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“I should hope you find the house to your satisfaction,” Sir Bolton tells Robb as they shake hands. Robb tries to not mind that he sounds way, way too detached, same as he did since Robb approached him to buy the place. He doesn’t seem either sad that he’s selling or happy to, which considering what Robb knows about the reasons why he’s giving away a two-storey furnished house with attic and basement near Covent Garden at a quarter of its price. It’s queer, of course, but he’s not going to press the issue.
“I am sure it will be,” Robb says, taking back the contract. He has seen the place, and he can’t believe how lucky he’s been - fine, his mother is concerned that he’s moving in an area that used to be renown for its abundance in brothels, but the area is nowhere near as seedy as it used to be. Even with that, it’s within walking distance from his university and it’s so cheap it would be a waste not to take the deal. Robb still thinks it’s really too cheap for its worth, but Sir Bolton said that he just wished to be rid of it - it was meant to go to his son, who died not long ago, and he has no use for it. Considering that Robb was looking for a flat to use for the next few years, he couldn’t have been luckier - it’s eventually going to be cheaper than renting it, especially if he decides to stay in the city after completing his studies, even more if he chooses to pursue them further. Fine, the furniture is old, and the general atmosphere in the place is gloomy, but then again Sir Bolton is selling after said son died in accident falling down the stairs not a month ago. That’s probably why Robb couldn’t shake off that impression - it will eventually go away.
“Well, then I shall leave you to it. Here are the keys,” Sir Bolton says, handing them over. “One last thing - there is a small issue with the basement that I couldn’t go into when we met the first time.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“There was - a plumbing accident a short while ago. It was floored, and the wood is still fairly damp. You really might not want to go down there just right now - waiting out a few weeks would be the best choice. Of course, I will send someone to deal with it then - it was my fault, you shouldn’t have to pay for it. Same for the attic - it’s full of old things that should be thrown away, they’ll take them with and spare you the trouble when they come.”
Robb nods. “Very well. I will keep that in mind. Thank you again - I should hope you will find the United States to your taste.”
“I’m certain I will,” the man says, and after they shake hands again he leaves the notary’s office.
Robb takes the keys, proceeds to pay the notary’s fee and heads out for the hotel where he has been staying for the last few days. His university classes will not start for the next two weeks, which means that he has plenty of time to get settled in. Also, he had sent for his books when he decided he would buy the house, which means that they will get here shortly enough - now he will take his things and bring them over to his new house. Considering that he hadn’t left with much and that the house is already furnished, he might even find time to write home later in the evening.
Yes, he thinks, I was really lucky.
He doesn’t spare a thought for the basement.
--
He remembers of Bolton’s warning when he’s in bed already. He has put most of his things in order, what he had brought from Winterfell; he has started a fire that has warmed up the room before dying, he has just sealed the letter that he will send home tomorrow and he’s about to succumb to sleep when he hears what sounds like a banging noise.
He’s suddenly alert again, but since nothing follows it, he just lays back down on the bed.
It came from beneath, though, or so it seemed like, and what’s beneath him - oh, the cellar. Well, if it was flooded, maybe it’s just a few rats going in and out. Nothing to worry about, certainly. He turns on his side, savoring the feeling of being the only person in the house for the first time since he can remember, and falls asleep staring at the embers of the dying fire on the opposite side of the room.
--
He’s not sure of why he wakes up in the night once, sure that he heard someone screaming, but it’s probably that the trip from Winterfell was tiring and that he hasn’t slept in a proper bed since then. Who could have screamed, anyway? He’s the only one in the house, after all.
--
The following morning, he leaves early. He buys breakfast at the pub just around the corner, then heads out to the post office so he can mail his letter, then he spends a bit in the nearest market - there’s no reason to waste his allowance on eating out every day if he can cook himself. He buys enough food for a couple of days, so he doesn’t risk it going to waste, and then comes back home just in time for lunch.
He cooks himself stew and potatoes, and he sits down at the table with his plate, and he’s about to start eating when he hears that sound again.
Banging. On the floor. Not as loud as it had sounded in his bedroom, but then again he’s not right over the cellar right now.
He stands still, his fork frozen mid-air, and he places the way back to his room down slowly, and then -
He hears a scream.
It’s muffled, but it’s a scream. And it’s a man’s. And it also came from downstairs. There’s no way he’s making it up now.
He thinks about calling the police, but - maybe he should have a look for himself. After all, maybe it’s just that he’s tired and he might be imagining it? Or that there might be animals in the basement - either way, he should check.
Robb breathes in, grabs the basement keys, lights a candle and gets downstairs - if it was floored, certainly electricity won’t work, will it?
The key doesn’t turn at once, but it happens after pushing just a bit. He takes a step in, and -
And the wood feels perfectly solid. Not as rotten as it would be if there was water everywhere.
Robb tries the switch, just in case, and -
He doesn’t let his candle fall to the ground just for some kind of miracle. The electricity works, but it’s hardly just that. It’s that the entire basement isn’t - a normal basement. It looks like some kind of medieval torture chamber - there’s a metal cross hanging on the wall, everything reeks of blood, there are blood stains covering the ground, and the floor is dirty all over for that matter. On top of that, blood is not even the worst smell rising from it. Robb swallows down once, twice, and glances around - there is a stack of books on the only desk situated in the corner of the room, and he heads there, hoping that they might explain something -
And then there’s another sound of someone not just banging against the wall, but crashing, and -
Wait. There’s another door on the far side from the entrance. And it’s obvious that someone is throwing themselves against it.
While screaming.
Robb should run and call the police, right now, before he has to further justify his involvement, but -
Sir Bolton told me to not go to the cellar for a few weeks, he thinks. If someone is really on the other side of that door -
Robb takes in another deep breath and moves in front of the door. He looks down at his keys, but of course there’s just two of them - one for the main door and one for the basement.
Robb puts his hand on the door. “Hello?” He blurts out, realizing that it probably is the most fucking stupid thing he can say in this circumstance, but suddenly the noise from the inside of the room dies.
“Is - is there anyone in?” He keeps on, feeling even more stupid, because really, he should be running, but -
No answer, but he hears a single knock on the door.
“All right,” Robb says. “All right. One knock for yes, two for no?”
Another single knock.
“Listen, I am just the new tenant, I don’t know what’s going on and I don’t have the key, but - I will try to open the door somewhat. I - I guess you can’t speak, whoever you are?”
Two knocks.
Who even keeps someone locked in a cellar? He can’t even try to kick the door down - it’s steel. He should pick the lock, but he can’t do it in the first place - he’s fairly sure that his sister could do that, but he hardly can send for Arya now, can he? The only thing he can think of is shooting the lock, that should open the door, but he doesn’t own a gun, either. Still - Bolton left all his furniture here, he said he wanted a clean slate in the States. He hasn’t looked into any of the closets except the ones where he put his clothes and his things, and there are two floors in this house. It might be worth seeing if there might be one around the place.
“All right,” he says, “I - I don’t have the key. And I can’t pick the lock. But I guess I can shoot at it.”
One knock.
“Right. I don’t own a gun, so I have to look for one. If there isn’t one in the house I can go out and try to buy one -”
Two knocks.
“Wait, no? Do you mean, there’s one inside the house?”
One knock.
Well, whoever this is, they definitely have left that room at some point.
“Right here in the basement?”
One knock.
There are a few cupboards, one closet and the desk - Robb figures he will just check all of them, especially because now he really wants to know what the hell is going on here.
“All right. All right, I will look for it and shoot that lock when I find it. All right? Just - wait there. I swear I’m opening that door soon. All right?”
One knock.
Right. Fine. He just has to find the gun. He goes for the closet first, figuring that he’ll get the biggest out of the way, and -
He opens it. There’s just - metal equipment pieces that look like parts of some kind of machine, but they don’t look like they belong anywhere specific in the room. He rummages a bit and finds nothing other than more pieces of machinery, so he closes the doors and moves to the next cupboard.
He opens a drawer and -
He slams it closed at once, and then he opens it again, hoping he saw wrong, but -
But instead - no. The drawer is full of scalpels and all of them are covered in blood.
Robb runs out of the room and up the stairs and to the restroom on the ground floor - he kneels over the toilet and vomits what’s left of his breakfast, taking in deep, heavy breaths, and wondering what the fuck he’s doing. He really should be calling the police now, there was blood on there, for fuck’s sake, and still -
And still, instead he stands up, wipes at his mouth, drinks some water from the kitchen and then he walks back downstairs. He doesn’t want to call anyone until he sees what’s going on behind the steel door, bad or not, and so he closes the door behind him and opens that drawer again. Bloody scalpels. Just that.
He breathes in and opens the next. He fights the urge to vomit all over again at the sight of bloody butcher knives, but he keeps it down and slams the drawer close. He opens the ants of the cupboard and - nothing. At least it’s completely empty except for dust.
The other cupboards are full of what looks like surgical equipment, except that at least it’s clean, and so he moves to the desk. He grabs one of the books - there’s no title, but then when he opens it he sees that it’s not a book - rather, it’s a diary. It’s all nearly written and filled, and he slams it closed with the resolution of coming back for it. Maybe there’s a chance in hell that there’s an explanation for this entire madness. He tries the only drawer, which is locked, but Robb was never a scrawny man. He pulls harder, a hand on the desk so he get leverage - it’s an old piece of furniture, so there might be hope that the wood might break, and after a few seconds it does. The lock snaps and the drawer comes free, and yes, there’s a gun inside. Robb checks that it’s loaded, and it is - all right. All right, then he should just get on with it.
He moves closer to the door, again.
“Hello?” He feels ridiculous, honestly, but then he hears another knock. “I - I found the gun. If you’re near the door, you should move. I will shoot at the count of twenty, all right?”
One knock, and then he hears shuffling. Very well. Robb counts out loud, slow, and it seems like a very long time before he arrives to twenty, and then he aims to the lock and shoots thrice.
The lock does break, good, and then Robb takes a deep breath and pushes the door open just a bit -
And then he has to keep down the urge to gag at once because if the smell of blood in the cellar was revolting, this is - this is worse. It’s not just blood - it’s waste, and there isn’t a single window in the room. He reaches for the switch after opening the door further, but there’s none. And he has no candles with, obviously. He can hear water dripping from somewhere, so at least the infiltration story wasn’t a complete lie. He takes a step back and opens the door more.
“I - I don’t think I can get in,” he says, “but - you can come out. I’ll take a step back. It’s - it’s fine. Just do.”
He hears wood creaking and someone taking a few steps in the dark, and he moves back and waits. The first thing he sees is a dirty foot from which a couple of toes have been cut or amputated, and that about makes him want to gag anew, but then -
Then the person inside the cellar cautiously steps forward so that they’re just behind the doorstep.
It’s a man, dressed in filthy clothes that look about to fall apart on him, whose skin is equally filthy - then again, if he had been locked in there who knows for how long what is Robb expecting -, with dark long hair that needs a cut, Robb thinks inconsequently, who’s resolutely not looking up at him, and -
Then Robb actually sees the details. A few suture points on what he sees of the man’s arms, what looks like electrical burns on his wrists, a patch of flayed skin on his shoulder, and -
And there’s just one reason Robb doesn’t scream out loud when he sees that someone amputated all of his fingers. That reason is that the man looks up at him for a moment and Robb meets his eyes and he doesn’t think he’s ever seen anyone look so terrified in his entire existence. And - that’s usually not the way anyone looks at him, but before his eyes had turned back to the ground, Robb had seen sheer terror in there and nothing else, and -
He swallows. He takes a step forward, even if the smell is about to make him faint.
“Christ,” he says under his breath. “It’s - it’s - don’t do that. I’m - I had no idea, I - can you - right. You can’t talk somewhat, fine, can you shake your head or nod?”
The man nods and still doesn’t look at him.
“Right. Fine. That was - you’ve been there - did Bolton know?”
The man shudders visibly and nods once, barely. Then he nods once towards the books on the desk.
Well, right, it seems like Robb will have to look at them.
He has a lot of questions, but he can’t exactly ask who are you to someone who can’t talk, right?
“Can you walk upstairs?” He asks instead, wondering if he’s gone completely mad.
Another barely there nod.
Robb would like to give the man something to eat, he’s so thin you can almost see his ribs, but - but the smell is about to make him faint.
“How - how about you come with me, I draw a bath, you take it and then I can try and figure this out while you’re doing it?”
The man’s head jerks upwards and he stares at Robb directly now - his mouth falls open a tiny bit, and Robb can see now that he’s young, has to be around his age, and what are the suture points on his neck? He looks like he hadn’t been expecting Robb to say that at all, and he’s shaking all over, and Robb would really like to know what the hell is going on.
But then he nods again, almost tentatively, almost as if he can’t believe he’s really doing that.
“Right. Right, just - let’s get out. I’ll find a way to clean that room later. And - if you can’t answer this just let it be, but - is there a reason why you can’t talk? If -”
The man takes a couple of steps forward, stops and looks straight up at him -
And then he opens his mouth and Robb sees and -
He runs up the stairs, heads for the window opening on a back alley and vomits again.
Of course he can’t talk. How do you talk without a tongue?
--
The bathroom’s door is locked and Robb’s food is sitting uneaten on the living room’s table as he opens the first journal with shaking hands.
His guest had waited for him at the top of the stairs, unmoving, and Robb hadn’t said anything after pulling his bearings back together again. He had drawn the bath, left some of his clothes on a chair in the room, told the man to just take his time and leave his rags out of the room and to come out when he was done.
Then he burned the rags, went to the cellar to pick up those diaries and sat down again.
He opens the first page - it takes little to figure out that the writer was Bolton’s bastard son and that this is his journal and that he’s talking about some scientific experiments he was conducting in the attic about a year ago.
Robb reads on.
--
He closes the journal not long later feeling like he can’t even bring himself to stand up.
Gods, so Bolton had a complete insane son who was also so well-versed in science that he brought a man back to life. No, actually, he used the body of a young man who died in a carriage accident that had left it with minor mutilations, substituted a few parts of it with parts from other bodies, went through the trouble of bringing it back to life and then -
Then he about spent three months doing further scientific experiments which apparently included cutting off all of the man’s fingers one by one before some neighbor heard screams in the night, asked the other Bolton for explanations and suddenly the younger one fell down the stairs.
Robb also feels very disturbed by the fact that the poor man seems to be referred to as Reek for the entire length of the journal, and not by any decent name, but -
He glances at the other journal, but the one only seems to be recording the procedure.
Robb resolves to burn it soon without even attempting to read it, he doesn’t even want to know, but then he decides he needs to deal with his current situation first. Certainly he can’t throw the poor man out on the street, he’s not that cruel, but - Christ, he was supposed to find a house and get settled until his classes start, and now he hasthis on his hands?
He really should call the police, except that he can’t see that going over too well. Still, someone should be aware of what went on, if only for the sake of making sure Bolton doesn’t get away with having covered for it. And maybe they would take the issue off his hands, and Robb isn’t really ready to deal with the fact that he’s living in a house where someone defied the laws of nature and bloody brought someone back to life which he still can’t quite grasp -
He hears sounds from the doorstep.
He looks up from the book and - he is standing there, looking like someone who doesn’t know if they should run for their life. He’s wearing those clothes of Robb’s that Robb had left in the room, and all of them are large on him, but now that he’s not reeking and that his skin isn’t dirty, Robb can see exactly all the suture points and electrical burns littering his arms and one of his wrists. His hair needs a cut, definitely, but now at least Robb can come closer without feeling like throwing up by reflex.
“You can come in,” he says, keeping his tone low. “Take - take a seat.”
The other man does, gingerly, as if he never did it before, and for what Robb knows, he hasn’t.
Robb gets him a glass of water and pushes it forward - his guest takes it in between his palms and takes a sip, what’s left of his hands shaking wildly.
“I read some of the journal,” Robb says. The man abruptly stops drinking. “Go on. It’s - I think I need some time to - to take it in. But - I guess Bolton locked you down there when he realized what was really going on?”
The man nods and looks down at the table.
Fuck. He’d have died there if Bolton hadn’t sold the house so quickly, Robb imagines.
“I - I gather you’ve never been outside this house.”
The man shakes his head.
“Here it says - never mind. Do you remember anything before he revived you?”
Another head shake. Damn, this gets worse and worse. Never mind that the man’s shoulders are visibly trembling so hard it looks like he might topple over.
“Hey, can - can you look up at me?”
The man does, slowly, still shaking like a leaf, and damn but he does have beautiful eyes, Robb thinks inconsequentially. Dark as his hair, long lashes, and it makes quite a handsome picture with his straight nose, sharp cheekbones and full lips - now if only he didn’t look terrified. Or like he was expecting the worst.
Whatever madness was going on downstairs, Robb knows he can’t exactly wash his hands off this, or just decide that he can’t care less.
He figures he should just tell the truth.
“All right. I’ll just - lay down all the cards. So to speak. My name is Robb Stark, I’m - I am supposed to start university classes in a few weeks’ time, I only just now have moved here and I had been to London exactly twice in my life before, I had no idea any of this had been going on and I have no bloody clue of what I’m going to do about it or how am I even going to deal with what’s downstairs, but - I wouldn’t throw you out of here or tell anyone of this. I suppose we can figure that out but please don’t think I want to - put this in the police’s hands or something.” If only because if Robb did he can only imagine where the poor man would end up.
The shaking stops, and the man’s eyes go wide now. He still looks terrified, but maybe fairly hopeful, too?
“Really,” Robb keeps on. “I - I wouldn’t. I don’t think I could. So - I guess I’ll need to read this whole thing and figure it out, but meanwhile - Christ, I guess you should eat something but I don’t know what -”
The man uses the back of his hand to move the closed journal toward Robb, again.
“Is - should I open it?”
He gets a nod - he does. He doesn’t stop turning the pages until the man stops him - it’s an entry he hadn’t read yet.
“Do I read it?”
The other man nods and shrugs, and Robb does, and -
Considering the slower vitals, it’s more than likely to assume that he can survive thrice the average of the regular man without food or water. That will undoubtedly make matters easier.
Robb doesn’t want to know what matters does he mean.
“So - so you don’t need to eat for now?”
No, the man shakes his head.
“And you won’t likely need to for another few weeks at least?”
Another no. Well, right, but it still doesn’t mean he should go without food. But Robb has nothing that isn’t solid around the house. Maybe tomorrow he can try to cook some soup or he could buy some, he thinks.
“That’s still not right, but - I suppose that we can worry about that later.” Robb should also read all of that diary, whether he wants it or not, but meanwhile...
Meanwhile he can’t stop thinking about the fact that from what he read in that diary the man in front of him hasn’t worn clean clothes at any point in his revived life before Robb gave him some, for fuck’s sake, and -
Damn it.
He clears his throat and holds out his hand - the other man looks at it as if he can’t fathom what Robb is fishing for.
Robb doesn’t usually have reasons to feel angry, but right now he wishes he could have a choice words with the elder Bolton about this. A lot of choice words.
“I suppose we should be - sharing quarters for a while,” he says, wishing it didn’t sound just so surreal to his own ears. “So - well, I don’t think I want to call you by that joke of a name he used in that journal, but it did say you had - a life before that so maybe if you remember - whatever, I’m sorry, just - hello, I’m Robb, the circumstances are dire but I was raised to introduce myself properly to others.”
For a moment they just stare at each other, but then his hand is cupped in between two rough palms that are also not so subtly shaking and Robb tries not to look at the angry red scars in the places where fingers should have been.
--
He finishes his cold lunch just because he doesn’t want the food to waste while his guest sits quietly at the table, and then he puts the plate away - he’ll deal with it later.
“Right,” he says, “I - I should probably read all of that.”
The man gives him a tiny nod.
Robb is about to tell him to just choose one of the empty rooms and lie down already or something of the kind, but then he realizes something else.
“Ah, bloody hell, the cellar,” he says under his breath. He can’t possibly leave it be knowing the conditions of it, especially of the room with the steel door, and if there aren’t rats in there already he’d be surprised. He’s entirely not interested in catching some disease because of that, but certainly he can’t hire a maid to do it, can he? And - he’s not helpless, living in an estate didn’t mean that his parents never taught him or his siblings that they should be able to look after themselves and clean up after themselves, but that cellar is probably way beyond the expertise of any maid that ever worked at Winterfell.
But then someone touches his arm lightly. He looks up again, and the man shakes his head once, then points to himself and stands up.
“Wait, you want to take care of it?”
He shrugs, but then he touches Robb again and shakes his head before nodding towards the journal. He almost looks apologetic.
“Do you mean - it’s his fault, so I shouldn’t have to deal with it?”
The man nods, looking almost grateful.
“If - if you think you can do that, all right. Take - take your time. I will be here.”
The man turns on his heels and goes back towards the basement, and Robb can see that he doesn’t walk quite right. Of course. No toes, right?
Robb swallows what tastes like bile, sits down on the sofa with the journal and starts reading from the beginning all over again.
--
When he closes it, the sun is low on the horizon, which means that hours have passed, and his fingers are shaking wildly as he grabs the journal and tries to resist the urge to rip it apart. He wants - he doesn’t know what he wants, but even without the complete madness that is bringing people back to life, which is something Robb is not sure he can wrap his head around fully yet, how can someone take such glee in noting down everything that Robb has just read?
He has - he has brought the man back to life fully functional, and from what Robb reads he had in fact become fully functional in a matter of weeks - reading, speaking, writing and so on. And then he had started -
Robb wants to vomit at the thought, never mind that all the reactions to what the younger Bolton put him through were noted in detail, and Robb really didn’t want to know that the stumps of his fingers didn’t bleed out as Bolton flayed them before cutting them off.
He’s sitting there with the journal in between his hands, taking in deep breaths and thinking that this is too much for him, entirely too much, when he hears noise coming from the hallway.
He looks at the door leading into the living room and there he is. His clothes are dirty, and Robb is sure his palms are a red color that isn’t fully natural, but then he glances downwards and nods towards the hallway.
Robb goes to the cellar - he doesn’t follow.
He walks in to find the floor scrubbed clean enough - you can still see the older blood stains, but at least it doesn’t smell horribly anymore. He sees that there was a wardrobe built into the wall, which he didn’t notice before - the doors are open and he can see what looks like cleaning equipment in there. He opens the steel door fully and - the floor is clean. Not spotless, but it’s clean of filth at least - there’s still a trickle of water coming from the side, he will need to call someone to fix the plumbing, but he imagines that that can wait until later.
There’s a bucket just outside the door, filled with dirty rags. Robb thinks about scrubbing the floor without fingers to hold them.
He leaves everything there - he’ll set it on fire later.
Robb goes back upstairs, finds himself stopping on the doorstep for a moment and then heads back for the living room.
He is standing in the corner, looking downwards. Robb is purposefully noisy as he grabs the journal he had just finished.
“Thanks for that,” Robb says, and he looks up at the sound. Good.
Robb takes the journal and throws it in the fire.
When he looks back up at him, he doesn’t know how to describe the way he looks, but there’s gratitude in it, maybe, and he flinches a bit when Robb moves closer, but it seems more like shame than fear. Or so Robb thinks, anyway.
He breathes in, takes a step closer, slowly puts his hands on his shoulders. He can feel cold skin, but it’s not overtly so.
“I don’t even know what I should say,” he admits. “I wasn’t - I wasn’t raised to - bloody fucking hell, I don’t have a clue of what I should do but I wouldn’t wash my hands off this.”
There’s a moment in which they just look at each other and they probably both have the same surprised expression on their face, but then Robb feels a pair of palms tentatively touching his sides, and Robb is suddenly reminded of one time when he and Jon were six and attending the local school and some kid had told Jon something really damned mean concerning the fact that his mother wasn’t Ned Stark’s wife. Robb had wanted to punch him, truthfully, but Jon had looked so damned miserable that he had just set to hug him while asserting that the idiot didn’t have a clue about what he had just said. And that wasn’t half as bad as the stare he’s getting right now. But the feeling is the same, isn’t it?
I must be mad, Robb thinks as he draws the other man closer, loosely embracing him, and he doesn’t move when he feels hot tears against his shoulder.
--
Robb doesn’t read the second journal until a week has passed.
That week convinces him that he has to do something more than providing his guest with a bedroom and cooking soup every evening and handing him some of his old clothes to wear. Thing is - they can’t properly communicate, but it’s obvious that he has plenty of things to say, and it’s unfair that he cannot. When Robb’s things came from Winterfell he wordlessly helped him empty the wardrobes and fill them back up again, whenever Robb is out he always comes back to a more or less clean house (and to see blisters on his palms, even if they don’t seem to hurt the other man as much as they’d hurt a regular human being), he’s always there looking mighty grateful when Robb cooks or seems to do anything for him, even if it’s nothing at all. He looks at Robb’s textbooks wistfully and sometimes Robb had found him reading one, but it’s obviously an hassle to do it without fingers to turn the pages, so he doesn’t do that often.
And it’s obvious that he longs to be outside, but of course he couldn’t, not like this.
When he reads the second journal, he does it figuring that he’ll just burn it if it’s anywhere like the first. It’s not.
Differently from that one, it’s - a detailed description of the procedures Bolton used, which makes Robb slam it closed the moment he understands what it’s about. He doesn’t want to know that, he doesn’t even want anyone to know, and he really should burn it for the entire world’s benefit - it’s no knowledge that should be shared in the first place.
And he’s about to, when he glances at the living room table where his guest has been sitting for a while, trying to finish the bowl of soup Robb put together a while ago. He’s been at it for a long time because of course holding it is difficult enough, and he won’t accept help there. Not that Robb doesn’t understand why.
He thinks, what kind of existence can that be?
He opens the book again. He doesn’t want to know the basic procedure. He doesn’t care. But maybe - maybe -
He finds the answer towards the end of it, and after reading that entry carefully he goes to the attic for the first time since he bought the house.
It’s all dusty, and yes, in the middle of it there’s a bed attached to some hellish machinery which was described to the last details in the journal, but that’s not what he was looking for.
He breathes in deeply and opens the only closet in the room.
He doesn’t know how he doesn’t vomit at the sight of jars full of perfectly preserved human organs lined in neat rows in front of him, but - fuck, Bolton really was insane, wasn’t he?
Still - still -
Robb has never, once in his life, even stitched something decently. Not for lack of trying, his mom insisted that all her children learned basic skills to get by, and Jon was fairly good at that, but Robb was always terrible at it - according to the maid teaching them, his fingers were too big for it, and he couldn’t ever quite grasp the coordination needed. Every time he always ended up driving the needle into his own finger, and they gave up on him after one month - his mom had just figured he’d get by regardless.
And now he should -
He thinks about the way the poor man had looked at him back in that cellar and he slams the shutters closed.
Fine.
At least he can try to discuss it.
--
“I - I need to talk to you,” Robb tells him an hour later, after re-reading that entry enough that he could recite it by heart. “It’s - I’m not kicking you out,” he adds hastily when he sees him go into a panic. He sits down next to him at the table and puts the journal in between them.
“I wanted to burn this,” he says. The other man nods once, even too quickly - damn, he must share his thoughts, at least.
“And I will,” Robb keeps on. “But - I thought - I read through it. There’s - the last part. There’s a detailed procedure for - for how he would try to reattach - what he took from you.”
His eyes go wide at once - he understood, Robb thinks.
“Now - I - thing is, he kept them. I mean, your fingers and - the rest. It’s - it’s in some jars up in the attic. I - I think that there’s - I mean, if I just sew them back in and with a minor electrical charge going through the places noted here - you should get them back. Or - in theory. I don’t even have a bloody clue, I study Greek, for fuck’s sake, and I can’t sew worth a damn, but you don’t really deserve to live out your existence like this, and - I mean, I’m willing to try if you’re willing to trust that I’d know what the hell I’m doing. Which I’m not really sure of, but -”
He stops when he feels his hand go to his wrist - he’s touching it gingerly, but it was enough to make Robb stop to try and make sense of what he was saying.
Robb looks at his left, down at his mouth, and he sees him shape the word even if he can’t speak it. Robb isn’t really much of a lip-reader, but he can recognize it.
Really?
Well, he can’t go back now.
“If you’re willing, I’m amenable,” he answers. “I can’t guarantee the outcome, but - yes.”
Robb turns his hand so that he can hold his wrist, and he carefully, slowly puts an arm around his shoulders. He feels cold to the touch, not that he’s surprised.
--
He spends a week stitching every kind of hard fabric he can spare. Not that he harbors illusions that it’ll be the same, but he has to practice some, and then he goes to class on his first day with bandaged fingers - his fingertips are all showing how terribly his first tries went - but he can more or less manage a clean row now. Thankfully no one asks questions, and even if he’s dead tired when he gets back home he sits down, reads what he has to, spends one hour stitching some more and then cooks dinner.
The kitchen is clean when he walks inside it, though, and when during dinner he sees that the top of his palms has completely cracked skin he feels his stomach double over.
--
One month later, he feels reasonably ready for it. Or as ready as he’ll ever be - at least he can push needles into the cloth at the first try, rather than just stab at his own fingertips.
Also, it’s been a rainy week, which means that while they shouldn’t need a thunderstorm to power the machinery since Robb is meant to prickle only, not shock, it still can’t hurt.
On Saturday afternoon, coming home from the library, Robb finds his guest sitting at the living room table, staring down at the infamous journal.
“Hello,” Robb calls. “I, uh, I was thinking, maybe we could do it today? If you’re amenable. It should be raining hard, from what it seems.”
He gets a nod in return, but then he pushes towards Robb a small bottle with the back of his hand. Robb takes it, and -”
“Laudanum? Are you sure? I mean -”
He nods.
“Throughout - I mean, the electricity would probably wake you up.”
The other man shrugs, then looks down at his hands and closes his eyes at once. For a moment Robb doesn’t really understand what it might mean, but then -
“Wait, I’m an idiot. Of course you wouldn’t want to be awake for it if you were when you lost them, right?”
He gets a grateful nod in return - Christ, this is going worse and worse.
“Right. I’ll - I’ll change and wash and then we can go upstairs and be done with this. If you want to start already, I will be there shortly.”
He doesn’t wait for an answer and goes straight for his room. Maybe if he tells himself that he can do this enough times, he’ll believe it soon enough.
--
He changes into old, comfortable clothes that won’t be missed if they get ruined, takes the journal on the way back after having washed his hands so long that his skin is wrinkled, and then brings upstairs the laudanum, a full bottle of whiskey and a glass - the rest is there already.
He wishes he could have a drink himself, but the last thing anyone here needs is him being drunk while he has to reattach limbs to a technically revived body. Christ. He’s never going to stop and think about the ethical implications of this or he’s going to faint on the stairs.
When he walks inside the attic, he’s already there, sitting on the bed, and does his skin look paler than usual?
Robb clears his throat and places everything on a small desk in the corner.
“Do you want it now?”
He gets an affirmative nod.
“Are you sure you don’t want to see what I’m actually going to -”
He doesn’t even finish - the headshake was fairly self-explanatory.
“Very well. I’m going to do it then. Uh, the doctor who always came to our house, whenever anyone needed it, he’d pour a little laudanum and a lot of whiskey, do you think -”
He gets a headshake. Right. He probably knows what would knock him out better than Robb ever could, he supposes.
“How about I start pouring and you stop me?”
He nods and Robb starts pouring the laudanum, and only gets an affirmative nod when he has filled the glass halfway.
He swallows and fills the other half with whiskey, then goes to the bed and hands it over. He takes it in between both palms and downs it at once, and then he makes a motion with his left hand, as in -
“Wait, another?”
The nod is definitely affirmative.
Robb shrugs and pours the same doses, repeating the motions, and after the second glass he lays down, sends Robb a plenty grateful look and closes his eyes.
He’s asleep in moments, or so it looks like, but the breathing is regular and he certainly doesn’t look like someone who just drank half a bottle of laudanum, Christ.
Robb takes some ten deep breaths, disinfects his needles, then he opens the blasted closet again. He still wants to throw up as he sees the jars, but - no. He needs to soldier through with this. Hopefully they’ll be labeled, since it’s full of them. Thankfully one of the rows has just - a tongue, ten fingers and four toes. They’re all labeled R.
Well then. He quenches his useless homicidal instincts towards the younger Bolton and carefully takes all the jars out of the closet - he’s going to destroy everything else later. Then he sits, decides that starting from the feet is probably the best course of action and as he gets his needle and thread ready, he fervently hopes that he can get through this without vomiting.
--
He does in fact get through it without vomiting, even if he does that the moment he’s done - good thing he had a bucket ready just in case.
He grabs it and throws up the light dinner that he obviously hadn’t digested yet, and then some more - when he finally feels like he can stand up without feeling sick, he almost loses his balance. He heads straight for the sink and washes his hands thrice, moves the bucket to the corner so at least the smell won’t distract him and then takes the journal again, turning to the next page over. The one where it explained where each rod was supposed to go to put motion back into that specific area - Robb doesn’t really want to know why everything was recorded so neatly. He grabs the rods from that hellish machine and places them carefully where indicated, one at the back of the head just over the nape and another way over, on top - there are burn marks hidden by hair there already, so he figures that they have to go there.
“Fine,” Robb murmurs to himself. “Fine, that should work.” If he doesn’t fuck it up with the rest. Then again, the instructions seem clear. Turn that shitty piece of machinery on, press this and that after setting the right voltage, deed done.
He sets the voltage first - it’s a simple knob, it’s fairly easy -, then pushes down the lever that he thinks was supposed to turn the entire thing on.
And it does - Christ, it does. He sees sparks at the top of it, and it starts humming, and he feels like he might get a shock if he even touches it, but he’s come this far, he’ll finish it. Good thing it’s self-powered for small shocks, or so that entry said.
He presses the first button, then the second, and then -
Then the poor soul on the bed screams.
For a moment Robb is tempted to shut everything off, because that was almost as bad as the first time he heard it, and it’s not even a guarantee that it’s working since you can scream fine if you have vocal chords, but still - it said at least a minute, and he definitely doesn’t want to do this again with the poor man being awake from the beginning. So he counts the time on his watch, doesn’t even glance at his back (or he’ll stop, he knows he’ll stop) and tries to not scream himself.
The moment a minute has passed, he just goes for the lever and moves it downwards - there’s a last sputter from the machinery and then it goes dead, and what follows is just, horrible silence all over the attic, never mind that he can smell burned circuits.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “but it said at least a minute, and -”
“Don’t,” comes a croak from behind him, and -
Wait.
Robb turns at once, and - and good lord, it worked.
He looks fairly terrible - overtly pale, and he’s struggling to sit up, but Robb can see him opening and closing his fingers into a fist, on both hands. And if he heard right -
“Bloody hell,” Robb whispers, falling down on the seat he had used before, his shaking hands reaching out to unhook the rods. “Did - it did - I wasn’t sure it’d work, but -”
He stops at once when long, pale fingers wrap around his wrist. They’re cold, but he doesn’t mind so much. Not when no one has ever looked at him with such raw gratefulness in their eyes as the stare he’s getting right now.
“Robb, I - I can’t even begin - thank you,” he says with obvious strain, and it sounds rough, like someone who has only used his voice to scream out loud lately, guess why, the other hand grasping at Robb’s free arm.
Still, Robb thinks, he has a very nice voice after all.
“Well,” Robb says, “I still don’t know what the hell did I do, but - you’re welcome. Wow, fuck, I really didn’t think - do you want to see if you can stand?”
“Yes, I should - yes.” He goes for it, letting go of Robb, and Robb moves back to give him space.
For a moment he seems to be losing balance, but then Robb grasps at his arm again and he steadies himself. He takes a couple of steps, and then stops abruptly.
“Hey, is there something wrong?”
“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” comes as an answer, and it almost sounds awed.
“Oh. Oh, good, I wasn’t sure -” Robb is really at a loss for words here, because he doesn’t know what to say now or what to do in the face of that grateful, grateful way he’s been looked at, never mind that one of his hands is grasping at Robb’s forearm again and the grip is a lot stronger than you’d think for someone who didn’t have fingers three hours ago.
And then he realizes that maybe he hasn’t asked the most important question.
“By the way,” he says then, “do you have a name you’d like to be called by, if you - if you can’t remember the one you had before? I’d like to call you something, it’s getting fairly maddening by now.”
He thinks he saw raw pain in the other man’s eyes, but then he takes a breath and his grip becomes a tiny bit stronger, again.
“I don’t remember much of anything of who I was before he brought me back,” he finally answers. “He always used to say that - I didn’t need to know anyway.” He swallows. “I don’t - I guess I had one. But I don’t remember it.”
Robb’s homicidal tendencies aren’t getting quenched down at all.
“Then I have a proposition for you. How about we get downstairs, have a drink that’s not half laudanum and you pick yourself one? We can get rid of everything in here tomorrow.”
For a moment nothing happens, and then -
“I’d - I’d like that,” comes weakly, but for the first time since Robb walked into the cellar the other man’s lips quirk up in the ghost of a grin and -
And damn, but if he doesn’t have a gorgeous smile Robb doesn’t know how to call it.
--
He brings the journal downstairs, then puts it in between them before they sit.
“Do you want the honors?” He asks.
He pours the drinks while paper burns in the fire. He doesn’t feel sorry about that at all.
--
“It looks like I only have somewhat old-fashioned literature around,” Robb says apologetically a while later, looking through his books. He had figured he would search for some current one just to get a list of names from it.
“I think I guessed that already. I mean. I looked at the titles sometimes. And I tried to read the Iliad, but it was too long.”
“Why, you can have it now, I don’t really need it for the classes I’m attending right now. But - I left all my novels at home. This is just - classics, I fear.”
“Classics will work, don’t worry. You - you really should not. You already went above and beyond.” Robb is trying to place the accent, but he can’t quite pinpoint it. Still, he’s sure of one thing at least.
“And you sound fairly well-spoken.”
The other man shrugs as he takes the first book from the pile Robb had handed him before - it’s some kind of compendium of Hellenistic philosophy if he’s not wrong.
“Well, he did wait a couple months before - before. There’s a reason why I know how to read,” he answers a moment later.
Robb isn’t going to ask if what he has assumed is right, because if he gets a confirmation he’s going to throw up his whiskey.
So he doesn’t and he pours himself another drink, until -
“Oh,” comes from behind him. Robb turns - he’s staring at one page of the book.
“What’s wrong?”
He receives no answer, so Robb walks around him and glances at the page from behind his shoulder.
The page is about some first century AC mathematician named Theon of Smyrna - it’s just an index of names and the man has barely half of it to himself, so there’s probably not much to be said about him. Still, considering the way he’s staring intently at the page -
“Does that remind you of anything?”
“Not really, but - I think - I think that was my name.”
“What, Theon? That’s - not really common,” Robb says - surely he’s never met anyone named like that.
“I suppose not. Still - I think - it just feels right? I was reading the list and - it does.”
“Well, however it is, if you like it then why not? It’s a beautiful name, for that matter.”
“Beautiful? And why would that be?”
“It means - it’s how you say of the gods in Greek. Don’t look at me like I’m making fun of you or like it’s a cosmical joke, it’s still beautiful.”
“Huh. It’s still a cosmical joke, though. But - what the hell, I guess I can take it in stride.”
Robb had liked the man before, truth to be told, but now that he’s actually talking out loud he thinks it was a total travesty that anyone could just - use him like that, Christ.
He shakes his head and sits down next to him on the sofa.
“Well, then I guess it’s high time we introduce properly, isn’t it? Because sorry but if that was an introduction…”
For a moment he gets a fairly incredulous stare, but then -
Then the man actually laughs out loud and hell but that really sounds lovely, even if his voice is still hoarse and when he moves his hand in Robb’s direction, you can see the fine stitching where his fingers are attached to the rest of it.
“It really wasn’t,” he agrees.
“Very well, then. Robb Stark, how do you do.”
“Theon, how do you do,” comes for an answer, even if Theon’s sort of still snorting as he says it so it doesn’t sound like a serious introduction at all. Robb thinks he’s entirely fine with it.
--
Two weeks later, Robb has learned a fair amount of things about Theon, and all of it has left him mixed feelings. Mixed in the sense that while he definitely likes the man now that they can talk, whenever he mentions… well, effects of what was done to him Robb feels like strangling anyone that has been involved in it.
He now knows for sure that Theon can in theory go without sleep or eating or drinking for a lot longer than someone average - I had been in that cellar for three weeks, he had said quietly that first night - even if he’ll sleep, drink and eat regularly if given the change. He knows that he’s scaringly fast at generally learning things and that he has a far better eyesight than his own - when Robb had mentioned his eyes getting too tired in the evening for prolonged translating, Theon had just grabbed his vocabulary and asked what he needed to look for, and he had been able to read it without even having a direct light on the page. And he’s also a lot stronger than average - they spent two days cleaning out both basement and attic and Robb has seen plenty of proof.
Sometimes he wonders what Bolton was trying to achieve there, and then he decides it’s better if no one knows.
It’s early in the morning on a Sunday and Robb is busy trying to convince him that no, really, Parmenides is not as boring as it looks like when there’s a knock on his door.
“Were you expecting anyone?” Theon asks cautiously.
“Not really,” Robb says. “And surely if my parents sent clothes from Winterfell they wouldn’t come on a Sunday.”
He opens the window - they’re on the first floor - and he looks down. There’s a woman outside - fairly young, long chestnut hair, dressed practically, and there’s a fairly large carriage behind her.
“Excuse me,” he says, “do we know each other, miss?”
She looks up at him with the fakest smile Robb has ever seen in his life.
“Sir Bolton sent me,” she replies amiably. “I should empty out the cellar. He did tell you someone would come to deal with the flooding, didn’t he?”
He did, Robb realizes suddenly, and his blood runs cold at once. He had completely forgotten that conversation, which means that he thought he could -
Robb thinks he wants to throw up all over again.
“I will be down shortly,” he says, closing the window, and when he looks back at Theon, he’s just - completely petrified.
“Hey,” he says, putting his hands on Theon’s shoulders, “I’m absolutely not telling her you’re here if you don’t want to, but - maybe you know her?”
“I think I do,” Theon replies, his voice sounding fairly gloomier than usual. “Average height, chestnut hair, possibly dark clothes, unsettling smile?”
“... Yes?”
“I know her,” he says. “She - she was his assistant.”
“His what?”
“His assistant. She was there all along. One day he wanted to see if I could survive multiple stab wounds and she was in charge of that.”
Robb wants to vomit, again. “And she said she was supposed to empty out the basement, which - oh. Oh. I guess they thought you would be dead by now?”
“Or too weak, maybe.” Theon’s hands are clenched into fists now, and Robb can see him tense, not that he doesn’t understand it.
He puts his own hands over Theon’s, trying to still their shaking. “I think I can send her on her way without even letting her in, if you’d like.”
Theon shakes his head. “No. No, I think you should. And I think I should like to give her a scare.”
Robb grins, unable to keep it in. “Go behind the living room’s door, I think you’ll know when to come in.”
--
Robb opens the door and smiles back at her, not trying to make sure it reaches his eyes - she looks like a viper, anyway.
“Miss,” he says, “sorry for the wait. How may I address you?”
“My name is Myranda, Mr. Stark,” she says, “and I would quite like to be out of your hair as soon as possible. Surely you don’t want to be disturbed on a Sunday of all days, so if you will be so kind to -”
“I’m somewhat lapsed, so it’s no matter to me. However, of course,” Robb cuts her, “but first I think I should like to offer you some tea. If you please.”
She doesn’t look too happy about that, but she still plays nice - she nods and says she’d be delighted. Robb brings her up to his living room and has her sit on the sofa in front of the fire.
“I had some brewing already,” he lies, “I will get it in a moment. That said, miss Myranda, I think you took an unnecessary detour.”
“Unnecessary?”
“I already dealt with the basement,” Robb replies, making sure she has the time to let that sink in. “And the attic.”
“... Pardon? You must be japing.” She shudders at that, and suddenly she doesn’t look so annoyed of being here and possibly wasting time.
“Not at all. I already dealt with the basement. If you go down right now, you shall only find empty cupboards. Same as the attic. And the room behind the steel door will also be empty.”
“I - Mr. Stark, what do you mean with dealing with the basement? Because -”
“There was no real flooding, wasn’t it?” Robb shakes his head. “Miss, let’s just show each other our respective hands, shall we? You don’t care just for what was in that basement, you care for who was in there, same as your employer, probably. Too bad that you can hear someone screaming from my bedroom.”
At that, her face goes so pale Robb is sure she might faint.
“Someone? Mr. Stark, there surely wasn’t -”
“I said, let’s show each our respective hands. There was someone in the basement. And I know you probably wanted to take them with you dead or alive, but fact is, they are not in there right now.”
“What?”
“I’m here, if that’s relevant to you,” Theon says, finally moving out of the shadows, and all blood drains from Miss Myranda’s face, not that Robb would have thought differently. He just stands there, not doing or saying anything else, but it’s obvious in the way she’s looking at him that she’s currently fearing for her life.
“You - you cannot - how -”
Theon just nods towards Robb. Myranda looks at him now, completely bewildered. “You?”
“Those journals had detailed instructions,” Robb replies.
“But - but - Sir said - weren’t you a classics student?”
“Yes, and I’m really glad he’s here to read my vocabulary for me when I’m too tired to bother, but that doesn’t mean I can’t follow instructions. That said, we burned all of them. Hell, we burned all of what was in the basement and the attic.”
“He does what for you?”
“It is certainly more reasonable that what Ramsay Bolton had me do now, isn’t it?”
And then Theon walks up to the sofa and stops just in front of her - he’s just looming, but Robb can see that she couldn’t just run and leave now, he’d stop her.
“You know,” he says, “I did think about trying to kill you if I ever saw you again, in those weeks I had to spend locked down there. For a moment I thought I would do that, then get out and do it to anyone I met - that was how angry I felt. I would have found a way, fingerless or not.” His tone goes lower, but not enough that Robb doesn’t hear him. “You know, I thought everyone would be like you two. What did I know? Never mind that after you took - after then, what was I supposed to think? And then - then he proved me wrong, and he proved the both of you wrong as well, I guess, which is why I’m not going to snap your neck like you deserve. And I’m not going to ask you what you were planning to do, had he not heard me and had you found me alive down there, but if his father sends anyone else here, or if you come again, I won’t be as - accommodating. Understood?”
Robb can see the blood drain from her face even further as she nods minutely, her hands gripping the cushions of the sofa so hard they’ve turned white.
“I think I should escort her out,” he interjects.
“Please do,” Theon says, moving away and letting her stand. Robb grabs her arm strongly enough that she couldn’t get out of the hold if he doesn’t let her - he has to say a few words and he can’t have her running downstairs.
He waits until they’re on the staircase leading to the ground floor. “He wasn’t as nice as I would have been,” he finally says, “but I don’t want to see you or anyone who might know around here either.”
“How did you -” She starts.
“You don’t need a tongue to scream, and that’s all I’m going to say about it. He’s certainly better company than I’d find your employer. By the way, there is nothing left, really, so you can forget about trying to sneak in at night and see if the basement is as empty as we told you. Neither of us was keen on someone else trying to pull that trick on some other poor soul. Now, there’s just one thing you can tell me before you leave.”
“What,” she almost spits - she obviously wants to be everywhere but here.
“Do you know who he was before Bolton paid him that favor?”
She snorts and gets out of Robb’s grip, heading for the door. “It’s probably better that he never finds out,” she says, and then pretty much runs out of the door.
Well, he tried. He walks back upstairs after watching the carriage leave.
“I think she understood,” he says as he rejoins Theon in the living room.
“She’d have better,” Theon mutters, staring down at his hands. “Damn her, damn him, I didn’t ask for it, and who knows what would have happened if -”
“Hey, don’t go there. It didn’t happen. And by the way, do you think you might want to go out one of these days? You look like you’re going fairly stir-crazy in here.”
Theon shrugs minutely. “Yes, because I wouldn’t make heads turn.”
“I don’t think it’s that much of a given,” Robb says, thinking about it. “I mean, if you wear gloves no one will notice the hands. There’s theater make-up to cover the burns. If you wear a hat and a scarf and we go out at night no one would overtly notice.”
“... Are you sure?”
“We could try. Come on, have you ever been out?”
“I told you I didn’t when you asked me first, but - I kind of lied. I did once. Before - before. It didn’t last long. Everyone who looked at me would scream.”
Well, if he had gone out looking anywhere like he was when Robb found him first, he can only imagine it.
The next day, he goes to buy some make-up at the theater supplies shop near university.
--
“Are you sure people won’t notice?”
“You just look very pale, but it’s nothing people would look at twice.”
Theon shrugs, not looking too convinced, but Robb thinks it will do - he’s wearing some of Robb’s old clothes, obviously, with black gloves. Robb thinks he managed to hide the burns on his temples fairly well, but then again considering that it’s already dark out and that Theon has long hair, the shouldn’t be visible in the first place. The wool scarf around his neck should hide the stitches on his neck fairly well, too - really, there’s nothing about him that would cause second glances.
“I mean that. You look good. And we should go buy you some clothes.”
“What - no. No, really, you don’t have to -”
“Oh, I can just try and sell some of the horrid clocks that they left back in the house to gain back the money if you really care for that. Come on, you shouldn’t be wearing just my stuff.”
“Fine, but - you don’t have to.”
“I know I don’t. I’m not doing it because I think I have to.”
Theon still doesn’t look completely convinced, but then he gives Robb a fairly weary nod and takes the coat Robb hands him and waits for him on the doorstep after he’s put it on.
--
In the end they settle for a small shop selling mostly used clothes, and Robb doesn’t even see what Theon eventually buys, but it doesn’t really cost that much considering how many they end up getting. The owner doesn’t notice anything off about his customer, so after they go back home and leave the bags there, Robb drags Theon to the nearest pub - it’s a couple streets from the house, and it’s far from the university and its usual crowd, so Robb won’t risk running into anyone he knows and they won’t have to explain who Theon is, since they haven’t agreed on a story for that yet.
Indeed, it’s mostly full of men coming for a drink after being done with work - they pick a table in the corner and Robb orders a pint for both of them, and no one looks at them twice.
“See?” He says after they’re brought their drinks. “No one is staring.”
“Well, damn,” Theon says, “this is going better than I thought. Now I just hope the beer is a good idea.”
“Why shouldn’t it be? You drank half a bottle of whiskey and laudanum before, do I have to remind you?”
“The point was knocking me out though, wasn’t it? I don’t know how I’d handle this.”
“Just go ahead, my brother cannot hold his alcohol and if I could handle him I certainly can handle you.”
Theon takes a drink, decides that the taste is agreeable and then takes another.
Robb sips at his own - when he’s drank half of his pint, Theon’s cheeks have gone from pale to slightly flushed and Robb thinks he likes the sight.
Except that it’s painfully reminding him of the time he swore himself that he would never, never tell anyone that sometimes he would find boys as attractive as girls growing up. It’s also painfully reminding him of how disappointed his parents had looked when he informed them that no, he wouldn’t stay home and look after the family lands.
At least they had stopped being disappointed when they became convinced that Jon genuinely wanted to do it, and he always was better than Robb at managing money in the first place, and after all the fact that they wanted him to be happy trumped their expectations. Still, he knows his mother still more or less hopes that he’ll come back with a fiancé and that he will be the first to give her nephews. He looks at Theon again as he sips his drink and thinks that she might have to wait for a long time, and knocks down his own glass of whiskey instead of going further down that road.
--
Turns out, Theon can handle his alcohol better than Jon, but Robb still has to support him when they walk back home - his legs aren’t exactly steady.
“‘m sorry,” he says, “I just - everything is weird -”
“It’s fine, you still haven’t thrown up on my shoes. And my brother did it all the time. There, we’re home already, I’ll get you some water. It helps.”
Theon doesn’t disagree - Robb leaves him sitting at the living room table and goes in the kitchen for water, and he comes back with a full glass a few minutes later. He pushes it towards Theon, who drinks it in one go and then places it back on the table with maybe some excessive force.
“Hey, how are you feeling?”
“I - uh, no, I am fine, but - it’s just, I was thinking, and - did those journals say how I died the first time?”
Robb swallows and sits down next to him. “It said you were hit by a carriage. That was about it.”
Considering some of the scars Robb had seen back when he opened the cellar door first, he doesn’t have any doubts about that at least. He says so, and Theon gives him a weary nod. “If only I remembered anything. Well, thanks for - for that. I guess I could do it again. Going out, I mean.”
“See? I like that attitude already. I guess I’ll turn in then, I have class early tomorrow.”
“Of course. I’ll take care of the clothes.”
Robb squeezes his shoulder and goes back up to his room, resolving to do this more often.
--
He’s woken up by a scream - he doesn’t know it’s not him doing it until he opens his eyes and realizes it’s coming from -
From the other side of the corridor. Where Theon sleeps, or whatever is it that he does at night. Robb waits for a moment and hears a crash, then a door slamming and steps hurrying downstairs.
He hops out of bed and follows, cursing the cold under his breath, and he reaches the living room, where the light is turned on -
And Theon’s rummaging through one of the drawers.
“Do you need anything?” Robb ask, noting that he looks - not angry, but the closest he’s seen him to it since he talked to Myranda.
“The key to the liquor cabinet,” he answers, his voice croaking.
“I’ll get it,” Robb says, “I have it upstairs. Can I ask why?”
“I remembered,” Theon answers, his voice strangled. “I mean, I remembered enough. And I really need to be drunk. Please.”
Robb gets the key, opens the drawer and hands Theon a full bottle of bourbon, even if he’s nowhere near sure of where this is going.
Theon grabs the bottle and takes a long, long drink.
“You should go back to bed,” he whispers as he drops the bottle on the table.
“Maybe, but I think you don’t want to get drunk on your own now. Do you?”
Theon laughs, a horribly bitter sounds, and takes another long drink. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. But - but - I am - it wasn’t an accident,” he finally blurts out, and Robb’s blood runs cold.
“It - it wasn’t?”
He sits down next to Theon, who resolutely doesn’t look at him but more at the label of the bottle.
“I don’t recall everything. But - I’m fairly sure of it. My - my surname. It was Greyjoy.”
“Wait, that’s not - I mean, it sounds familiar?”
“Because I think my family used to be - low aristocracy? Something like that? I mean, we also had a mansion in the country somewhere in Cornwall, and then my father invested his money someway he shouldn’t have, lost everything but the mansion and we moved to London. He could have sold it, I guess, but I think it was so old no one wanted it. It has to have happened years ago, though. I mean, I barely remember the mansion. I had - I had two brothers and sister. All older. My mother died a few years after we got here - her health wasn’t really that good to begin with since moving to London. Maybe it was the fumes in the air, I don’t bloody know, but when we got here she was fine and three years later she was dead. After my brothers enrolled in the army and died in India.” He stops, and takes another long, long drink. “My sister was smart about it - she found work in a shop and then the owner decided he wanted to start exporting his clothes to the States, and she was good at her job and so now she’s overseas managing his New York branch. I think it was New York. But obviously she couldn’t, well, send money. Or anything. Not from there anyway since she also had to survive on her own. So my father became an even more bitter piece of shit, not that it helped any if you have to run a shop where you sell bloody weapons.” The last few words are somewhat slurred, not that Robb is surprised.
“And then, right, yes, a while ago, Bolton the younger comes into the shop, comes up to be because he wants to buy a few guns. I sell him the guns, he asks questions, I answer, but I wasn’t liking it. The next day he comes back in again and says he has to talk to my dad, he goes to the check out, they talk. At some point they look at me, but - I thought he wasn’t happy with the service. Whatever. My fucking father certainly confirmed that later.” He shudders and drinks some more - half of the bottle is gone by now.
“The next day I go to buy groceries. And I’m about to cross the street, and I see a carriage coming by, so I stop. And then I’m sure someone pushed me. I remember that. I really - I’m sure of that.”
Robb stays silent - he understood the implications and he’s not going to say anything about it, especially when Myranda had said that it was better if he hadn’t known who he was before.
Christ, this is just making it even worse, isn’t it?
“I just - what do I - we never had much of a relationship, and I couldn’t wait to get out of that shop, true, but I can’t believe that - I can’t -”
“Who’d want to?” Robb asks while Theon takes another long drink.
“Yeah, well, now - what do I even - I mean, never mind that I technically died and came back to life thanks to an insane maniac who thought he could do whatever he wanted to me after then, now I also have to find out it happened because my fucking father let him?”
Which is a perfectly fair point from the poor man’s point of view, and what do you even say to that?
“I don’t know what you should do, though I guess you can have options if we look into it, but you know what? You didn’t deserve that, Bolton was a madman and your father should be in jail for this, except that exposing it would cause a whole lot of issues. But if you tell me where that shop is, I wouldn’t be above going inside and breaking his nose.”
Good thing he was looking at the bottle - Theon loses his grip over it and Robb grabs it before it falls to the ground. Then he takes a sip just because he can and because he feels like he really needs that.
“You’re joking.”
“No. That’s just - sick. I’ve known you how long, two months? And from what I’ve seen you’d deserve better than what you got until now, even without counting the madman.”
He hears a choked sob make its way out of Theon’s mouth as one of his hands reaches out for the bottle again - Robb hands it over. “You know,” he blurts out, handing him back the bourbon, “you know, sometimes I think - sometimes I think that if anyone else had been beyond that door, I wouldn’t be deserving better.”
“Wait - what?”
“Come on, I’m sure anyone else would have called reinforcements the moment they heard someone moving down in the basement,” he slurs. “Or even if they had opened the door, they’d have - they wouldn’t have asked if I wanted a fucking bath first thing. And those times I think - I think I’d have just - I really wanted to strangle her, last Sunday.”
Robb wishes he were sober enough to follow that train of thought completely. “Who, Myranda? I wouldn’t have held it against you.”
“No, no, you aren’t understanding - I didn’t because you think I’m better than that. And I want to - I want to be better than that, I really do, but you don’t get it.”
“What is it that I don’t get?”
“Six months of what he did to me - six months of what he said - by the time they locked me in, I was sure people would just hate me at first sight, and since I didn’t even remember that I had a life before then, I just wanted to know why did he think bringing me into the world just to put me through that was - was something he should be proud of. Because he was fucking proud of that. He kept on saying I was his greatest fucking accomplishment, all the fucking time, and - that I should have been grateful he saw fucking potential in me for whatever damned reason, and I didn’t ask for any of that, fuck -”
That last word comes out completely strangled, not that Robb doesn’t understand it, and all of a sudden he feels completely powerless, which - he shouldn’t, not when he’s sewed limbs back on the man for Christ’s sake, but what can he even say in the face of what he’s just heard?
He doesn’t know, but maybe what he used to do when Jon would get overly sad about his status in the family when only outsiders cared about it might work all over again.
“Get up,” Robb says, grabbing at Theon’s elbow.
“What?”
“Come on, we’re going to my room. Leave that bourbon, I think we’re both done.”
“Your - your room? But - why -”
“You need a break and I know nothing I say will help any, so maybe I can do something about it.”
Theon does follow him, even if he doesn’t look all that convinced.
“Take off your shoes and climb in,” Robb says as he gets back into bed.
“... With you?”
“I don’t see any other bed, do I?”
Theon swallows visibly and does, and Robb can see all the stitch marks on his calves and collarbone before he switches of the light and tentatively moves under the covers.
Then he kind of freezes when Robb puts an arm around his waist.
“What - what are you doing?”
“What does it look like? Try to sleep it off. I have five people guaranteeing this helps.”
“... Five people?”
“Try being the eldest of six siblings and have all of them share your bed at some point, including the one almost your age, then we can discuss it.”
“I don’t think it ever happened with mine,” Theon replies quietly. “I mean. As far as I recall.”
“Then it’s never too late to start, is it?”
Theon lets out something halfway between a laugh and a sob and then hides his face against Robb’s collarbone. Robb cards a hand through his hair, knowing that he’ll skip classes tomorrow, and thinks that he could punch Theon’s father in the nose without much regret.
--
He wakes up way after his usual time - yes, he’s definitely skipping class, never mind that he has an headache. Not too bad of one, but still. Theon’s sleeping more or less fitfully, but the moment Robb leans back on the pillow a bit he shakes his head and moves back, though not overtly much.
“How are you feeling?” Robb asks, not saying that his head is pounding - better not to add that on the list of things the man might feel guilty about.
“Uh, better than yesterday, actually,” Theon says, not quite looking at him. “Thank you, you didn’t have to -”
“Don’t even go there. Well, I need a lot of tea and I really need to eat. Guess we can just go to the pub.”
“In - it’s morning.”
“Just put on the usual make-up, no one will notice.”
Theon doesn’t look that convinced, but he gets out of bed and heads for his room. By the time Robb has washed his face and put on some clean clothes he’s in the hallway, also dressed, and actually -
“Are those clothes from that shop we went to?”
“Yes,” Theon mutters, not quite looking at him.
And - well. Robb hadn’t even looked at what Theon picked, he just wanted him to get his own things. But now that he notices - it’s nice clothes. Worn, sure, but well-kept - the black trousers and white shirt he’s wearing aren’t cheap cloth, and the black light coat he’s wearing has a very refined cut, same as everything else Theon’s wearing, actually. In comparison, Robb looks like he has picked his clothes in the darkness and just put on whatever he found first.
“That - you look good,” he says, feeling like his throat has just gone completely dry.
“I - I do?”
This isn’t the kind of conversation he can have while his head is still pounding.
“Yeah. Very, uh, distinguished. Nice picks.”
“Oh. That’s - thank you.”
“What for? Come on, I really need that tea.”
Theon follows him out wordlessly, and Robb can’t help thinking that staying holed up in that house is a waste - he’s way too pale, make-up or not, and he seems to relax a bit the moment he’s out in the sunlight.
“Is everything all right?”
“I think I had forgotten how - how it felt to just be outside, but never mind. You look terrible, let’s get that breakfast.”
Robb doesn’t push further. In the pub no one seems to notice that anything about Theon is off somehow, and Robb could kiss the maid when she brings him steaming dark tea and a plate of eggs and bacon. By the time he’s halfway into both he feels like a human being again - Theon has barely nibbled at his own plate of food, but as long as he eat something after drinking half of that bottle, Robb isn’t going to complain.
“By the way,” he says when he has finished the tea and his head isn’t pounding half as hard, “I was thinking.”
“About what?” Theon replies, sounding fairly guarded.
“In general. I mean, there’s no reason why you should stay holed up in the house - we’ve gone out what, thrice, and no one blinked an eye at you. And - there’s no reason why you can’t move on.”
“Move on how, exactly?”
Robb shrugs. “There must have been something you wanted to do back before - well, before someone threw you in front of a carriage. You’re technically dead, which might be a problem, but I’m sure you can find someone to forge you false documents or something like that. So why not? Bolton can’t stop you, your father certainly can’t and you don’t, well, owe him anything, all things considered.”
Theon glances up at him and eats another forkful of bacon. “I think you make it sound too easy,” he sighs. “It worked these three times, and what if someone notices?”
“You come up with some plausible lie and you never take off your gloves, so you don’t have to explain the fingers. By the way, does that mean that you actually had, you know, plans at some point?”
Theon doesn’t say anything until he’s finished with his food, and Robb doesn’t push it either - he finishes his own, asks for a tea refill and waits for an answer, if Theon wants to give it to him.
And then -
“I didn’t exactly have... plans. Or at least, not… not really concrete, anyway, but - I was - I was writing a novel.” He says it so low Robb can barely hear him. But he does, and - and actually, he thinks he could see it. Or at least, from someone who’s pretty much read all of his library in both English and French since he could use his fingers again, it’s… entirely not unexpected.
“What kind of novel?” Robb asks.
“You’re asking too much. I said I remembered almost everything. I think I got as far as chapter two and - I don’t recall. I think it was some dumb historical setting, but - I really can’t say anything else. And I can’t exactly go ask my father to give it back. Mostly because I don’t think I even want to see him. Better that I don’t.”
Robb nods - yes, that might be a problem.
“We still could go and check if he still has the shop.”
“Are you sure it’s a good idea?”
“I never said you had to interact with him.”
For a moment, Theon says nothing. Then -
“Well, guess there’s nothing to lose. Fine.”
Robb goes to pay and follows Theon’s directions after they head out - they walk for some half hour in silence, going through the former red lights district and towards the docks, until they finally turn at a corner and Theon says it should be over there.
Then he just stops dead in his tracks.
“What’s wrong?”
Theon nods towards a shop at the beginning of the street - there’s some workers outside, changing the name outside it. He looks even paler than usual, damn it.
“Should I go inquire?”
“Please do,” Theon croaks. “I’ll wait here.”
Robb leaves him be and knocks at the door of the shop - well, it does look like it’s shaping itself to be an apothecary for all intents and purposes, though it’s obviously not open to the public. He waits for a bit, but then someone comes and opens the door - it’s a middle aged man with a fairly stern look to him.
“Can I help you?” He asks. “I am sorry to say, but if you need medicine you will have to search another place. I won’t be opening for the next few weeks yet and I have none here.”
“I - I’m not looking for that, but I think you might. Mr…?”
“Stannis Baratheon, how do you do,” the man says, letting Robb in - the shop is obviously still being renovated. “I don’t know how could I, since I just moved in, but by all means, Mr.?”
“Stark, Robb Stark. How do you do. See, uh, wasn’t this a weapons shop?”
“Oh, yes,” Baratheon agrees, “I bought it off the owner, actually. My old apothecary was becoming too small and he was selling. For quite cheap, I suppose, but the man was in a hurry to move back to his hometown, or so he said. He didn’t look all that trustworthy to me but he conducted the transition correctly, so what do I know.”
“Was the owner someone named Greyjoy?”
“Yes,” Baratheon confirms. “Why is that you want to know?”
Robb shrugs. “See, the man has a daughter in the United States. And I - I happen to be friends with his son, who - well, they had a bit of a falling out, you see, and he wanted to leave for New York and help his sister out with her business.”
“All right. And?”
“He and his father - they never parted on amiable terms. And he had left a lot of his personal effects here, so he asked me if I was willing to come and ask his father if I could retrieve them for him.”
“Oh, you mean what was in the upstairs apartment?”
“I guess so. He said - clothes, a few books maybe, some papers -”
“Yes, well, I think I can’t help you here. I only bought the shop from him, and he was renting the apartment, so that fell to the owner. Right now there’s a family with three children residing in it, and a few weeks ago I saw them bringing out a whole lot of old clothes and the likes. I asked about it, the father told me that Mr. Greyjoy said they could do whatever they wanted with the things he left behind. He said they were glad to keep the furniture, but none of the clothes fit either him or his children, so they were going to bring them to a pawn shop along with the books. He also said that they had found a lot of loose paper in a desk but they used that to keep the fire going the first week because they had ran out of wood in the middle of the night. I’m sorry to say but I don’t think there’s anything left.”
Robb nods. “It’s - it’s quite all right. And you did help out, actually, at least we know what happened to those - personal effects. Thank you very much and sorry for disturbing you.”
“No need to apologize,” the man cuts him short. “And I can see why your friend wouldn’t be in good terms with his father, I only accepted the deal because the location was ideal but he didn’t seem like a particularly nice fellow. Have a good day, Mr. Stark.”
“Same to you.”
Theon is waiting on the other side of the road, looking - Robb can’t read his face, but Theon can probably read Robb’s.
“Let me guess, it went horribly?”
“Depends on what you mean by it,” Robb says. “At least he told me what happened for sure. The man bought the place off your father a month ago and now he’s renovating. The apartment above is being rented, but according to him your father left your things behind and told the family moving in to just do what they wanted with it. And they burned all the loose paper when they ran out of firewood, and the rest is at some pawn shop now. I’m sorry.”
“It’s - it’s all right. Also I’m really not surprised that he just - dumped everything and went back home. Of course he would. Whatever, I guess I’m better off without him anyway.”
“It’s still not right,” Robb sighs.
“Well, what can I do. I guess you were right - I’ll think about something. But are you sure you won’t get in trouble if -”
“You can miss one class, I’ll just say I felt sick. It happens. Do you want to go home or would you rather just take a walk since we’re out already?”
“You know what, let’s stay out. If you don’t mind.”
Robb doesn’t, and so they go back towards Covent Garden, but by taking a longer road. By the time they stop at a small pub for lunch, Robb is the only one who orders food. Theon says he doesn’t really need to eat or drink right now, once a day is more than he’d technically require. Robb still thinks it’s completely out of the realm of wrongness, but he certainly can’t fault the man, right? They go back home in the afternoon - Robb says he’ll stop be the flat of a classmate of his to see if they’ll show him the day’s notes, Theon says he’ll see Robb at home, and he leaves with his shoulders slumped.
Robb takes a deep breath, pretends that he’s not afflicted and heads for Jon Umber’s flat. Jon actually lets him copy the notes, so it takes him longer than he’d look like - when they’re done, it’s dark. He heads for home hastily, passing in front of the university building - Jon rented a flat right next to it - and then he stops in front of one of the few shops in the area selling supplies for students. They’re about to close, Robb wagers, but not yet. They mostly sell quills, bound notebooks and such, and he’s walked inside before pondering whether it’s a good idea or not. He buys a quill and a stack of notebooks, the same kind he uses, and heads home.
He finds Theon on the couch - he’s wearing Robb’s old clothes again and he dismissed the gloves, and he’s definitely going through Robb’s old Ancient Greek grammar. Robb doesn’t ask if he’s trying to teach himself the language - even if he is, he won’t be the one complaining - and instead clears his throat.
“I got you something,” he says.
“What? You shouldn’t -”
“Nonsense. The owner of that place loves me anyway, she gave me a discount. Here.” He drops the bundle he had been clutching at in Theon’s hands, and he can’t help smiling at the face Theon pulls.
“Now,” Robb goes on, “I’m turning in also because I really need to go to class tomorrow, but you’re welcome to keep the light on should you need it. The liquor cabinet is open. Have fun, if you want to make use of that.”
“Robb -”
“Goodnight,” Robb cuts him, and goes upstairs without glancing back even if he really wants to.
--
The following morning, he comes downstairs fully dressed. The light in the living room is on. He goes to check what’s going on while his tea brews - Theon is sitting at the only desk in the room, scribbling down on one of the notebooks. He doesn’t even notice Robb is there.
Well, good.
He drinks his tea in the kitchen and leaves without being noticed.
--
“You know, it’s been a day. Are you sure you don’t want to at least drink some water?”
“What?”
Robb can’t help smirking at how completely surprised Theon looks when he comes back in the evening and points that little fact out.
“I came in at eight in the evening yesterday, it’s… about half past seven now. I haven’t seen you moving from that couch since.”
“... That’s because I didn’t. I just - I guess I was poor company? Or poorer than usual.”
“You’re not poor company. So, that water?”
“Maybe I’ll have it, thanks.” He closes the notebook - his hands are completely stained in ink.
Robb hands him a glass in the kitchen and asks him if he wants something to eat, but Theon refuses and says he might not be good company for the next day or so, too. Robb just tells him that it’s fine and he’ll just do his translation work. And he does, while Theon just seems to be filling page after page. By the time Robb goes to bed, he’s filled at least two full notebooks. He doesn’t ask what’s in them.
--
“Stark?”
“Umber. I told you that you can call me Robb, you know?”
“I don’t call anyone by name. Anyway, I was wondering - next week, I was supposed to go to the opera with that nice girl working in the pub just in front of the building tomorrow.”
“I suppose you aren’t anymore?”
“Her father says that he disapproves of her meeting men that are too much for her.”
“As in, he thinks you just want something from her and then drop her like all other gentlemen frequenting these halls?”
“Something like that. Anyway, I only got them because I wanted to impress her, I don’t particular care about people singing in German for three hours. Do you think you might want them? Mind it, it’s the gallery, nothing fancy.”
“Depends on what kind of German singing is. If it’s Wagner I’ll pass.”
“Stark, she was lovely and smart as a whip, but she had never gone to the opera before. Do you think that if I wanted to impress her I’d pick bloody Wagner? No, it’s Mozart. The Magic Flute. So, do you want at least one?”
Robb is about to tell him yes, sure, why not, but then he thinks, why not.
“Actually, I think I’ll have both of them.”
“Really? Do you have a lady you’re sweet on that you aren’t telling us about?”
“Who knows,” Robb says, trying not to give himself out either way. “How much do I owe you?”
He pays the tickets off Jon and pockets them, figuring that at worst the second one will go unused.
When he goes back home, Theon is brewing tea in the kitchen and his shirt is stained in ink, but his hands aren’t.
“Taking a break?” Robb asks, not bothering to hide his amusement.
“Not exactly,” Theon replies. “I think I - I kind of exhausted what I had to say.”
“Was it what you had already -”
“No. I can’t even remember what the hell it was supposed to be about. It was - other things. But I don’t really think that it’s - I should burn all of it.”
“Already? It can’t be that bad.”
“I don’t think it has to do with quality.”
Robb doesn’t push it - Theon doesn’t sound particularly eager to talk about it.
“Hey, a classmate of mine had tickets to the opera that he’s not going to use. I said I’d take them. Do you think you’d like to come? It’s next week.”
“Wait - wait, you said - you want to go to the opera with me?”
“I don’t see anyone else I can ask.” Robb rolls his eyes, not even trying to stop himself from doing it. “It’s a week from now. It’s -”
“No, it’s fine. I mean, I’ll come. Whatever it is. I don’t think I’ve ever been, so - yes, sure, why not. Thank you. As long as -”
“We’re in the gallery, no one is going to notice us. Well, that’s settled then. And now I’m going to make us both something to eat.”
“Sure, mom, go ahead and do it.”
Theon’s eyes turn horrified the moment that leaves his mouth, but color goes back on his cheeks when Robb just bursts out laughing.
“I’m - I don’t know what -”
“Theon, shut up, I don’t know if I’m laughing more because of that face you’re pulling or because of that.”
“But I shouldn’t have -”
“Theon, it was bloody hilarious, just say whatever the hell you want to say. Never mind that everyone in my family thought that I was my mom’s second in command, that’s not even false.”
Theon doesn’t answer straight, but then he shrugs minutely and pours himself some tea.
--
“I used to - be like that,” he says later, while they’re eating.
“Like what?”
“I mean. Saying that - that kind of thing. My sister used to say that I made fun of everything even if it wasn’t warranted. She thought it was hilarious. Mostly everyone else didn’t.”
“I thought it was hilarious,” Robb retorts.
“You have weird tastes, but fine, I’ll keep that in mind.”
They finish dinner in silence, and then - Theon stands up, goes out of the room and comes back - with four notebooks.
He puts them in front of Robb.
“In all seriousness,” he says, “I have no clue if I really should burn this or not, and you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to go beyond page one. I wouldn’t. But - well, if anyone should read it - never mind. If you don’t want to just say it.”
“I’ll - I’ll bring them upstairs,” Robb says slowly, wondering why Theon looks that nervous. “If I don’t like it, I’ll let you down gently.”
“Says you,” Theon snorts, and they don’t bring up that topic again when Robb goes back to translating and Theon to helping him looking up for words he can’t be arsed to search in the dictionary.
When he turns in, he discards the novel he had been reading before going to sleep for the last week and opens the first notebook.
--
It takes him about three pages to understand what’s the deal, and after the first story ends twenty pages later he seriously considers not going ahead, because he’s feeling his dinner coming back up through his throat.
It’s not the quality, indeed. Actually, the quality is good - for being a first draft, it was fairly compelling and nicely written. The problem is the content.
He swallows and reads on - after the third story he’s sure of it.
It’s not that it’s short, terrifying stories that one might only try to publish as penny dreadfuls. It’s that they’re - personal. The protagonist of the first was kidnapped out of nowhere just to end up with a psychopath who cuts off his fingers one by one without even telling him why, the second witnessed some heinous crime and loses their tongue so they can’t talk about it (and he can’t read or write, so at least he keeps his hands, Robb thinks, shuddering). The third was fighting in a nonspecific war, gets taken by the opposite side and is whipped until he bleeds out, but throughout an entire week. He’s fairly sure of what he’s going to find if he goes ahead.
Still - he knows what it means that Theon actually might have wanted him to read them, so he takes a deep, long breath and moves on to story number four.
--
The next morning, it’s obvious that Theon hasn’t even gone to bed - he’s on the sofa, with Robb’s Greek grammar balanced on his knees, and Robb will bet money that he’s been up all night.
He breathes in again and sits next to him, putting the notebooks on his legs.
“I read them. All of them, actually.”
“Oh. You - you didn’t have to.”
“Well, I knew that, but - the first notebook was fairly hard to get through, I’ll admit. But the more it went on - I mean, if I tried to block out that you have actually gone through all that, it was… let’s just say you have a talent for hooking people in.”
“What?”
“They’re well-written, that’s it. Anyway, obviously it’s your decision. If you want to burn them I can see why you’d want to. If you want to send them to some penny dreadful publisher I’m fairly sure they’d take them - that stuff is a lot bloody scarier than the ones we used to find in the village near Winterfell. I can’t tell you what to do with them.”
“I didn’t expect anything less. But I really don’t know. I just - needed to have that out somewhat.”
“Did it work?”
“I think it did. At least some.”
“Well, for what it is, it works. I mean, I couldn’t sleep for an hour after I finished.”
“And did you really have to read it before going to bed? You might’ve been searching for it.”
“... That’s a point,” Robb concedes. “That said - can you stand up?”
“Sure. Is there a reason?”
Theon does, leaving the notebooks on the sofa.
“Yes. That I’ve been wanting to do this since I was done reading them,” Robb says, and then takes a step forward, puts his hands on Theon’s cold wrists and drags him in slow enough that he can guess what Robb’s doing but fast enough that it doesn’t seem like he’s hesitating, and for a moment it feels like hugging a block of ice, but then he feels hands close over the small of his back.
“Seriously?” Theon says, but it doesn’t sound as nonchalant as he probably wishes for it to be.
“Uh, yes? I mean, it’s the least? Do you know how badly one would want to after reading all of that in a single setting?”
“No, but - never mind.” He moves slightly closer, his head falling down on Robb’s shoulder, and Robb can feel that his heartbeat is a lot slower than the average.
Not that he cares.
--
“I sold them,” Theon tells him the afternoon of the day they’re supposed to head for the opera.
“What?” Robb doesn’t immediately realize what he means - he’s just come back home, today’s lessons have been heavier than usual and he has taken so many notes his hand hurts. And it looks like he’ll never wash off ink from under his fingers.
“The stories. I was about to burn them last week, but then I thought, that - that bastard doesn’t really deserve me laying him to rest in silence. I revised a couple of them and brought one of those notebooks to the first penny dreadful publisher I could find the name of. I gave them a false name and they obviously figured that out anyway.”
“Did they notice -”
“No. I waited there half a day and the one of the people in charge of it said they were suitable. He asked if I had more. I said I did. They want the rest within the month.”
And well, doesn’t he sound like he’s happy about that?
“I hope they want to keep you for a serial,” Robb says.
“I should go get those fake documents, I guess,” Theon replies, “but - I can worry about that, I suppose.”
“All right, let me know. So, I guess it’s just a happy coincidence that the opera is three hours from now?”
“Maybe,” Theon agrees, and Robb doesn’t point out vocally that he really looks almost giddy for the first time since they met, but who is he to spoil the moment? He grins back and tries to silence the voice suggesting him that brought back from the dead or not, pieces of limbs sewn back on him or not - right now, you couldn’t distinguish him from someone passing down the street. Never mind that Robb hasn’t had exactly neutral thoughts about Theon since that time they went out first, and he probably should just keep everything buried for everyone’s sake, but seeing him look like he’s actually glad for something is making him feel almost giddy in return, and maybe he should be worrying about it.
He really can’t.
--
That voice entirely doesn’t leave him alone, especially when Theon shows up with some more of his distinguished secondhand clothes that don’t even look like they were bought used and that nice black coat. Robb has put on a suit that his sister swears makes him look dashing. Robb doesn’t have specific opinions about that, not really, but as long as it’s not a punch in the eyes, he doesn’t care. Never mind that his coat is good but old, so the effect is kind of ruined, but then again who’s even going to look at them in the gallery?
No one does, and they have decent seats - it’s the farthest row from the balcony, but one can see fairly well what goes on. Good. They’re also surrounded by students and people who aren’t here to show off their pearls, which is absolutely not a deterrent as far as Robb is concerned.
“Damn,” Theon hisses, “I don’t think I’ve ever been surrounded by this many people in my entire life. Even before I died.”
“Is it a problem?”
“No. No, not really, it’s just strange. By the way, I guess I should have asked you before, but what is this even about?”
“Oh, right, you didn’t care about the plot until yesterday, did you? Anyway, uh, I think that this prince gets tasked by a queen to go retrieve her daughter. Who is a prisoner of some evil warlock. Except that the prince gets there and finds out that the warlock is a perfectly nice man who only kidnapped the daughter in question because her mother is, uhm, unhinged. So the prince is told he can be with her if he should go through some trials and in the end they do it together and the forces of good win? I think. I’ve gone once when I was eight and it was at the local theater, I don’t remember everything.”
“Sounds - straightforward, at least. Well, at least it won’t be too tragic.”
“You know, if it had been we could have just stayed home if you didn’t feel like more misery in your life.”
“As if tragic love stories can make me that much more miserable.”
At least that sounded fairly light-hearted when he said it. Robb wonders if he should have bought one of the leaflets they sold in the entrance with a summary, but by now they’re surrounded by the other gallery occupants and it’s packed - he just hopes he remembers enough of the plot that he understands what’s going on. More or less.
The lights go out not long later, and nothing of import happens until the actual singing starts, because at that point he feels Theon get tense next to him for a moment.
“Is everything all right?” He whispers.
“Yes, uh, just a minute,” Theon answers, sounding… Robb doesn’t know how to put it, but definitely like someone who wasn’t expecting whatever is going on.
The prince faints, the dames kill the snake and start arguing, and not long into it Theon leans back against his side again.
“I think I... understand them?” He says, sounding - completely dumbfounded, actually.
“Wait, you mean you understand what they’re saying? Technically?” Robb whispers back - good thing that the people next to them are also whispering, most probably about the staging or something more inane.
“Yes,” Theon blurts out. “I have no - they’re all saying that if they could love anyone it would be that young man or something like that? And now that he can restore their queen’s peace of mind? I don’t - I don’t know how I know that?”
“Maybe you did before?” Robb answers.
“I don’t remember knowing German out of everything.”
“Well, then you’re ten steps ahead of half of the people in this place. Just tell me what’s going on if I miss something.”
Robb can read German fairly decently, he'd have to with the subject he chose to study, but when it comes to understand it spoken he's fairly helpless.
Theon doesn’t look that convinced of it, but he obviously decides that he’ll deal with it later and sits back, an expression on his face that Robb can’t quite pinpoint.
It also doesn’t change - at points Robb feels completely lost because he had forgotten about all the subplots, and when he asks clarifications Theon just shrugs and gives them. Halfway through act one Robb just resolves on asking him a full summary when the intermission starts.
When it does, he leans closer - they shouldn’t talk about it out loud in public.
“So - it hasn’t changed?”
“No. No, if I distinguish what they’re saying I actually understand it. All of it.”
“And you don’t recall - you know, learning at some point?”
“... No? Definitely not. I haven’t even - I’ve gone to school but - well, technically you only have to go until you’re eleven I think. I started working just after because my dad wouldn’t hear of it otherwise. Surely I didn’t learn it there.”
“That’s - that’s odd. But maybe it’ll come to you? And since you’re ahead of me here, can you just fill me in on what’s going on with the guy who catches birds? I had completely forgotten he existed.”
“Not much really. He catches birds for the evil queen and just wants to find himself a nice bride. The queen decided that the prince needed someone to help him out on his journey and they pretty much sent him along with the magic bells. Because obviously if you need to protect yourself from danger you use magical instruments and not a sword or whatever. And now I guess he’s been thrown into doing the quests, too, even if I don’t think he’s that interested in risking life for the greater good.”
“Uhm, right, makes sense. So, other than your newfound linguistic abilities, how are you liking it?”
“It’s - it’s lovely, actually. I mean, the music is. I’m not making judgments about the plot until it’s done.”
“That’s reasonable. Also, I’d like to inform you that no one has looked our way since we sat down.”
“Really?”
“Not at all. I think you can stop worrying about someone noticing that something’s wrong with you.”
“I wish,” Theon retorts, but his shoulders do lose a bit of tension.
Act two is fairly more interesting - not because Robb somehow doesn’t lose half of the plot, because he does, but the more it goes on the more Theon seems to just stop wondering how he suddenly has fairly decent knowledge of an entire language and looks more engaged in what’s happening on the stage. Also Robb is fairly sure he wipes at his face at some point near the end, though he couldn’t swear on that since it was dark and he was trying to guess what was going on himself.
He doesn’t ask questions until they’re walking back home - thankfully the moment they walk away from the theater the crowd dwindles and no one seems to be around.
“So,” Robb asks, “am I wrong or was the ending particularly touching?”
“What?”
“I noticed, you know.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Theon replies weakly.
“I noticed.”
Theon shakes his head and sends Robb a look that is halfway fond and halfway resigned, and then he just stops and leans back against the wall of the next building over.
“First, it wasn’t - I didn’t do whatever you think I just did.”
“Sure thing. And?”
“And - hell, listen, it’s really nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing to me.”
“It’s - right. Did you get what was going on at the end? With the man who catches birds?”
“Uhm, he had somehow found his soulmate, they got separated, found each other again?”
“Well, yes, but the backstory was that he thought that he didn’t have the soulmate. I mean, he thought that a woman who was his match in every way and so on just didn’t exist. Then he finds her but they went and told him he wasn’t good enough for her yet or something like that and so they get separated.”
“Didn’t they get together in the end?”
“They did, but - I mean, I think the point was that while the protagonists could be together because they were destined to and they could complete quests together and so on, they still… well, could be happy and find each other even without all of that. No need to earn it and all that drivel. Which I suppose makes sense, since neither of them had asked for it in the bloody first place.”
Robb is feeling like he’s missing one part of the picture, a fairly important one.
“That’s very moving, but was it just because of that?”
Theon openly shrugs. “Not really. But it’s nice to see that somewhere that kind of thing happens.”
And at that Robb thinks he has it.
After all, the bird-catching person was one of a kind, and he was looking for his match, because somehow he couldn’t find it with different people. And he hadn’t asked for the epic quest and just wanted a girl to settle down with, not to drink at the fountain of knowledge or something equally pretentious.
“Wait, you mean that you’re - that you also want -”
“Robb, leave it be. What I want is not exactly the matter here, considering that I can’t have it in the first place.”
“I think now you are jumping to conclusions, here.”
“I’m not. First and foremost, I am fairly sure there’s no one else like me around, and truth to be told I’m glad for it. Even if - if he were alive or if we still had the notes, do you think I’d wish what happened to me on someone else? I should have stayed dead and no one else should follow in my footsteps just because I might want someone to spend the rest of my time with. Besides, even if someone was willing to ignore that I’m quite literally stitched back together, thank you, don’t you think that it would be unfair to them?”
“Unfair how?”
Theon shrugs. “My vital functions are - you saw it. A regular human being can’t go more than three days without drinking, I can survive one month. A regular human being can’t live without eating for more than a month, give or take, I could survive at least three. I don’t really need to sleep more than once each week, I do it out of habit. Do your maths. I don’t know how long am I going to live, how long is it going to take me before I start to age visibly, and that’s barely even scratching the surface. Only someone, well, like me could withstand it, and I’d like to think I’m not so bloody selfish that I’d condemn another person to this. So yes, it would be unfair. I’m already too lucky as it is.”
That - that is an entirely sensed speech, Robb has to admit, and yes, he understands what it implies, and yes, it would be selfish -
Except that I’m already too lucky as it is?
Robb doesn’t know if he should just go ahead and say it - he’s not going to have another occasion to bring it up, not as good as this one anyway. He might as well do it, before he loses his chance and never finds the courage to breach the subject.
“That’s all very sensed,” he says, his tone of voice dropping. “But I think you haven’t considered one option.”
“Really. Enlighten me, Stark.”
“What if you ran into someone who knows quite intimately what’s going on with you, who is perfectly aware of what your condition implies and who doesn’t think your vital functions being obviously slowed down is an - impediment?”
“I would say that the odds are really bloody low and that it looks like asking for too much, but I could wish for that. Why?”
“Because I think you might be overlooking something.”
“I’m overlooking what?”
“That you don’t need to go looking much further for that person,” Robb says, hoping that his voice doesn’t waver and that he doesn’t have to spell that out in public.
For a moment Theon looks about to ask for further explanations, but then he freezes before he actually says what he had been about to.
Robb just shrugs and nods, not moving any closer but not moving back either.
“You’re serious,” Theon finally says, and his voice is wavering, instead.
Robb could start explaining all the reasons why, he could, but somehow it doesn’t seem like the right moment to launch into some kind of speech about it.
“Yes,” he cuts short. “And I think I’ve lived with you long enough to know that I’d rather give it a try than worrying about - the rest. Also, I think there’s quite nothing that could scare me off, but if you want to think about it or - or if you want to pretend I never said it -”
“Robb?”
“Yes?”
“The answer to both those questions is no,” he says, and then -
And then he’s crowding Robb up against the wall, turning the corner so that they’re in the smaller alley and no one can see them, and for a moment Robb is reminded that the man in front of him could pin him against the wall and he couldn’t get out of it, not that the prospect scares him. The prospect actually thrills him, he wishes he knew why, and so he doesn’t move at all when Theon moves so close it would take nothing to close the distance between them for real.
“You mean it,” he says against Robb’s mouth a moment later.
“I do,” Robb replies, reaching up for one of Theon’s hands - he slips off the glove and risks threading their fingers together. Theon’s are icy. “And - it’s not really because - because I helped you, all right? I have a feeling I’d have meant it had we met before.”
“You know, you’re not playing fair.”
“What?”
“I said - I said before, it would be absolutely unfair to ask someone to deal with all of that. Especially someone who could do a lot better than this. Don’t tell me that your parents are expecting you to never marry or have children.”
“Theon, in I was never supposed to not take over managing the family property. In that sense, I disappointed all the expectations already.”
Theon’s grip on his hand becomes almost painful.
“You really want me to do the selfish thing, don’t you,” he says.
“I only want you to do what you choose to,” Robb replies honestly, trying to stay as still as he can, feeling like he could - just, jeopardize things if he moves the wrong way. And that’s just the plain truth, never mind that if that is what Theon’s worrying about - well, he was never supposed to want to be a scholar in the first place. If he never ends up married with children his family will deal with it.
There’s a moment where neither of them moves, with Theon’s grip on his hand pretty much numbing his fingers, and Robb has no clue of what he’s thinking, except that he looks pained, and like someone who isn’t sure he should just reach out and take what’s offered, and the thing is that Robb hadn’t wanted to take the first step. He hadn’t wanted to because it just seemed wrong, given their history and given Theon’s, for that matter.
“Or maybe I should do something selfish,” he says slowly.
“Would you?”
The tone - the tone isn’t even daring. It sounded as if Theon was giving him full permission to just go ahead and do it, and -
To hell with it.
He puts his free hand on the back of Theon’s head and kisses him.
He hadn’t known what to expect, but not for Theon to sigh into his mouth and press him further up against the wall and kiss back at once, as if he’s absolutely sure of what he’s doing, and - actually, he is. He’s not kissing like someone who’s never done it before or who is anywhere near unsure of where to put his hands, which are currently at the back of Robb’s head, and maybe his lips are cold but the rest of him isn’t. Damn, Robb has kissed about five people in his life and slept with three of them, and he thought he had some experience but he’s downright lousy in comparison to this - there’s just skill in the way he’s being kissed right now. Also, none of his previous partners ever grabbed at his shoulders as if they thought he might disappear at any moment, but he’s not going to dwell on that right now. His hands end up on the lapels of Theon’s coat as they part for air he doesn’t know how long later and he grabs at them, making sure they don’t move apart too much.
“Damn, you’re sure, aren’t you,” Theon breathes out.
Robb pulls on the lapels and drags him in again. Theon doesn’t try to take control of it, and it’s a lot more rushed and he doesn’t try to be gentle for it, but he thinks it’s enough to prove his point.
“I’m sure,” he confirms when the kiss breaks again. “And how about we go home for the rest of this conversation?”
He reaches up for Theon’s ungloved hand again, grasping at his fingers and squeezing before letting it go - even if he wishes he could have kept on doing that.
“All right,” Theon replies, his voice barely audible in the silence of the street. “All right, let’s go home.”
--
They keep a reasonable distance as they head back home, even if Robb is itching to reach out - but it would be a very bad idea to it in plain sight even if it’s late. They keep that same distance until they’re finally at their door - Robb locks it when they’re both inside, before reaching for the light switch, but he never gets there because Theon moves up behind him, his arms slowly grasping at his waist. Robb stands still as they wrap around him in a very loose embrace, and then he notices that Theon isn’t wearing any gloves. Robb swallows, his own hands moving to cover Theon’s, his fingertips tracing the stitches. They could have been neater, he thinks inconsequentially, but they held, hadn’t they?
He waits, he doesn’t know for what, and then he feels Theon’s forehead touch his temple. His fingers find the pulse on Theon’s wrist - and he realizes it’s kind of regular now.
Or maybe, it would be regular if it was his own. Maybe, for him, it means it’s as fast as Robb’s is right now.
“I’ve been wanting to for a while, you know,” Robb says, just because the silence was threatening to turn too heavy.
“Since when?”
Robb thinks he only knows when he realized it, not when it started, but he doesn’t think it really matters in the long run.
“Remember that time we went to get drinks?”
“Since then?”
“And what about you?”
Theon lets out a sound that can be a snort and can be something else - Robb isn’t exactly sure. “If I answer it truthfully you will think back on it.”
“Theon, I think that after what went down in the attic there’s nothing that can make me think back on anything. Just say it.”
He feels Theon taking a shaking breath.
“When you introduced yourself,” he sighs.
“Wait, when -”
“When you came to me and introduced yourself as if you’d have done with anyone else. I don’t think you quite get it, but as far as I was concerned it was the first time someone treated me like a human being, what was I even supposed to think?”
That is a fair point, Robb thinks, and for a moment he kind of feels overwhelmed because how do you even live up to it?
“Well, that’s - I mean, I’m not thinking back on anything,” he says, squeezing Theon’s wrist, “but - that kind of expectation is bound to disappoint.”
“You have managed not to until now,” Theon replies, and it’s a good thing he sounds amused rather than anything else.
For some kind of miracle, Robb would like to say.
“Maybe, but - that doesn’t make me - you know I’m not some kind of saint or something.”
“A saint wouldn’t want to kiss me,” Theon huffs, “or maybe only one with a martyr complex would, I suppose it depends -”
“Excuse me, I don’t have any martyr complex,” Robb interrupts him.
“That’s to be seen, but - fine. I think there’s one thing that should be out in the open. Don’t try to turn, I’m not sure I can say it if you’re staring at me.”
“All right. All right, go ahead.”
“I know that you’re not some kind of saint. And I know you didn’t ask to find me in your basement, or to have to even deal with something as absurd as bringing people back from the dead. But that’s not even what - before, you said you had an inkling we’d have ended up here had we met before, too, and actually I think you’re right. Because from what I recall, I’m - well, I’m not that different from how I was then.”
He stops, grabs at his waist just a bit tighter. “But you aren’t getting - I told you before. If anyone else had opened that door, maybe I wouldn’t have been that lucky. Sure as hell no one would have learned to sew so they could stitch limbs on me.”
“I might have helped along, but the rest was all you,” Robb says truthfully.
“Might be. It doesn’t change that if it had been anyone but you I wouldn’t be here talking to you and going to the opera and having - a life. What passes for a life in my case, anyway. Now - before you think that I want this just because of that - it’s not it. Before, I didn’t say - that it wasn’t just that you introduced yourself like it was a normal occurrence. It was that you obviously had no bloody idea of what was going on, and that you were scared shitless, never mind that - it was clear as rain you were making it up as you went along. The point was you still did that anyway. I know you threw up during our little sewing session, one could smell it on you. I thought about it a lot, one way or the other. It was all… very human,” he says quietly. “And sometimes I think about - about coming back to life and then I think about how lost about what you should have done with me you looked when we met. I know you’re not - perfect, I suppose, but that just - I don’t know if I could think of doing this -” He squeezes Robb’s hand, “- with someone who looks untouchable to me. If it makes sense.”
“It does,” Robb confirms quietly.
“Good. But that’s not all of it.” He stops. “I’m not that different from how I was before, true, but it doesn’t mean I’m the same. And it’s not just my bloody vital functions. I told you before, when - Myranda showed up.” He says the name with such distaste Robb shivers at it. “If I had been on my own, I might have killed her. I wanted to. Sometimes I think about that at night - tracking down the people who might have known, because someone else had to be aware, and let them see what they brought into the world. But then I like to think I can be above something so petty. Especially if I want to move on.”
He stops for another long moment.
“Then I think about this entire business somehow ruining your life if it gets out in the open.”
“You know there’s a really low chance -”
“I know, but Myranda is still around and Roose fucking Bolton is still around, it means someone knows. And if it happened and you ended up in the middle of it and should you end up being in danger for it, you should know that I wouldn’t be above forgetting my morals. Now I’m not as angry as I was until you shot that lock, but I spent a long time harboring that. It hasn’t gone away completely. And I wouldn’t deal well if someone tried to bring you in the middle of it. I’m trying to tell you that you gave me back a lot more than I could have hoped for even if you weren’t even trying, and there’s quite nothing I wouldn’t do in return, and if that’s too much for you - I understand it, but then please say it now so it doesn’t become any more bloody painful.”
Robb recognizes it or the way out it is, and a part of him is indeed saying that he’s out of his depth and that it really is too much. That it’s not just what Theon has just said, it’s also that it will mean being careful all the time, finding excuses for the two of them sharing a house officially (because on top of everything things would have been hard just on account of Theon being a man), finding a way to explain it to his family without them finding out that he’s technically not alive per se, and it’s true that he hadn’t been asking for life commitments that were not related to his studies when he decided to move to the city. That’s all true. This without counting that Theon has pretty much told him straight that if it came to kill someone for Robb’s sake he would do it, and it’s the kind of information that tends to leave you speechless at best and that should leave you scared at worst.
It’s all true.
But.
“Theon, you keep on talking about your supposed lack of morals, but do I have to remind you that not even two hours ago you were sitting down in the damned opera house and trying not to cry about two people finding each other and talking about all the children they would have? I’m not going to tell you that everything you said is entirely fine with me because you deserve better than me lying to you about it. Still…”
He sighs and turns around - Theon lets him, his grip going slacker - and then he loops his arms around Theon’s neck and looks straight at him. He can barely see in the darkness but he thinks Theon’s vision is a lot better than his, so it doesn’t matter overall. He thinks about how Theon kissed him before and about the notes he’s writing on the sides of Robb’s grammar books, about how his fingers were stained in ink for a week after he wrote down those short stories and about how his eyes light up when he smiles and about the terrible jokes that he makes when he’s relaxed enough to not overthink his reactions. He thinks about how ruined is the skin on his hands and about how unbearably gentle they’re being as they touch him right now, and he feels like someone has just wrapped his heart in a fist and squeezed it.
“No one who’s moved over that kind of thing lacks morals. And they can’t be there just because of me - they had to be there in the first place. Other than that - well, before springing on my parents that I wanted to come here, I talked to my sister. I was thinking of just letting it go and stay there, and she told me that I had the means, Jon was willing to take over, so why should I be miserable when I could do something I liked instead? So let’s say that I think that this is worth pursuing even if it doesn’t look like it, should I let it go just because part of me is scared shitless for reasons beyond the both of us?” He swallows, moves a tiny bit closer. “I guess it’s some different kind of madness, but I think people should follow their hearts wherever they take them even if it might not look wise. At least I’d be sure I haven’t wasted a perfectly good chance. And - you said it. Pretty much everything about this has been too much for me since the very beginning. Looks like I managed until now. Let me tell you -” He stops, needing to take a breath.
“Tell me what?”
“In between attaching limbs and kissing you, I’d really rather kiss you. I don’t think it’s even a choice.”
“You - you’re just fucking incredible,” Theon blurts out a moment later, his hands’ grip tightening, and Robb really can’t take it any longer - he moves his hands to Theon’s cheeks and kisses him again, but this time he just takes it without rushing. He doesn’t even try to use his tongue, just moves his lips against Theon’s slowly, letting his teeth maybe grasp a bit at his bottom lip once, and then he realizes they’re getting warmer and that he can - that he’s quite literally feeling Theon warm up against him, inch by inch, it’s the same for his cheeks. Maybe it should worry him how much he wants to see how far he can take it, if maybe it can go further than his hands and face, because after that time they spent in the same bed he knows Theon’s generally cold everywhere -
Damn, he really would have been an idiot if he had said no before.
“I think,” Theon breathes out against his mouth he doesn’t know how long later, “I think I used to like this. I mean, before.”
“What, kissing people?”
“Not just that. I don’t know about it now -”
“How about we move kissing somewhere more comfortable and when we’re both sure about it we think about the rest.”
“I - yes, why not. Maybe - the living room?”
“I can live with that.” He bites at Theon’s lower lip softly before moving away and heading for the first floor, his fingers grasping Theon’s as they go upstairs.
He sheds his coat and puts up a fire before pretty much throwing himself on the cushions of the sofa, he hadn’t realized he was this tired. Theon also sheds his coat though a lot more carefully - he glares at Robb for a moment before retrieving his from the table and folding the both of them on a chair. Then he looks at Robb as if he doesn’t know what he should even do -
“Just get over here,” Robb says, and when he does he grabs at his wrist and pulls him downwards so that his back is against Robb’s chest - he keeps one of his arms strictly above Theon’s waist as he drags him closer while the other goes at his neck, his thumb tracing one of the lines of neat stitches right over his throat.
When Theon’s hand covers his own a moment later, he feels how his own stitches are nowhere near as neat - he doesn’t know what possesses him to press his lips there, but then that hand is at the back of his neck and Theon’s mouth is shaking as it slots over his, and pretty much every single part of him is trembling ever so sightly.
Robb holds him closer and kisses him back and decides that however it ends up, trying was worth it.
Epilogue
“Are your students trying to damage your eyesight even further?”
Robb doesn’t even try to find a retort - he pushes out of the way the translation he has been trying to mark, trying being the key word because he has rarely seen penmanship so terrible in his life - and adjusts the glasses up on his eyes. He had known the scholarly career wouldn’t be kind to his eyesight, but he had quite hoped he wouldn’t need them before turning forty. Too bad he had to relent eight years before that landmark - and that with someone who will read small print and badly written papers for him whenever he asks.
(On the opposite side, Theon looks barely two years older than he did when they first met each other, but he has practiced with the make-up, and when they have to be out together or with people who know the both of them he takes care to apply some so that he looks slightly older than he really is. For now it has worked perfectly. But one day Robb will force him to get fake glasses just out of pure pettiness - it’s absolutely unfair that just one of them has to be stuck with them.)
“I suppose they never stop,” Robb says, standing up. “Now if only they damaged my eyesight with correct translations. But they can wait until Monday, I suppose. So, are you having a better day than me? It looks like it, at least.”
“You would have good day too, if you had just been paid in advance for another six months of steady work.”
“Six months? What is it about now?”
“The sequel to the vampire highwayman story.”
“... Didn’t you drag that out for some eighty episodes? They didn’t get tired?”
“All the contrary,” Theon smirks as he moves closer. “I did get a bit tired of it, admittedly, but it’s money. I will just kill everyone at the end of this so I can move on, I guess. Still, considering how much they gave me in advance, I guess I will drag it on as much as I can possibly stand. And your little sister can get anticipations, if she so wishes.”
“God, wait until they get there and for the love of everything don’t do that in front of my mother, the last thing she needs is knowing you are writing half of the penny dreadfuls in the house.”
(Fact is, they did come up with a good story to explain how and why they lived together, after Theon ended up bribing the registry official to declare his death certificate a mistake. The official hadn’t been too convinced that he had been more dead than alive but eventually recovered after the accident, but Theon had pushed and sprung a story about how his father hated him so he just had him declared dead and left, and so he didn’t eventually need fake documents anymore. A year after Robb bought the house, he had written his family saying that he had looked for someone to divide house expenses with because he would rather not live on his own and Theon had showed up. In order to explain the visible wounds that he might not be able to hide they said that he used to be in the British Army and was discharged after getting fairly seriously wounded in action. No one had questioned that story. His mother hadn’t been too happy at realizing that they seemed to be permanent roommates, but then she had come around. Jon figured it out not long later and told Robb that he would keep his mouth shut. Meanwhile Arya somehow found out that the novels Theon writes for a living - whose genre they never specified to Robb’s mother - are the penny dreadfuls she pretty much stronghands Jon into buying for her and she had been quite ecstatic to find out. Whenever they come visiting she always wants anticipations.
Robb is really grateful that it went down so well, after all.)
“Hadn’t she made peace with it?”
“She doesn’t really approve of her daughters reading so much of them. Well, Sansa only likes yours, but that’s not the problem.”
(Sansa actually told Theon that she only liked his penny dreadfuls because they were really so romantic underneath. Theon had forcefully denied that it was in some way intentional and she had just smiled and told him he should consider less gory literature. Robb still laughs while thinking about that conversation, sometimes.)
“Fine, fine, but then again they aren’t coming until the day after tomorrow, so I guess I can worry about further corrupting your sister later.”
“It sounds fair. And is there anything else I should know?”
“Maybe in a week or so I could give you something to read that would be less of a threat to your precious eyes,” Theon answers, and Robb grins back. So he is making progress on the more-serious-than-penny-dreadfuls novel he has been working on in his spare time. Admittedly Robb only knows that it exists, he hasn’t read it yet, but he can be patient.
“I suppose we should celebrate then?”
“Do you have something in mind?”
Robb grins and moves closer, dragging Theon closer by the lapels of that black coat he has somehow managed to keep functional for six years. “We aren’t in a hurry now, are we? I was thinking going upstairs and take our time to do things properly. If you’re amenable. I could do with that kind of distraction from my students.”
“I am always amenable,” Theon retorts.
Robb is entirely ready when Theon moves his hands under his legs - Robb throws his arms around his neck and hooks his ankles behind his back.
(Three years ago, Robb had broken an ankle, which had meant going up the stairs fairly annoying, and that was how it started. Theon had just shrugged and told him that even if he tried not to think about what made sure to difference him from regular people, he entirely didn’t mind using it if it meant not losing too much time when they needed to be on a bed. And to be honest Robb finds it entirely too arousing for his own good, so he usually lets Theon carry him places if he feels like it these days, even if his ankle hasn’t been broken for a long time.)
“Then get me to the bedroom, I’ll make sure to thank you properly,” Robb tells him, and keeps his hold firm as Theon mutters something about him being a tease and proceeds to, in fact, get him upstairs.
(It took them weeks to go beyond kissing, and quite some time to figure it out to their satisfaction, but as it is, what they know is that Theon’s slowed vital functions are a hindrance, but there are ways around them. They’re a hindrance in the sense that by the time Robb is well and truly aroused he’s maybe halfway there, which is why they only are intimate when they have a lot of time to devote to it, but other than that, Robb has no issue with doing most of the work.)
He lets Robb get back on his feet just outside the bedroom, but Robb doesn’t go inside just then - he presses closer to Theon, moves one hand on his neck searching for his pulse point. It’s slow, but not as much as his usual.
“Hm, you are indeed finding exciting that you’re stuck writing about thieving vampires, aren’t you?”
“You really do know how to ruin the mood when you want to, don’t you?” Theon snaps back, but he’s openly laughing as he says it.
(And the thing is that Robb doesn’t know if he had ever hoped they’d get to this point, where there’s really nothing about their interactions or about the way Theon acts that is directly marred by what happened to him. He remembers how he spent another year flinching every time he gave Robb some more or less rude answer that Robb never really minded, or how it took a while before he just let himself throw horrible jokes at him without looking as if he expected someone to punch him in the face a moment later. He remembers how he spent one week without saying a word to anyone a couple of months after they kissed for the first time and then came to Robb saying that he remembered why he actually knew an entire language already - his mother was half-German and used to speak it to him all the time before she died, and his face had looked so pained that Robb had genuinely felt his stomach turn upside down just looking at him. He’s very much aware of how he had found out that you could, in fact, hate someone you never met so much it felt painful. He doesn’t quite recall how things smoothed out, because it happened slowly and he hadn’t exactly kept track of it, but there isn’t a day when it fails to make his stomach turn for all the right reasons.)
Never mind that Robb can feel it - his heartbeat has just sped up a tiny bit again at that.
“That’s because I know you are entirely willing to let me make up for it,” he replies, not even trying to keep back the laugh fighting its way out of his throat.
“I am entirely willing to let you do far more than that,” Theon admits with a small shrug. “But you know I would, don’t you?”
“I do,” he says, and he kicks the door open as they press their lips together again as he thinks to himself that yes, he knows that perfectly.
(Sometimes, he does find himself wondering if going back in time he would do it all over again, including the part where for one evening he defied the laws of nature regardless of whether he wanted to have that kind of knowledge bestowed upon him.
Most of those times, he’s lying awake in bed catching up on his reading or scribbling notes for whichever essay he’s penning, and Theon’s head is most probably be resting against against his side while one of his arms - which should be cold but isn’t now because of their prolonged contact - grabs at Robb’s hip, and if he’s not sleeping he’s just resting there looking for all intents like he would be happy if he spent the rest of his life in this exact position.
All of those times, Robb wonders for maybe a handful of seconds before coming to the exact same conclusion every time, and the answer is always that yes, yes, he would.)
End.