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It’s dark outside the castle window when there’s a knock at Jon’s door. Dragonstone is still so foreign to him, still milling with people he doesn’t recognize. As he starts for the door, he assumes Daenerys has sent someone to collect him for one reason or another. When he pulls the massive door back from the wall, he’s surprised to see Theon Greyjoy standing in front of him, staring at his feet.
The image trips a memory so vivid in Jon that he forgets his age, forgets the time and place, forgets his anger. His hand twitches to reach for a wineskin that isn’t there. Jon blinks and shakes the thought away. It really isn’t the same sight at all. Theon is paler, thinner. His eyes, constantly wet, never pause on any one thing for long. He holds himself almost in a crouch, jittery. This sight is barely the Theon Greyjoy he’s known all these years.
“What do you want?”
Theon swallows thickly, eyes flicking to Jon’s face for only an instant.
“The — the smuggler, Ser Davos, he says he, you, and Ser Jorah set sail for the Wall at dawn.”
“We do,” Jon says stiffly. “Did you plan on joining us?”
Shaking his head, Theon says nothing.
He swallows again, hard, as if he’s freezing, or close to choking. Despite himself, Jon feels a pang of sympathy. He steps aside, giving Theon the space to enter, but he doesn’t. He looks shocked at the prospect. Jon watches him, curious. Sansa had told him Ramsay had kept Theon prisoner in the Winterfell kennels with the dogs, but not much more than that.
Sansa did not say much about Ramsay at all.
Jon reaches for Theon’s arm with a gentle tug, but jumps from the way his sleeve gives under Jon’s hand. He feels little more than skin and bones underneath the layers of cloth. Theon goes tense, and Jon drops his grip. No wonder he’s shivering.
“Come inside,” Jon says, forcing off his earlier contempt. “I’ve got a fire going. You’re letting out the warmth.”
Theon’s steps are unsure, more like shuffling as he makes his way inside. Jon shuts the heavy door behind him, but Theon doesn’t move except for the rigid snap of his shoulders. He doesn’t start for the bed as Jon would have expected. He doesn’t even look to the chair in the corner.
“Is there something you need, Greyjoy?” Jon asks, irritated.
He doesn’t mean it to sound harsh, more prompting than anything, but Theon flinches at his tone. Jon furrows his brow, quiet until he relaxes.
“Ser Davos also said — also said that you’ve been....” He’s shaking, horrified. “That you have returned from the dead.”
Jon wishes Davos wouldn’t speak of it so much. He feels the deflection he told Daenerys stick to his tongue. He does not find it easy to lie.
Instead he only mutters, “It was some time ago.”
Theon looks at him, then, finally meeting Jon’s eyes. Resolute, his cold blue eyes piercing through Jon and for a moment it’s like they’re children again. Despite the intensity of his the stare, he doesn’t seem to see Jon, his eyes distant and out of focus like those of Maester Aemon.
“Did you see him?”
“See —?”
“Robb — please, did you — did you see Robb? When you were— after the end?” Theon’s voice is so soft it can barely break the silence around them, cracking with choked tears along the edges. “Does he — would he forgive me, everything I’ve done?”
Jon can’t speak, startled silent as tears slide over Theon’s sallow cheeks.
“Please. Please, Jon, would you tell me? I need him to — I need him to…”
It’s still strange, hearing Theon call him by his given name. Before, Theon would never. Only ever jeered and called him Snow. Eager to remind him of his bastard status at every turn. Watching him now, barely able to stand for how hard he’s trembling. It should be so easy to tell him what he wants.
“Theon,” he starts. Jon takes hold of his shoulder as it looks like Theon may faint. He’s shaking so hard Jon could swear he can hear his bones knocking together. “Theon, I’m sorry. I didn’t see anyone. No one. There’s — there’s nothing. It’s just nothing.”
“No,” Theon whispers, “no, there has to be. There has to be something. He can’t — he can’t be gone.”
Silent, Jon leads him to the bed before Theon collapses. He sets him gently onto the edge of his bed and Jon kneels in front of him, hands steady on his shoulders. His eyes are frantic again, a frightened rabbit cornered by starving hounds, and tears are streaming down his face.
“It’s not — please, there must be something. This can’t be it. Please, Jon.”
Jon recalls when they were younger, how Theon boasted in believing in very little, to Lady Catelyn’s endless frustration, proud to dismiss prayers and claimed only to find use in the springs of the godswood and nothing else. But now here he is, his ragged body sagging forward, bent in half, resting his head against Jon’s shoulder, and he’s sobbing, helpless.
“Please, gods, Jon, there must be something. Anything.” Jon’s hand falls to the back of Theon’s neck, but Theon barely seems to notice the touch. “I have to — I have to tell him. I’m so sorry, I was weak — I… I couldn’t…”
Jon unclasps the fur and cloak at his collar and shuffles out of it to drape it across Theon’s back. His tears are hot and slick against Jon’s neck, his hand shaking too hard to grip the leather of his doublet all that strongly.
“Please,” he weeps helplessly, “Please tell me — there’s something.”
A lie would do nothing to help him now. Jon stays silent, cradling Theon’s head against the crook of his neck. Strange, to think he would ever want to offer him comfort. He can’t recall Theon ever crying, even when they were young boys. Instead, Jon remembers crying once to his father, the way he had let little Jon crawl into his lap to sob, and scratched gently at his scalp until his tears quieted.
At a loss, Jon drags his nails gently over the hair at the nape of Theon’s neck, soothing, waiting for him to regain his composure.
It’s not for some time, and Jon’s knees burn they way they’re pressed into the stone floor. When Jon shifts up to sit on the bed beside him, Theon is still too despondent to realize, instead curling into himself where Jon had been.
For a moment, Jon watches him shuddering. He seems so frail, it’s hard to see the man he’d once been. The hard, proud boy with a smirk and a joke for everything. Who didn’t think to bid him goodbye all those years ago, when Jon had left for the Wall. Jon finds he cannot picture the man who captured his home and murdered Ser Rodrik. That man is no longer exists. Sansa was right. And Jon does not understand what is left.
Only tender Sansa and baby Rickon had ever cried in front of him when they were young. Even as children Arya and Bran were too proud, and Robb and Theon would have never wept where another could see them and grant them any sort of pity — certainly not the pity of a bastard. Theon had always seemed too proud to waste his time with sadness.
Now, his sobs are rocking his body, the shrieking sound leaving his mouth barely even human.
He can’t stand it. Without a word, Jon pulls Theon into his lap. He’s so light and thin that Jon thinks it must not be much different from how Jon had felt in his father’s arms as a child. Theon presses into him, starved for touch and desperate for comfort, and Jon holds him and waits.
With his face tucked into Theon’s neck, feeling his tears soak into his skin, it’s easy to forget that he shouldn’t. He just wants to quiet Theon’s sobs.
He presses a kiss to Theon’s tear-soaked neck, and Theon goes still.
Jon wonders if Theon’s mind ever wanders to the nights they spent together in Winterfell as stupid young boys. Theon’s hair is streaked with tears and sweat, and Jon pushes it away. Curious, Jon kisses him again, softly, on his jaw.
“You don’t — you don’t want that. You don’t want me,” Theon says finally. His voice is tight with something like panic. “Not now. Not — not anymore.”
It’s a strange thing to say. Not what Jon is expecting. He was prepared for the opposite. Don’t touch me. Not now. I don’t want you. But he was unprepared for this, not Theon clinging to him and muttering apologies under his breath.
“No one wants me now,” Theon repeats against Jon’s shoulder. “No one. He made — he made sure.”
Insisting otherwise would only seem disingenuous. When they were younger, it had never been about wanting. They had only ever used each other for comfort. They had never needed it to be anything more.
Instead, Jon takes Theon’s left hand and tugs his glove off. His nails are bitten to the quick, scars dug white into the pale, stretched flesh of his knuckles, and Theon rips his hand away. He pulls a finger into his mouth and gnaws nervously at what’s left of the nail there.
“You won’t want to see,” he warns.
Jon is desperate to say something. Finally he decides, “At least let me be the judge of that.”
“No, please,” Theon rips his other hand out of Jon’s grasp. “You’ll — you won’t —”
Jon hesitates at the break in his voice, and looks down at his hand. The last two fingers of the glove hadn’t moved with the rest of his hand, splayed unnatural and flat against his chest where the others curl into a fist.
Sansa hadn’t said much at all.
“Theon,” Jon whispers, mouth dry, “give me your hand.”
Theon’s whole body seizes in Jon’s arms, and he gasps, quiet and barely audible. His eyes are wide, and he looks ready to cry again. He’s shaking when he gives Jon his hand, and Jon isn’t sure what he’s done, but he regrets it.
Swallowing, Jon asks gently, “Can I see? Please?”
The look on Theon’s face is pained, confused and sick, and Jon presses his forehead against Theon’s, letting him breathe.
Finally, Theon nods.
Allowing a moment for him to take it back, Jon tugs the glove from his hand. The last two fingers are gone from the last knuckle, healed over white and rounded. Jon stares for a moment before it sinks in that they’ve been gone for years — that Theon has not fired a bow since, and never will again. There are darker scars on this hand, deeper cuts. His third finger has a scar along the middle of it from tip to palm. Ramsay had had plans to take more.
The silence is stifling, holding onto something dark, as if Theon will never speak again. Sympathetic, Jon lets his attention move to the stubs left on Theon’s hand, gently kneading the skin where they now end. It’s hard and raw, too close to the bone.
The sound Theon makes is like a wounded dog, and Jon looks up to meet his eyes. He can’t apologize for this, so instead Jon asks, “Are you cold?”
“I’m always cold.” For a second, it looks like a smile crosses Theon’s face.
Perhaps not a smile after all. It isn’t funny, anyway. Theon doesn’t pull back when Jon tugs his cloak tighter around Theon’s shoulders. Hands buried in Jon’s sleeves, Theon’s eyes only watch him passively.
Sighing, Jon pushes him back onto his feet so he can pull the largest wolfskin back from his bed.
“All right, then,” he says, “Get in.”
Theon’s eyes widen, and he shakes his head, and Jon feels a stab of foolishness.
“No, nothing like that. I only meant —” Jon clears his throat, oddly shy. “Would you rather sit by the fire?”
Theon tilts his head. “You’d — you want me stay?”
For some reason, it makes Jon defensive. “I thought it’s what you were here for,” he snaps too quickly, “You came here, I didn’t send for you.”
He regrets it the moment it’s out of his mouth. Theon folds in at his waist, as if Jon has stabbed him.
“You’re — you’re right,” Theon stutters, struggling to put his gloves back on as he stumbles back toward the door. “I’m sorry — I’ll go. It’s late and I— I didn’t mean to in — intrude.”
“Theon, wait.” Jon grabs his arm, careful to be gentle. “I didn’t mean it like that. I only meant… do you want to stay?”
As he asks, he knows why he’s avoided it. The question feels strange in the air between them. It would have felt strange before, when they were young and stupid. Theon never stayed with Jon, certainly never for the mere company. If Jon had ever asked the question of Theon before, he would have mocked him relentlessly — needled him until Jon rushed to take the offer back.
Theon doesn’t say anything now. He only stares at his feet.
“Come get warm, Theon. It’s fine, really.”
Theon’s eyes flicker to Jon’s bed before darting away. Jon knows enough of Ramsay to realize the reason he’s still hesitating.
“It’s not a trick, you must know that.” He lets Theon’s arm slip down his grip. “It’s just me.”
Jon tries to smile, but Theon’s face crumples. Eyes drop back down to his boots. Jon just wishes he would look at him.
“He — he took other things,” mutters Theon.
Jon doesn’t say anything.
Once so surefooted, Jon has seen the way Theon stumbles now. At the sight of his hands, he can only assume Theon has fewer toes. He reaches out for Theon’s hand. Shakily, Theon takes it. Jon runs his thumb over the gnarled back of his hands, the paper-thin skin stretched pale over his bones. Theon watches him silently, and Jon gives his hand a gentle tug. He doesn’t want to say anything else, so sure it could be the wrong thing. He leads Theon back to his bed and sits him back on the edge of it.
He can feel Theon’s eyes on him as he kneels to unlace his boots for him. Distantly, he wonders how Theon even manages it.
Jon schools his expression as he slides the socks from Theon’s distorted feet. He wraps his hand around Theon’s ankle and squeezes, gentle.
It’s strange to recall how different Winterfell had looked by the time Jon had reached it, the way the Boltons had made it theirs. Theon had not been there, then. Sansa with Lady Brienne had left him behind in the snows of the wolfswood. But she would have been dead without him, Sansa insisted. The Boltons had not been his fault. And what is, Jon doubts Theon will ever forgive himself for.
Theon doesn’t speak, but doesn’t look away from Jon, either. His body jolts with a chill, and Jon remembers what he’s doing.
Jon doesn’t say anything when starts to undo Theon’s leather doublet. There’s no sigils on this one, either. It feels different now, now that Jon wears armour with direwolves hammered into the breast and has people call him a king. Theon no longer seems like a second bastard of Winterfell. He just seems lost. Someone else entirely. Theon’s eyes are clenched shut as Jon peels the doublet off his shoulders. Muscle memory has Jon reach for the cotton tunic, but he stops when he notices Theon’s hand clenched hard in his breeches.
“Sorry,” Jon mutters, dropping his hand.
When they were young and foolish, Jon remembers wanting Theon to take him like this — still draped in his plain clothes as he held onto Jon’s hips. Now, he feels nothing but guilt for ever wanting it. He misses the easy pride Theon had in his body. Even now — even when he should hate the idea.
Carefully, Jon crawls back onto the bed and drapes the wolfskin over Theon’s shoulders. He’s still wearing Jon’s cape underneath.
“You can get comfortable,” Jon says finally. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Theon is silent for a long time. He doesn’t move. “I know.”
He seems so delicate, and all Jon can think is the times they fell together in his bed, just desperate for touch, for a connection as anything other than outsiders. Jon hasn’t felt like that outsider for some time, but Theon has felt little else.
“Do you remember what I told you when you returned to Dragonstone?”
The question takes Theon by surprise, and he blinks. “What —?”
“What you did for Sansa.”
Theon says nothing.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Jon repeats.
Theon ducks his head away from him.
It’s possible he wants him to, but the anger Jon had felt at the first sight of him is starting to wane. The Theon Greyjoy that Jon had hated is gone. It’s a strange feeling, to wish he weren’t. Jon feels a fresh wave of fury toward Ramsay Bolton for killing that Theon Greyjoy before Jon got his hands on him. Made him beg for mercy.
Jon doesn’t want groveling from this Theon. This isn’t the man who took Winterfell. This is just a timid, defenseless boy. Jon sighs. “Are you frightened of me?”
For a noticeable pause, he says nothing. “No.”
“Good,” Jon says gently. “I want you to tell me. If you — if this isn’t what you want.”
Theon finally looks at him. “What isn’t?”
Jon takes Theon’s mouth in his own.
It surprises Jon that Theon’s response is instant. He kisses back desperate and hungry, both hands flying up to clench lopsidedly in Jon’s hair. It feels strange — the way he can feel Theon’s missing fingers — but he doesn’t dare pull away now. He doesn’t even think he could, the way Theon is gripping his hair as if he were the only thing keeping him alive; a piece of driftwood keeping him afloat in a crashing sea. Even as he kisses back, Theon is trembling. He lets Jon move him around like a ragdoll, straightened out against the bed, laying back against the furs, but he refuses to let go of Jon, even for an instant. When Jon pulls away for a breath, Theon whimpers and follows him forward, needy.
Abruptly, Jon remembers the way Theon used to smirk as he kissed Jon, and something in his chest pulls tight and cold.
“Here —”
When he takes the hem of Theon’s shift now, Theon lets him, but the moment it’s off he covers himself with his hands. Eyes focus on the wall past Jon’s side, and Jon wonders when was the last time Theon has been nude in front of someone who wasn’t Ramsay Bolton. His arms don’t cover much. They’re marred up and down with scars as well, sliced along from shoulder to wrist. His chest is littered with scars. Burns, gashes, the long thin cuts of a whip. One that looks like the marks left by fingernails digging into his skin. Jon doesn’t know how long he scans over Theon’s chest before he realizes he’s missing a nipple — skin puckered and scarred where it should be. A sickened weight drops into Jon’s stomach.
Theon is not looking at him.
The skin is yellowed and pulled tight over his ribs. The supple muscle that had been there the last time Jon had seen him is entirely gone, deteriorated from starvation. Jon takes one of Theon’s wrists, careful and sweet, and pulls it off his body. Theon lets him, and when the back of his hand hits the furs of the bed, he gasps. He lets Jon do the same to his other hand, and twists slightly in Jon’s grip.
Jon watches, silent, and remembers years ago, pressing his hand into Theon’s throat.
Jon takes a deep breath. That Theon Greyjoy is gone, too.
The crackling fire and the ocean crashing against the rocks outside the window are the only sounds of the room. Jon waits for Theon to protest, but when he doesn’t, he leans forward and kisses him again.
This time, Theon kisses back a bit more tentatively. When Jon releases his hands he still reaches up to cling to him, but it feels now as if he’s afraid Jon may stop him again. He’s shaking so hard under him that Jon drapes the wolfskins over his own back, shrouding them. He feels Theon’s body relax and he sighs into the kiss, beginning to respond the way he had been before. Jon cups his head, tilting his throat prone as he kisses down the tendons of Theon’s neck.
He hears a watery gasp, and looks up to see fresh tears tracking down Theon’s face in the firelight. Out of instinct, Jon shushes him, pressing his face comfortingly into Theon’s throat.
Theon had done it for him, before.
Hesitant, Jon continues down to Theon’s chest, kissing over a few scars. When his lips brush Theon’s missing nipple, Jon feels him flinch, and sits back on his knees.
“Here,” he says, finally removing his own tunic. His skin bristles in the chill air. “Let me show you—.”
Eyes clenched against tears, Theon is not looking, so Jon grips his left hand and presses it to the scars between his ribs, over his heart. Theon’s eyes snap open at the touch and he turns to stare at the dark scars. He doesn’t blink, and Jon feels strangely as if Theon is seeing him for the first time since entering his room.
“See that? We match,” Jon jokes, but it’s humorless.
Theon doesn’t laugh, anyway. He finally glances up from Jon’s chest and shakes his head.
“We don’t.”
Theon traces each stab wound with his fingertip. Jon lets him, watching quietly until he’s finished. Only once Theon’s hand falls away does Jon bow to take his mouth again. Jon lets his hands slide carefully over the scars over Theon’s body, determined not to be shied from them. It feels as if Theon might break apart under Jon’s hands. Jon tastes salt abruptly on his tongue, but when he tries to pull away, Theon’s hands nest into his hair.
“No —” Theon breathes, back tense as the word leaves his mouth.
Jon remembers years ago, the two of them entwined in his bed in Winterfell. Don’t tell me no.
Theon, Jon knows, is not thinking of the same memory.
When Jon’s hand reaches the waist of Theon’s pants, Theon rips away from him. “Wait, Jon —”
“It’s all right,” Jon assures, pressing a kiss to a deep bit of gouged skin on Theon’s shoulder. “Really, it’s all right.”
Theon shakes his head, tears streaming down his face anew. “I’m sorry,” he says suddenly, and it’s like ice down Jon’s spine. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
Jon looks down. It’s dark where Jon is hovered over him, his cloak blocking out the firelight, but even with nothing but shadows, Jon can tell something is wrong. He sits back, letting the wolfskin fall onto the bed, and sees the flat curve of Theon’s groin.
“He took other things.”
Jon’s blood is thundering in his ears, vision white along the edges. It’s hard to understand what he’s seeing. He’s seen Theon’s naked body so many times before — parading around the hot springs of the godswood or pressed against him in his bed. This is not Theon’s body. This is some changeling stolen his face. Jon’s hand hovers just above the skin, eyes on the thin and careful scars so different from the others all along his body. Healthy and neat. Kept clean.
Theon is sobbing, trying to curl away from him, still pleading, begging: “I’m sorry, please. Please, I’m so sorry.”
“Oh, Theon —” Jon’s voice is raw, too soft for Theon to hear over his sobs. He clears his throat and repeats calmly, “Theon.”
Theon quiets, but his disfigured arms are curled tight over his head, hiding his face. Jon reaches forward and touches Theon’s hair. He’s shivering, still sobbing, muffling himself by pressing his face into his elbow.
Right now, in this moment, Jon feels nothing but affection for Theon Greyjoy.
“Look at me, Theon, please, it’s all right.”
“No one wants you,” Theon is whispering into his arm, “no one will ever want you again, I told you, I told you.”
Jon grabs Theon’s arm and pulls, hard enough to break his hold. “Look at me.”
Abruptly silent, Theon looks up at Jon without blinking. For a moment, Jon considers telling Theon that he had killed Ramsay, that he’s gone too — but after the way he reacted to Robb, Jon thinks better of it. Instead, he keeps Theon’s eyes on his.
“It’s not true, Theon, just look at me, all right?”
Grabbing at the fallen cloak, Jon pulls it back over the both of them, pressing closer to Theon to stop his shivering. He feels the slope of Theon’s groin against his thigh and swallows hard to keep from flinching.
He must react regardless, because Theon whispers again, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Quiet,” Jon hisses, meaning to be comforting, but Theon only bites his tongue to silence himself.
He’s curled so tightly against Jon that it’s difficult to breathe. Jon has never felt the need to be so gentle with anyone. It still feels misplaced that such a feeling would come over him for Theon Greyjoy. He strips Theon’s pants the rest of the way. Lets his emaciated legs wrap tight around Jon’s waist. Jon feels his cock slide against Theon’s skin, smooth and soft like a woman’s. He had taken Theon a few times in their youth, when he asked. Occasionally Theon would do it himself, crawling on top of Jon and sliding over him like a sheath. Theon had liked it, then.
Kissing up Theon’s neck, Jon reaches for the lamp oil from where it sits on the windowsill. He doesn’t say anything, just presses the tin of oil to Theon’s chest. A silent option, a choice. If he chooses, Theon can tear away from him and flee, but he’ll know that Ramsay had been wrong. At the very least, in this moment, Jon had wanted him.
A drowned little sound escapes Theon’s mouth, but he says nothing, pressing the lamp oil back into Jon’s hand. Jon retrieves it and coats his fingers.
He moves slowly as he presses a finger into Theon, gentle, and hears him yelp, choked and faint.
“You make noises like a girl, Snow.”
Theon whines, forgetting himself and snatching at Jon with his mangled hand, fingers struggling to find purchase. Silent, Jon goes back to preparing him, curved tightly over him until Theon’s hands find Jon’s hair and nest into it. When Theon shivers, Jon steels himself, pressing closer to him.
When Theon kisses him this time, it’s soft and warm, and tastes sharply of salt. He doesn’t pull away to breathe, instead taking shuddering breaths against Jon’s mouth. Somehow, he’s still so careful, even like this. It’s as if he’s afraid Jon will run from him or dissolve in his hands. Cupping Theon’s face, smearing tears under his fingertips, Jon tilts his head back to kiss him deeper. Theon’s shivering, pressed against him like a maiden, and Jon’s heart trips, heat rolling up his spine. Cock twitching, Jon kisses Theon back with more force than before, feeling the tremble of Theon’s chest underneath him.
“I want you.” It spills out of Jon without purpose, breathed out against Theon’s desperate mouth.
Theon gasps into the kiss, the breathless heave of fading tears, and tightens his grip in Jon’s hair.
Tears streak Theon’s hair, dropping into the furs behind his head, but his trembling finally falls still. Jon pulls his hand away to take hold of Theon’s bony hip, his hand curling over the long smooth scar of a thin blade. Theon whines at the loss, rolls his hips eagerly, but doesn’t stop pressing greedy kisses into Jon’s mouth.
Memory skips through his mind again, and without a word Jon pries Theon’s right hand from his hair and laces his fingers where they fit, pinning Theon’s knuckles against the furs beside his head.
Theon falls away then, and Jon sees the recognition on his face — his mind finally taking root in the same memory as Jon’s. His eyes dart to their clasped hands, still and silent. Jon hoists Theon’s hip forward and slides into him.
When Jon tucks his face back into Theon’s throat, he can hear him whispering, helpless and watery: “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Jon says nothing. He doesn’t try to quiet him, and doesn’t respond, holding his hand tight against the furs as he pushes into him.
He’s going to snap underneath him, held together with the bones of a bird. Jon is terrified to hurt him, to cause the inhuman sounds he’s heard him make.
“Come here,” Jon murmurs.
With his free hand, he reaches under Theon’s bony back. With a deep breath, Jon pulls Theon close and turns them, Jon’s back rolling onto the furs and Theon’s knees on either side of his ribs. The wolfskin is bunched around their hips, and Jon uses his free hand to pull it up over Theon’s shoulders. Theon is watching him, unblinking, and Jon grinds his hips upward, trying to gauge the difference.
Jon sees it on Theon’s face. This is no longer a position he’s used to. He doesn’t blink, barely looks like he’s breathing. It’s hard for Jon to focus, his head swimming from the feeling on his cock. Even still, he won’t let go of Theon’s hand, snatching a handful of Theon’s wet curls with his other hand and tugs him down into a kiss.
“You like this part,” Jon murmurs against his mouth.
It’s as if Jon’s words remind him, falling into Jon’s kiss, free hand sliding up to hold his chin, keeping him too close to stop for breath. Jon smiles against his mouth for just a moment before the memory sticks like a knife in his chest.
He starts to move again, hesitant and shallow. He still refuses to let go of Theon’s hand, clinging to it as his other hand slides down Theon’s back beneath the wolfskin, feeling every scar and ridge. As he reaches the end of Theon’s spine he moves to tug warmly on Theon’s hip.
Theon moans.
It takes a moment for the sound to mean something.
Jon’s eyes fly open to see Theon staring at him, eyes open wide in shock.
“Are you — did I hurt you —?”
Theon’s mouth drops open, but he doesn’t answer. Every inch of Jon goes tense, the two of them rigid as stone. When Theon moves, it’s only to look down at where they’re joined.
“Did I hurt you?” Jon asks again, louder, his teeth clenched against the need to move.
Finally, Theon shakes his head. Jon drops Theon’s hand then, hoisting himself onto his elbows. He rolls into Theon again, holding his skinny hip flush against his own.
“Jon —”
The heat flares through Jon again, boiling up his spine, and Jon is insatiable for it. Theon never said his given name when they were like this, not once. Only ever ‘Snow’. Only just the one time.
He tightens his grip, still desperate to be careful, but a shiver wracks through Theon’s body and he drops forward onto his elbow, knocking Jon flat onto his back again. His chest is heaving.
“Jon,” he manages again, “oh gods, Jon —”
He’s babbling. It barely sounds like his name anymore, but Jon feels it like fire in his skin. Theon is desperate, pleading, and Jon has never seen him like this, never before. He’s grappling for him, forgetting to be ashamed of his right hand when he claws at Jon’s chest.
“Gods, please —” Theon begs under his breath, “Please, please —”
He’s ripping wildly at Jon’s hair, voice louder than Jon thinks it’s been in years.
“Please, please —”
Jon grabs for him, biting into the inside of his own cheek to keep himself steady, his eyes focused on the wild look on Theon’s face. Jon holds him close, hands trembling. He cups Theon’s face, dragging his thumb over his cheek, watching his eyes.
“It’s all right, Theon. Look — look at me. It’s all right.”
Theon’s mouth falls open, a loud, senseless whine coming from deep in his chest. Jon watches, awed as a tremor pulls through Theon’s spine. He sits up, suddenly helpless to touch him, cupping the back of Theon’s neck and pulling him close until Jon can press his forehead to Theon’s. They’re both heaving for breath, but Theon is keening, desperate.
“Please,” Jon can barely hear against his whimpering.
Jon’s fingers are trembling against Theon’s face. His fingers tighten in Theon’s hair to keep himself under control.
“It’s all right, Theon,” Jon groans, pulling Theon flush against him and rocking his hips forward as hard as he can. “It’s —”
“Jon!”
The word slurs from Theon’s mouth and his eyes roll back, a frantic cry in his lungs melting into a soft, needy breath. He falls into Jon with all his weight, and they tumble. Jon’s orgasm rolls through him so intensely that he thinks he must shout as it happens. His hands tangle in Theon’s hair, holding him close, and startles at the feel of Theon’s tongue against his throat, helpless and animalistic, licking the sweat from Jon’s neck.
Chest heaving, Jon struggles to come back to himself, Theon bowed over him as if in prayer, panting and mindless.
“Did you—?” Jon pants.
Theon shudders and then nods his head.
He still looks faint from the force of it, eyes dazed as he meets Jon’s. Theon crawls forward to kiss him again, hungry and frenzied. He’s weeping again. Jon lets him kiss him, warm and heavy on his chest as the energy seeps from him.
Neither of them say anything, and Theon finally collapses against Jon’s chest, spent.
There aren’t many hours before daybreak. Jon wonders if Theon will stay wrapped in Jon’s furs after he leaves for the Wall. The thought tugs at something in his heart — Theon curled in his bed, waiting for him to return. Absently, Jon toys with the curls of Theon’s hair, listening to the ocean below drown out their breathing.
Jon must have been dozing because his eyes snap open and for a moment he can’t recall where he is. Next to him Theon’s entire body heaving with sobs, loud and uncontrollable, like an unruly child.
Groggy, Jon props himself on his elbow and clears sleep from his throat.
“Theon?”
Theon is sobbing so hard it takes him a moment to find the capability to speak. He doesn’t look at Jon as he tries.
Jon waits patiently.
“I loved him.”
For a moment, Jon is horrified he means Ramsay. His heart freezes in his chest. “Loved —?”
“Robb,” Theon is heaving. “I loved him — I loved him more than anything.”
It’s abrupt, a strange, painful shock. Jolting Jon’s heart to beat again just to let it break. He swallows, feeling petulant and wrong.
“I know,” he says finally.
“I loved him, and he died hating me.”
So did I. Jon sinks his teeth into the corner of his lip to keep it from spilling out of his mouth. He wishes there was something he could say, anything he could do. He reaches up and pets Theon’s hair. It feels like hours before Theon manages to speak again.
“Please — please come back,” he says finally, voice cracked and trembling, “I can’t have you die hating me, too.”
For a beat, Jon considers telling Theon he doesn’t hate him. He did once, but it seems as if it’s been years since he first saw Theon drag himself onto the shore. But Theon won’t hear it now. Jon isn’t sure he’ll ever believe forgiveness from any of them.
“One death for me is enough, for now,” Jon says finally.
He means it as a joke, but Theon is still weeping against him with such force that Jon doubts he even hears him. Frustrated, Jon takes Theon’s chin and holds him still to meet his eyes. Theon’s sobs fall silent at the contact, tears still streaming down his face as his breath hitches against the way Jon is holding him still.
“I’ll return soon enough,” Jon insists. He waits a moment, making sure Theon is hearing him. “You still have time.”
Theon doesn’t look away from him — possibly doesn’t think he’s allowed — but his eyes don’t look as panicked as they did when he came to Jon’s room. His tears finally slow to a stop, and he looks curious, intense. Jon suppresses the urge to kiss him again.
It feels unnatural that it’s so quiet between them so suddenly. Theon had been hysterical moments ago. It sends an odd chill down Jon’s spine to see him so perfectly still now.
It’s Theon who finally breaks the silence. “What was it like?”
Jon frowns. “What was what like?”
“Dying.” Theon swallows, eyes still unnervingly pinned to him.
Jon realizes he’s still holding Theon’s face and drops his hand.
“Cold, at first. It hurt, a lot,” Jon admits, remembering the feeling of blood seeping from his body. “Then it only, sort of… faded. And then, nothing.”
Theon’s eyes finally fall away. He glances out the window. They’re quiet for a moment.
“What’s it like to come back?”
Jon still isn’t sure about that one. It was like surfacing from a bath of ice to realize your skin is on fire. It was like having a memory about something impossible. Some moments pass and he forgets he’s died at all. Mostly, it’s all he can think about.
“Confusing,” he finally settles.
He lays back against his furs and notices Theon is still clutching his cloak. Unthinkingly, Jon pulls it back over Theon’s shoulders and straightens it down his back. He’s suddenly exhausted, and lets his eyes slide closed.
After a moment Jon feels thin, cool fingers retracing the scars on his chest. It’s oddly soothing. Jon doesn’t stop him.
“Nothing in the end sounds like it could be all right,” Theon says finally. His voice is soft, as if talking to himself. Convincing something else inside him.
Jon hums. “It wasn’t anything.”
“I wanted — wanted it. When Ramsay had me. Or when I had — when I heard about Robb. I prayed in the Winterfell godswood for him to kill me. I used to dream of being dead.”
“M’glad you’re not,” Jon mutters sleepily.
Theon’s hand stops moving. When he speaks, his voice is low and disbelieving. “What?”
He’s already forgotten what he’s said. His body feels like wet sand stuffed into a skin. He doesn’t open his eyes. It feels like dawn will be here any moment and he’ll have to leave.
“Try and get some sleep, Greyjoy,” he grumbles, reaching blindly for Theon’s back arched up at his side. He presses Theon close, until he’s tucked neatly under his arm.
Theon doesn’t say anything else. Jon falls asleep to the feel of his fingers light and gentle on his scars.