Fic: How the catch slips himself back to the waves
Fandom: Song of Ice and Fire, Theon/Robb
Recipient: mathia
Word Count: 2117
Summary: Three vignettes as hostage and heir for December's asoiaf_exchange, originally posted here.
i.
The black deepens earlier in the forest. Theon always forgets. Between the trees the white of the snow deceives him until everything’s faded grey and blurry in one rush. It leaves him blinking, while all of a sudden everything’s made out of shadow and the snow he’s squatting in is wetter, colder than before. In his boots his toes are numb. In his gloves his fingers are too stiff to pull a bowstring.
Robb is supposed to be flushing game out into the iced-over streambed. There’s been no game but rabbits all day, though. And for the past hour, two, there’s been no game at all.
“Stark!” Theon bellows. Shaking his hands out to rub them against the cold, he shoulders his bow, crashes through elderberry brush out into the streambed itself to catch the benefit of the last withering light. “No coney is worth losing my toes to this cold, Stark. Bring me a fat doe or bring me back to your father’s hearth!”
Leafless twigs do not so much as shiver in response.
For one second - one brief moment of creeping despair - Theon feels the sway of the sea, the salt-scoured rock of his heritage deep in his veins, and is lost. The dark of this Northern forest is emptiness and death. He is a Greyjoy, not a Stark or Snow to track his way back through the roots and branches. For one brief moment, he is helpless as a babe, gasping in the icy air.
But Robb’s eyes still spark merry blue through the dim, as he slips down into the bed a little farther off. Fourteen and cocky, he carries three snow-white grouse over his shoulder. “You’ll lose more than just your toes without me, Theon.”
Any other Stark - seven hells, any other whelp of Winterfell - would pronounce that statement with relish. Say it smirking and with added edges to slice away a thin ego. But not Robb. Robb smiles warm as summerwine and leans back to show the grouse to their fat, full advantage. For all of it, the delay was probably accidental, or just for the benefit of the birds’ dramatic entrance.
Theon’s gut is still iced with panic, though, and he says with half a sneer, “You look like a fur trapper’s boy,” as he passes Robb, counting on the lordling to pass him by again and correct his course through the trees. “Your lord father will be so proud to see his heir selling trim for ladies’ hats down at the market square.”
Robb laughs it off, easy, but scuffles along to catch up to Theon’s longer legs without a stronger response. He is struck just a bit in his noble heart. Theon can hear it in his breath, the way he lets his metal noisemakers jangle together disconsolately on one leg. Robb never sulks, but he is hurt, self-conscious in the way only heirs bred to rule can be.
Theon smiles sideways at him, to let him share in the joke. Robb would never leave him out here. Robb wears his Stark honour like chainmail, a heavy load, his only defense against the world. Theon is pleased, knowing that his little jokes are the only barbs that make it past that armour, to sting and nettle.
They track back through the forest, and if Robb notices how Theon defers, steps aside in the pooling shadows, he puts it down to rank. Heir and hostage, wandering through the wolfswood.
ii.
A year later, the wolfswood is no place fit to wander. Theon lounges with his whetstone and dirk and watches Robb pace the chamber as a maidservant scurries to stoke the fire, light candles at the writing table. Robb sheds snowmelt off his leathers, throwing his cloak over a chair, shedding his gloves and his soaking doublet. Theon’s boots sit bent by the newborn fire, waiting to slough off their mud and ice.
Robb is silent until the maid dips and slides out the door, soft-footed. “Wildlings this far south,” he spits again, “Not a few hours’ ride from Winterfell.”
Theon smiles at Robb’s shock, his affront at such audacity. “Not fools, are they? Smart as elk, anyway, coming south as winter falls. Simple beasts.”
“Simple beasts that would’ve slaughtered my brother, Greyjoy,” Robb snarls, his fair skin flushed as he turns again at the bookcase. He steps over to the fire; steps back to the great oak table with its quills and parchment and maps; steps to the window that looks down to the courtyard, across to Bran’s tower chamber. Even now the boy sleeps, well-bandaged. Robb and the maester saw to it first, though the cripple’s useless cut leg could not pain him.
Theon longs to make some gallant mention of his own heroism, saving the child with his perfectly-placed arrow. But he suspects Robb might turn, wolfish, and tear out his throat: already, he was chastened for the carelessness of his shot. Robb’s own guilt and fear - suppressed in front of the men - make him liable to lash out now, in the privacy between them. Theon is glad merely that the direwolf is not there to growl and glare as well.
“You’re lord in your father’s absence,” Theon says mildly, instead. His blade whines as he gives it another lick on the stone, “Send the deserters’ heads to Mormont on the wall. Remind him to better watch the gaps in his fence.”
Robb clenches his jaw. He does not like the reminder himself. He is fifteen and raised to it, but leadership gnaws at his guts, a constant counterweight to his Stark honour. This is why Theon sits so easily, his suggestions so smooth. The boy must be gentled like a half-wild pup himself, sometimes. And Theon finds himself a good wetnurse for an orphan, though the comparison makes him smirk.
Robb says, “No doubt they need more men.”
“We can ill afford them. Perhaps if we sentenced more thieves to the black.” Again Theon smiles, though really it’s just the we he finds appealing. He stands, and sheathes his blade. He steps forward to join Robb at the table, where the boy is frowning at the map. The fingers of his right hand are placed under the red crown of King’s Landing, but he looks to the north.
Theon takes that hand from the map - finding it damp and clammy - and places it back against the pommel of Robb’s sword, at his hip. “Action, Robb.” He murmurs into the boy’s ear, “Leave the fretting to the maester and the maidservants.”
Robb shudders lightly, Theon can feel it in the narrow space between them. Nervous as a maid despite all his encouragements. The thought sparks something and Theon leans closer, curious, presses himself against the boy who puts his other palm flat on the table to steady himself. In the yellow of the candlelight, Robb does not turn his face to look over his shoulder, but a small sound whines like a blade in his throat. Theon finds that Robb - shed of all his lordly trappings, his clothes were frozen to ice after his jaunt across the river - is closer to a maid than he would’ve suspected. Auburn hair curls damply at the nape of his neck, and his skin is fair and sweet-smelling. Theon smiles to himself as he raises a hand to brush the damp skin there, touch an ear.
Robb twists away, then. Expelling air from his lungs as he goes to the mantel. An ineffectual escape, Theon notes, a half-hearted one. Theon clucks like he would to a mare, a doxy. “Come on, come now,” he sidles closer, “your lord father trusts in your judgment. He left you with the best of his advisors. Your decisions have been fair, your ear open. You are a fine son. Winterfell will be safe and waiting when her lord and lady return, Robb. You make them proud,” Theon can see how every word both softens and frightens him, knows that it’s dangerous to tread the line too close to flattery. Starks have keen ears for flattery. But he means his words: he is proud of Robb and all his stiff-backed honour. “Little brother,” he says, an endearment from when he’d been young and homesick and alone, and Robb the babe had looked for an idol. From when they’d measured their kinship in familiarity, not Houses or history or blood.
Robb stares at him, angry or cornered or guilty, slouched against the mantel, and Theon follows him there. He knows when a lordling cannot admit a lack, and must be offered his own want as a gift. Theon has been a hostage, a token, half his life. He well knows how to offer them. This time it is a kiss, gentle as a maid’s.
iii.
The night before Theon leaves for Pyke, Robb comes to his tent in the darkness, bearing a narrow scroll of parchment heavy with wax. Theon is awake on his blankets, lamp turned down to a low orange glow. He looks up as Robb ducks through the canvas flap, sits up to greet him, a smirk on his lips. “My lord,” he can barely stop himself from reaching for it. “I take it you reconsidered?”
Robb settles on his haunches. No chainmail, no boiled leather. Just a soft grey tunic and black leggings over his thighs. He frowns at Theon, as if waiting for proof of something. Theon doesn’t allow his smile to falter.
“The ironborn will see no reason to aid us,” Robb repeats himself, once more. The same argument again, though proof of his capitulation rests in his hands.
Theon says, again, “No, but my father will see an opportunity to serve himself and his captains, and that is better.”
“My father fought against this same thing, he fought for-” says Robb, cutting himself off. Another identical argument: desecration of history, his dead father’s will betrayed. Theon tilts his head, his smile gone. He must wait until Robb makes the decision for himself - again, perhaps. And again. But Robb simply squats and stares at the lantern, scowling.
Theon has other methods, though. With a breath of hesitation - just enough to be demure - he rolls onto his palms, crawls forward. “M’lord,” he mutters, ducking his chin and then tilting his mouth to meet Robb’s. There is a second where he anticipates rejection - Robb has a high notion of duty, these days, and low tolerance for his own pleasure. Theon sometimes suspects his lady mother’s presence in camp has something to do with it. Familial guilt is a powerful deterrent: he’s seen it enough times in the farmgirls he’s rolled in their father’s barns.
But Robb takes the kiss, opens to it, coming forward onto his knees as Theon rears up to meet him. And they twine with hungry hands on the fur rugs - Robb’s superior strength pushing Theon down to the ground, while Theon uses the wrap of his long legs and sly white teeth to entice his lordling - his lord - down with him.
It’s familiar, this rutting. Familiar enough that Theon knows Robb will only command for so long before he must be flipped, half-forced, pleasured then fucked like a whore. He knows the boy’s brief play at power is a farce, unconvincing for all his strength and rank.
Theon takes the rough hands at his smallclothes, canting his hips and whispering filthy encouragements. When Robb dips his head to suck at Theon’s cock, he moans load as any kitchen maid, knowing how it frightens and angers and excites. For his wantonness, he receives two handfuls of sharp bruises on either thigh, and he writhes in pain and delight as Robb sucks all the harder.
After, he uses a clean rag to wipe his seed off Robb’s thighs, smirking in the failing light of the lantern. Robb lies with his chin on his hands, silent, half-asleep. Theon laces himself up and crawls down to lie alongside. He runs his hand along the bare shoulders and snags the scroll from where it lies amidst piles of shed clothing. “I’ll send word of my father’s response immediately,” he murmurs, pressing his whole languid, warm self along the boy’s nakedness. He’ll send word when he’s the heir to a new kingdom; one of the very oldest, resurrected.
Robb doesn’t look over, just turns and rises to dress. “See that you do,” he says. He pauses at the tent flap, and his warm blue eyes show a hollow regret. Theon cannot decipher whether it is for the ending of their brotherhood, or for the missive in his hands.
He decides, when Robb is gone, that he himself regrets neither. He regrets nothing at all.
Recipient: mathia
Word Count: 2117
Summary: Three vignettes as hostage and heir for December's asoiaf_exchange, originally posted here.
i.
The black deepens earlier in the forest. Theon always forgets. Between the trees the white of the snow deceives him until everything’s faded grey and blurry in one rush. It leaves him blinking, while all of a sudden everything’s made out of shadow and the snow he’s squatting in is wetter, colder than before. In his boots his toes are numb. In his gloves his fingers are too stiff to pull a bowstring.
Robb is supposed to be flushing game out into the iced-over streambed. There’s been no game but rabbits all day, though. And for the past hour, two, there’s been no game at all.
“Stark!” Theon bellows. Shaking his hands out to rub them against the cold, he shoulders his bow, crashes through elderberry brush out into the streambed itself to catch the benefit of the last withering light. “No coney is worth losing my toes to this cold, Stark. Bring me a fat doe or bring me back to your father’s hearth!”
Leafless twigs do not so much as shiver in response.
For one second - one brief moment of creeping despair - Theon feels the sway of the sea, the salt-scoured rock of his heritage deep in his veins, and is lost. The dark of this Northern forest is emptiness and death. He is a Greyjoy, not a Stark or Snow to track his way back through the roots and branches. For one brief moment, he is helpless as a babe, gasping in the icy air.
But Robb’s eyes still spark merry blue through the dim, as he slips down into the bed a little farther off. Fourteen and cocky, he carries three snow-white grouse over his shoulder. “You’ll lose more than just your toes without me, Theon.”
Any other Stark - seven hells, any other whelp of Winterfell - would pronounce that statement with relish. Say it smirking and with added edges to slice away a thin ego. But not Robb. Robb smiles warm as summerwine and leans back to show the grouse to their fat, full advantage. For all of it, the delay was probably accidental, or just for the benefit of the birds’ dramatic entrance.
Theon’s gut is still iced with panic, though, and he says with half a sneer, “You look like a fur trapper’s boy,” as he passes Robb, counting on the lordling to pass him by again and correct his course through the trees. “Your lord father will be so proud to see his heir selling trim for ladies’ hats down at the market square.”
Robb laughs it off, easy, but scuffles along to catch up to Theon’s longer legs without a stronger response. He is struck just a bit in his noble heart. Theon can hear it in his breath, the way he lets his metal noisemakers jangle together disconsolately on one leg. Robb never sulks, but he is hurt, self-conscious in the way only heirs bred to rule can be.
Theon smiles sideways at him, to let him share in the joke. Robb would never leave him out here. Robb wears his Stark honour like chainmail, a heavy load, his only defense against the world. Theon is pleased, knowing that his little jokes are the only barbs that make it past that armour, to sting and nettle.
They track back through the forest, and if Robb notices how Theon defers, steps aside in the pooling shadows, he puts it down to rank. Heir and hostage, wandering through the wolfswood.
ii.
A year later, the wolfswood is no place fit to wander. Theon lounges with his whetstone and dirk and watches Robb pace the chamber as a maidservant scurries to stoke the fire, light candles at the writing table. Robb sheds snowmelt off his leathers, throwing his cloak over a chair, shedding his gloves and his soaking doublet. Theon’s boots sit bent by the newborn fire, waiting to slough off their mud and ice.
Robb is silent until the maid dips and slides out the door, soft-footed. “Wildlings this far south,” he spits again, “Not a few hours’ ride from Winterfell.”
Theon smiles at Robb’s shock, his affront at such audacity. “Not fools, are they? Smart as elk, anyway, coming south as winter falls. Simple beasts.”
“Simple beasts that would’ve slaughtered my brother, Greyjoy,” Robb snarls, his fair skin flushed as he turns again at the bookcase. He steps over to the fire; steps back to the great oak table with its quills and parchment and maps; steps to the window that looks down to the courtyard, across to Bran’s tower chamber. Even now the boy sleeps, well-bandaged. Robb and the maester saw to it first, though the cripple’s useless cut leg could not pain him.
Theon longs to make some gallant mention of his own heroism, saving the child with his perfectly-placed arrow. But he suspects Robb might turn, wolfish, and tear out his throat: already, he was chastened for the carelessness of his shot. Robb’s own guilt and fear - suppressed in front of the men - make him liable to lash out now, in the privacy between them. Theon is glad merely that the direwolf is not there to growl and glare as well.
“You’re lord in your father’s absence,” Theon says mildly, instead. His blade whines as he gives it another lick on the stone, “Send the deserters’ heads to Mormont on the wall. Remind him to better watch the gaps in his fence.”
Robb clenches his jaw. He does not like the reminder himself. He is fifteen and raised to it, but leadership gnaws at his guts, a constant counterweight to his Stark honour. This is why Theon sits so easily, his suggestions so smooth. The boy must be gentled like a half-wild pup himself, sometimes. And Theon finds himself a good wetnurse for an orphan, though the comparison makes him smirk.
Robb says, “No doubt they need more men.”
“We can ill afford them. Perhaps if we sentenced more thieves to the black.” Again Theon smiles, though really it’s just the we he finds appealing. He stands, and sheathes his blade. He steps forward to join Robb at the table, where the boy is frowning at the map. The fingers of his right hand are placed under the red crown of King’s Landing, but he looks to the north.
Theon takes that hand from the map - finding it damp and clammy - and places it back against the pommel of Robb’s sword, at his hip. “Action, Robb.” He murmurs into the boy’s ear, “Leave the fretting to the maester and the maidservants.”
Robb shudders lightly, Theon can feel it in the narrow space between them. Nervous as a maid despite all his encouragements. The thought sparks something and Theon leans closer, curious, presses himself against the boy who puts his other palm flat on the table to steady himself. In the yellow of the candlelight, Robb does not turn his face to look over his shoulder, but a small sound whines like a blade in his throat. Theon finds that Robb - shed of all his lordly trappings, his clothes were frozen to ice after his jaunt across the river - is closer to a maid than he would’ve suspected. Auburn hair curls damply at the nape of his neck, and his skin is fair and sweet-smelling. Theon smiles to himself as he raises a hand to brush the damp skin there, touch an ear.
Robb twists away, then. Expelling air from his lungs as he goes to the mantel. An ineffectual escape, Theon notes, a half-hearted one. Theon clucks like he would to a mare, a doxy. “Come on, come now,” he sidles closer, “your lord father trusts in your judgment. He left you with the best of his advisors. Your decisions have been fair, your ear open. You are a fine son. Winterfell will be safe and waiting when her lord and lady return, Robb. You make them proud,” Theon can see how every word both softens and frightens him, knows that it’s dangerous to tread the line too close to flattery. Starks have keen ears for flattery. But he means his words: he is proud of Robb and all his stiff-backed honour. “Little brother,” he says, an endearment from when he’d been young and homesick and alone, and Robb the babe had looked for an idol. From when they’d measured their kinship in familiarity, not Houses or history or blood.
Robb stares at him, angry or cornered or guilty, slouched against the mantel, and Theon follows him there. He knows when a lordling cannot admit a lack, and must be offered his own want as a gift. Theon has been a hostage, a token, half his life. He well knows how to offer them. This time it is a kiss, gentle as a maid’s.
iii.
The night before Theon leaves for Pyke, Robb comes to his tent in the darkness, bearing a narrow scroll of parchment heavy with wax. Theon is awake on his blankets, lamp turned down to a low orange glow. He looks up as Robb ducks through the canvas flap, sits up to greet him, a smirk on his lips. “My lord,” he can barely stop himself from reaching for it. “I take it you reconsidered?”
Robb settles on his haunches. No chainmail, no boiled leather. Just a soft grey tunic and black leggings over his thighs. He frowns at Theon, as if waiting for proof of something. Theon doesn’t allow his smile to falter.
“The ironborn will see no reason to aid us,” Robb repeats himself, once more. The same argument again, though proof of his capitulation rests in his hands.
Theon says, again, “No, but my father will see an opportunity to serve himself and his captains, and that is better.”
“My father fought against this same thing, he fought for-” says Robb, cutting himself off. Another identical argument: desecration of history, his dead father’s will betrayed. Theon tilts his head, his smile gone. He must wait until Robb makes the decision for himself - again, perhaps. And again. But Robb simply squats and stares at the lantern, scowling.
Theon has other methods, though. With a breath of hesitation - just enough to be demure - he rolls onto his palms, crawls forward. “M’lord,” he mutters, ducking his chin and then tilting his mouth to meet Robb’s. There is a second where he anticipates rejection - Robb has a high notion of duty, these days, and low tolerance for his own pleasure. Theon sometimes suspects his lady mother’s presence in camp has something to do with it. Familial guilt is a powerful deterrent: he’s seen it enough times in the farmgirls he’s rolled in their father’s barns.
But Robb takes the kiss, opens to it, coming forward onto his knees as Theon rears up to meet him. And they twine with hungry hands on the fur rugs - Robb’s superior strength pushing Theon down to the ground, while Theon uses the wrap of his long legs and sly white teeth to entice his lordling - his lord - down with him.
It’s familiar, this rutting. Familiar enough that Theon knows Robb will only command for so long before he must be flipped, half-forced, pleasured then fucked like a whore. He knows the boy’s brief play at power is a farce, unconvincing for all his strength and rank.
Theon takes the rough hands at his smallclothes, canting his hips and whispering filthy encouragements. When Robb dips his head to suck at Theon’s cock, he moans load as any kitchen maid, knowing how it frightens and angers and excites. For his wantonness, he receives two handfuls of sharp bruises on either thigh, and he writhes in pain and delight as Robb sucks all the harder.
After, he uses a clean rag to wipe his seed off Robb’s thighs, smirking in the failing light of the lantern. Robb lies with his chin on his hands, silent, half-asleep. Theon laces himself up and crawls down to lie alongside. He runs his hand along the bare shoulders and snags the scroll from where it lies amidst piles of shed clothing. “I’ll send word of my father’s response immediately,” he murmurs, pressing his whole languid, warm self along the boy’s nakedness. He’ll send word when he’s the heir to a new kingdom; one of the very oldest, resurrected.
Robb doesn’t look over, just turns and rises to dress. “See that you do,” he says. He pauses at the tent flap, and his warm blue eyes show a hollow regret. Theon cannot decipher whether it is for the ending of their brotherhood, or for the missive in his hands.
He decides, when Robb is gone, that he himself regrets neither. He regrets nothing at all.