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When he’d first presented King Aegon with the proposed alternative, his grace had been furious.
Bellowing, he’d accused Larys of mocking his loss, and gone as far as to throw the prosthesis at him (and miss) while making threats impossible for a man unable to leave bed without assistance to follow up on. The insults mean nothing to Larys— words lost most of their power over him when he was even younger than the King— rather it’s the kinship; unexpected, unprepared for, unwanted, that births the gnawing in his heart and belly. His grace’s rage and sorrow are white hot and so, so familiar. Stitches are ripped open simply by virtue of existing near the King, and Larys teeters on the edge of being seventeen and sullen again. A sad, stupid shard of him wants to hold him and weep, so they may shoulder the pain together.
Aegon cannot know that he has this power. He will not know that he has this power.
So Larys apologizes, pockets the offending object, bows, and leaves him to stew. It’s just as well; the King needs his space as much as Larys needs his. Braavos doesn’t lack for entertainment, besides. He’s a rich man, and while his grasp on the city’s regional Valyrian is looser than he’d like, the bravos and courtesans he employs all understand the language of gold. Larys had inquired after and ultimately commissioned the prosthesis at one of the latter’s pillow houses— he’d made time for it before a visit to one of his favorites.
He goes to that favorite once more while he waits out the boring hours it will take for Aegon to tolerate him again. She’s close enough to the real thing for him— despite her freckled face, the gap in her teeth, her red hair’s brown roots. Her dark eyes are enough. He tries to think about what to say to the King when he returns as the woman indulges him in his play-ravishing, screaming denials in Common as she states and restates how disgusting she finds this and him.
Aegon is a sensitive and prideful creature. Self flagellation will likely be called for, followed by assurances on top of assurances for his grace. He’ll be most receptive during his bath tonight, the hot water soothes him, he thinks, as he latches onto the woman’s nipple and ruts against her leg. She calls him pathetic.
Larys sometimes berates himself for not having the Queen like this while he had the chance. It’s not like she would’ve ever told anyone. The only thing worse than being dishonored by a cripple is having the world know you’ve been dishonored by a cripple. She’d sooner die. She’d sooner die than have anyone know that Larys—
He bites the woman’s breast until he tastes blood and she cries, threatening to signal the bravos in the hall. He holds her down and rides her thigh until it’s over. He licks the salt from her face and leaves her dirty.
(He compensates the proprietor for the damage on his way out. It won’t scar. He can be expected back within the month. His money is too good to be turned away.)
Indeed; his grace is quiet and polite enough when Larys returns to their manse that evening. There are no apologies— none were expected.
“Welcome back,” is what Larys gets instead, which is surprise enough on its own. Aegon is sat on the edge of his bed, looking small and drawn in one of the billowy nightshirts that he wears all day anymore. He worries at the ties on the front with his mostly unscathed hand while staring at the bedclothes.
Larys nods in acknowledgement, despite being unseen. “Happy as always to be back, my King. Have you eaten?”
“Yeah. Fish. Again.”
“I’ll inform the cook that tomorrow’s supper must differ, then. In the meantime your grace, the staff is drawing your bath.”
“Fuck,” is whispered. Aegon begins a whine but cuts himself off, finally looking at Larys. The scarring has dragged down the skin surrounding his left eye, and its lid stays put while his right blinks at him. “Do I have to?”
“It is necessary for your continued health— you must keep your strength up, my king.” Larys knows better than to remind him of the infections he sustained on the ship over, when neither of them had been able to wash.
Aegon barks out a laugh. “Oh yes, my strength. Strong as an ox, me.” He raises an arm for Larys regardless.
The King is not yet able to get around with the crutch on his own, but he has advanced enough to do it with only Larys’s help. He refuses the assistance of staff. Larys reminds himself of his great luck in the long term regarding that development to drown out his ankle screaming at him with every step the two of them take to the washroom.
(Larys must always satisfy a need. He cannot justify his continued existence otherwise. Living simply to live is a luxury he has never been afforded.)
They both grunt when Aegon reaches the stool by the steaming tub. The boys who filled it have lingered, and the King shouts for them to “get the hell out,” which they do. Aegon knows the next parts will hurt.
“Oh— oh God,” he says as he lifts his arms for Larys, stressing the extreme tightness in his bad shoulder. Larys lifts the nightshirt up, over, and off as quickly as possible. Aegon, as usual, presses his legs together in a bid to hide. Neither of them look at the scar.
“Get it over with,” he sighs. “Get me in.”
Larys does, wincing at the scream loosed when the King bodily lands in the water and bangs his bad knee against the side of the bath. Aegon braces himself against the rim, grits his teeth, growls, whimpers, settles. Larys unbuttons and rolls up his sleeves.
The act of bathing the King is a careful one in both preparation and process. Scented soaps and oils are out of the question, and after that exclusion only the gentlest available must be used. The sponge is only to be used on his grace’s unscarred skin, the burns are to be cleansed with either a rag or the hands. Larys alternately sweeps the cloth over Aegon’s scalp and runs his fingers through the pocket where the tissue pulls his brow down to his cheek, behind what remains of the shell of his ear. The King shudders.
“Why did you get that thing for me?” he asks, as Larys washes his broken leg with extreme care. Larys doesn’t ask what he means.
“Such substitutions have been known to soothe, in the face of loss,” he says, attempting to flick a strand of hair away from his face and failing. “I thought of other cases and made an assumption. I deeply regret my offense, your grace.”
(Sympathy for the boy had led him to the decision. It must never happen again.)
Aegon hums. “‘S alright.” The hot water always makes him drowsy, pliant. “So, like, I’d wear it around?”
“That was the idea, your grace.” There had been flaccid models for daily use available, too.
“…Still couldn’t fuck with it though.” The King is speaking of hips that can no longer withstand much exertion or pressure of any sort. “Not ever. Who the hell would, anyway?”
Larys needs him off the topic. When Aegon feels useless his mind wanders to its darkest places. Larys is not in the mood to talk him down from any proverbial ledges. “None of us can claim to know what the future holds, your grace.”
“Hmph,” he returns, as Larys gently finger combs his wet hair. They finish the bath in silence.
It’s only later in bed, when Larys is stood nearby and preparing to dose him for sleep, that Aegon pipes up again.
“Do you still have it?”
“Your grace?”
“The fake cock.”
Ah. “It’s in my satchel, your grace. I’m happy to dispose of it if that is what you wish.”
Aegon shakes his head. “Show me again. I want to see something.”
Larys quirks a brow, but does as he’s asked. It’s an unassuming enough thing; a shaft and bollocks wrought in smooth wood with loops for threading a belt through. More extravagant options were available to him, but Larys hadn’t wanted to make assumptions about the King’s taste. (Though he could guess it trended toward the gaudy.)
Aegon takes the prosthesis from his hands, inspecting it for something unclear. He’s naked, save for the sheets covering the lower half of him.
Larys is about to ask if there’s anything else his grace requires of him before he retires when Aegon reaches out and grabs at his crotch.
It takes all of his will not to jolt or pull away with the shock. “Your grace?” he manages.
“Show me,” Aegon breathes, a thread of malice in his voice. “I want to see how you measure up.”
Larys doesn’t take long to manage his breathing. His mentoring of the young King is the most important undertaking of his life thus far. Concessions must be made. Gingerly, he parts his coat and shirt to open his breeches and pull himself out. Aegon’s eyes are nearly black when he smirks.
“Touch yourself. I need you hard.”
Larys looks at the King. There are not many left who would call him beautiful, but Larys is one among the few. The pitted, thick scar tissue is a striking contrast to soft, pale flesh that’s never known a moment’s work; his torso bisected into an angry, ridged pectoral on his left and a dainty pink nipple on his right, with a generous stomach waiting below. His sagging eyelid lends a perpetual sadness to his face, which itself still bears the ghosts of baby fat and boyishness on both sides. His dark eyes are enough.
Aegon guffaws once Larys is fully erect. “Alright, let’s see.” Inelegantly, he pushes himself forward on the bed and holds the prosthesis up next to Larys’s cock.
“Hah!” The King pulls back with a devilish grin. “Mine’s bigger!”
“So it is.” Was that all? Are you done?
Aegon cackles. “You like them big, eh?”
Larys takes great pride in the extent of his patience. It is worryingly close to its end. “I suppose I do, your grace.” That makes Aegon howl.
“I knew it! I knew you were queer! I knew it!” Tears well at the corner of his good eye and run freely from the bad one. “Oh, Ned owes me.”
Larys counts his breaths and reminds himself that the King is still young, and that good Ser Ned is miserable and freezing at the edge of the world. He moves to put himself away as Aegon’s giggling dies out. “If I may— it is growing late, my King, and I would like to retire—”
Aegon grabs his wrist and squeezes. “You may not.”
Ah, he thinks, regarding the insistent hand upon him. So it’s like this.
He’s known since before they docked that Aegon’s habitual urges remained within him. Several serving girls had already either complained directly of the King making attempts or looked so frightened they hadn’t had to. The last one had been sent away a week ago; only the men remained. The men and Larys.
Aegon’s face is making an attempt to menace him. “Get on the bed.” The King tugs on his arm, nearly toppling Larys over. He catches himself with his other hand on the edge of the mattress with a gasp and a grunt, cane clattering to the ground and rolling under the bed. “Now. On your knees.”
Larys remains calm, or tries to. He’s survived worse blows to his dignity, and— this is more luck, isn’t it? Aegon has exhausted all other avenues; Larys is all he has left. It’s a bit funny that this keeps happening, but his life has always felt like a joke. He knows from experience that there is advantage to be found in being a last resort, power in being the shameful secret.
It’s not like Aegon will ever tell anyone.
“As my king commands,” he utters, crawling his way onto the heap of silk and linen.
Aegon’s eyes go huge and moony as a smile wobbles up onto his face, leering at Larys as he negotiates himself into position. Larys belatedly wonders if he should’ve taken off his boots.
The King doesn’t seem to mind, ogling away while nervous laughter shakes his entire frame. Partial paralysis in the face has lent a charming crookedness to his smiles. “Fuck me, you actually said yes.” Aegon grabs Larys’s belt to pull himself toward him, both their bodies lurching with the effort. “I can’t believe this— you are a freak,” he says, sniggering. “You’re a real fucking freak!”
He is. He is. No one has ever let him forget that.
Larys struggles to remain on his hands and knees as Aegon clumsily flips up his tunic and shoves it up over his hips to get at his waist, yanking his trousers down. The King navigates behind him and inspects.
“Hairy, aren’t you?”
Larys can imagine the wrinkled nose accompanying the question. “Mm-hm.” Laughter again. Laughter and more laughter. He hears Aegon spit and jolts when the cold splash hits him. Larys forces himself to relax as he continues spreading him, tries to coax his body into accepting the invasion.
Aegon’s snickering is quieter now, more intermittent. “Don’t even need much help. Plenty wide before I got here.” His fingers are painful, of course. “You really are a faggot.”
Says the boy who knew preparation would be needed at all. Thinking on it however, it’s possible that Aegon was merely adventurous on his own sojourns through self love, if the things Larys saw scattered about his chambers over the years were any indication.
(And yes, there have been men. There will likely be more men. Aegon doesn’t need to know— not yet.)
“Please,” he breathes, recalling the boy’s often overwhelming need to be wanted. “My king, please, I need you.”
Aegon is silent at last, withdraws at last, and Larys fears for a moment he has overplayed his hand. The anxiety is assuaged by the sudden, warm press of the King’s torso against his back, a weak arm grabbing at the front of his clothes. A nose settles in the space behind his ear.
“You love it,” Aegon utters. A stiff, thick presence nudges at his opening. “You love it.”
He’s not ready enough. He must endure— the King is desperate for a moment of adequacy. “I love it. Please, your grace. I love it. I need it.”
Aegon’s gasp is short and high pitched, like he’s about to cry. The cock shoves its way inside and Larys bites down a scream.
It’s big, it’s dry, it hurts. Larys thinks of how Aegon might react if it comes out bloody. He moans like a whore.
“That’s right,” Aegon huffs, and like he’s read Larys’s mind: “Fucking whore. Take it.”
“Perfect,” Larys returns, his quick mind at work even now. “So perfect, my king. So good.”
Aegon’s grip on him turns into an embrace, and Larys knows he has him on the hook.
“I want you only,” Larys croons. “For the rest of my life. Only you. So sweet.”
Deep, panting breaths gust over where the King’s face is pressed against his nape. Spatters of wetness land against Larys’s neck and run under his collar. “Larys, Larys, Larys,” he murmurs. “Fuck, I can’t—”
Larys blindly reaches behind him to paw at the King’s hair. Aegon sobs.
“The sweetest. You’re the sweetest boy I’ve ever had.”
“God, Larys, I can’t— fucking— I can’t…!”
The shoving stutters behind him as Aegon cries, before abruptly halting— Larys is suddenly alone and cold. The cock slides out of him and onto the sheets with an embarrassing sound. He hasn’t finished.
When he turns around he sees Aegon lying on his back atop his pillows, weeping into his hands. His legs are shaking violently. Larys sees the scar between them in stark relief for the first time; a pink, puckered field of skin across the mound beneath a wiry tuft of pale hair, tapering down into the base of his shaft, of which perhaps half an inch remained. No testicles are present. Aegon’s white stomach contracts rapidly with his quick, miserable breathing.
“It hurt too much,” he moans, “Keeping on my knees, it hurt too much, I can’t— I still can’t—”
Larys refuses to leave this room a failure. He hastily knocks the dirtied member off of the mattress and onto the stone floor, shuffling up the bed to Aegon’s face. He lays a hand on his bicep as he whispers in his right ear.
“My king…”
Aegon snaps his head up to face him, his right cheek red and puffy with tears, glistening snot beginning its journey down his upper lip. “Are you deaf now, too?! I can’t! It’s over! Just drag your twisted, gimp arse off to bed and leave me the hell alo—”
Larys grabs Aegon’s face and kisses him hard. His tongue drives its way inside his mouth when he opens it in shock. Weak arms push at his chest to try and shove him away. Larys is stronger.
He keeps kissing when he pulls away to let the King breathe— going for Aegon’s left side immediately to pepper them across his brow, scalp, cheek, jaw, chin. He turns his head in his hands to tongue into his ear.
“What the fuck?” is all Aegon says. He is frozen.
“It’s not over,” Larys supplies, nibbling at the remains of the shell surrounding the hole. “I’m not done.”
He continues— bites and kisses down the neck, the collar. Larys moves to the unburnt area of the chest to go at the nipple, making Aegon yelp and keen. He only gets wise to what is about to happen when Larys moves down his stomach.
“No— no! Don’t.” He can’t close his legs: Larys is already there. “Please.”
“Perfect,” Larys repeats. He runs his face over the mound, breathes over what’s left of the shaft. “Perfect. Beautiful.”
“No.”
Bracing one hand on the mattress and bringing the other down to touch himself, Larys kisses the stump before taking it in his mouth. Aegon cringes all over.
“Oh my God, no.”
Larys hums, licking at the flesh as he keeps up his stroking. His foot makes its displeasure known; he’s been on his knees for far too long. Only a bit longer now.
He gives a low whine as he gets closer. Aegon places a shivering hand in his hair.
“The fuck,” he whispers. “Oh, what the fuck.”
He’s still petting him when Larys cums on the mattress.
Larys releases the King and kisses him there once more, before quietly and quickly retrieving a handkerchief from his satchel to mop up the spill. He bows his head.
“Thank you, your grace.”
Aegon doesn’t say anything. When Larys looks up at him, his eyes are wide and gleaming.
“Why?”
Larys has to smile. “Because you are most dear to me, my king.”
He stays silent as Larys pulls his trousers back up and ungracefully grasps for his cane under the bed. He stays silent while Larys stands and prepares his dose, stays silent as he downs it. Larys has given him a fraction more than usual for good behavior.
Larys is about to leave when Aegon grabs for his wrist again, only catching the edge of his sleeve this time. “W-wait.”
“Yes, my king?”
Aegon can’t look him in the face. “…Stay with me until I fall asleep?”
Pride swells in his chest. “Of course, your grace.” Propping his cane against the bedside table, he pulls the bedclothes up to the King’s shoulders and crawls in to lie atop them, sidling up to Aegon.
“Hold me?”
Larys rolls on his side to do so, bringing an arm to lay gently across the King’s chest. His fingers make small circles there over the blankets.
Aegon turns his head on the pillow. His mouth twists as he finds his words. “Thank you,” he says finally, softer than he’s been all night.
Larys smiles again, moving his hand from Aegon’s chest to touch his face, thumb stroking at the scar tissue rippling over his cheek. Aegon shuts his eyes and cries softly, a tear wetting Larys’s hand.
“Shhh,” Larys whispers. “Go to sleep, sweet boy.”
When he does, Larys moves out of the bed and the room as silently as he can manage, snuffing candles as he goes. He spares Aegon a last glance before shutting the door. The bed engulfs him; he looks as small as a child.
Grinning a final time, Larys returns to his own room to sleep alone.