himself on the centre console to begin cleaning himself. 

“It’s bloody freezing out there,” Luke mutters, teeth chattering. He’d doubled up on jumpers and joggers, but it’s clear they’ll need to find him a jacket. His hands are chapped red as he shakes the bedroll out, quickly slipping into it and wiggling into position. The heat they’d had blasting before has lingered a bit, but it’s clear that it won’t be around much longer. 

Aemond reaches for his extra pillow, shoving it at Luke. “I packed a blanket in your bag, too,” Aemond says, only because he feels slightly guilty for the extra blanket he’d swaddled himself in. 

“You’re the best.” He reaches for his bag, but Aemond can see his hands are trembling too badly to work at the zip. 

“Hey,” Aemond murmurs. He sits up, pulling the bag closer. It’s quick work to find the blanket, shaking it out. He leans forward to drape it around Luke, nodding at him to lie down so Aemond can zip the sleeping bag around him. Luke is crying again, just a couple tears dripping down into his hair as he settles on his back. 

Luke breathes in and out, clearly following some sort of exercise in his head. Arrax hops down from his perch to curl comfortingly beside Luke’s head, and Aemond counts to 278 before Luke says, “Thanks.”

“Whatever,” Aemond answers, clearing his throat. “We should sleep. Wake me if you hear anything.”

But Luke turns on his side to face Aemond. “No, I mean—I mean yeah thank you for this, but thank you for...for coming to get me. I’m not good in these sorts of situations, and... I’d probably be fucking dead right now.”

Aemond swallows. Vhagar lifts her head to place it on Aemond’s chest, blinking big black eyes at Luke. “Nobody is really prepared for this,” he answers eventually, aware of Luke’s stare burning a hole into his head, even if he can’t see him. 

(And Aemond does not think about the fact that he left his blindside to Luke, his vulnerable side, because that is not conducive to going to sleep.)

“I guess,” Luke concedes. Aemond hears him shuffling around, settling deeper into the blankets. “Good night.”

Sleep doesn’t find Aemond for a long while.

Bronzegate is in flames. 

They haven’t ventured into the town itself; Aemond had found a garage earlier in the day, and the old woman there had told them to fill as many cans they could carry with petrol before disappearing back into the storefront, the windows boarded up. There was no need to go into Bronzegate. 

But seeing it in flames is unsettling. They are at the crossroad Luke pointed out earlier. If they go east, they can run along the sea, but have fewer options if they run into roadblocks. West would mean cutting through the Kingswood, which Aemond seems reluctant to do, or skirting it entirely and going around, which he is adamantly against. If there are issues on the road, they can just continue west until they find a path back east.

Luke fiddles with the map in his hand. Aemond sits beside him, chin propped on his crossed arms as he leans on the steering wheel. The violet of his eye looks startling as it reflects the flames ahead.

“What do we do?” Luke asks.

It’s the first time either of them have talked in three hours. “What if the bridge at Wendwater is fucked?” Aemond turns the question around on Luke, turning to look at him. “We go all that way, and the bridge is up, or clogged, or fucking broken.”

“You don’t want to go through the Kingswood,” Luke points out. “Also, I need a wee.”

Rolling his eyes, Aemond snatches the map from Luke, glaring at it like it will suddenly produce an alternate-alternate route. Luke slides from the truck, sinking calf-deep in the snow.

The cold cuts through him like a knife, and Luke stumbles a bit further from the vehicle. He’d fumbling with the second pair of joggers, hands shaking like mad when he hears Vhagar’s muffled bark. 

Luke twists, glaring at the back windows, where he knows that demon is staring at him. The tint on Aemond’s back windows make it hard for him to see her, but Luke can see Aemond just fine in his clear front ones. “What the fuck?” Luke calls, sticking his tongue out at the car. He turns back around, just as Vhagar barks again, and then he sees it.

A man is standing several feet away, so deep in the trees that the shadows were hiding him. Luke’s breath punches out of him at the sight, body taking a half step back. The man mimics him, only his movements seem stiff, more of a shamble than a step. 

And then the thing is running. 

Luke is frozen for only a moment before his fight or flight kicks, body kicking into a sprint. He sees Aemond rounding the car, gun held up, but the thing must be too close to Luke, because Aemond swears and yells, “Zag, for fuck’s sake!”

Diving to the side, Luke tumbles into the snow, just as Aemond lets off a shot. It’s loud, maybe too loud, but there are buildings collapsing in on each other a few hundred yards away, so Luke reckons they’re safe. 

Only—no, that’s a fucking hand on his ankle. 

Luke looks, and the thing at his ankle is exactly what Aemond had murmured to him when they woke up this morning, telling him of the phone call he’d had with Daeron before the world went dark. Luke kicks out with his foot, grateful for the hiking boots he purchased on a whim. 

It hits the thing—Luke can’t call it a man, not with those bright blue eyes—square in the forehead, knocking it back a bit. Aemond is shouting, running for them, but a black shadow gets there before him, tearing the thing off Luke before it can sink its bright white teeth into his leg.

Vhagar is like a thing from hell, all vicious growls and snapping jaw. She’s got her mouth on one of its hands, dragging it from Luke like a chew toy. 

“Obey,” Aemond shouts, panic lacing his voice. “Vhagar, obey!” 

She dances away, but the thing has its feral mind set on her, ambling to its feet. Vhagar’s warning growls are growing more and more frantic. Its arms come around her, heedless of her snapping jaws. She begins to yip, desperate, and then she lets out what Luke can only describe as a wail.

Aemond unloads three more shots into the walker, knocking it off kilter, but it isn’t until he shoots the top of its skull off that it falls into a heap. 

Vhagar lies still for two long heartbeats before pushing herself up and lumbering over to them. Aemond watches her as he runs for Luke. 

“Okay?” Aemond is asking, eye rolling wildly, trying to keep everything in sight. Luke feels a pang of guilt at being the cause for so many shitty things in Aemond’s life, but first and foremost, his lack of sight. “You’re good, Luke, right?” He clutches Luke’s face between his palms, shaking him.

Luke nods, using Aemond to pull himself to his feet. His ankle feels like it’s been rubbed raw. “I didn’t even see it,” he murmurs. Wind cuts through the road again, and Luke feels a chill at his crotch. He looks down. 

“Fuck,” he whimpers, looking at the stain on the front of his joggers.

Aemond pushes him towards the vehicle. “Change in there,” he murmurs, scanning the area. He’s practically dragging Luke. “You have more trousers in your bag.” Aemond’s jaw works, gaze moving back to the Bronzegate blaze. Then he is hustling Luke faster, and they’re running.

A couple hundred yards ahead, standing among the trees of the Kingswood, are more of those things. 

“Fuck,” Aemond breathes. He rips the back door open, shoving Luke up into the backseat. Vhagar notices them now too, a vicious bark erupting from her chest. Luke scrambles into the back, and Vhagar is snapping at Aemond as he shoves her none too gently up behind him, slamming the door and flying around the front of the vehicle. He nearly wipes out, Luke can see, but catches himself with a hand on the hood. 

As Aemond slides through the ice and snow away from the growing crowd of walkers; Luke knows now that they are the citizens of Bronzegate, and he wonders why and how and why?

“Check her,” Aemond barks as they drive away. Vhagar is cowering near the liftgate, lips peeling back from her teeth as she snarls at Luke’s approach. 

Suddenly, Luke is fifteen again, at a family party, Aemond stalking him through the back garden, voice raised and angry. Vhagar is tight by his side, her lead loose in his hand, and that is what Luke remembers the most, some days, how Aemond really didn’t have a grip on her, how easy it was for her to lunge at him. 

Sometimes, he remembers the pain the most, her massive jaw tearing into his arm, breaking the bone and skin and pulling away tissue, leaving a permanent, ugly scar on Luke’s arm. Other times, he remembers Aemond’s frantic no’s, drowned out by Luke’s agonised screams.

Vhagar was scared, Luke knows. Worried for the boy she’d been picked out and trained to protect. She’s scared now, and so is he. “Calm,” he commands, the High Valyrian slipping off his tongue with ease. He tries to match Aemond’s tone. “Calm, Vhagar. You are safe, Aemond is safe.”

They sit like that, Luke whispering comforting nonsense in his soiled joggers, Vhagar relaxing slowly, slinking towards him, for what feels like forever. By the time Aemond finally stops the car again, anxious face twisted to look back at them, Luke’s got Vhagar’s bulk pressed to his side. 

Her breathing is laboured, the right side of her grey coat sunken. Luke can’t meet Aemond’s eyes, can’t bear to see his face as he realises that Vhagar is not okay. 

Arrax mews somewhere in the vicinity of the front seat. Aemond clambers into the back, leaving the truck running as he crawls towards them. His hands cradle Vhagar’s massive face like a precious thing, and Luke shuffles away to give them a moment as he awkwardly changes his joggers. 

Aemond held his best mate until her breathing had grown slow, one last desperate exhale, and that was it. Just Aemond curled around a corpse, Lucerys crying quietly as he held his cat. 

The snows are too deep, the ground too frozen, to bury Vhagar. He and Luke stand before her, the world quiet and still around them. Aemond thinks of the first time he saw her, ugly and big even back then, the oldest dog at the shelter but the best trained, the best fit for the job. 

Aemond feels Luke grab his hand at the same moment he realises he’s crying. 

They’re sleeping so close Aemond can feel Luke’s exhale on his neck when he hears it. 

Arrax pokes his head out of the sleeping bag, butting Luke’s chin in the process. Aemond, oddly, feels less crazy knowing the cat has heard it too. Because that was...

That was Vhagar barking. Right?

Aemond sits up, peering through the tinted windows, looking out onto the snow where they had left her. Luke wakes a bit at the movement, freeing a hand to scrub it across his face. “Wot’s happ—”

“Fucking hell,” Aemond breathes, throwing open the liftgate. “Fucking hell, Luke’s she’s alive, how long has it been—”

Aemond pauses as his socked feet hit the ground, feet immediately going cold. Aemond stares at his dog. Eyes the blue of an iced over lake stare at Aemond, unblinking. Before he can even move, he hears Luke shout as Arrax leaps down from the truck, sprinting away into the snow.

The cat doesn’t even stand a fucking chance. One second, Arrax is there, and the next Vhagar has grabbed him, disappearing behind the snowdrift. 

The deep red of Arrax’s blood on the snow is obscene. 

There are hands at his shoulders, almost like claws as Luke pulls Aemond back into the truck. He’s gasping, eyes on the blood too, but his mind is clearly working better than Aemond’s because he manages to slam the tailgate shut just as Vhagar prowls back onto the road. 

He and Luke watch her pace for a bit, unsettling blue eyes lifting every once in a while to meet one of their gazes. Luke is wrapped around him, all arms and legs, clinging to Aemond like he can keep him bodily in the car. That’s how Aemond can tell Luke is crying; there is a hitch to his chest.

“I didn’t mean to let him out,” Aemond murmurs, turning slightly. Luke’s nose brushes his temple, lips close enough that if he pursues them, he could kiss the corner of Aemond’s good eye. “I swear.”

“I know.” Lips ghost across his skin, and then Aemond is turning in Luke’s arms, and they are hugging and maybe crying, and this is the end of the world, surely. Not losing an eye or breaking an arm, not the snows or the demons in them, but this horrible, painful loss.

They go east. 

It’s not necessarily on purpose. Vhagar, or whatever lives inside her now, trails them for a long time before Aemond makes it onto a wind-swept road and can gun it away from her. They take stock of themselves and their situation as they drive. Luke makes a note on his phone, which is plugged into Aemond’s car and playing exclusively bubble-gum pop. 

“One,” Luke voice notes. “We are totally fucking lost.”

The truth of it is, the signs they come across are so iced over that they’re impossible to read. Luke does his best with the crowbar Aemond gave him, but they are both wary of being outside now, and anyway, Luke was a sprinter, not a cricket player, and he barely makes a dent in the ice.

Luckily, Aemond is some sort of fucking nerd and while the sun is more of a suggestion in the sky than an actual blazing ball of light, he still has an idea of which way they’re going in. 

Luke continues, “We are probably going,” here he pauses, moving the phone closer to Aemond, who glares at the road ahead and snaps, “East, Luke. I fucking told you; the sun rises—”

“Two,” Luke announces loudly. “I have a weird bruise on my ankle. A burn? It hurts, I can tell you that fucking much.” He flexes his ankle, atop the dashboard. Whatever it is, the mark is vivid and purpling. Aemond keeps making Luke wiggle his toes to make sure they’re still working. 

Aemond takes a bend too quickly, the truck going a bit funny on the road. Luke wheezes as his seatbelt locks up. “Three, Aemond needs to bloody relax.”

It’s been six days since they left the apartment building in Storm’s End, since the world froze over. Two days since they lost Arrax and Vhagar. It should have taken them a day, maybe, to drive to King’s Landing through the back roads.

Aemond keeps a satellite phone sitting in the cupholder of the centre console. Luke keeps his phone charged and blasting out music. 

There is no word from anyone. They do not pass anyone on the roads. Luke and Aemond are the only people in this white wasteland. 

Alone. 

Luke wakes to a scream, limbs flailing as he tries to kick out of his sleeping bag. Beside him, Aemond is writhing, arms caught in his own blankets. 

“Get it out, get it out, get it out—” Aemond repeats. Tears stream down his face as his hands claw at the eyepatch, tugging the stiff leather away from his face.

Luke gasps at the blue eye that peers out at him, then at the vivid red as Aemond’s nails draw blood. It reminds Luke so viscerally of Vhagar and Arrax that for a moment, all he can do is stare. 

And then he realises that the eye in Aemond’s head is glass, and he can see the frost covering it.

Snapping into action, Luke kicks his way free of the blankets and throws himself at Aemond, dragging his arms down and pinning them with his legs, reaching up to cup his face. His expression is twisted into something horrific, and Luke is muttering apologies, fingers shaking as he pulls either side of Aemond’s eye taut, scooping the glass eye out. 

It’s cold enough to burn, and Luke drops it with a shout, just as Aemond relaxes a bit beneath him, still breathing heavily but no longer screaming. Luke notices it then, the way the windows have frosted over, and it’s far colder in the truck than it ever has been. 

Bucking beneath him, Aemond pushes Luke off enough to sit up, taking in the scene before him with a wide eye, hand pressed to his empty socket. 

“Why is it so cold?” He rasps.

Aemond swipes a hand across the glass, but it only serves to melt some of the frost on the inside of the window. When Luke moves to check the others, they find the same issue. Crawling to the front, Aemond twists the keys in the ignition. 

Nothing.

He does it again, then a third time, but it’s clear the car isn’t going to start. It doesn’t even make a noise; all Luke can hear it’s Aemond angry muttering and his own teeth chattering. After a fourth time, Aemond slams his palm down on the centre console, twisting to the passenger seat footwell to grab the scraper.

Luke is on him in an instant, hand closing around Aemond’s wrist. “You are not going out there.”

Aemond tries to jerk free, but Luke is unrelenting. He huffs angrily, “Who the fuck do you think is going to be the one to clear them? You’re barely tall enough to get into the thing.”

Ignoring the jab, Luke shakes his wrist. “If it’s cold like this in here, what do you think it will be like out there?”

Now that he’s out of his blanket and his adrenaline has waned, it really is cold. Luke pokes at his phone to see the time; they’ve only been sleeping for a couple hours and the car has been off an hour longer than that, at most. It shouldn’t have gotten so cold so quickly. 

“What if there is something out there?” Luke loosens his grip on Aemond’s wrist. 

From where Luke is stretched between the two front seats, he has an up-close view of the left side of Aemond’s face. His scar is livid in the low light of the vehicle and there are small cuts from his nails trying to pry the patch away. It’s the first time Luke has seen him without an eyepatch, and he can’t help but look at his handiwork, at what he’s done. The eyebrow is bisected, the socket dark. Luke wants to ask, why the blue? But his uncle seems to remember that he is bearing himself to Luke at the same moment, turning swiftly away. “Where is my—”

Luke reaches back for the old leather, scooping it from beside his pillow. He places it in Aemond’s hand, but says, “If you don’t want to—”

“I do.” The finality in his voice makes Luke bite back whatever else he might have said to convince him. “And the prosthetic?”

“I dropped it,” Luke confesses. “It’s back here somewhere, but I couldn’t keep hold of it, it was so cold.”

Aemond shudders, as though remembering. “It felt like it was burning into my head. I don’t—there isn’t much feeling around my eye anymore, but it was horrible. Like I’d lost it all over again.”

The scraper drops from his hand as he finally settles back into the seat. Aimlessly, he gives the keys one last twist, to no avail. There is a question in the vehicle, heavy between the two of them. What happens if the truck has died? Walking to King’s Landing would be difficult normally, but with the snow and the cold, they wouldn’t make it a few hours, let alone however many days they have left of travel. 

It doesn’t matter right now. “We can figure it out in the morning,” Luke suggests. The cold is seeping into his bones, and all he wants to do is crawl under his blankets. “It’s fucking freezing, Aemond. Let’s warm up and we can sort out what we’ll do.”

Luke scoots back, giving Aemond a pointed look. He’s scowling as he crawls over the seats, but his hands are quick to reach for his sleeping bag. 

For some ridiculous reason, it’s on the tip of Luke’s tongue to suggest they zip their sleeping bags together and share. Something about body heat, except now he’s thinking of what Aemond might look naked and pressed against him inside their blankets, and isn’t that a fucking wild thought. 

Aemond’s not unattractive, Luke thinks as he beds down once again. He’s got an edgy sort of look to him that is only amplified by the scar and missing eye. Even in a winter-apocalypse, dressed in a heavy canvas jacket and three pairs of black sweats, Aemond is hot. He’s severe and miserable and smug, a whole plethora of things that Luke probably should not find attractive, and yet. Here he is, freezing in his sleeping bag and staring longingly at the back of Aemond’s hat. Even the stupid knit cap he’s wearing is attractive, even if it looks like it was homemade by a blind person (or probably Helaena). 

It’s not the first time Luke has thought about Aemond like this, but it is the first time that he can maybe do something about it. 

He’s about to open his mouth to suggest sharing—he really is cold, okay—when there is a scrape against the window. 

They shoot up into a sitting position almost in sync, which might be funny if not for the shadows moving outside the vehicle. 

“This is why I said not to go outside,” Luke hisses, inching closer to Aemond.

Aemond glares at him. “Is an ‘I told you so’ really necessary?”

“Always,” Luke nods. He’s trying for humour, but it’s not really landing. A hand rises to the glass, and this time they watch the nails rake down the ice. “What are we going to do?” 

Dragging one of his duffel bags closer, Aemond unzips it and hands Luke one of his knives. “I only have the one gun,” he whispers, folding Luke’s fingers around the hilt. It’s a hunting knife, Luke thinks—similar to the one Aemond had back at the apartment. 

Nodding, Luke brings the knife closer. “We’re—we have to go out there?”

More scraping, and this time a sheet of ice falls away from the window at the back, revealing a woman with grey hair, skin grey from death and the cold. Part of her jaw is missing, and her tongue lolls out of her mouth like a thick, grey snake. Luke isn’t sure if those eerie blue eyes can see them through the tinted window.

The other walker is pacing along the opposite side of the truck, visible only as a shade.

“If it can take that ice off the window, think of what it can do if it keeps at the glass.” Aemond eyes him, mouth a hard line. “If you can’t—”

“You’re not going by yourself.” Luke’s tone is final, hand tightening around his knife. Aemond frowns.

They get their shoes on, laces tight. Aemond readjusts Luke’s grip on his knife. “You need to get the head, I think. That’s what worked before. Go for the eye,” and now Aemond has jokes. “You’re good at that.”

“Fucking hilarious,” Luke’s voice is quiet, panicked. He’d kill for his anxiety meds, or a joint, or a fucking sedative. 

“Take the one with her tongue out,” Aemond says. “I’ll get the other one.”

This is where, in a movie or TV show, Luke would do or say something daring. He might lean forward and kiss Aemond, or give him a snappy one liner and burst out of the car like a hero. Instead, Luke squats anxiously behind Aemond as he presses himself against the door of the backseat. He’ll leap out and startle the walker, then hopefully get a jump on the other one as it rounds the vehicle. 

Luke will stab—his speciality, although if he’s being specific, he’s more of a slasher—and all will go well. 

To be fair, it doesn’t go horribly. The door gets stuck as Aemond tries to open it, iced over, but one boot of his foot has it flying open, knocking the female walker over into the snow. When Aemond jumps down, knife in hand, the other walker has rounded the back of the truck. 

Luke loses track of Aemond for a minute or so, falling on top of the female walker as he stumbles out of the backseat. He squeals when she rears up, his knees sinking sickeningly into her belly. Hands tear at his sweater for only a moment before Luke jabs his knife into the gaping pit of her mouth. It punches through the roof of her mouth, into her brain, and she falls still. 

It’s so fucking cold that Luke can barely get a grip around the blade. His hands are beet red, the wind strong and chapping his cheeks. He tries to pull the knife, but it only succeeds in moving the walker’s head. Luke tries three more times before he shifts, planting a foot at her top row of teeth, using that as leverage to remove the blade. 

The momentum of pulling it out sends Luke falling back, head smashing off the truck. 

He moans at the contact; it feels like he’s smashed it off concrete and looks to his left just as Aemond kills his walker. 

When he looks at Luke, his face is flushed, and chest is heaving. His eye rakes over Luke’s sprawled form, mouth quirking slightly. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“Piss off,” Luke snarls, rubbing his curls. He accepts Aemond’s offered hand, allowing the man to drag him to his feet. “That was—”

Aemond’s gloved hand claps over his mouth. “Don’t say it, you jinx.”

Luke smirks behind the glove and it lingers when Aemond removes his hand. Aemond’s eyes linger a bit, too. Or maybe Luke is concussed.

On second thought, he is definitely concussed, because Aemond is turning away from Luke and walking towards the male walker, kicking him over onto his front, jerking the brown jacket off him. “Come help with his arms,” he calls to Luke, who stares with disbelief.

“Surely not.”

Peering up at him, hair hanging in his face, Aemond shrugs. “You need a coat and he’s dead. Are you really about to be precious about this? It’s clean.”

“It’s been on a dead guy,” Luke argues. “Who is rotting.”

“Not in this cold,” Aemond snorts. “Now quit being a little bitch and help with the arms.”

Luke is about to bite back at him when lights cut through the darkness, illuminating the world. He shouts, turning towards the oncoming vehicle just as Aemond presses him into the side of the truck, blocking him from view. 

Squinting through the light, Luke can see it’s actually two vehicles, a car and a van. 

“Alright there?” A voice calls out, loud and gruff. Luke curls his aching hands into the back of Aemond’s jacket. 

“Fine,” Aemond calls. He still has his knife out, hand turned so that the other man can clearly see it. 

The man laughs, rounding the car until his bulk blocks some of the light. He’s large both around and in height. A smaller man gets out of the car, and Luke can see he has a shotgun. “Doesn’t look like it. Your car die?”

“No,” Aemond says immediately. “We were sleeping and they showed up.”

The man eyes the ice frosted to their car. “They bring the cold with them. You know that?”

They did not, and while Luke can only see the side of Aemond’s face, he notes the twitch at his jaw. 

“Well, you may be able to start your truck now. If not, we can give you a jump. It just the two of you?” Aemond presses back, just a bit more, stance widening slightly. The man must notice his unease, because he raises his hands in a placating gesture. “Sorry to be nosey, we don’t mean nothing by it. Just not used to seeing normal people these days.” He nods to his friend, who has been silent up until then. “We have a place nearby. Warm food, fire. Place to stay for the night, if ya like.”

“Why are you out so late?” Aemond asks.

The smaller man is the one to answer. “We do a patrol of the area. Managed to kill quite a few of those,” he points the barrel of his gun to the walkers. “Someone saw your vehicle earlier, but figured it was abandoned.”

Luke whispers, “Should we at least try to start the car? They might be able to help with that.” He would kill to be somewhere warm right now, but he knows Aemond. The last thing he will want to do is make themselves vulnerable to these people.

He doesn’t turn to look at Luke, but he does nod briefly, hesitantly. “You’ll give us a jump?”

“Can do,” the bigger man says. “Let me swing my van round that way.”

It takes about half an hour to get it all sorted. Aemond sits half in, half out of the truck, foot trailing the ground as he tries to start the truck. It revs a couple times, much more promising than before, but the engine won’t fully turn over. 

“Fucking dead bastards,” the large man, who introduced himself as Rolly, grumbles. “Turn everything so cold. I reckon your truck will be good to go come mid-afternoon tomorrow, but right now you’ll just be wasting your time and energy.”

Aemond scowls, jerking the keys out of the ignition. He looks over at Luke, draped in the dead man’s coat, shivering in the still air of the night. The smaller man has been speaking to him quietly, the gun strapped over his shoulders. 

“You lot really should come back with us, just for a few hours. Warm up, some.” Rolly raises a thick grey eyebrow at Luke. “Your fella looks like he’s about to freeze to death.”

Aemond doesn’t correct the man, nor does he acknowledge the warm satisfaction the words fill his belly with. “You have a house?” Aemond asks in lieu of answering. He doesn’t want to go back with these men, but he also doesn’t know if they should sit around in the truck and freeze. What if more of those things appear?

“Nah,” the man shakes his head. “It’s some old estate, has massive stone walls surrounding it. Might have been someone’s family home, but nobody’s been there in a while. Ours now.” He stamps his feet in the snow, shivers. “We can drive you both back here tomorrow afternoon, try again.” He eyes Aemond’s knife, strapped to his belt. “You can keep that on ya if you feel the need.”

Aemond stares at the tremble of Luke’s jaw, and the decision is made.

The estate is old but sturdy, built with a thick stone that keeps the heat contained. Luke feels the chill dissipating as he and Aemond make their way into the massive main room. There are six mismatched couches and armchairs strewn about and a fire burning in the massive hearth. The windows are boarded up, and nobody else is awake. 

There are two families here—Rolly’s daughter and her kids, and another couple with a newborn. The smaller man, Jon, had been a co-worker of Rolly’s and had found the place. They’re from Bronzegate.

“We drove past there,” Luke says in the backseat on their way there, tucked into Aemond’s side. His hands are pressed tight between his thighs, body still shivering despite the heat bursting from the fans. “It was in flames.”

Rolly nods. “That does the things in too. I was gone by the time that happened, but doesn’t surprise me. It was the animals that came first.” He meets Luke’s eye in the mirror. “You know the animals can turn, yeah?”

At the estate, they are given bowls of thick stew that they both devour in minutes. It might be the best thing Luke has ever had, if he’s being honest. Aemond had been prepared with his canned goods and energy bars, but fuck if Luke hadn’t missed hot food. 

Jon retires to bed. Rolly yawns loudly, watching the two of them gorge themselves. “I’ll go get the fire lit in your room,” he tells them. “You two help yourselves to another bowl, yeah?”

“Thank you,” Luke calls back weakly, already scooping. 

By the time Rolly makes his way back, Luke is practically in a food coma and needs to be hauled up by Aemond and dragged down the hall to their room. “It’s not much,” Rolly says as he waves them into a dim room. “But it should do. I’ll leave ya to it. Night lads.”

“Night,” Luke mumbles back, already shuffling into the room. He hears Aemond offer a quiet thanks before the door is closing. Aemond waits a moment, then twists the lock. 

Luke blinks at the room in front of him, smiling slightly. The fire is popping cheerily in the corner, warming the room, illuminating the dull floral duvet. The bed is the most beautiful thing Luke has ever seen. The only thing that would make this better would be running water. However, the little ensuite will do. “Finally, I can piss in a toilet,” Luke sighs happily. 

“Happy for you,” Aemond mutters as he takes the duvet off the bed. He shakes it out a couple times, sneezing once. He replaces it and moves onto bashing the dust off the pillows. 

Luke watches him thoughtfully. “Why did you agree to come here tonight?”

Aemond beats the second set of pillows a little too viciously. “So, I didn’t need to listen to you bite your tongue off with all your teeth chattering.”

“I’m still pretty cold.” Luke shrugs off the coat (fucking ew), which contradicts his statement. “Might keep you up a bit longer. Maybe you should have asked for your own room.” He feels pleasantly warm at the blush stealing up Aemond’s neck. 

Aemond turns one violet eye to him. “We aren’t splitting up.”

The warm feeling increases. “Right. Teamwork and all that.”

Aemond begins to shed his clothing. It’s almost comical—like the clothing version of a clown car. How many joggers can one man have on at a time? The answer is three! How many jumpers? Glad you asked—Aemond’s got two, and a thermal shirt beneath that. Fucking insane. When he lies down, his back is to Luke and the flames. “Go take your piss,” he says, muffled. “We’re leaving as soon as we can.”

Luke rolls his eyes. 

He is pleasantly warm when he wakes the next morning (...afternoon?). It’s the first time he’s woken up as such in days, and he sinks into the feeling, sighing a bit. He will never take warmth for granted again. 

Luke’s pillow shifts a bit, which is weird, and then Luke is pressed further into the mattress, and he realises the warmth is coming mostly from Aemond, who is half on top of him, one arm under his pillow and the other wrapped around his waist, hand pressed flat to the middle of Luke’s chest. Aemond snuffles against Luke’s neck, nose tucked along his hairline. 

The first thought that comes to mind is I fucking knew it. Aemond gave him a dirty look almost every morning when he realised they were much closer than they had been when they’d fallen asleep. All this time, that big liar had been the one trying to weasel his way closer to Luke. 

The second thought is a bit more dangerous, a bit more abstract. It’s less of a thought and more of an insistent hardening between his legs. That’s the only explanation for why he presses back against the cradle of Aemond’s hips; there is a lack of blood flow to his brain. 

He bites his lip when Aemond presses back, breath gusting against Luke’s nape. The hand at his chest moves, trailing its warmth lower, resting on his belly. His lips purse, or he presses a kiss to Luke’s neck, and the noise Luke makes is too loud in the quiet of the room.

Aemond stiffens behind him, coming fully awake. He starts to pull away, but Luke is faster, gripping his wrist the same way he’d grabbed it the night before when he’d planned to go outside. Aemond pauses.

“It’s okay,” Luke breathes. He tries to turn his head, but the arm beneath the pillow moves, gripping Luke’s jaw and keeping him still. Luke can feel the gentle press of Aemond’s chest to his back, every inhale and exhale, and then the soft, wet warmth of his mouth on the side of Luke’s neck.

“Okay?” Aemond asks. When Luke nods, Aemond presses against his ass. He’s just as hard as Luke. The hand pressing into Luke’s belly slides lower, slipping beneath the joggers and the shorts Luke has on beneath. Aemond scrapes his fingers through the curls there, the noise obscene in the quiet of their room, before moving lower and sliding along his cock.

“Oh fuck,” Luke sighs, burying his face in the pillow. Aemond pauses, but Luke reaches back with a hand, gripping Aemond’s hip. “Come on, babe, move.”

Aemond presses open-mouthed kisses to Luke’s neck as he rolls his hips against Luke’s ass, hand matching the rhythm he sets.

The hand on his jaw shifts, two long fingers pressing against his lower lip, pulling on it until Luke opens his mouth in a gasp. Luke slides his tongue along them, hollowing his cheeks a bit as he sucks, taking them deeper. Aemond groans into his hair, teeth biting down on the shell of Luke’s ear. 

His hand tightens on Luke’s cock, a strangling circle of fingers beneath the head. Luke keens, and Aemond slides up, palming the head and smearing the precum there. “I’m not gonna last,” Aemond mutters, hips a bit more frantic. Luke mumbles the same around his fingers, gagging a bit when Aemond presses down on his tongue. 

The ringing of the phone brings them both pause. “What the fuck?” Luke asks, but it comes out more garbled, drool dripping down his chin as Aemond’s fingers slide out and he leaps out of bed, digging frantically in the backpack he brought with them. 

When he finds the sat phone, he punches a button and brings it to his ear. “Daeron?”

Luke swipes an arm across his mouth, shifting his shorts and joggers back up over his flagging erection. Aemond looks flushed, hair in disarray, but his face is serious as he listens. 

“Yeah, we’re somewhere northeast of Bronzegate.” A pause. “Have you seen what it’s like out here? You’re lucky I have the vehicle I do or we’d be fucked.” 

Aemond scrapes a hand through his hair, fingers halting as he hits a few knots. He winces, scowl deepening. “Unless you plan to send a fucking ride, that’s unhelpful. We’re making our way there.” He nods once, twice. “I know. They’re still there?” Aemond doesn’t look happy. Luke knows he must be talking about the rest of his family in King’s Landing. “And you?”

A sigh, then, “Yeah, I’ll pass it along. Talk soon.” The line goes dead, and the room lapses into a heavy silence. 

Luke opens his mouth to say—something, he doesn’t really know what, but Aemond speaks before he gets a chance. “We need to go.”

“What did Daeron say?”

Aemond shakes his head, pressing his hands to his face. A quick glance at his crotch shows that he, too, has lost his erection. Luke has a sinking feeling they are just not going to talk about it, which is fucking lovely. “Nothing good. We need to get to King’s Landing sooner than later. I’ll ask Rolly the best way, and hopefully we can be there by—”

“When we get there,” Luke interrupts. “What then?”

“On to Dragonstone.” Aemond says it like it’s obvious, like Luke is a fucking idiot.

“The ferry is running?” Venom drips from Luke’s response. “At least some things never change.”

Aemond glares at him, shoving to his feet. “We’ll figure it out, Lucerys.”

“Oh, Lucerys, is it? Was it Lucerys when you had your hand on my cock ten minutes ago?”

“Hope you enjoyed it, because it isn’t happening again.” Aemond slams his way into the ensuite bathroom, surely locking himself in the dark, but Luke doesn’t care. He redresses and grabs his shit, leaving Aemond to sulk.

Rolly’s smile is kind and pitying when the truck roars to life. “Sure I can’t get you lads to stay?”

Aemond can see Luke hovering in his peripheral, fingers twisted together in a new pair of gloves Jon had gifted him. They haven’t talked much after their fight earlier, except for when Luke pulled him aside just after lunch, fingers tight on his arm as he suggested bringing Rolly and the rest along with them.

When Aemond told Luke no, his face had shuttered, twisting with displeasure. Aemond has no idea what they’ll find in King’s Landing; he has to look at Luke, he can’t be worried about others as well. 

“No,” Aemond says. “But thank you for your kindness.”

Rolly shrugs, clapping a hand on Aemond’s shoulder. “Happy to help you both out. You stay safe, now. Be wary of strangers,” he waves a fat finger at them. “Not all of them will be as nice as us.”

Aemond smirks. “We’ll take it under advisement. Stay well,” he says as he and Luke make their way back to the truck. 

“You boys too. Maybe we’ll meet again.”

“I look forward to it,” Luke calls as he slips into the passenger seat.

And then they are off, Rolly growing smaller and smaller in the rear-view mirror. Luke is twisted around in his seat, staring out the back window. Aemond can’t see his face, but he can imagine it. Frown pursed on his lips, eyes sad. “They’ll be okay,” Aemond offers, but he can hear the doubt in his voice. 

“I hope so,” Luke murmurs, turning back around. He rests his head against the window, curling his legs beneath him on the seat. 

The silence is thick between them, overwhelming. Aemond clears his throat, annoyed at how it’s affecting him. He should have never fucking touched Luke, he knows that, because obviously this is the result. The two of them argue more than they speak pleasantly to each other, why would adding sex to the mix help anything?

But now Luke is pouting, and it’s his own fault but now, also, Aemond’s. “Rolly said if we keep heading down this road we’ll get back on track. We should see the sea by tomorrow.”

“Great,” Luke says. He reaches for his phone, thumbing some playlist on. Aemond can’t see the title, but he imagines it’s something like sad songs when your uncle refuses to finish you off.

“Why were you even interning with Baratheon?” Aemond asks, hours later. “Aren’t you being groomed to take over Driftmark?” Groomed is a choice, and Luke glares blearily at him, stiff from sitting in the car for so long. 

“Grandpa Corlys is training me to take over one day. But he and mum thought it would be good for me to work for people we trade with. It was this or Dorne.” Luke flushes at Aemond’s sceptical eyebrow raise. “I know Dorne would have been better now. But Storm’s End was closer.”

Aemond scoffs. “Can’t be away from home for too long?”

Luke’s answering grin is mean, his words worse, “Well we all like each other.”

His intended insult lands, and Aemond’s fists tighten over the steering wheel. “Then where are they?” He asks, deceptively calm.

Blinking, Luke straightens. “What?”

Aemond’s smile is poisonous. “Where is your family, Luke? If you all like each other so much, why aren’t they here bringing you to safety? If you’d listened to your mum’s advice, you’d still be in your apartment, frozen to death or some walker’s dinner, and I’d still be on my way to King’s Landing with my fucking dog.” His voice breaks, just slightly, but it does little to ease the blow his words make on Luke.

“You’re fucking vile,” Luke snaps, lip curling in a snarl. “Stop the car.”

“What?” Aemond snaps, turning to look at him. The car doesn’t slow. “Are you mad?”

“Stop the fucking car!” Luke yells.

Aemond does, skidding slightly in the light snow dusting the road. As soon as it’s stopped, Luke throws himself out of the vehicle, breath punching out of him. Fuck Aemond. He can have a nice, lonely drive to King’s Landing; Luke will be fine here. 

He hears the door open, and Aemond’s annoyed voice calling, “Get back in the car, Luke.”

“NO,” Luke shouts, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. He feels something in the left, pulls it out. It’s a pair of wedding rings.

Aemond’s boots are loud as he stomps his way towards Luke. He fists his hand into the collar of Luke’s stolen jacket, spinning him around. Already his cheeks and nose are red from the cold, or maybe it’s from his anger. Luke blinks down at the rings in his hand. 

“What’s that?” Aemond asks, pausing in his tirade. 

“The guy must have been married,” Luke whispers. “Do you think that was his wife I killed?”

Aemond is still and quiet. “I told you we shouldn’t have taken his jacket,” Luke snaps, but there is no fight in his voice, only a deep sort of sadness. 

“You’re warm,” Aemond says. He peels open Luke’s fingers, plucking the rings out of his palm. Luke must look as stricken as he feels, because Aemond rolls his eyes and drops one back down. “That’s what matters.”

Aemond slides his own hands into his pockets, ring still clutched in the right. Luke closes his hand around the other, squeezing until the diamond cuts into his palm. They are surrounded by fields, empty for as far as the eye can see. They’re close to the sea, too. Luke can smell it.

“Will you come back to the car,” Aemond asks. 

“Are you sorry?” Luke snaps.

Aemond’s lips twist, his gaze flitting away from Luke. “They aren’t here,” Aemond murmurs. Before Luke can bite back at him, Aemond meets his eyes. “But I am.”

It’s not an apology. It’s something else, but Luke isn’t sure if he can look too close at it just yet. 

For now, it’ll do. 

They reach the sea at a little past one in the morning. 

Aemond stops the truck in an empty car park at the top of a cliff. It’s a different sort of cold here, brisk and settling into Aemond’s bones. Blackwater Bay glitters black beneath the moon and stars, swallowing their light rather than reflecting it back up. 

A few feet away, Luke leans against the wooden railing, eyes closed and as close to peace as Aemond has seen in the last week. Maybe ever. They passed a sign earlier for the Wendwater crossing earlier, and he hopes that it’s fine, because after that King’s Landing is practically a straight shot. 

Dragonstone will be the real issue, Aemond knows. Luke wasn’t wrong when he raised the question earlier, but Aemond had just finished being berated by his little brother who was far worse off than them, so he wasn’t in the mood. 

Daeron was stressed and anxious, though Aemond could only tell because of how short he was being. They needed to get to King’s Landing, was the gist of it, and Aemond could tell that he wasn’t going fast enough for Daeron’s liking. 

It worries Aemond. 

But here, by the sea, Aemond allows himself to worry a little less.

There are no cars blocking the Wendwater crossing, but Aemond slows the truck down before he can cross it. 

“Why are we slowing?” Luke whispers, eyeing Aemond sceptically. “This is good, right?”

Luke can’t see Aemond’s good eye from here, but he can see the tension running along his jaw and the way his knuckles are white along the wheel. “Look at the cars on the other side,” Aemond murmurs. 

Turning to see, Luke frowns. “They look empty?”

“They’re parked along there.”

“So?” 

“So,” Aemond begins, “that’s fucking weird. Who took the time to park those cars along there? If I was moving them off the bridge, I’m not lining them up neatly.” He drums his fingers against the wheel. “It’s suspicious. I’ve seen shit like this before.”

The hair on Luke’s neck rises and he swivels around, peering through the window. On his side of the car, the forest is thick with trees, the trunks blending into each other, tall and dark and barren. On Aemond’s side they can see Blackwater Bay off in the distance, but no walkers or people waiting to snipe them. Still, Luke knows that Aemond was in the military, that he’s Seen Some Shit. “What do you want to do?”

“We aren’t going back,” Aemond says. He turns to look out Luke’s window, eye squinting as he peers through the trees. “Do you see anything?”

“No,” Luke says, turning to look again. “Why don’t I get out?”

“What?” Aemond’s voice is surprised, eye wide when Luke looks at him again. 

“Scout the place.” Luke shrugs, already undoing his seatbelt. “You won’t let me drive, so let me at least do this.”

“I—no. What if something is out there?” Aemond is frowning, as if the thought of Luke going out there is a terrible one. “Walkers, or other people?”

“Run them over, obviously.” Luke smiles, hoping his nervousness is not apparent. “Anyway, you can’t be the one risking your life all the time. I refuse to be shown up at family dinners for the rest of our lives.”

Aemond hesitates a moment longer, then nods. His hand rises, as if to touch Luke, but falters at the last second. “Be quick.”

When Luke steps outside, all he can hear is the rushing river below. It’s instinct to peer back over his shoulder at Aemond as he begins to walk to the bridge. Aemond is staring at him, lip pulled between his teeth, but he nods at Luke and it’s enough to keep moving. 

The knife Aemond gave him is tight in his grip. There isn’t anything on the bridge that Luke can see; he can hear the truck slowly driving behind him, the crunch of tires in heavily packed snow. Now that he’s closer to the other cars, Luke can see just how well they’ve been lined up on either side of the road. 

It seems like a trap, Luke can say that much. But it’s a stupid and obvious one; Luke peers through the windows of the cars they pass, squats low to see underneath, and there is no evidence of other people or walkers. 

When he turns to shrug back at Aemond, he sees the gun.

In hindsight, under the bridge was probably the smartest place to look. One second, Aemond is slowly driving behind Luke and the next, the truck is skidding to a stop, the rear wheel popping with a concussive bang. Luke slides to the ground out of instinct more than anything, covering his head with his arms. 

Before he has a chance to even move, his arms are being wrenched sharply behind his back, a cry escaping him. He swallows it back quickly when a blade is pressed to his throat and he is pulled roughly to his feet, held against someone’s chest. There are half a dozen people swarming the truck, guns aloft.

Aemond’s nose is bleeding as he slips from the truck, gun trained on the person behind Luke. 

“Steady on, you,” a woman says, walking into Luke’s eyeline. She’s clad in whites and greys, long brown hair falling down her back as he pulls off her toque. There’s no weapon in her hand, but she’s no less dangerous in the absence of it. It’s clear that she’s in charge. “We’ll let you two go soon enough. Just want to take a peek at what you’ve got in that nice truck.”

Aemond’s eye darts between Luke and the woman. “That what you lot do here? Border control? We have nothing to declare.” Aemond’s voice is caustic, his arm steady as he continues to point his gun. 

An unpleasant smile curls up the left side of her face. “Something of the sort.” She jerks her chin at the truck, and two of her men break away towards the back of the truck. Luke makes to move, but the knife at his throat presses harder, a sour voice whispering against the side of his face, “Going somewhere?”

Luke watches a muscle twitch in Aemond’s jaw. His eye is moving up and down, and it isn’t until the third time that he does it that Luke realises he’s looking at the knife.

The knife, in Luke’s hand. Which is covered by the over-long sleeves of his jacket. 

The woman croons, “Lower your gun, would you?”

A man around the back calls out, “They’ve got about twelve cans back here, and—”

Luke tightens his grip on the knife as Aemond begins to slowly lower his gun. For only a millisecond, Luke wonders if this is really what Aemond was trying to tell him. He hopes so, because the next thing he knows, Luke has stabbed the man holding the knife to him in the groin. 

The pop of gun fire is all around him, Luke falling to the ground as the man shoves him away. There is pain at his throat, but not nearly as much as Luke would have thought, and anyway, he’s not free yet. He turns on his knees to look at the man, whose face is contorted in pain and rage. He has both hands wrapped around the hilt of Luke’s knife, but the gloves are leather and slick with blood and he can’t seem to get a good grip. 

Luke scrambles for the knife the man dropped—a large hunting knife with a serrated blade. His hands fumble in the cold, even with his gloves, but he’s faster than the man, straddling him and pressing his own blade deeper as he jabs the stolen one into his neck. 

Someone tackles Luke. His shoulder glances painfully off the road, hands coming up to defend himself. He closes a fist around long hair and pulls, finally looking up to see the woman, her teeth pink with blood from a split lip. She snarls at him, knees squeezing his ribs. “Fucking fairies,” she seethes as she tries to bat Luke’s hands away. There is more gunfire in the background, and Luke is distracted trying to find Aemond; she manages to sock him in the face, gloved knuckles glancing off his cheekbone. “I thought you’d be an easy job.”

Luke spits up at her, causing her to rear back. “You little cu—”

Her body jerks twice, then slumps over on top of him, shoulder smacking into his chin. Luke gasps at the sudden weight, the sudden warmth of her, and he scrambles out from beneath her, soaked in blood. Luke glances up wildly, and then Aemond is there. 

Aemond is there, dropping painfully to his knees in front of Luke, hands reaching desperately for him. He bundles Luke into his arms, careless of the blood staining his jacket. 

Luke pulls back only to press his mouth to Aemond’s feverishly, hands curled around Aemond’s ears and keeping him close. “You’re okay?” He asks between pecks.

“Fine,” Aemond murmurs. He’s got Luke’s jumper fisted tight in his hands, his own mouth pressing back softly against Luke’s. “I’m fine, love, are you?”

His blood sings at the term of endearment and he nods. He smooths his hands back along Aemond’s hair. “I’m good, you’re good, we’re both great.” 

“I was certain she would kill you,” Aemond whispers. “I knew you had the knife, but when I saw her tackle you, I thought she would—”

“Me too.” Luke is nodding, turning to look at the woman. Her green eyes stare blankly into the snow, blood pooling in a crimson puddle beneath her. “Fuck, good shot.”

Aemond huffs a laugh against Luke’s temple. “We need to go.”

They are on the road again an hour later.

It turns out that the spare tire attached to the liftgate was, in fact, not for show. Aemond gives him a look like he’s truly a lost cause, and sets about changing the tire, unloading the jack and the rest of his tools while Luke flutters about uselessly. There are bodies strewn about the road before them that Luke cannot stop looking at, and Aemond eventually gets so annoyed by his presence that he instructs Luke to pass him things. 

Luke had wanted to wash off before driving again, but Aemond hustled him into the car, stating that the people they just killed probably had friends and those friends might come looking for them. 

Now, Luke is itchy and sticky with drying blood on him, and his new jacket is ruined. 

“It’s hardly ruined,” Aemond says. “It’s black. It blends in.”

“It’s disgusting, for starters. And it’s staining your seats.”

“Also black,” Aemond shrugs. “Don’t be a baby. We’ll clean off once we settle for the night.”

They haven’t talked about the heated exchange from earlier. Luke isn’t sure if it’s because it was a non-issue and required no talking, or if Aemond wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened. Well, that’s not true. Luke knows that Aemond definitely wants to pretend it didn’t happen. 

Normally, Luke would be fucked off by that. Instead, he’s feeling a bit floaty. He’s sore, stiff, and disgusting, but he and Aemond are officially past Wendwater, and are now closer to King’s Landing. After that, it’s on to Dragonstone. 

He hasn’t heard from his family, for obvious reasons. Their last texts to him were frantic and desperate, and some nights they keep him awake. He thinks of his poor mum, sending a text that may not reach him, unable to help Luke when she’s always been able to before. Luke knows that Aemond is right, that if Luke had listened to his mum, he would still be stuck in Storm’s End, or worse. 

Luke has seen worse. He looks at Aemond. He’d pick this, every time.

“Why didn’t we ever see each other?” Luke’s curled in the passenger seat, slouched down enough that he can see the sky through the windscreen. He’s wrapped in a blanket and a dead man’s coat, a bruise blooming out from his right cheekbone, wound at his throat scabbing over, and Aemond is...hm.

It has been a day and a half since the Wendwater bridge. They are clean—or cleaner—but they haven’t spoken about what happened after. Aemond doesn’t have blood on him anymore, but Luke’s mouth is a brand that has left an echo of pain. 

Aemond looks hard at the stars. “We aren’t friends.”

“Weren’t,” Luke corrects. “But you’ve watched me piss my pants, and that transcends friends. We might even be best friends, now.” His voice is light, joking, but the truth of it is underlying in the slight strain. Because maybe once they might have been something like friends, growing up on the same street, going to school and birthday parties together, playing football. But there is too much time and blood and trauma between them now that Aemond can’t even think of how he would wade through it towards something like friends. 

Luke shifts, socked feet coming up to rest on the console. Aemond cups his toes in a merciless grip, cracking them in a satisfying chorus. Luke jerks his foot back, but Aemond’s slid his hand down it, thumb nestled against the sole. “You little git,” Luke says. A pause, then the toes of his left foot wiggle. “Might as well do the other.”

Aemond does. Luke is smiling when he looks back at him again, cheeks red from the cold but no less charming. If he pretends, Aemond can almost imagine they are on a date, driving out to the country to see the stars clearly. Foolish territory to enter. 

They will be in King’s Landing tomorrow. Aemond doesn’t know what to expect when they get there. Doesn’t want to think about what happens after. 

“I used to see you, sometimes,” Luke interrupts his thoughts, flexing his foot against Aemond’s hold. In response, Aemond stretches his legs out fully, resting Luke’s feet in his lap. “You looked lonely.”

Outside, the wind blows. Foolish, foolish, foolish. 

When Aemond doesn’t respond, Luke continues. “You asked me why I went to Storm’s End. Why did you?”

Aemond thinks of the person he was when he left the military; a nervous man, quick to anger. On his worst days, Aemond can see Helaena’s stricken face after he’s knocked his place setting against the wall, red wine dripping down forest green. He hears his mother muttering prayers, and can see the judgemental cut of Aegon’s eyes over his glass.

He was aimless and lost and fixing for a fight, and Storm’s End was a place to escape to.

He can’t say any of this to Luke, though. But maybe his face gives him away, because Luke presses the heel of his foot deeper into Aemond’s thigh, like he’ll take a rain check. 

Aemond is grateful for the console separating them. He’s not sure what he would do if Luke was directly beside him, within his grasp. 

They sit there for a while longer. Aemond thinks it may be because there is nobody waiting for them in the backseat anymore, the absence of Vhagar and Arrax like a punch to the gut whenever he or Luke can stand to think about them. But Luke is nearly asleep, temple pressed to the cold glass, so Aemond shakes him. When Luke blinks owlishly at him, Aemond nods to the back. “Go to bed.”

“Come with me,” Luke murmurs, sleep soft. 

And Aemond can’t. 

He’s out of the car before he really thinks about what he’s doing, feet sliding on the ice. He slams the door behind him, wincing at the too-loud noise in the dead silence of the backroad they are sitting on. Aemond paces forward, hands coming up to cover his face as he inhales the frigid air. 

Already, he can feel the hairs in his nose freezing as he breathes, his lungs singing with cold as he inhales too sharply. “Aemond—”

“Go back in the car.” Aemond’s voice is weak. “Luke, go ba—”

“I’m not! Aemond, would you just turn arou—”

“Lucerys.” Aemond means to snap the word, but it comes out more like a plea. Fucking hell, what is wrong with him? 

Luke appears before him, hands coming up to cup Aemond’s arms. His boots are gaping wide, untied and useless if he needs to run. 

He is so stupid. 

He is so stunning.

“I don’t know what’s stopping you,” Luke’s whisper is nearly carried away by the soft breeze that floats past them, but Aemond is dab fucking hand at lip reading. “But if you think you’re doing something I don’t want, I can promise you that I want it.”

Aemond bares his teeth in a sneer. “Don’t be so sure,” he snaps, but the weakness of his voice doesn’t match the fierceness of his glare. “For starters, we’re fucking related.”

Luke shakes his head. “We’re Targaryens. It’s practically expected. Next?”

“You took my eye.” He feels the absence, an emptiness he hasn’t felt in a long time, followed swiftly by the feeling of Luke’s finger plucking it out, history repeating itself, a macabre ouroboros. He still hasn’t found the sapphire blue stone. “Twice.”

This pauses Luke. He closes his eyes for a long moment, and Aemond thinks yes, this is it, you’ve done it now, but then Luke is standing on tiptoe, using Aemond for leverage as he presses chapped lips to Aemond’s scar, dragging them up in soft, chaste kisses until he reaches the patch. 

“Say you’re sorry.” Aemond’s breath is stuck in his chest. 

Luke’s fingers—cold, light—peel the eyepatch off. His lips are so delicate, so gentle as they pass over the hole in Aemond’s face, following the scar up to kiss at the scabs he carved into his face days earlier. “I’m sorry I hurt you,” Luke says. It is decidedly not I’m sorry I took your eye, but Aemond sort of gets it. He ghosts his hand against Luke’s forearm, where there is a large, ugly scar. 

“What else?” Luke pulls back but not away. 

Aemond swallows thickly. He counters, “Why?”

The smile Luke gives him is brighter than any of the stars above. The wind whispers, but Aemond isn’t listening to it anymore, focused on the way Luke’s lips form the words, “We’ve been circling each other since we were kids. Why do you think we both ended up in Storm’s End? Why do you think it’s us on this trip through the end of the fucking world? We’ve always been bound for this.”

They take each other apart in the back of the truck. 

It’s too cold to fully bare themselves, even with the blankets around them, but it matters so very little when Luke is kissing him like he’s desperate to consume, his hips rolling languidly against Aemond’s. It’s so different from their kisses before, when Aemond had been sure Luke’s throat had been slashed; he’d been desperate then that he would never be able to kiss Luke again. Now, he’s desperate he won’t get to kiss him enough. 

Luke presses a grin to Aemond’s cheek. He’s straddling Aemond, knees to either side of him as their clothed cocks drag against each other. 

“The things I plan to do to you when I have a proper fucking bed.” Luke leans back slightly, blanket draped around his shoulders like a cape. He fists at his cock in his joggers, eyes falling shut. “Make sure to make time for it,” Luke breathes. Aemond’s fingers come up to tug questioningly at the waistband of his joggers. Luke nods.

Aemond’s had his hand on Luke’s cock before, but seeing it is something else entirely. He groans when Luke spits into his palm, gliding a hand over himself like he’s done it a million times before. “You’re stunning,” Aemond breathes, pressing up against him, so close and yet so fucking far. “C’mere.”

He starts to drag Luke forward, up his body. Luke’s eyebrows are raised, mouth twisted in question, until he is close enough that he can feel Aemond’s breath on his cock, the stubble on Aemond’s chin scraping against the damp head.

Luke falls forward at the feeling, effectively caging Aemond in with his body. “Wait,” he breathes. “Are you sure—oh, oh.”

Aemond takes the head into his mouth, tonguing at Luke’s slit. He tastes of salt and sweat, but Aemond doesn’t really mind, pressing hard to the spot under the head and dragging his tongue down as Luke pushes forward into his mouth. 

His hands shift from Luke’s hips, sliding down to cup his cheeks, pushing him forward into the wet heat of Aemond’s mouth. “Fuck,” Luke pants astride him, hips twitching as he keeps himself from sheathing himself in Aemond’s throat. And Seven, wouldn't that be a nice thing, Luke’s cock nestled in the back of his throat like it belonged there. 

Aemond groans, fingers slipping lower to press along Luke’s perineum, cupping his sac with a gentle hand. It’s slick with spit from Aemond’s mouth. “I’m—I don’t think I can last,” Luke moans. When Aemond raises his eye to look at Luke’s face, he is wrecked. Tears dampen his lashes, his breath punching out of him in white clouds. He tries to pull away, but Aemond sucks him deeper as Luke cums down his throat. 

He chokes a bit, which only makes Luke mewl louder, hand reaching down to fist in Aemond’s hair. When he finally pulls away, Aemond follows his softening cock with little licks and nibbles, chasing the last of his spend. 

Luke is fucked-out and raw when he looks back at Aemond, sliding down his body once more to lie against him, hand slipping into Aemond’s joggers. He licks a line from Aemond’s jaw to the corner of his lip, sucking lightly at his own release. “Your mouth,” Luke sighs against him. He curls his palm around Aemond’s cock, tugging lightly. “How do you like it?” Luke whispers against his throat.

“Harder,” Aemond rasps out. A shudder runs through Luke at the sound of it. Aemond reaches down to wrap his hand around Luke’s, showing him. Hard and fast. Dirty. 

Luke spits into his palm again, using his slick hand to jerk Aemond. All the while, he presses soft, biting kisses to Aemond’s neck and the side of his face. When he licks at Aemond’s scar, he’s fucking done for, spilling over Luke’s hand and into his shorts. He almost wouldn’t care, if it weren’t so fucking cold. 

No, sorry, he doesn’t care. Not when Luke is bringing his hand to his mouth and sucking it clean. 

Afterward, they lay intertwined, Aemond in a fresh pair of shorts and joggers, curled about Luke in their combined sleeping bags. Aemond’s fingers had fumbled when he zipped them together, and it had very little to do with the actual cold. 

King’s Landing glimmers in the darkness, a frozen masterpiece.

At least, it’s a masterpiece from atop the high hill. The Red Keep—their family’s ancestral mansion—is quite secluded from the rest of the city, which suits their purposes just fine. 

Or, it would, if it wasn’t crawling with people. 

“Is Daeron taking the piss?” Luke hisses, tucked behind one of the massive topiaries outside the mansion. “How the fuck does he expect us to waltz in there?”

Aemond glares at him from behind what Luke thinks was once a large dragon, but is now very much a malformed, frozen wyrm. 

It’s been an hour since they left the car parked at the base of the hill, and it’s clear Aemond’s paranoia has paid off. They would never have seen the armed guards standing just within the gates of the estate. Aemond makes a couple gestures that Luke takes to mean he wants him to follow him further away from the house. 

With a careful glance back, the two of them slip back into the trees, heading back down the winding hill towards the truck. Aemond is careful and cautious as they go, which is in direct contrast to Luke, who clumps through the frozen snow loudly and unapologetically.

“If they knew we were here, we’d already be caught,” Luke reasons when Aemond tells him to watch his step for the fifth time. “Now, can you call Daeron?”

“No,” Aemond snaps, frustrated. “It won’t even ring. It’s just dead air.”

Great, Luke thinks, but in an effort to be positive, he says, “Okay. Did you recognize any of the people at the estate?”

Now Aemond’s face twists in something like confused anger. Luke’s ankle goes funny as he steps down on a snow drift, and Aemond reaches out to snatch at his arm, keeping him upright. “I think they’re from the Faith.”

“Oh,” Luke says, shaking his boot out. “That’s good, right? Doesn’t your mom like, dedicate her whole life to them?”

Aemond nods, allowing Luke to take the lead. The light of day is slowly fading, the cold creeping in closer. Luke doesn’t know if that means walkers or if it’s a bit more natural, but he hustles along. He doesn’t plan to stick around to find out. 

“I can see why they would be there,” Aemond murmurs. “But it doesn’t look right.”

Something moves in the distance, and they both pause, pressed shoulder to shoulder as they watch a deer creep out several yards ahead between two towering oaks. Its hind leg drags behind it, and Luke can see the gleam of bone. “Right,” Aemond breathes. “Shall we run?”

“We shall,” Luke agrees, and they take off in a sprint, following their earlier footsteps as they run back to the car. Luke doesn’t know if the zombie deer will try to eat them, but he is absolutely not sticking around to find out. 

“Would they recognize you?” Luke asks. They’re back in the truck, curled tight around each other as they try to warm up. Aemond refuses to turn the vehicle on, worried it will give them away.

Aemond thinks about Edmund Rivers, a lanky older man with a sneaky smile. He always caught Aegon trying to sneak the service wine on Sundays, and made sure to tell their mother, too. “He might,” Aemond admits, pressing his cold nose to Luke’s neck. The younger man squirms. “I helped with service, and attended most Sundays with mum.”

Luke nods, twisting in Aemond’s arms to face him. The darkness within the truck plays tricks on Luke’s face; they shift one way, and Luke is the small, chubby boy who cut out his eye; another way, and he is the boy who stared at Aemond with his arm hanging, massacred.

“Then I’ll have to go in by myself,” Luke is saying whilst Aemond writes sonnets in his head about the exact shape of his previously broken nose. “You’re a liability.”

Aemond tightens his arms around Luke, twisting them until he is bearing down on him. “You’re mental if you think I’ll let you go in there alone.” 

Luke scowls. “It could be that your mum is running the place and I can tell her you’re here. Or,” he snaps when Aemond opens his mouth. “It could be that something has happened to them. I’m hoping not, obviously, but we can’t waltz in there and expect to get shown a grand time.”

“What if they hurt you?”

“Who could even imagine hurting someone like me?” Luke bats his eyelashes.

Aemond glares. “I’m thinking about it right now. Specifically about how great it felt to break your nose when we were kids.”

Luke reaches up to rub the crooked bridge. “Enough from you, you don’t count.” He touches a chilled hand to Aemond’s cheek. “We have to know if they're in there. You said Daeron sounded worried when you spoke to him last, and now he’s gone silent. We don’t have a lot of options.”

Aemond watches him. In the shadow of Aemond’s body, he is this braver, stronger version of Luke. Tall and lightly muscled, with the same curls and soft brown eyes and crooked smile. The other versions of him are faded, washed out; Aemond cannot bear to lose this one, too.

But he knows that there are no other ways to get inside the Red Keep.

So, over the next several hours, they plan. 

Luke approaches the walls of the keep with his hands up to either side of his head, a prayer on his lips, and a knife in his waistband. 

Likely, he won’t be able to keep that knife, but Aemond had made sure he’d been strapped with it before he left Luke to make the rest of the trek on his own. 

The first person to see him is a boy around his age. There is a rifle in his hand, one used for hunting, and he points it at Luke so quickly he flinches. “Wait—” Luke is shouting, but another man has waved the boy back, shaking his head. 

He turns to Luke, staring at him from beneath a heavy hood. “Who are you?”

“My name is Joff,” he lies easily. “I—I heard that there were people up here. People of faith,” he explains. Hopefully he looks pathetic enough. “I came to seek sanctuary.”

“And who told you we were here?”

This is where Luke improvises, hoping beyond all hope that his lie passes whatever test this is. “It was written on the doors of the Great Sept.” That had been Aemond’s suggestion; saying he heard it from a random person in the city could be dangerous, marking him as mistrustful. Saying he went to the Sept itself would be more easily believed. He had been seeking the gods when he was lead here. 

A smile grows on the man’s face. “Then I welcome you. I hope the journey hasn’t been too difficult?”

The grimace on Luke’s face isn’t forced. “Not as bad as it could have been, I suspect.”

Ushering him in through the broken gates, the man nods. “Where have you come from?”

“Rosby,” Luke lies, glancing at the boy as he and the older man pass. He’s back to scanning the land before the Keep, and Luke hopes Aemond has hidden himself well from the trigger-happy idiot. “There’s not much left of it, I’m afraid.”

“Not much left of anything, these days. That’s why we keep to our faith so closely.” A hand tightens on Luke’s shoulder. “My name is Edmund, lad. I oversee everything that happens here at the Keep.” 

Luke smiles at him. “Is it just you and the boy at the front?”

“Oh no,” Edmund laughs, using his hand to guide Luke across the front drive. “There are about forty of us, all told. A handful of men are out right now in the city gathering supplies, while most of the women and children are inside. We try to keep them away from the windows and doors; the demons appear up here every so often, but if we stay away from sight, it’s easier to keep them at bay.”

Luke shudders, thinking back to the seething mass of walkers he and Aemond had spotted on their winding drive up to the Keep. Aemond had been so shaken by it that he’d circled back several times, then waited until nightfall to drive with his lights off. The less chance of being seen, the better. The idea of people being safe up here, so close to what has to be a city of them below, is frightening. 

“Not to worry,” Edmund says, sensing Luke’s unease. “We have trained personnel here to deal with them.”

Luke nods, stuffing his hands into his pockets. All the windows along the bottom level of the house are boarded over, and Luke counts three more people around the perimeter of the house. “How did you all end up here?”

“Mrs Targaryen invited us here, you see,” the older man says. “Alicent Hightower, as I knew her growing up, has always been dedicated to her Faith. As soon as it became clear it was no normal snowstorm, she sent a call out to the Sept.”

Luke crinkles his brow in mock concentration. “Targaryen—that’s the Prime Minister, no?”

Edmund’s smile falters, turning into something more subdued. “Ah, yes. Our fearless leader.” Bitterness coats his tongue. “Mrs Targaryen was married to the Prime Minister’s father. A political match, I believe, but a fruitful one nonetheless.”

They enter the Keep, and Luke keeps his face tucked beneath his hood. Edmund guides Luke down familiar halls. His own family stares back at him, frozen in pictures hanging along the wall. There, his mother stands with her horse, Syrax; here, Luke and Jace smile at the camera, smooshed between Helaena, Aegon, and a frowning Aemond. It won’t do for someone to recognize him from those pictures, even if he hasn’t been in one since he was a child. “Is she still here?”

Edmund is quiet for so long that Luke thinks he is refusing to answer the question. They end up in the kitchen, where numerous candles are lit. His eyes are on the door to the basement. “Aye, she is. But Mrs Targaryen is unwell, her daughter even more so. They’re being kept nice and comfortable.”

Luke pauses, finger pressing against the overflowing wax as it drips down the marble countertops. The slight burn of it is grounding. “Unwell?” He asks. “As in... like those things, down in the city?”

“Oh no,” Edmund assures him. “There are none of those demons here. No, nothing of that sort. I’m afraid she’s plagued by demons of her own, you see.” He gazes around the room, a frown pulling at the corners of his mouth. “This family she’s married into, do you know what they are?”

“Vaguely,” Luke murmurs.

Edmund nods, clasping his hands before him. “Heathens,” he says. “Godless people. She has tried to turn them towards the light of the Seven, but it’s so difficult when you are one against legion. I’m afraid it’s consumed her, the poor dear.” 

He claps his hands together loudly, startling Luke into peeling the wax away. “Now, enough about that. How about we get you something to eat, then we’ll find you a bed? There are dozens of rooms here, but surely, we can find you one with space.” He moves until he is blocking the basement door from view.

Gotcha, Luke thinks. He and the others weren’t allowed in the basement much as children, though it was always a popular dare. His grandfather had a massive model of Old Valyria down there, their ancestral homeland. There were dragon skulls that some long ago ancestors had commissioned, and various other family heirlooms. 

There was also Maegor’s vault, which was basically a panic room. If Alicent and the others are still here, Luke bets that’s where. 

Heathens. Godless people.

Those are the words that race through Luke’s mind as he slips from the bedroom he’d been shown to. It’s black as pitch in the house, all the candles extinguished as people went to sleep for the night. Luke knows there are people stationed at the entrances of the house, but the halls are eerily still. 

Whilst darting through them, Luke is a boy of seven again, playing hide and seek in the dark with boys bigger than him. His feet are careful and practised on the polished wood floors, as he creeps down the steps. His shoes dangle from his hands, his eyes dart to the shadowed corners of rooms. 

He’s looking at one such corner in the hallway when a hand tightens over his mouth and Luke is pulled into a closet.

The hand is so tight that Luke is sure his teeth will break, but then Aemond’s voice is whispering, “It’s me,” and Luke is relaxing in the small room. Aemond pulls back, unpeeling his hand from Luke’s jaw. “Did you find them?”

Luke spins around, smacking Aemond hard in the arm. “Ow, what the fuc—”

“What are you doing here?” Luke hisses, leaning in so close he can feel Aemond’s humid breath against his mouth. “I told you to wait outside you gormless twat!”

Aemond snaps, low and fierce, “I told you if I could find a way in, I would. Well, I found a way.”

“What did you do?” Luke asks, trying to peer through the gloom. He can see the shine of Aemond’s eye, but that’s all. “Aemond, if you—”

“There is one less guard at the kitchen door.” Aemond shrugs. “Now we need to move. Where are they?”

Luke wants to stamp his feet, but he isn’t sure what he’ll kick if he does so. He settles for pinching Aemond’s arm through his jacket. “Basement, I think,” he says as Aemond flinches, exhaling angrily against Luke’s face. “Do you know how to get into Maegor’s vault?”

“The panic room?” Aemond asks, realisation lighting up in his voice. “Of course, fuck, why didn’t I think of that?”

“Yes, whatever, but can you get in?”

Aemond pauses, and it’s enough to tell Luke that the answer is a big fucking no. Lovely. Fantastic. Luke is going to die trying to get his mum’s ex-best friend who is also his grandmother out of his crazy ancestor’s paranoia-inspired panic room.

“So, what are we—” 

Luke doesn’t get a chance to finish his thought. In an instant, the door beside them is being pulled open and they are blinded by a flash of light. Luke can feel Aemond trying to move beside him, attempting to push Luke to the side, but it’s too cramped and they both stumble before they are ripped from the closet.

A scuffle ensues, Luke and Aemond both lashing out at their captors. Slowly, Luke’s eyesight adjusts, and he can see the glaring eyes of Criston Cole, Alicent’s head of security, just before he has his arms twisted tightly behind his back.

“Lucerys Velaryon?” He barks, turning to look at Aemond, whose hat has been knocked off. He’s twisted in a headlock, face burning red as he tries to break from the hold. “And... Aemond? What in the world?”

“Indeed,” Edmund Rivers calls from the end of the hallway. He’s wearing a heavy jacket and pyjama pants, his slippers a cheery red. “What is happening here?”

Cole straightens as much as he can with Luke held against him. Luke kicks back at his knees, but the older man nimbly avoids him. “Sorry for the commotion, sir. My men and I have just returned from the city, and we heard noises coming from the cupboard. We thought maybe it was a couple of kids, but we didn’t recognize the voices.” He grunts when Luke grinds his foot into the toe of his boot. 

In one swift motion, he slams Luke into the unforgiving floor. Luke doesn’t have time to brace himself, and the crunch of bone as his nose breaks is loud in Luke’s ears. His muffled scream bounces around the cold hallway around them. 

Aemond is shouting, but Luke can barely focus on it beyond the blood flooding his mouth and the terrible ache radiating out from his face. It feels like his nose has been smeared into the floor itself, and Luke gags when Cole lifts him by the back of the hair, blood pooling on the ground where his face had been. 

“Cristian, that’s enough.” Edmund’s red slippers appear in Luke’s line of sight. “I’m sure the boys would like to offer an explanation?”

Aemond’s chest is heaving as he stares at Luke, who is dazed and bleeding, staring blindly at the floor. Arryk and Erryk Cargyll have him pinned, though they are both out of breath and straining as Aemond tries to free himself. 

Edmund is smiling serenely, eyeing Aemond like he’s some lost sheep who has finally made his way home. “I am so glad to see you, my boy. Come, let us all talk like civilised men. Surely there is an explanation for why you broke into our home.” He turns to Cole, the tip of his slipper pushing Luke’s chin up. “I, for one, would love to speak to Lucerys.”

“Over my dead body,” Aemond snarls. “Where the fuck is my mum?”

Brows furrowing, Edmund clasps his hands in front of him, like in prayer. “I don’t remember you having such a vile tongue, Aemond.”

“I don’t remember you having such a position of power.”

That smile again, only now Aemond can see the evil beneath it. “It is in desperate times that we must rise above our station and lead.” He nods to Cole. “Bring them to the basement.”

Luke whines pathetically when Cole pulls him up by the hair, then locks his arms behind his back once again. The twins have a far harder time wrangling Aemond into something like submission, but one of them lands a blow to Aemond’s head, which gives them the advantage they need to drag him down the stairs. 

Cole shoves Luke the last few steps, and Aemond watches in horror as he falls, knees and hands taking the impact this time. “Cole, if you hurt him again, I’ll—”

“That’s enough from you.” Cole looks at him with disgust, pulling his gun from the holster at his hip. He points it at Luke, who stares up at him with hatred hardening his features. “Look at you, crying over this fucking thing?” 

“Cristian—” Edmund begins, but Cole cuts him off, fury making him tremble. “No, no. Rhaenyra and her ilk ruin everything they touch. Look at you, Aemond. Grovelling like a fucking dog to get to him. And for what? A bastard boy with a whore’s smile?” He shakes his head, the gun trembling in his hand. “You are just as blind as your mother.”

Luke has shifted, sitting on his bum as he glares up at Cole. Aemond’s heart is a warning bell in his chest, loud and desperate as he watches the gun, the anger contorting Cole’s face. A man he looked up to as a boy, who Aemond based himself around, someone with ideals and honour. There is something so pathetic about him now, a child who wasn’t allowed to have something, ruining everything for everyone else. 

“I’m doing you a favour,” Cole says. He is resolute, a mad gleam in his eye that Aemond has seen in himself, once, in a bathroom a world away. He’d put in his resignation a week later, knowing enough about himself to stop. Cole has no such self-awareness. “You’ll thank me, one day.”

And because Edmund and the twins are trying to talk Cole out of doing something stupid, Aemond is the only one who sees Luke reach into his waistband, pulling the knife free in a swift, practiced motion. He presses it almost lovingly into Cole’s middle, then jerks it roughly to the side.

The gun goes off, and chaos breaks out. 

Luke feels the displacement of air when the gun goes off, his ears ringing loudly at the shout of it. Cole’s gun falls from his hands as Luke jerks the knife free, scrambling back and away. But Cole isn’t reaching for him—no, he’s got them pressed tight to his belly as blood seeps through the smile Luke carved into him, thick as syrup. 

Someone grabs onto his curls, pulling tight enough that Luke is sure they’ll scalp him. He reacts on instinct, swinging the knife high above his hand and meeting resistance. The hand releases him, and he twists to see Edmund stumbling away, one hand clasped on his heavily bleeding wrist. “You wicked thing,” he seethes, pale as milk in the darkness of the basement. Candles are lit along the walls, casting everything in an eerie shadow. He advances on Luke again, careless of the knife. And then another concussive bang echoes through the room, and he stills.

Luke can see the moment he realises he’s been shot. His hand presses almost reverently against his heart, and he collapses to the side. 

Twisting to see who did it, he is surprised to find one of the twins pointing his own gun, Aemond’s hand gripping two as he stomps the other twin into unconsciousness. Cristian Cole is gasping like a fish on the ground, gutted, staring at Luke. 

“Aemond,” Luke calls, and his uncle finally stops, breath cleaving out of him as he turns a wild-eyed stare on Luke. “Come here.”

“We don’t have much time,” the twin tells them as Aemond carefully takes stock of Luke’s injuries, tilting his chin this way and that to see the damage done to his nose. “Someone will probably have heard the gunshots. Your family is in the panic room, but there is a speaker you can use to communicate.”

Luke asks, voice thick with pain, “Even without the electricity?”

The twin shrugs. “We think it has a generator of its own, off the main grid.”

Aemond helps Luke painfully to his feet, hands gentle. He holsters one gun—his own, stolen back from the other twin—but keeps the other in his hand. “Erryk or Arryk?”

“Erryk,” he responds, grabbing Cole’s fallen gun. Luke doesn’t hear a difference in either pronunciation, but Aemond seems to and nods. 

“Thanks for the assist.” Aemond is stiff against Luke, and it’s clear he wants to go further into the basement and find his mum. “Can you watch the stairs?”

“Sure,” Erryk agrees. “Try to hurry, yeah?”

Aemond nods, then leads Luke further into the basement.

It’s too dark to see much of anything, but it’s clear the basement has been used as a cold cellar for the most part, various foods and drinks stored down there. He and Aemond take another set of stairs, deeper beneath the ground, Aemond’s torch guiding the way.

“Are you okay?” Luke asks, eager to fill the strange silence. 

“Fine,” Aemond says. His hand on Luke’s is tight. “I need to reset your nose when we get down there.”

Luke sighs, though it comes out more of a wheeze. “I figured. Do you think your mum will be okay?”

Aemond doesn’t answer him, because they have arrived.

Maegor’s vault is exactly that. A heavy, bank vault-like door is the only thing in the small room. The silver surface of it looks frosted, cold. On the wall beside the door is a small speaker and button. Luke wonders if his grandfather had that installed, or someone before him? 

Aemond is careful as he walks forward, pulling Luke along by his hand. Luke wishes he could pick apart Aemond’s mind, figure out what he's feeling right now. Luke squeezes his hand instead.

With a finger on the button, Aemond clears his throat and says, “Mum? Are you in there?” His voice breaks slightly on the question, and Luke shuffles closer, pressing along his arm. He gets a grateful squeeze in response.

The silence is oppressive as they wait for a response. Then, a crackle, a voice, “Aemond?”

It’s like the entire weight of their journey has left Aemond as he hears his mum’s voice. He slumps forward, head resting against the wall. His jaw is trembling, hand holding Luke’s so tightly that the bones grind together. “Yeah, mum. It’s me. I’m with Luke, Daeron sent me to get you guys.”

“How did you get down here?” Alicent’s voice is thick with tears, distrust coating them. “Where is Rivers?”

“Dead.” There is no kindness in Aemond’s voice as he says his. “Cole, too.”

“Okay,” Alicent says. “Stand back, I’m going to open the hatch.”

“You have to hurry,” Aemond is quick to say. “We need to get going before anyone knows we’ve been here.” It might be too late for that now, but he doesn’t say that. 

“Stand back,” Alicent repeats. 

It takes several long moments for the door to open. Luke sways against Aemond, nose still dripping blood, the pain beginning to catch up with him. Aemond’s hand has left his, only to be shifted around to his shoulder, keeping him tight to Aemond’s side. 

By the time the door is open, Luke can feel Aemond vibrating with anxiety. 

Alicent’s tidy auburn head peeks out first, wariness set in the lines of her face, mouth twisted with worry. When she lands on the two of them, that worry fades to relief, and then she is launching herself away from the door and into Aemond’s arm, folding both of them to her. “Oh, thank the gods,” she breathes between them, peppering Aemond’s jaw with kisses. 

She is the first to pull away, turning to Aemond, then Luke. She winces at Luke’s broken nose, fingers gentle as she touches his cheek. “Are you both alright?”

“As well as can be expected,” Aemond shrugs. He peers over her shoulder. “The others?”

Alicent stares at Luke a moment longer, before turning her gaze to the floor. There is something haunted in that look, in the tremble of her shoulders. Before Luke can analyse it too much, she straightens herself back up, voice cool. “Helaena and the twins are in there. Aegon...Aegon did not make it.”

Aemond’s arm shakes around Luke. “What happened?”

Alicent says, “I will tell you soon enough. Let me fetch your sister and we can leave.”

Before either of them can say anything, Alicent is gone.

“You’ve got to be joking.” Luke snaps. “Fucking Daeron.”

“Hey,” Daeron grins, the bandages along his neck and jaw crinkling at the movement. “I’m glad to see everyone!”

Upon returning back to Erryk with everyone in tow, they all crept up into the house proper, prepared to leave through the kitchen doors. They had been sneaky, and quiet, right up until Daeron fucking Targaryen strolled into the room, gun slung over his shoulder.

Alicent and Helaena rush forward, children in their arms, to hug Daeron. Aemond stands in surprise beside Luke, whose nose has just been rebroken, and who would just like to lay very still in his sleeping bag, maybe with Aemond cuddling him. 

There is movement behind Daeron, more people in the same sort of winterized combat gear he is clad in. A heavily bearded, dark-haired man smiles at them from over Daeron’s head, then disappears back into the mix. “We all ready to head out?”

“What the fuck is going on?” Aemond asks flatly, glaring at his brother. “I thought you were in Winterfell?”

Daeron laughs, slinging an arm around Helaena’s shoulders. Aemond’s sister’s eyes are sunken and sad, but the smile pulling at her mouth looks pleased. The hand not holding Jaehaerys close slides over her swollen belly. “Tactical retreat. Rhaenyra called us back to Dragonstone, but I managed to convince Stark to let us stop here to grab you guys. We’ll be flying there shortly.”

“And the members of the Faith?” Luke asks, incredulous. Did he and Aemond just get the piss kicked out of them for fun? 

“They can keep the place,” Daeron shrugs. His mum looks mutinous at the idea, actually opens her mouth to argue, but then they are being shuffled along to the back garden, where...where a military helicopter waits. Fucking unbelievable.

“Fucking unreal,” Aemond mutters, echoing Luke’s thought. “Did you not think to tell me you’d be popping by?” He asks, sarcasm dripping like acid from his voice.

“Called you this morning, but never heard anything. You had me worried, actually!” Daeron laughs. “All for nought, it seems. Now, where’s Egg run off to?”

Helaena flinches against him, and Alicent’s face shutters. The smile slips from Daeron’s face.

Aegon had died protecting his pregnant wife, probably the only noble and honourable thing he’s ever done in his life. 

Aemond listens to his mum tell the story, her voice strong despite the horror of what happened. She had invited the Faith to the house as a sanctuary, knowing there was more than enough room and supplies. She’d been waiting for word, to know what would come next. The city was crawling with walkers, and people were disappearing into the cold. Rhaenyra had sent someone to collect them, offer them refuge on Dragonstone, but the offer had been refused by Rivers, who had grown a following of his own. 

Alicent had argued on behalf of Rhaenyra; it’s what sent Cole running from her side to Rivers, letting the man whisper poison about their family into his ear. Alicent hadn’t told anyone about the panic room in the basement, and when Rhaenyra’s messenger had gone missing, she knew they needed to retreat there. 

Aegon had bought them time to run down there. Rivers had tried to use him to lure Alicent and Helaena out of the panic room, but to no avail. When that didn’t work, he showed them exactly what would happen when they did come out. 

Aemond wonders where his brother’s body is. Was it like Vhagar’s, left out in the cold, only to rise again? Had they burned his body, like Daeron had when they told him about Cole and Rivers in the basement, the other twin fine but disoriented, choosing to stay behind. 

The other members of the Faith decide to stay as well, casting them wary glances as they all make their way to the helicopter. Aemond wants to shout at them, call them fools. The ‘copter is making enough noise to raise the dead, and they are surely crawling their way up towards the house now. 

But the disgust and anger in their eyes has him holding his tongue. He doubts it would do any good. 

He settles in the seat beside Luke, accepting Jaehaerys from Helaena. She helps situate them, tightening the seat belt around them. She takes the seat next to Aemond, their mother and Jaehaerya on her other side. 

There are a few others mingling about, all with heavy, deadly weapons. They look battle-worn, weary, and Aemond supposes they must look the same. Luke is drenched with blood, copper flakes falling away as his face shifts. He tilts his head against Aemond’s shoulder as the helicopter begins to take off.

“I’ll miss the truck,” he says, loud to be heard over the noise. 

“Me too,” Aemond says back. Luke’s hand moves from his lap to Aemond’s, worming their fingers together. 

In less than an hour, they will be arriving on Dragonstone, where the snows have not quite reached, where the world hasn’t quite ended, just paused. They will regroup, and rest; Luke will get his nose looked at, and they’ll be given beds to sleep in, maybe a shower to clean up in. It seems like such an impossible thing, now, to imagine. Surely, they will arrive, and the place will be frozen, or in flames, or decimated in some other way. 

It has been sixteen days since the world ended, since Aemond and Luke embarked on their trip to get home. 

As Aemond settles back in his seat, a dozing Jaehaerys slumped against him, and Luke’s hand wrapped in his, Aemond allows himself to smile. 

Luke is sitting on his favourite cliff, overlooking the city of boats below. Lights are strung between them, planks used as walkways as the party rages below. The sun is low in the sky, burning orange and setting the sea on fire as it sets. 

“Maelor,” Helaena chides softly, drawing Luke’s attention back to the blanket they are sitting on. “You mustn’t put everything in your mouth.” She’s drawing his fist away from his gaping mouth, a handful of grass and mud clutched in the tiny fist. Behind her, Alicent and Rhaena are coming around with bottles of wine, filling glasses liberally as they are held aloft. 

“Let him eat it,” Jace jests, reaching to uncurl his cousin’s fingers, laughing at the outrage on Maelor’s face. “Laena does it all the time.”

Helaena laughs, too polite to say anything about Jace and Baela’s daughter, but Aemond pipes up from where Luke rests against him, “That explains so much.”

Jace casts a dirty look his way. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Baela slaps a hand upside Jace’s head fondly. “Relax. We’re meant to be celebrating.”

Rolling his eyes, Jace leans back on his elbows. Luke settles more against Aemond’s chest, sliding his hands over his boyfriend’s knees. 

Yes, celebrations are in full swing. Luke doesn’t know the whole of what happened—his mother is still trying to sort it out herself, Luke is fairly certain—but the snows have begun to recede. In places where it melts, the dead no longer rise. 

Over the last year and a half, Luke has stayed on Dragonstone, helping support those who were evacuated here, or who made their way on their own. His knowledge of boats—something Luke never thought would come in handy—has been surprisingly useful. Dragonstone was not big enough to host as many people as they have, but they are surrounded by sea and coves, places where boats can drift, where people can find safety. 

The ice never spreads here; his mother thinks it’s the volcano, that the heat is too much for whatever it is that terrorizes the rest of Westeros. 

Aemond has left multiple times, despite Luke’s reluctance to let him go off without him. But Aemond has training Luke doesn’t, and a tighter grip on his fear than Luke has ever managed. So, he leaves, and he comes back, and they love each other as best they can.

Aemond is home for good if he so chooses. Had whispered it to Luke when he stole into their bedroom two days earlier, late in the night. He pressed the promise of it into Luke’s skin with his mouth, taking him apart slowly, methodically. 

Now, Aemond presses a small smile to Luke’s temple, raising his glass alongside everyone else in a riot of cheers and well wishes and joy.

Three days ago, Luke had been walking along these very cliffs when Helaena noticed the patch of wildflowers, growing lazily between the stones.

Spring has come.