Chapter Text
Part I: An Existential Threat
Arthur
Rhaegar closed the door behind him. “That wasn't too bad.”
They both stared at his hand. The door itself was reinforced, but the handle now bore the shape of his fingers. “You'll get used to it.” Everyone needed some time to adjust after having been Made.
Rhaegar sighed and didn't say anything else while they walked through the corridors of the Red Keep Hotel and Casino. Arthur was curious, but already relieved – they'd expected Aerys to throw a tantrum over Rhaella Making him.
Out by the car, he opened and closed the door for Rhaegar. No need to have him break anything.
Useful things, cars. A lot better than carriages.
“Where to?”, he asked.
“The Dragonpit.”
Good. He was hungry as well.
Rhaegar only spoke again after a while: “Apparently her Making me is fine because he ‘didn't want me in his head anyway’.”
The less good thing about cars: there were more of them now. Traffic, sometimes. “That's convenient.” Rhaegar had not wanted the bond it created with Aerys, who had also simply been taking too long – so long that even Rhaella had acted without his permission, for perhaps the first time in her life.
“It's a lie. He would've loved being able to control me more, but what can he do now? It's too late, so all he has left is to pretend that it was his plan all along.” In the rearview mirror (a new thing, and useful), he could see him look out through the window; eyes catching on one passer-by after the other as they drove through King's Landing's southern nightlife district. The new level of hunger would need time to get under control, too. “The bigger news, anyway, is that I'm engaged.”
That wasn't too surprising; the Targaryens needed allies. “Who's the lucky lady?”
Rhaegar's eyes met his in the mirror. “Elia Martell.”
Much more of a surprise. “How the fuck did he agree to that?”
“A lack of options, I assume. As in: options he'd be even remotely fine with.” He didn't seem too enthusiastic, either. “You must've met her. What is it with all that talk of her being frail, somehow?”
Part of Arthur felt like he shouldn't say anything, but it wasn't a large one. He was far past loyalty to anyone but Rhaegar. “She's not. I haven't seen her since she was a child, so I can't tell you much, but Ashara told me what that's all about. You know how the Martells have venom.”
A hum. “They like to make sure we all know.”
“She's got too much. Used to have episodes where it took all her time to avoid poisoning herself. Being Made helped; she has more control over it now.”
Predictably, Rhaegar smiled when he looked at him again. “So you're saying she's too strong?”
Arthur could tell how much he liked that thought by the energy suddenly filling the car; couldn't avoid another glance in the mirror as his eyes were involuntarily drawn to him and his perfect face. His Making had only made him stronger in that regard as well. “Get yourself together. It's not actually a good thing.”
More of a smirk, now. “Sorry.” It subsided. “Whether it's good or not, it's very attractive.”
He could only shake his head as he slowed down in front of the Dragonpit. “Let's just hope you survive the wedding.” The idea of a Martell biting Rhaegar didn't sit right with him.
After parking behind the establishment and thus out of view from any humans passing by, he didn't get out of the car but turned around, giving him an expectant look. That got a sigh. “It's the Dragonpit.”
“Can't be too careful.”
“You're overprotective.” He pulled his sleeve up anyway.
Arthur took his wrist, extended his fangs. “That's exactly what I'm there for.”
Rhaegar hissed when he bit him, which was really exaggerating. As always, he tasted like impatience, ennui, and his reluctance to form any bond.
It didn't take much to reinforce theirs and now Arthur could feel his hunger, too. “Don't act like it's so bad”, he said as Rhaegar's skin closed up.
“Sometimes I think we'd all be better off if we just stayed out of each other's minds.”
Arthur shrugged, knowing (and feeling) that it was really the intimacy that bothered him. “You can bite me back if it'll make you feel better.”
“It wouldn't.” He opened the door, carefully. “Your alertness just makes me nervous.”
He could really use more of it, but that wasn't a discussion worth having.
Soon after, they stood on the gallery overlooking the Dragonpit's dance floor. “What do you feel like?”, Rhaegar asked him. Through the bond, Arthur could tell he was ravenous, and had to admire his self-control considering the hundreds of warm human bodies dancing beneath them.
“I feel like getting you fed very soon.”
He clearly agreed. “This isn't the time to be discerning. Those two?”
A man and a woman close to the stairs to the gallery, leaning against the wall with drinks in their hands and not looking like they were having the best time. Not dressed like the usual clientele, either. They'd most likely come in from the country.
The Dragonpit was Rhaegar's hunting grounds, but also his pet project. Establishments like this had always existed, but now...
Humans were more free these days. Most of all, women could do much more than even a decade ago, and it showed: corsets and bustles had been replaced by short and simple dresses, hair was even shorter, and you would see them out alone at night.
Even beyond that, lines were blurring – who was a woman and who was a man; who was dancing with and kissing and fucking who. All this place had was one door when it really hadn't been long since it would've needed three and a password. That was fast even by their lifespans.
The ones Rhaegar had pointed out were clearly uncomfortable. The strange new music, the even stranger dancing, the men in dresses and women in suits – too much. The bouncers were instructed to always let a few people that wouldn't fit in through the door anyway; it attracted less attention to feed on them than on someone who came every week and knew others who did the same.
Arthur nodded. “Hope they're not too drunk.” It wouldn't taste good in that case.
Rhaegar didn't even seem to care. His hunger was exacerbating Arthur's own, as was the feast laid out on the dance floor. They could so, so easily jump down into the crowd and gorge themselves on all that hot blood...
He could hear their hearts beating over the rhythm of the music and the lights. “You're not helping”, Rhaegar said as they walked down the stairs.
“How did you even feel that?” It had been so long since he'd had Arthur's blood.
“It never really goes away.” Then they reached their prey and he, obviously not inclined to waste another second, turned the Targaryen allure on.
They both looked at him. People who were dancing some distance away looked at him. Arthur looked at him, too. He suddenly felt the strong desire to touch him and a compulsion to do exactly as Rhaegar wanted – which he absolutely knew, but that was fine; they were both so used to it.
Those two could only stare at him, mesmerised. “What are your names?”, Rhaegar asked them, the sound of his voice cutting through the music even for their human ears.
The woman's eyes were fixed on his lips. “Maycey.”
He looked to the man. “Deran.”
“Maycey and Deran.” Rhaegar smiled and the man's mouth dropped open just slightly. Arthur could tell how fast their hearts were pounding. “I'm the owner of this establishment, and it's very important to me that all our patrons enjoy themselves. You don't seem like you do.”
Maycey was blushing; all the blood in her face only stirring their hunger. “No, we are. It's great.”
Arthur had no more patience for their blabbering and Rhaegar didn't, either. He leaned forward, making their eyes go wide, said: “Let me show you the best thing about this place.”
They only nodded and followed as he led them through a door below the stairs, guarded by a particularly buff turnling. Rhaegar shot him a look over his shoulder, indicating that he'd picked the man.
A short flight of stairs led down to the back door; another further and to Rhaegar's office. After the first, the woman suddenly slumped against the wall, mumbled: “I'm...” Then she groaned.
Oh, great. She didn't smell like she'd been drinking much, but maybe she'd taken something else.
Arthur waved at Rhaegar to go on since he didn't want to make him wait, hoping that he'd be able to stop himself from killing the man. If not, then that wouldn't be too inconvenient either; that was the advantage of using those from out of town.
He held the woman up and was tempted to drink from her right then. “Are you alright?”, he asked instead, having to act human as Rhaegar and the man went further down and his allure wore off.
She made a vague sound. “Just need to...” She leaned towards the door.
He could sense more humans on the other side; four of them. Patrons from the pub next door sometimes went out there – Arthur suppressed a sigh as she staggered through the door, having apparently decided that she wanted fresh air.
“I just need to”, she repeated as he went out after her, “send you back to the grave, you blood-sucking piece of shit.”
Fuck. He hadn't expected a hunter at all and now she had a gun pressed to his chest, right over his heartstone. Silver bullets, no doubt.
Arthur would've been much less surprised about an attack from the Starks.
The good thing about humans was that they were slow (and weak, and short-lived, and delicious). Arthur looked around, found that the others out here weren't just anyone but more of her ilk, obviously; gun upon gun pointed at him.
If she pulled the trigger, he'd be done, which would mean that he wouldn't be able to save Rhaegar – who was hungry and didn't know the man was a hunter.
Only a fraction of a second had passed when he summoned Dawn.
The light flashed brighter than anything inside the dancehall. The woman was hit with the full brunt of it, shrieked as it blinded her, dropped the gun to cover her eyes. Her body had shielded most of the others – one was hit as well but the other three fired. Arthur grabbed her; caught the bullets with her body, grunted at the opposing smells of tantalising blood and rancid silver.
The rest would need more time to gather their bearings and weren't the priority, because he now felt a sharp pain in his side. Not really his, but Rhaegar's – fuck fuck fuck, Arthur thought, closing his hand around her throat to drag her behind him as a shield. Either she'd choke or die from her wounds.
True speed, now. Not that he got very far because he ran straight into two more in the staircase (where had they come from?), ducked under a bullet, threw the woman away to grab one of them and snap his neck. He caught a brief glimpse of terror in the second's eyes as he jumped on him, fangs extended, tore his throat out.
The blood was distracting, but Rhaegar more important. He could sense that there were more humans in the office; could feel throbbing pain and a definite sense of anger. The hunters from outside reached the staircase and he darted towards the office; moving too fast for them to aim properly.
A lot of human blood in there. Good. The sound of a gunshot terrified him for a split second – but Rhaegar was still there.
Arthur stopped hard when he barged through the door. Five hunters in here, four of them dead, the fifth whimpering as Rhaegar had his teeth in his neck.
Thank the fucking Stranger.
Rhaegar threw him a gun, he caught it, leaned back outside and shot the other three. All that blood made him want to grab the nearest body and drain it, except that he could still feel that pain. “Don't kill him”, he said. “Might know something.”
Though his reluctance was palpable, Rhaegar tore his mouth away, groaned in frustration, let the man drop to the floor. Still alive, but unconscious. “They fucking shot me”, he said, voice rough and angry.
Guns. Fucking guns. Useful for them but more so for humans – they negated some of the difference.
Arthur wanted to lick the blood off his lips. That wouldn't be as immediately helpful as what he actually did: “I'll get it out.”
He could feel where the bullet was as if it had hit him instead. Rhaegar leaned against his desk and ripped the torn waistcoat and shirt open further, revealing a greyish spot in the pale flesh above his hip. It wouldn't kill him anytime soon but it would spread, eventually reaching his heartstone and hurting a whole lot on the way there.
The skin had closed up above it; all the rest of Rhaegar's body flush with fresh blood. Arthur wordlessly offered him his arm to have something to bite into, felt his fangs pierce his skin, then grit his own teeth and dug his nails in.
That also hurt; he'd be able to tell that much from the way he tensed even without their bond. But it had to be done – the bullet wasn't very far in, at least. It burned him when he closed his fingers around it and Rhaegar dug his hands into his shoulders as he pulled.
Then, he got to throw it onto the floor. They both sighed with the immediate relief.
“So”, Rhaegar said after they'd surveyed the scene for a second; the floor strewn with bodies and blood splattered against the walls. Arthur was still parched. “How in all hells did that happen?”
He didn't know. “I should've -”
“Don't even start. This wasn't your fault.”
“You were shot.”
Rhaegar looked into the distance for a brief moment, summoning the thralls working here. “Hunters in the Dragonpit. A whole pack of them. They clearly knew who we are, that we'd be here, how to get our attention, where in the building they'd have to wait for us – these ones must've been somewhere down here before us. How did they have any of that information?”
Arthur shook his head. “From someone who'll die as soon as we find out. And I don't think they knew everything. They didn't expect Dawn and the first one told me she'd ‘send me back to the grave’.”
A scoff as Rhaegar was offended on his behalf. Neither of them had ever been dead. “That's something. The other question is how they even got in here.”
They both knew where the answer lay; waited for the thralls. It was a problem: thralls' minds were so fried that it made them stupid, while young turnlings couldn't be trusted around that many humans. Bring one of them to a place like this and you'd just have a massacre on your hands – they could only have the oldest ones here and needed thralls to do any work outside during the day.
It wasn't hard to find out who was at fault; none of them would even be able to try lying. The fact that it had only taken a few minutes of inattentiveness from one of them was still concerning – Arthur would need to revise their whole routine. “You haven't fed yet”, Rhaegar stated as the culprit knelt before them.
He was looking forward to this. “I haven't.”
“Drain him. As to the rest of you: there's a lot of cleaning up to do.”