Chapter Text
Duncan fished the bottle out of the hot water and tested the temperature against the inside of his wrist. Not too hot. He screwed the cap on tight. Three months ago, the bottle cap had shot out of his hand, rolled far across the floor, and come to a stop at the toe of Baelor's leather shoe. Baelor had bent down, picked it up, and said, Let me.
Not anymore. The baby was three months old now—nearly a year since the day of the lab aerosol agent accident. By now he could test the water temperature and listen for the doorbell at the same time, his hands perfectly steady.
The doorbell rang a second time.
Passing the nursery, he glanced in. The baby was asleep. The curtains were half-drawn, the light falling just short of the cradle. He walked to the entryway and opened the door.
Egg stood in the doorway. He had grown taller since the last time they had met, or perhaps it was only that the corridor was so narrow. His hair was lighter now. The silver strands were dyed a warm yellow by the corridor light. He wore a dark red hoodie, jeans, and sneakers rimed with dust. Duncan noticed Egg's shoes first—the edges powdered grey, as though he had walked a long way. Then he noticed Egg's face. A pair of black-framed glasses now sat across the bridge of his nose. The silver brows pressed against the upper rim of the frames, and the lenses darkened the violet of his eyes by a shade, like watching embers through frosted glass—you knew they were burning, but you could not see the flames.
"Dun," Egg said.
Duncan blinked. No one had ever called him that. Baelor called him Duncan, sometimes in an even tone, sometimes with the faintest lift at the end. People at the company called him Mr. Duncan, or "that Beta bodyguard," depending on their mood or the occasion. Egg called him "Dun," as though it were the most natural thing in the world—not an abbreviation, but a name he had been using for a very long time.
"Ae—" Duncan stopped himself. He remembered the look on Egg's face the last time Egg had corrected him. That was a long time ago. But he remembered that tiny disappointment, the kind that hid just behind the corners of the mouth. He had seen Egg angry, and when Egg was angry, those violet eyes would go very round. The two expressions were not the same. "Egg."
Egg smiled. Two shallow dimples framed his mouth, just as they had back then. But the violet eyes were not as bright as they had been back then. Perhaps it was the glasses.
"Can I come in?"
Duncan stepped aside. As Egg passed, his arm brushed against Duncan's chest. Duncan pressed his back to the wall until Egg had gone through. Even after nearly a year, he still could not fully adjust to the changes in his body. Unfamiliar touches had become something he was acutely aware of. He caught Egg's pheromones. Before the baby, he would not have been able to smell them at all.
Under normal circumstances, an Alpha would keep their pheromones in check, especially in someone else's home. But Egg was not keeping his in check, or he did not want to. They smelled like the air before a summer thunderstorm—damp and heavy, pressing against the chest, making something deep inside him itch.
Egg glanced back at Duncan, who stood frozen behind him. He remembered the internship. Every day at six in the afternoon, Egg would stand at the laboratory door waiting for Duncan to finish work. In truth, it was Duncan waiting for him. No urging, no talking, just standing there. Egg would say, You can wait for me downstairs. Duncan would say, No, my post is here.
Egg tried buying him coffee. The first time, Duncan said thank you but did not drink it. He left it on the desk to go cold. The second time, Duncan drank it, and the next day left the exact change on Egg's desk, down to the cent. The third time, Egg stuck a sticky note on the cup—No need to pay me back—and Duncan tucked the money under the sticky note, flat and neat.
Egg tried asking him to dinner. Duncan said no. Egg tried asking him to watch a game on the weekend. Duncan said he had the weekend shift. Egg tried saying nothing at all, simply sharing the same space. Duncan would stay beside him, but he would not come any closer. The only way was to drag the experiments out late every day, because Duncan only spoke his name when urging him to leave work. But getting Duncan to change "Aegon" to "Egg" had still taken him nearly two months.
He remembered the last day of his internship. He had stretched the experiment until nine-thirty at night. He arranged the reagent vials into three rows, scrambled them, then arranged them into two—there were so many data points to run. When Duncan knocked on the door, he said, Almost done, and then proceeded to rinse a test tube that did not need rinsing under the tap for a full five minutes. When he came out after rinsing the tube, he saw Duncan standing at the door. Duncan smiled at him and said, Let's go, Egg.
Not Aegon. Egg.
Egg did not sleep that night. The next day, he began researching Beta physiology literature.
In the year and more since the lab aerosol agent accident, Egg had tried more than once to come see Duncan. The first time was the second week after the accident—he went to Duncan's apartment and knocked, but no one answered. Only later did he learn that Baelor had already moved Duncan to another residence under the company's name, the address not disclosed to anyone who was not a direct employee. The second time was three months later. He found Duncan's medical appointment in the company system and took the day off a day in advance. That morning, he received a notice that he had been temporarily reassigned to headquarters for a two-week training. Baelor's name was on the signature line. The third time, he did not bother with an appointment at all. He simply drove straight to the new address. The security booth was manned by someone he had never seen before, who said visitors required forty-eight hours' advance registration, confirmed by the resident themselves. Egg sent Duncan a message. The message showed as read. No reply came. He later found out that Baelor had taken over Duncan's phone number during that time—the stated reason being prenatal rest, minimizing outside disturbances.
He sat in his car and watched the light shining out from the floor of Duncan's apartment. He watched for two hours, then drove home. The whole way, he turned over in his mind how to halt the project team's experiments. But his results, regrettably, did not belong to him alone. Just like Duncan—assigned to him by Baelor as a personal bodyguard, but hired by the company. The true boss was Baelor.
This memory was dredged back up as he stepped into the living room, by the white medicine bottle on the coffee table. Prenatal multivitamins. The label was turned outward, half the ingredient list worn away. About a third of the pills were left.
Egg sat down on the sofa, both hands still in the pockets of his hoodie. "How is the baby?" he asked.
"Sleeping."
"Can I see?"
Duncan led Egg to the nursery door. The door was half-open. The baby lay flat in the cradle, fingers curled, lashes casting two very fine shadows across its face. Its hair was dark, nearly black in the dim light. A little drool had spilled from the corner of its mouth, which Duncan had not yet had a chance to wipe away.
Egg stood in the doorway. He did not go in. His hands did not leave his pockets.
"The hair… looks a lot like Uncle's." Every word came slowly, as though Egg were confirming something he had long known. "And the eyes?"
"Blue," Duncan said. "Like mine."
Egg gave a small nod. He stepped back and let Duncan close the door. As the door shut, he lowered his eyes.
They went back to the living room. Duncan poured a glass of water and set it on the coffee table. Egg took it but did not drink. He sat on the edge of the sofa, elbows braced on his knees, turning the glass around and around between his hands.
"You're exhausted," Egg said.
"Taking care of a baby isn't tiring. It's hard."
Egg lifted his eyes to Duncan's face. A bluish tinge had spread beneath those blue eyes. The glass turned faster and faster in his hands. "You haven't slept well in a long time."
Duncan did not deny it. He sat down across from Egg, his hands on his knees. His fingers were covered with thick calluses, his nails clipped very short. He had never cut them this short before. He had trimmed his own nails while trimming the baby's.
"What are you planning to do now?"
"I don't know."
"What does 'I don't know' mean?"
"Probably go back to work at the company."
Egg's expression eased at last. His shoulders loosened, and the collar of his hoodie slipped down a little. He stopped turning the glass and set it on the coffee table. After a moment, he seemed to remember something—or perhaps he had not forgotten at all, and was only now deciding to speak. "Has the baby been named yet?"
"No." Duncan stood and went to the kitchen to fetch the bottle. "I'm no good at naming things," he said as he walked. "I asked Baelor to think of one."
"What has he come up with?"
"He hasn't said. Says he needs to look through some books." Duncan set the bottle on the coffee table and sat back down. "He's been at it for almost three months now. The birth certificate says 'Pending.' The hospital has called twice."
"Dragon names." Egg's voice carried a foreknowledge that expected nothing else. "He'll dig up a whole pile of dragon names."
"He hasn't said anything." Duncan glanced at the bottle.
Egg did not respond. His gaze swept twice between the bottle and Duncan's face. He picked up the water glass, then set it down again—three times now. "In the future… are you going to stay with him? For good?"
"With who?" Duncan looked at him.
"Baelor. My uncle."
Duncan thought about it. Images from further back surfaced in his mind—a time when his foster father, Arlan, had just passed away. Before Duncan could even process what had happened, the people from the welfare office had taken him away. He had been shuffled through countless foster homes until he was old enough to live on his own. The lesson those years had taught him was this: spending your days quietly alone would not kill you. Living among a group of people who were wrong for you would.
"Actually, I'd rather live alone."
Egg stared at him.
"But Baelor insists on taking responsibility. We'll get married. The wedding preparations are already underway. The venue is booked. The invitations have been printed."
The living room was very quiet. The refrigerator compressor hummed for a moment, then stopped. Egg's water glass sat on the coffee table, the surface of the water undisturbed. His hands no longer touched it.
"He's an Alpha." Egg's voice was lower than before, as though the air pressure had dropped again. "In the future, if he meets a suitable Omega…"
"Then that's fine," Duncan said. "I won't have to live with him anymore."
Egg's expression shifted. The disbelief in his violet eyes surged behind the lenses. Duncan had just said something that lay outside every prediction Egg had ever made. "What do you mean?"
Duncan's fingers laced together over his knees. He was trying to figure out how to explain. It had taken him a very long time to understand it himself. The process went all the way back to the day he had submitted his resignation.
On the third day after he came home from the hospital, he had placed his resignation letter on Baelor's desk. The envelope was white, unsealed along the side. He remembered standing before Baelor's desk, both hands placed in front of him, his right hand gripping his left wrist. Baelor sat behind the desk, no suit jacket on, one button at the collar of his shirt undone. He did not look like his usual self. Baelor had not even opened the envelope. He had simply said, flatly—I do not accept.
"I share responsibility for what happened that day," Baelor said.
At the time, Duncan had not understood. He had thought it was only a good-natured boss making excuses for him, trying to lighten the burden. He said, Then I should still go. There are company rules—Section 72 of the Employee Code, prohibiting the development of personal relationships between superiors and subordinates. Yes, he was the bodyguard Baelor had assigned to Egg, but Baelor was still his boss. What had happened in the lab that day was already enough to run him through the disciplinary process three times over. Baelor said, That rule can be changed. Duncan said, It's not about the rule. Baelor asked him, Then what is it about?
He did not answer. But a voice had risen in his head. It belonged to that former colleague. The man had said it in the break room, after Duncan had refused to cover his shift—You think you're the exception? Sleep with one of those Targaryen pricks and you won't have to serve them anymore, right? Duncan had said nothing at the time. He went back to his workstation and deleted that man's contact from his phone—he did not file a complaint, did not retaliate. Just blocked him. Clean. That colleague was later dismissed. The stated reason was loafing in the break room.
And after that, he truly had slept with Baelor—in the lab, because of the aerosol agent accident. That was the only explanation he could piece together afterward. He knew the company he worked for was researching some kind of aerosol agent, but he did not know exactly what. Only that on that afternoon, he had not seen Egg anywhere, and he had been in a hurry to find him, so he had entered the lab without authorization.
But the aerosol agent could not explain everything. The aerosol agent could not explain why, when he woke the next morning, his first instinct was not to call the authorities—it was to pick up the button that had been torn from Baelor's shirt off the floor, and set it on the corner of Baelor's desk, button-face up.
He did not know whether that colleague had heard about what happened. If he had, Duncan did not know what that man would say. Whenever the memory of that colleague's words surfaced, the left side of Duncan's face would flush hot and sting, as though someone had slapped him, hard, from across an impossible distance.
"Baelor is marrying me out of a sense of responsibility." Duncan steadied himself, trying to replace that shameful phrase with another that might bring him some peace. "He says he wants to give the child a proper family."
Egg let out a scoff. Air huffed through his nose. "That's what he told you."
"Yes."
"And you believed him?"
"He was telling the truth."
Egg was silent for a moment. He looked down at the parenting encyclopedia on the coffee table—spine facing up, the words "Teething Phase" pressed with a shallow crease. He lifted the water glass and finally took a sip. The water was cold. He swallowed, set the glass back on the coffee table, and let his fingers rest on the rim for a moment.
"Dun." His voice was different now. No longer the tone that held something back, something suppressed. It was fully open now, like an airbag deploying on impact, swelling rapidly to fill the whole space. "Do you know what that aerosol agent was? The one that leaked that day?"
Duncan lifted his head and looked at him.
"It was something still in the experimental phase." Egg had been preparing for this moment for a very long time. Perhaps he had been preparing since he left the house today. Perhaps he had been preparing the whole way here. Perhaps he had been preparing since the day Baelor had the invitations printed. "It was designed to induce a heat-like state in Betas—comparable to what Alphas and Omegas experience—driving sexual desire and the urge to reproduce. It also increases fertility."
He paused. He raised his violet eyes. They had gone dark.
"That substance… only works on Betas. It has no effect on Alphas or Omegas."
Duncan sat without moving. His hands were still on his knees. They slowly clenched tight.
Neither of them spoke. The refrigerator did not hum. No cars passed outside the window. Even the breathing in the nursery seemed too soft to hear. Egg watched Duncan's face, waiting for him to ask the next question—Who developed it? How did it leak? How do you know all this?—but Duncan did not ask. He only sat there, his blue eyes fixed on Egg, as though digesting a fact that was very far away from him.
Then the door lock turned.
The key turned without haste. The person opening the door knew there were people inside. There was no need to rush. Duncan rose to his feet. He walked toward the entryway without conscious thought, as though someone had flipped a switch inside him.
Baelor pushed the door open. Dark grey long coat, scarf still unwound. Briefcase in his left hand, right hand drawing the key from the lock. He spotted Egg sitting on the sofa. His hand paused on the door lock—half a second, no more. He pulled the key free, switched the briefcase to his right hand, and began unwinding his scarf with his left. Halfway through, he stopped.
"Egg." Baelor offered the greeting as he walked into the living room. He did not take off his coat. The scarf hung around his neck, one end longer than the other. He stepped up to the coffee table and glanced at the glass of water Egg had taken a single sip from. A faint lip print marked the rim.
"Uncle." Egg did not rise from the sofa. His tone had changed. When he had been speaking with Duncan, he had been Egg. Now a heavy emotion pressed down on his voice, not fully restrained. He was Aegon.
"Something's come up. At the company." Baelor's tone was restrained and distant, as though he were addressing an agenda item in a meeting. "Let's talk in the study."
Egg stood. He was a little shorter than Baelor, but the angle of his lifted chin did not let that become a disadvantage.
"Fine."