Chapter Text
CandyBoyz.com
Valarr couldn't even remember where he got the name from. Was it his uni friend David? The man had the makings of a sex addict, and he had no qualms about sharing his ever-growing body count every time they hit a bar on a Friday night. Or maybe he caught a glance of it on one of the flyers scattered on the streets of Oxford when their party group would hop into the next establishment for one more round of beverage?
No matter the source, Valarr found himself clicking the link anyway.
The website’s design was, to say the least, tacky. With its mismatched fonts, clashing color scheme and photo editing of a ten-year-old in a computer lab — all carelessly mixed together — it gave the impression of a cheap scam. Far from the pristine simplicity of the websites, Valarr got used to working on in the family business. However, his purpose here wasn't to feast his eyes with well composed layouts.
The main page immediately encouraged visiting one of many currently ongoing live streams. Rows of men of different ages and body types. Some of them opted for simple nudity, whereas others were clothed in skin-tight latex or costumes.
Valarr found himself not interested in any of them. They were all objectively attractive people, but none of them struck him as particularly alluring.
But again, he wasn't sure what exactly he was looking for. It was hard to pinpoint when exactly the shift had started. He and Kiera had been together for almost ten years now. They met shortly after both of them had started high school. Kiera’s parents struck a deal with the Targaryen family business and Valarr’s father, always a diplomat, used every opportunity to strengthen the ties between the two families.
When Valarr announced his relationship with Kiera, everybody accepted the news as if it was always meant to happen and to this day, she remained the only person he had ever dated.
Therefore, the search quickly became a dull task — profiles blurring together, failing to keep his attention. Maybe it was for the best? He shouldn't be doing it in the first place. His wedding ring— such a familiar element in his life — suddenly felt like a scorching knife threatening to cut the flesh off. As if Kiera knew what he was up to.
She didn’t. Of course she didn’t. Yet it failed to ease the guilt that boiled in Valarr for simply looking.
About to close the website, he took one last glance at the thumbnails and immediately paused.
He scrolled through plenty of twinks — lean, mostly hairless bodies, all similar to one another. And this particular photo wasn't any different. It was the username attached to it that caught his attention.
Valarr blinked, making sure he wasn't imagining things. But no, BrighflameBoy handle was still there — written in bold letters and labeled with a yellow check mark to its right.
Maybe it was just a coincidence. A joke played on Valarr by the universe. After all, bright flame were just two words like any others and could be used by anybody.
As if it was yesterday, he could remember the confidence with which Aerion proclaimed his made-up title when they had played together in the gardens of Summerhall. During this short time as kids, they used to get along. They liked to play-pretend they were noble knights, dueling with each other to protect the honor of their lords.
Valarr smiled at the foggy memory. Those were brighter times, nothing but grazed knees, dirt under the nails and leaves tangled in their hair. Before aunt Dyanna died. Before Aerion’s already crooked edges sharpened and became lethal.
After the funeral, Valarr and Aerion would rather avoid each other every time they met at a family gathering. Their age difference didn't help either. Valarr, at sixteen, was far more engrossed in perfecting his grades in preparation for the inevitable university application and his freshly started relationship with Kiera. Aerion, who had just became a teenager, spent his days tormenting his younger siblings and significantly accelerated the graying of Maekar’s hair.
When Valarr’s father was alive, he kept the strained relationship between Maekar and Aerion relatively in check, constantly taming the fire that threatened to get out of control. However, with Baelor dead, it was a matter of time before this fire would turn into a full-blown conflagration burning everything in its way.
Valarr was up to his ears in uni work when it finally happened. His life circled between classes, study sessions at the library and his dorm, where he spent late hours on his coursework, running on food delivery and energy drinks. Back then, his relationship with Kiera felt like a calming balm. She was also overwhelmed with assignments, and they kept each other company, a lot of the time filled with silence — both of them too exhausted to string a conversation longer than a few sentences.Maybe if he was in Summerhall that day he would have been able to lessen the blow. To calm his uncle down. To propose a less radical solution. Unfortunately, by that time Aerion was already eighteen. And with his difficult personality, years of accumulated resentment and money cut, off there was nothing keeping Aerion at home.
Valarr tried to contact him after finding out what had happened, but all Aerion’s social media had already been deactivated and when he called him, he was greeted with “The number you're trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please, try again later.”
Valarr shifted uncomfortably in his chair, wiping sweat off of his hands against his pants. Then, finally, he clicked the username.
As the page loaded and more photos came into view, he gave out a loud sigh.
If only Maekar could see what his banished son was currently up to. What a stain on the Targaryen name he would say.
Valarr, on the other hand, felt only the overwhelming sense of relief. He hadn’t seen his cousin in years, the guilt of not being able to prevent the final clash between Maekar and Aerion gnawing on him for years. Up to this point, he wasn’t even sure if Aerion was still alive.
He had to admit that time served Aerion well. Despite losing access to the family fortune and all the privileges that came with their last name, he managed to preserve the sharp, aristocratic feeling to his lines.
Valarr remembered him as a teenager with long, awkward limbs, his body barely out of its puberty phase. Now he looked more defined, the outline of muscles under pale skin, but his form remained rather slim.
His white-gold hair was cut short, further sharpening his cheekbones. As a child, Aerion would throw a fit every time somebody would dare to mention cutting his hair higher than his collarbones, insisting that their noble ancestors wore it even longer, and he wanted to be like them. As a result, little Aerion would be a sight of what could only be described as divine beauty with his long hair shimmering like angel's wings when he ran in the sun.
Valarr browsed through Aerion’s profile. He had to be doing the camming thing for a while now because it took Valarr a moment to scroll to the bottom of the page. The oldest post was a grainy, poorly exposed photo from three years ago, which meant Aerion started on this website over a year after he had been kicked out. If Valarr wasn't already aware it was Aerion, he would have trouble identifying the person on it. Aerion posed by the blank wall. The angle was strange, probably taken with a phone on an improvised stand. He was shirtless, wearing a pair of low-rise, washed-out jeans with the waistband of white underwear poking out around his hips.
The majority of Aerion’s videos was hidden behind the paywall — blurred thumbnails with a padlock in the upper left corner. Valarr could only assume that the available photos were extremely tame compared to the content people had to pay for.
There were only five free photos. One he had already looked at, three simply showing Aerion naked from waist up, nothing that couldn't be posted on a public social media profile. The remaining two were bolder. Aerion splayed on the bed, his back arching up toward the camera that was somehow placed over him. The photo ended just at his hips cutting through the path of fair hair at his navel. The most explicit one with his back to the camera, sitting on his shins with his ass and feet right at the center.
Valarr’s interest was peaked.
He rummaged through his wallet and grabbed the old, disheveled credit card, its custom design long scratched away. It was his secret card he made in the first year at uni, for him to use it whenever he didn’t want his family to know.
As far as he could remember, it should still hold enough money to pay for the subscription.
His fingers trembled with anticipation as he typed in the numbers.
The transaction was successful, and the website refreshed, welcoming him with the newly unlocked content.
But before he could even catch a glimpse of anything, a notification of an upcoming live stream popped up. Valarr straightened up looking at the clock. It was about to begin in just ten minutes.
He debated whether he should join in. His account was fully anonymous with a username he came up with on the spot that bore no connection to him. He assumed there was no reason for Aerion to check the transaction details as long as the money went to him unhindered.
Then, the timer reached zero.