when the ship comes in
Characters/Pairings: Daenerys, Viserys. Background Daenerys/Drogo.
Words: 2362
Rating: R
Warnings: incest, dubious consent, abusive relationship
Summary: The world exists twice: the life Daenerys lives, and the life denied her.
Note: Y'all, I have never felt creepier than I did while writing this fic. Title from Bob Dylan, as per. Wrote this for this year's Yuletide.
pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
pray for us now and at the hour of our death
T.S. Eliot
The world exists twice: the life Daenerys lives, and the life denied her.
In another world, her brother might have been her husband. She would have been born too late for Rhaegar, but just in time for Viserys. They would have been betrothed as soon as she could take steps; she would have been raised knowing it was him she was for, and only him. Maybe they would have been happy, then. Maybe he would have been different.
In this world, however, he is not.
The night before her wedding he gets drunk (Daenerys has never seen him drunk before, only because they could never afford such a great amount of spirits) and wakes her up in the middle of the night. She is startled by the crashing sounds of his entrance, the door banging open and a pot falling over, spinning away; his loud dismissal of her servants. Daenerys is on her feet before she's really awake – she's learned by now that that's the only way to be able to handle him, on her feet. In his presence she is always poised like a cat about to tumble.
"Good evening, sister," he says.
She shivers a little in the cool night air. "Good evening."
Viserys frowns. "Good evening what?"
"My lord," she quickly fumbles. "Good evening, my lord."
Then he smiles, easy and wide. They take her by surprise, his smiles. "One day it shall be your grace," he says.
She nods. "One day soon."
He is close enough now to touch her and he runs his knuckles over her cheek, twines a curl around his finger. "Yes. Soon enough. Thanks to you and the price you fetch."
Daenerys doesn't respond; she has nothing to say. Sometimes that will earn her a reprimand but not tonight. Tonight he merely brushes past her so he can look out her window; there is the scent of drink on him, overwhelming his usual smell, his cinder and firewood. The harbor can be seen from her window, just barely, and she knows without looking that that's what draws his eye.
"Imagine it," he says. "My ships. My men."
He's told her to imagine it many times before. "Yes, my lord. It will be…" Her interrupted sleep must be having some affect; her words swim up to her slowly. It had taken her so very long to fall asleep and it was important she look rested, she must look lovely for her husband to be, she's been told so. "It will be magnificent."
"Yes," Viserys agrees, pleased. "Yes, it will. Come here."
With hesitant steps, she crosses to him and he catches her wrist, pulls her in front of him so they're both looking out. It's even colder by the window and her skin prickles with it, rises in gooseflesh.
He leans his cheek against her hair. His hands settle on her hips and then smooth lower before grasping a handful of skirt. Daenerys tenses, confused; his hands are gathering her thin skirt until she feels his fingertips on her skin. She bites back his name on her tongue, waiting before questioning as she has learned to do with him.
Viserys' touch is warm, especially on her cool skin. One hand releases the fabric to rest palm-flat on her hip, her thigh, between her legs. Daenerys presses her lips together, keeps her legs stock-still and just slightly parted. There can be no reaction, not until she knows which reaction she must have.
He strokes her in a way that makes her stomach twist with heat and shame. His other hand climbs up her fluttering stomach to slip beneath the bodice of her gown, finding her nipples, pebbled by the chill wind.
Daenerys swallows her gasp and does not move her hips, though a part of her longs to press down on his hand, search for more, whatever that is. As if in answer to her unspoken desire, Viserys' fingers press deeper inside her. Shamefully, so shamefully, she thinks it is not deep enough.
"This is all we have left to sell," he says, tone wavering as she knows his steps will when he stops leaning on her. Heat is spreading from where his hand is, weaving through her in a different kind of shiver. "This. And I have sold it to the highest bidder." He laughs, a high little sound, a mad sound. "Though it should be mine. I should be the one to take you, dear sister, as was done in the old days." His mouth is on the shell of her ear, hot, and her eyes flutter shut. "Though you are mine, are you not? I can sell you to the rider, but you are still my Daenerys."
When she does not respond, he pinches her nipple sharp enough to make her gasp. "I am," she answers. "I am your Daenerys."
He is crowding closer, his hips pressing her forward, the windowsill digging into her stomach a little. Sometimes they would sleep in the same bed when they were younger, when she was frightened by something and he was feeling charitable; once she felt him pressing into her like this as they slept curled together, hard like he is now. He stopped sleeping beside her after that.
Viserys pulls at her straps so the dress pools at her waist, reveals her to anyone that might look up from the street. "Were there no value to virginity," he murmurs, "I would do it now."
Daenerys' eyes open wide. Would she rather that? Would she have wanted him, if she could have him? If he were not the man he has grown to be, someone she half-hates and half-loves, someone who scares her so deeply sometimes?
Her brother she knows, at least.
"But I shan't." He releases her and steps back, stumbling a half step. She catches her gown before it can fall completely, clutches it uncertainly so she is partially shielded as she turns to look at him.
He has never touched her like that before.
Viserys looks her up and down, swallows deeply when he meets her eyes. His own are bloodshot. "Go to bed," he snaps suddenly, as though she was the one who started this. He turns away and she notices how rumpled he looks, suddenly. How tousled and messy and rough. At the door, he glances back to say, "Tomorrow is the day everything changes."
Once he's gone she stands there, fistfuls of fabric in her hands, body running hot and cold, feeling more confusion than she had known she could feel, and starts to weep.
The first time he hits her, it echoes. She is six. He does not do it again for many years – Viserys deals more in threats than in actions.
The first time he hits her, he is not entirely the other Viserys, the cruel Viserys, sharpness on his tongue and in his eyes. He is still her brother and she hasn't stopped loving him yet. She hasn't begun to hate him.
On his face first is anger, then sorrow, then perhaps guilt. The sharp sound of the smack reverberates around them. By the time the room falls silent again his expression has hardened into cool, distant resolve. Maybe he's decided she deserved it. She doesn't know.
"Go to bed," he sneers, and his voice shakes. "Go to bed, no supper."
They both know he has no supper to feed her anyway.
They dream of ships that will bring them back to their kingdom, filled with loyal soldiers who will cut down their enemies. As she grows older, sometimes Daenerys dreams that the ships will just take her brother away.
The day Daenerys was first presented to Khal Drogo, Viserys was positively gleeful.
With each day they ride, he goes a little bit madder.
He had always been quick to anger; she knew that. But he had been quick to cool too. Now, though, here – here with the road dusty on their skin and the constant sway of horses beneath them, her brother's mind is growing unsteady. Daenerys sympathizes; with the constant heat and sun, the endless horsemeat, she'd been unhappy too. Unhappiness shows itself differently in Viserys' heart, however; Viserys knows only hope and disappointment and, once disappointed, only rage.
He is like a pendulum and Daenerys can never be sure which way he will swing.
The last time he hits her it is a quick slap, a prelude. He has given her that kind of chiding slap once or twice before, but this time there is the fever of wrath behind it. This time he is wild; they crash to the ground before she can find her footing, his hands on her wrists pinning her. Daenerys has a half-thought of her son, what the fall might have done to her son, before Viserys is rearing back – and she curls her fingers around the gold belt she had had made for him (fit for a king, she had said, when requesting it) and brings it crashing into the side of his face.
He is openly shocked. Her blood sings.
"I am a Khaleesi of the Dothraki," Daenerys says, voice rough with exertion and emotion. "I am the wife of the great Khal and I carry his son inside me." Wife, mother; these words have taken on more meaning than sister. "The next time you raise a hand to me will be the last time you have hands."
Viserys is silent, dumbfounded. I am Khaleesi, she thinks, and he is nothing.
He will never hit her again.
Daenerys has a dream that in the struggle, they became flipped – she dreams that she pushed Viserys onto his back as she had done with Doreah. She dreams that she holds down his wrists and calls him the beggar king, a failure, a scared little boy who wouldn't know which way to point a sword if his life was on the line. She dreams of him growing hard like the night before her wedding, pressing against her with muted anger in his expression, reluctance. It would not confuse her so much now. She dreams that she rides her brother as though he is her husband, as though he is her horse, and Viserys calls her name, dany, dany.
Viserys is drunk when he is killed. His steps are sloppy, uneven. The sword at his side is comical; its blade has never drawn blood, unless he accidentally cut himself getting it in the scabbard. Everything about Viserys is pathetically comical but Daenerys is not laughing.
Part of her is sure he will not harm her – Viserys is all threats, after all – but she wonders if she underestimates the hatred he bears her people, her son. Daenerys can feel old reactions creeping into her bones as though they never left, going so still, keeping her eyes locked on her brother's. Their eyes are the same, pale like moons or oceans.
Drogo speaks and Daenerys understands. Viserys never did learn the language.
She is still as her brother cries out in pain when he is dragged to his knees. She is still as the gold heats.
dany, Viserys says, over and over, dany tell them, he hasn't called her that since they were children, dany, dany.
Tell them what? she wonders. The Dothraki would never believe that this pale, whining creature who walks instead of riding could be anyone's king. They would scoff to hear that he was hers once, that he was all she had and she bent to him like a flower under the weight of a bee.
Viserys' smile, before he is killed, is utterly guileless – Daenerys will see it behind her closed eyelids for the rest of her life. They always take her by surprise, his smiles.
She almost wants to touch the gold, feel it. Fire does not hurt her, after all.
They are waiting for ships.
Viserys brings her to the harbor once when she is small, sets her on the carved marble balustrade encircling the water. It terrifies her to be so far up, legs kicking free above the blue water. She could fall to her death so easily. All that holds her in place is Viserys' hands and she is already learning not to trust them.
"Look," he says. His tone is not demanding or pushy or cruel. Today Viserys will be kind. "Look at the ships."
She does, turning her eyes attentively from her possible watery death to the massive ships, beautiful strong wood carved into ladies and beasts and whirling dragons. Their big bellies part the seas choppily and their wide sails capture the wind.
"We came into this port," he says. "You and I, you just a squalling thing." His arm slips around her waist securely and Daenerys can feel his cheek press into her shoulder. "Our mother's belly had been as swollen as a sail."
Daenerys feels guilt then; she deflated their mother, sucked away her life and made it her own. Viserys has said as much before, in his rages.
"One day, sister, we shall be back there," he promises. "Across the sea, where we belong."
He has yet to snap at her so she takes a liberty. "Do you remember it there?"
"Yes," he says instantly, then, "In bits."
He doesn't elaborate so Daenerys hazards a, "What do you -"
"So many questions," he says, somewhat sharply. Still, he continues. "Our father. The throne room." His free hand twists in her hair. "The color of our brother's eyes. My room."
Daenerys is jealous then. She has none of those memories.
In a rare moment of insight, he comforts her. "Don't worry, my sister." He swoops her down off the smooth marble, her heart catching in her throat, and presses a kiss to her mouth. "Think of the ships."
Daenerys does, often. She imagines ships carrying a legion of her father's men - Viserys' men, now - spilling onto the shore, taking the heads of everyone who destroyed her family.
They wait. It's what they've always done.
Characters/Pairings: Daenerys, Viserys. Background Daenerys/Drogo.
Words: 2362
Rating: R
Warnings: incest, dubious consent, abusive relationship
Summary: The world exists twice: the life Daenerys lives, and the life denied her.
Note: Y'all, I have never felt creepier than I did while writing this fic. Title from Bob Dylan, as per. Wrote this for this year's Yuletide.
pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
pray for us now and at the hour of our death
T.S. Eliot
The world exists twice: the life Daenerys lives, and the life denied her.
In another world, her brother might have been her husband. She would have been born too late for Rhaegar, but just in time for Viserys. They would have been betrothed as soon as she could take steps; she would have been raised knowing it was him she was for, and only him. Maybe they would have been happy, then. Maybe he would have been different.
In this world, however, he is not.
The night before her wedding he gets drunk (Daenerys has never seen him drunk before, only because they could never afford such a great amount of spirits) and wakes her up in the middle of the night. She is startled by the crashing sounds of his entrance, the door banging open and a pot falling over, spinning away; his loud dismissal of her servants. Daenerys is on her feet before she's really awake – she's learned by now that that's the only way to be able to handle him, on her feet. In his presence she is always poised like a cat about to tumble.
"Good evening, sister," he says.
She shivers a little in the cool night air. "Good evening."
Viserys frowns. "Good evening what?"
"My lord," she quickly fumbles. "Good evening, my lord."
Then he smiles, easy and wide. They take her by surprise, his smiles. "One day it shall be your grace," he says.
She nods. "One day soon."
He is close enough now to touch her and he runs his knuckles over her cheek, twines a curl around his finger. "Yes. Soon enough. Thanks to you and the price you fetch."
Daenerys doesn't respond; she has nothing to say. Sometimes that will earn her a reprimand but not tonight. Tonight he merely brushes past her so he can look out her window; there is the scent of drink on him, overwhelming his usual smell, his cinder and firewood. The harbor can be seen from her window, just barely, and she knows without looking that that's what draws his eye.
"Imagine it," he says. "My ships. My men."
He's told her to imagine it many times before. "Yes, my lord. It will be…" Her interrupted sleep must be having some affect; her words swim up to her slowly. It had taken her so very long to fall asleep and it was important she look rested, she must look lovely for her husband to be, she's been told so. "It will be magnificent."
"Yes," Viserys agrees, pleased. "Yes, it will. Come here."
With hesitant steps, she crosses to him and he catches her wrist, pulls her in front of him so they're both looking out. It's even colder by the window and her skin prickles with it, rises in gooseflesh.
He leans his cheek against her hair. His hands settle on her hips and then smooth lower before grasping a handful of skirt. Daenerys tenses, confused; his hands are gathering her thin skirt until she feels his fingertips on her skin. She bites back his name on her tongue, waiting before questioning as she has learned to do with him.
Viserys' touch is warm, especially on her cool skin. One hand releases the fabric to rest palm-flat on her hip, her thigh, between her legs. Daenerys presses her lips together, keeps her legs stock-still and just slightly parted. There can be no reaction, not until she knows which reaction she must have.
He strokes her in a way that makes her stomach twist with heat and shame. His other hand climbs up her fluttering stomach to slip beneath the bodice of her gown, finding her nipples, pebbled by the chill wind.
Daenerys swallows her gasp and does not move her hips, though a part of her longs to press down on his hand, search for more, whatever that is. As if in answer to her unspoken desire, Viserys' fingers press deeper inside her. Shamefully, so shamefully, she thinks it is not deep enough.
"This is all we have left to sell," he says, tone wavering as she knows his steps will when he stops leaning on her. Heat is spreading from where his hand is, weaving through her in a different kind of shiver. "This. And I have sold it to the highest bidder." He laughs, a high little sound, a mad sound. "Though it should be mine. I should be the one to take you, dear sister, as was done in the old days." His mouth is on the shell of her ear, hot, and her eyes flutter shut. "Though you are mine, are you not? I can sell you to the rider, but you are still my Daenerys."
When she does not respond, he pinches her nipple sharp enough to make her gasp. "I am," she answers. "I am your Daenerys."
He is crowding closer, his hips pressing her forward, the windowsill digging into her stomach a little. Sometimes they would sleep in the same bed when they were younger, when she was frightened by something and he was feeling charitable; once she felt him pressing into her like this as they slept curled together, hard like he is now. He stopped sleeping beside her after that.
Viserys pulls at her straps so the dress pools at her waist, reveals her to anyone that might look up from the street. "Were there no value to virginity," he murmurs, "I would do it now."
Daenerys' eyes open wide. Would she rather that? Would she have wanted him, if she could have him? If he were not the man he has grown to be, someone she half-hates and half-loves, someone who scares her so deeply sometimes?
Her brother she knows, at least.
"But I shan't." He releases her and steps back, stumbling a half step. She catches her gown before it can fall completely, clutches it uncertainly so she is partially shielded as she turns to look at him.
He has never touched her like that before.
Viserys looks her up and down, swallows deeply when he meets her eyes. His own are bloodshot. "Go to bed," he snaps suddenly, as though she was the one who started this. He turns away and she notices how rumpled he looks, suddenly. How tousled and messy and rough. At the door, he glances back to say, "Tomorrow is the day everything changes."
Once he's gone she stands there, fistfuls of fabric in her hands, body running hot and cold, feeling more confusion than she had known she could feel, and starts to weep.
The first time he hits her, it echoes. She is six. He does not do it again for many years – Viserys deals more in threats than in actions.
The first time he hits her, he is not entirely the other Viserys, the cruel Viserys, sharpness on his tongue and in his eyes. He is still her brother and she hasn't stopped loving him yet. She hasn't begun to hate him.
On his face first is anger, then sorrow, then perhaps guilt. The sharp sound of the smack reverberates around them. By the time the room falls silent again his expression has hardened into cool, distant resolve. Maybe he's decided she deserved it. She doesn't know.
"Go to bed," he sneers, and his voice shakes. "Go to bed, no supper."
They both know he has no supper to feed her anyway.
They dream of ships that will bring them back to their kingdom, filled with loyal soldiers who will cut down their enemies. As she grows older, sometimes Daenerys dreams that the ships will just take her brother away.
The day Daenerys was first presented to Khal Drogo, Viserys was positively gleeful.
With each day they ride, he goes a little bit madder.
He had always been quick to anger; she knew that. But he had been quick to cool too. Now, though, here – here with the road dusty on their skin and the constant sway of horses beneath them, her brother's mind is growing unsteady. Daenerys sympathizes; with the constant heat and sun, the endless horsemeat, she'd been unhappy too. Unhappiness shows itself differently in Viserys' heart, however; Viserys knows only hope and disappointment and, once disappointed, only rage.
He is like a pendulum and Daenerys can never be sure which way he will swing.
The last time he hits her it is a quick slap, a prelude. He has given her that kind of chiding slap once or twice before, but this time there is the fever of wrath behind it. This time he is wild; they crash to the ground before she can find her footing, his hands on her wrists pinning her. Daenerys has a half-thought of her son, what the fall might have done to her son, before Viserys is rearing back – and she curls her fingers around the gold belt she had had made for him (fit for a king, she had said, when requesting it) and brings it crashing into the side of his face.
He is openly shocked. Her blood sings.
"I am a Khaleesi of the Dothraki," Daenerys says, voice rough with exertion and emotion. "I am the wife of the great Khal and I carry his son inside me." Wife, mother; these words have taken on more meaning than sister. "The next time you raise a hand to me will be the last time you have hands."
Viserys is silent, dumbfounded. I am Khaleesi, she thinks, and he is nothing.
He will never hit her again.
Daenerys has a dream that in the struggle, they became flipped – she dreams that she pushed Viserys onto his back as she had done with Doreah. She dreams that she holds down his wrists and calls him the beggar king, a failure, a scared little boy who wouldn't know which way to point a sword if his life was on the line. She dreams of him growing hard like the night before her wedding, pressing against her with muted anger in his expression, reluctance. It would not confuse her so much now. She dreams that she rides her brother as though he is her husband, as though he is her horse, and Viserys calls her name, dany, dany.
Viserys is drunk when he is killed. His steps are sloppy, uneven. The sword at his side is comical; its blade has never drawn blood, unless he accidentally cut himself getting it in the scabbard. Everything about Viserys is pathetically comical but Daenerys is not laughing.
Part of her is sure he will not harm her – Viserys is all threats, after all – but she wonders if she underestimates the hatred he bears her people, her son. Daenerys can feel old reactions creeping into her bones as though they never left, going so still, keeping her eyes locked on her brother's. Their eyes are the same, pale like moons or oceans.
Drogo speaks and Daenerys understands. Viserys never did learn the language.
She is still as her brother cries out in pain when he is dragged to his knees. She is still as the gold heats.
dany, Viserys says, over and over, dany tell them, he hasn't called her that since they were children, dany, dany.
Tell them what? she wonders. The Dothraki would never believe that this pale, whining creature who walks instead of riding could be anyone's king. They would scoff to hear that he was hers once, that he was all she had and she bent to him like a flower under the weight of a bee.
Viserys' smile, before he is killed, is utterly guileless – Daenerys will see it behind her closed eyelids for the rest of her life. They always take her by surprise, his smiles.
She almost wants to touch the gold, feel it. Fire does not hurt her, after all.
They are waiting for ships.
Viserys brings her to the harbor once when she is small, sets her on the carved marble balustrade encircling the water. It terrifies her to be so far up, legs kicking free above the blue water. She could fall to her death so easily. All that holds her in place is Viserys' hands and she is already learning not to trust them.
"Look," he says. His tone is not demanding or pushy or cruel. Today Viserys will be kind. "Look at the ships."
She does, turning her eyes attentively from her possible watery death to the massive ships, beautiful strong wood carved into ladies and beasts and whirling dragons. Their big bellies part the seas choppily and their wide sails capture the wind.
"We came into this port," he says. "You and I, you just a squalling thing." His arm slips around her waist securely and Daenerys can feel his cheek press into her shoulder. "Our mother's belly had been as swollen as a sail."
Daenerys feels guilt then; she deflated their mother, sucked away her life and made it her own. Viserys has said as much before, in his rages.
"One day, sister, we shall be back there," he promises. "Across the sea, where we belong."
He has yet to snap at her so she takes a liberty. "Do you remember it there?"
"Yes," he says instantly, then, "In bits."
He doesn't elaborate so Daenerys hazards a, "What do you -"
"So many questions," he says, somewhat sharply. Still, he continues. "Our father. The throne room." His free hand twists in her hair. "The color of our brother's eyes. My room."
Daenerys is jealous then. She has none of those memories.
In a rare moment of insight, he comforts her. "Don't worry, my sister." He swoops her down off the smooth marble, her heart catching in her throat, and presses a kiss to her mouth. "Think of the ships."
Daenerys does, often. She imagines ships carrying a legion of her father's men - Viserys' men, now - spilling onto the shore, taking the heads of everyone who destroyed her family.
They wait. It's what they've always done.