It Is I! The Evil One

by Midievil

Summary:

Theon has an existential crisis in Ramsay's arms.

Notes:

:)

For years, Theon had had this one recurring dream. In it, he was kneeling in peat moss, surrounded by the thick trunks of a dense black forest, hands coated in dark, slimy dirt. As he knelt under a faded white moon, the dirt flowed like water through his fingers, like black hair, tangling and writhing over his smooth palms. He always knew, in that special way of dreams, that the hideous blackness was coming from inside him, oozing out like tainted sweat, and that it was sin, leaking out of his skin as inky puss. 

In the dream, panic would boil in his belly as he watched this horrid oil-slick seeping from his body and onto the ground, but when he would try to wipe it on his bare thighs, he would find that they were already filthy with it; sweating, too.

He always woke from this dream tasting flesh in his mouth - the taste of biting the inside of your cheek, the taste of sickness.

Thanks to Ramsay, he would come later to see this dream as a sort of premonition - a vision of the evil he hid inside him, coming out in his subconscious. But, first, he was ignorant of that evil. He carried on behaving badly, uninfluenced by the images in his chronic nightmare. He was a fool.

Everyone is a fool before they are taught.

***

'Maybe I'll fuck her,' Theon called to Jon from the couch, where he was playing a first-person shooter game on the Stark family television, 'since you're too chicken to have done it already.'

Robb, who was sitting next to Theon texting his school friends, kicked him in the shin. 'Leave him be,’ he said, exasperated.

'Leave him to die a virgin,' Theon taunted. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jon fussing in the entryway mirror, deciding whether or not to roll up his sleeves before his second date with his new girlfriend.

'Ignore Theon, Jon,’ Robb said to his brother without looking up from the fast scroll of his groupchat.

Jon stomped back into the living room glowering. 'I am,' he growled. 'Make him ignore me.'

'No one makes me do anything.' Theon sing-songed over the sound of gunshots from his game, turning around to wink at Jon's furious scowl.

Jon rolled his eyes and slunk off, looking murderous and dashing, like a fantastic spectre in punk boots. He slammed the front door behind him.'I don't know why you can't just leave him alone,’ Robb said, when Jon was gone.

'His face pisses me off,' Theon snapped. 'He feels so fucking sorry for himself.'

It annoyed Theon that Jon broadcasted his brooding emotions so openly, wearing his misery loudly and almost constantly in the downward twist of his pouty mouth. Jon's sad expression and gloomy eyes made Theon want to shake him until he had something worth crying about.

Robb sighed. 'He's sixteen. You felt sorry for yourself when you were sixteen.'

Theon had felt sorry for himself, and still did, all the time. He just had the decency to hide it, since it was no one's business. So what if Jon was a bastard, his existence a constant reminder to the Starks that their beloved Father had cheated on their mother? Would it kill him to knock back a couple beers and get over it? 'I had two girls when I was sixteen; reckon I felt pretty good,’ Theon answered, cocky, 'Sometimes I felt good in Avery's mum's car. Sometimes at the back of the soccer field. All over the place, really.’

'Shut up, Theon,' Robb admonished him.

'I just feel bad for his girlfriend. She's probably dying for a good big cock. I'd be doing her an act of charity.' He made a rude gesture with his hand, ignoring Robb's disgusted grimace.

When Jon came home from his date four hours later, he sprawled luxuriously on the couch like a confident cat - he'd obviously gotten lucky.

'Did the curtains match the drapes?' Theon asked, smirking.

'I don't know why you're friends with this asshole,' Jon spat, looking past Theon at Robb.

'We've known each other since Kindergarten,’ Robb replied.

'Theon's changed a lot since Kindergarten,’ Jon mumbled. 'And not for the better.'

Robb sighed. 'Everyone changes.'

Theon paused in taking puffs off his juul to stick his tongue out at Jon's frown. 'Jon's probably just upset because his girlfriend's not a natural redhead. Was her pussy blonde? Or did you not get a good enough look? Should I double check for you?'

Robb shot him a silencing look, and Theon withered.

***

'Robb,’ Theon greeted, straightening up from where he was leaning against the Stark's kitchen island when Robb came trudging into the house after a hockey game, carrying a six-pack of beer. To Jon, who trailed behind, red-nosed and dusted in winter snow, he said, 'Bastard. Throw me a beer.'

Jon used a fork to open a beer and took a sip, ignoring Theon's outstretched, demanding hand. 'Attention whore,' he greeted Theon back through gritted teeth. He'd shrugged a worn leather jacket over his damp hockey jersey. 'You can buy your own beer if you want some.'

Theon sneered mockingly. 'Yes, I can,’ he said, 'Because I'm over 18.'

'Good, then.’ Jon took another, longer sip.

Robb tossed Theon a bottle underhand, shaking his head at them. 'Hey, Theon, ask me how the game went,’ he said. He was smiling all over; cheeks pink like a berry smudge and red hair stuck to the sweat-dew around his happy mouth.

'Don't have to.' Theon grinned winningly, clapping Robb on the shoulder. To Jon he said, 'You smell horrible.'

'So do you,' Jon rumbled back. 'At least I've an excuse.'

Theon had smelt quite distinctly of cigarettes, weed, rose body wash, shaving cream, mint toothpaste, and sweet moisturizer, those days.

***

The summer after Jon's high school graduation, Theon made the last of his many mistakes over the course of his friendship with Robb, and slunk ashamedly from the Stark house like a kicked dog. It was by chance that an old highschool acquaintance - if he could even be called that, seeing as Theon had never said a word to him during the time they had spent attending the same Maths, Biology, and English classes - materialized at his elbow in a bar downtown, eager to fill the new gap in Theon's social life.

Ramsay Bolten, having spotted Theon's defeated slump from across the room, slid into a stool next to him and introduced himself as an old schoolmate with a simpering, flickering deference that made Theon's bruised ego swell in a way that felt therapeutic.

'Let me buy you a drink,’ Ramsay said, already gesturing for a bartender.

'I have my own money,’ Theon grumbled back. His vodka and coke was nearly empty, nestled in the cradle of his forearms.

Ramsay ignored him, and ordered two tequila shots. After Theon swallowed the first one, Ramsay nudged the second in front of him. 'You look like you need it more than me,’ he joked, looking up from under his dark fringe.

Theon grunted, and drank it.

Ramsay told him, after Theon finished off another four shots and began to rant drunkenly, that Theon was too obsessed with Robb. 'Forget him,’ he said, 'Take my number.'

'Forget the Starks,’ Theon agreed, grinning tightly. 'Cheers to fucking that.'

***

As their relationship went on, Theon started to feel antsy on days he didn't spend with Ramsay. He would have anxious dreams, and wake up in the early hours of the morning to drink long gulps of water. Loneliness squeezed him in odd, nervous ways, and he started to feel unsure of himself when he was alone.

Theon and Ramsay spent a lot of time drinking beer in the woods behind Ramsay's dad's house, Ramsay grinning like a satiated wolf and sipping slow and satisfied while Theon drowned himself with excessive chugging. Then, tipsy Theon and coaxing Ramsay would draw closer to one another with a charged needy magnetism, and Theon's low self esteem would start to simmer deliciously, punishingly, while Ramsay talked sweetly about how much better Theon would look if he shaved the ghost of stubble on his chin and down his neck, or how Theon's eyes were really bright for someone so dull. It felt like someting Theon deserved, to be knocked down. And Ramsay's attention, doled out on the edge of a cutting word, was such a tasty morsel, Theon didn't mind much if it was a little rotten.

They would spend every waking moment together for a week or more, and then Theon would be sent home and left there for two or three days. Just long enough to start wondering if Ramsay actually thought he was charming, or was making fun of him somehow. Ramsay infected those empty days and especially those nights with the memory of his confusing turns of phrase and the contrasting memory of his trustworthy, unassuming face.

Sometimes Theon lay awake wondering why the fuck he hung out with Ramsay. Why did Ramsay caress Theon's arms with the pads of his calloused fingers? Grab Theon's thigh when they drove through the city in Ramsay's truck? Why did Theon keep re-entering Ramsay's orbit, hoping their shoulders and hands would collide while they walked through the woods behind the Bolton home, looking for sprung traps? Why did he swallow his thick spit every time their fingers lingered when he handed Ramsay another round while Ramsay shot gophers from the quad in the back pasture?

He wasn't usually put on his back foot, and particularly not by someone so harmless.

That was how he'd thought of Ramsay, then: as a lame replacement for Robb, and a moderate bully who Theon used to make himself feel bad. He'd think 'he's just some guy', and then fall into a fitful, cold-sweaty sleep, dreaming of black blood coursing over the forest floor, of bullet holes in his hands leaking that viscous black tar, dirt sticking to his wet face, evil soaking the leaves where his knees sunk. He started to dream about pressing his face to that terrible dirt, cheek against the wetness, fingers finding a gaping gopher hole in the surrounding mulch. He dreamt of stepping one foot in a gopher hole, laughter in his ears like a barometric pressure pushing him down, down, down into the pool of his own black bile.

Then Ramsay would call, and tell him to pick up a 6 pack of beer. Theon was always so relieved to hear Ramsay's voice sound so normal over the phone.

***

'Give me your phone.'

Theon looked up from where he was sitting on a white plastic chair on the lawn. He was the first to arrive for Ramsay's housewarming party - Ramsay'd rented a rather nice place behind a new strip mall on the edge of town, and was standing in his bare feet at the grill, flipping deer meat.

'Why?' Theon asked.

Ramsay held out his hand and rose his heavy eyebrows. 'Because I want to look at it.'

'But why?'

'Only five-year olds ask why this bloody much, Jesus. Mummy, why's the sky blue? Mummy, why can't I have more candy? Why? Why? Fucking give me your phone. You sound like an idiot, Theon.'

They had been spending even more time together over the past months. Theon's guilt over the ruination of his friendship with Robb had been eating at his heart, and he missed the companionship of the Stark house. He craved the attention, the togetherness, that Ramsay gave him in short, addictive bursts. He huffed, stood irritably from his chair, and put his phone in Ramsay's waiting palm.

'What's the passcode?' Ramsay asked, as soon as Theon had sat back down.

'What do you need the passcode for?'

'You're not getting it back until I know the passcode.'

Theon wanted to ask why. He thought about asking what the hell Ramsay wanted to do: take a picture? Read his bloody texts? But it didn't really matter. Ramsay wanted something, and he would get it.

'3825.'

'Thank you, Theon,’ Ramsay said, exasperated. 'And I don't want to find out that you've gone and changed it later.'

'It's fine how it is,’ Theon muttered, popping the cap off his beer.

Ramsay's friends came in through the back gate not long after. There was Damon, Alyn, Skinner, and Ben, who set loose four big dogs in the yard. They introduced themselves to Theon and then mostly ignored him to talk raucously with Ramsay about a hunting trip they had apparently planned for the coming week.

While everyone settled into plastic chairs around the fire pit, Ramsay scanned through Theon's phone. One of Ben's dogs lay panting at Theon's feet, and Ramsay looked up with an unreadable smile, then lowered his gaze again to the screen. The conversation never strayed far from weaponry or hunting. Theon felt about as noticed by Ramsay's guests as a stray weed in the grass.

Ramsay, however, looked pointedly at Theon whenever he talked, thumb hovering over the screen of Theon's phone. 'I only hunt deer with a bow.' He said, in response to something Skinner was saying about rifles. 'Guns aren't personal.'

'What did the deer do, fuck your mother?' Damon chortled. 'What's this shit about personal?'

'It doesn't matter what it did or didn't do,’ Ramsay continued evenly, watery blue eyes fixed on Theon like the sights of a rifle.

Theon shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and dropped his head in the guise of reaching down to stroke the dogs head. When he glanced back up, Ramsay was flicking at his phone as though he was going through the camera reel.

Pictures of Robb. Pictures of Theon without his shirt, posing in the bathroom. Pictures of nights out, girls in skirts. Pictures of restaurant food, and saved snapchat stories from sleepovers at the Starks'. Ramsay was looking at those old, precious memories from before Theon was excommunicated from that bubble of happiness forever.

He was putting his fingerprint there, on Theon's past.

***

When they were younger and Theon stayed over, he and Robb had always slept together in the family game room on a heavy foam mattress.

'I wish I was your brother,' Theon had whispered, once, while Robb settled their duvet evenly across their legs, 'and I could live here with you forever.'

***

'What did you do, anyway?' Ramsay asked out of the blue one day while he and Theon were hanging out. He had his head in the fridge, rummaging.

'Nothing,’ Theon said automatically, from his seat at the small kitchen table. 'I didn't do anything, I've just been sitting here.'

'No, you dumb idiot. What did you do that made your precious Robb hate you so much?'

Theon's mouth twitched. Ramsay had noticed that Robb didn't try to call as much anymore, and had read all the frustrated texts Robb had sent Theon over the summer, as well as Theon's flippant replies. 'I was a shitty friend.' Theon said.

Ramsay snorted. 'That doesn't surprise me. But you're avoiding the question, Theon.'

There was no way Ramsay didn't already know, since he'd listened to the angry messages Robb had left Theon after that night. 'I locked his little brothers in this garbage hut behind their garage.'

'A harmless prank,’ Ramsay remarked lightly.

'I meant to let them out again,’ Theon continued, as Ramsay sat down with his toast and marmalade.

'But you're not very responsible, are you, Theon?'

'No.'

Ramsay took a bite of his food. He looked delighted to say, 'Those poor, innocent children. All alone. For how long?'

'Robb called me the next morning because his mum reported them missing. I missed the call because I'd gone to a party, so I was - ’

'Blah blah, now the Starks hate you. You talk too much, do you know that?' Ramsay interjected. 'Anyway, I wanted to tell you to move in with me.'

Theon's chest hurt.

'It's not like you have anywhere better to be,’ Ramsay reminded him, louder, wagging his head and wearing a tight, mocking smile. 'Do you?'

'No.'

***

Theon had grown-up more in the Stark house than his own, so he was used to owning nothing in a place he called home. But the Starks had always told him to be relaxed with their things, to share them, to eat whatever he wanted, to borrow clothes. Ramsay had told Theon to forget what little furniture he owned and just use Ramsay's, since it was nicer, but Ramsay was jealous of his every possession - Theon was being constantly schooled in the ever growing list of what he was not allowed to touch.

They ate together each night, at 8. It had been Theon's habit before moving in with Ramsay to stay out late in the bars downtown, warming his fingers with a spiked coffee and taking pulls from the flask he keep in his coat. He was quickly broken of this habit by the threat of Ramsay's temper, which lurked in the the beige carpets of their shared home like a snake in the grass.

'I won't have you whoring around,’ Ramsay explained, often, over his plate. 'I can't believe you're not embarrassed for yourself. Thinking about you stumbling around like a drunken idiot, out in the streets for everyone to see, disgusts me. I'd be fucking embarrassed, if I was you.' Ramsay liked to explain to Theon what he was really like, how he came across to others, and what people thought of him.

It was getting more difficult for Theon to do anything but nod, eyes fixed on his peas and mashed potatoes, when Ramsay got started. Ramsay was very good at saying exactly what Theon suspected about himself deep down, but had tried not to acknowledge. He was sharp and attentive. He analysed every text message Theon's few acquaintances sent, so Theon felt less and less at ease about his friendships. He encouraged Theon to cancel plans until the thin, delicate strings that connected him to his usual crowd were snapped, and Theon was forced by the monotony of evenings spent sitting on the couch while Ramsay cleaned his hunting knives to face the depth of his loneliness.

'Oh, Theon,' Ramsay would sigh if Theon complained about his dwindling social life. 'I know you're thick, but surely you've noticed that I'm the only person who can stand you?'

Theon felt, when he was sitting in the passenger seat of Ramsay's F350, that he had been squeezed out of his gregarious, lewd shell and was now a more naked soul. He found that he had nothing to say that Ramsay would want to hear, and that the small, spineless person who had crawled out of the great Theon persona didn't want to hear what new critique Ramsay would invent to cut him down even lower, because he was sensitive and insecure.

He had had this new person drawn from him very slowly. It was with the creeping, dreadful loss of a glacier melt that the old Theon crept away. Ramsay chiseled at him gradually, like a good sculptor, introducing to Theon slowly the shape of his pathetic psyche, grinding and baiting Theon, becoming his entire world.

Within the year, Ramsay began to hone and perfect the details of this newly vulnerable psychological creation.

***

Theon woke from another bad dream, tangled in a square throw blanket like a fish in a net. He slept on the couch now because his insomnia annoyed Ramsay. He dreamt in bursts that boxed him over the ears and left him feeling groggy and bogged-down, twisting on the black leather, thrashing his arms.

In his dreams, he was sticky with the black sap that leaked from the maple trees in a wood that was dark grey like the one where Ramsay did most of his hunting, with a damp and oppressive canopy holding him from above like a capsized boat in a star-less, cloudy sea. Guilt sucked his stomach into his throat, and when he woke he felt this overwhelming horror, directed at himself, because he had been an asshole to everyone who was ever good to him, and he felt truly, helplessly vile and trapped.

These putrid images also came to him when he lay awake, now, appearing like hallucinations in the shadows of the popcorn ceiling. He obsessed over the dream and felt that it meant something deeper. He identified more strongly with the miserable person he was in that dream more than he did with the Theon in his memories, and began to think that he was becoming that dreamy Theon, being replaced by him. When he slid Ramsay's eggs on his plate in the morning without a word, then sat and stared glassy-eyed at the empty placemat in front of himself, he was still drifting in the same feelings he ruminated on while he was gripped in nightmare. He flipped between thinking his new, secluded and sober life in Ramsay's house was impossible, unreal, and looking back on the old life he'd lived with Robb in comparative happiness as though those memories belonged to someone else - it certainly didn't feel possible that Theon now would ever do the things he had done before.

He developed a habit of wringing his hands, so in the dream he also wrung his hands, scubbing the dirt all over, pushing it around his skin and staining it. He was at the mercy of this new vision of himself, and wondered about his identity. Was he Theon who shotgunned beers at bonfires, or was he this other person, who was flattened by Ramsay's boot? Which was the better man: the obnoxious outward Theon, or the meek inside Theon who was only now taking over their shared body? Who was he, and how did he go about being himself?

Ramsay knew the answers. Slowly, slowly, he fed them to Theon like a mother spoon-feeding cough syrup to a collicing child.

***

A soaring happiness, delicate as loose candy-floss in a summer wind, tickled Theon when Ramsay put his arm over his thining shoulders while they sat side by side on Ramsay's couch. He held as still as a rabbit in shock.

'Pass me another beer,' Ramsay called to Damon, who was rooting through the fridge behind them and out of sight. His fingers were tensing and releasing on Theon's upper arm - it was a tell. Theon knew that it meant Ramsay was getting bored. They had been playing Madden with Ramsay's friends for 3 hours.

Damon put the beer in Ramsay's other hand and didn't really look at Theon. Theon suspected that Ramsay had instructed all his friends to ignore him from the start, and Theon no longer tried to talk to any of them.

'I still don't get it,' Damon said, as he sat down.

'Get what?' Demanded Ramsay, over the sound of his beer hissing open.

'Him.' Damon was staring fixedly at the screen - they all were, suddenly robotic, pretending not to hang on Ramsay's deliberating silence like dead men at the gallows.

'What's not to get?' Ramsay said smoothly. His hand was vice-like at Theon's shoulder now, and Theon wished Damon would shut up. There was no use trying to put words to what he and Ramsay had. 'Ignore him.'

Damon shrugged with one shoulder. He had a hard, sharp face. Theon had once watched him snap the wings off a young robin that had been caught by one of the dogs in Ramsay's backyard. Sometimes he stared at Theon's scrawny arms like a destructive child eyeing an unsteady block tower. 'What's wrong with him?' he asked, looking Theon up and down instead of complying with Ramsay's order.

'I don't know,' Ramsay spat. 'He's special.'

Theon felt the weight of the boys' attention like a smog in his lungs. He was a vain creature, and aware of the decline of his good looks. The flesh on his ribs had wasted away, the muscles in his calves were gone. Ramsay had started cutting his hair, so it was shaggy and ugly.

'Only I don't know how you can stand the smell of 'im.' Damon mumbled. 'Why doesn't the devil shower?'

Theon often wondered if he had some bad personality trait that made him perfect for Ramsay, some pus-filled hole in his heart that let him tolerate and crave wickedness. He knew that it took two wretches to have a wretched relationship, and Ramsay often reminded Theon of his own wretchedness. So, more and more as time went on, he wondered why smart, popular Ramsay kept him.

'He doesn't deserve it,' Ramsay sniggered. 'He's my reeking pet.'

***

Theon had sometimes been alone in the Stark house with Jon, though he had always tried to avoid it, because he hated Jon passionately and had never liked fighting with him without an audience.

'Why are you always such a perfect ass to me?' Jon spat at him during one of those times, once, while Theon was sitting at the island flicking through his phone.

'You deserve it,’ Theon had shot back, 'You're a snivelling bastard.'

***

The dawn was gentle at the window. Ramsay's spare room was eggshell blue in the soft light, full of geometric shadows as thick as black holes. Theon was sleeping on the hardwood. He had once heard that a hard surface was better for the back. He thought about paleolithic man, sleeping in a cave with his head on a cave floor, watching a sunrise from under his fringe of uncut hair, and felt closer to the Earth than he had ever felt. He was very real, and very old. His hip ached where it was pressed into the floor.

He had dreamt. In his dream he was lying down, looking up at the black trees, as his body rotted in the forest. He felt peaceful. He thought about paleolithic man, skinning his knees when he tripped over a knotted root. He thought about small, healthy plants growing from the soil and becoming tomatoes. He often dreamt that there were mushrooms growing from his thighs and arms, and that he ate them. Sometimes there were acorns falling from the canopy and hitting him, leaving purple bruises, and he ate them. His teeth were full of cavities and he drooled black drool. He didn't dream this old, twisting dream every night, but often. Mostly he dreamt about eating pizza, frantically eating pizza.

Ramsay snored softly, endearingly, from the other room. Theon lay so still he made no noise. He woke often in the night and lay still, thinking about paleolithic man stargazing. He had never known where the constellations were in the night sky, which hung tauntingly behind the ceiling. He wondered if he would want to know now that he was someone other than the person he had been before.

Ramsay had given him a mean new name, which helped him compartmentalise himself and end his identity crisis. He was called Reek, and he was a quiet man with few liberties who drifted like a haunting through his own mind, walking through his memories like a ghost through walls, without feeling them, and then leaving them behind. He felt detached from other people because he didn't see anyone anymore, and knew that they were out of reach. He didn't care about his old life, which he had ruined, because he knew in his heart (and because Ramsay had told him many times) that he had been hated and was not missed. There was nothing to go back to.

He found his new life easy because Ramsay was predictably cruel and was gone for work Monday - Thursday between 0645 and 1915 every week, and never took Theon hunting anymore because he was jealous of him and also because people didn't like seeing Theon, who was very thin and had lost three teeth when Ramsay kicked him down the stairs, so he was often left alone in the spare bedroom, locked in to drift into confused daydream and hungry hallucination.

It started to rain outside, like fingers tapping the glass. Theon wondered if the rain would wash off some of his filth if he stood underneath it, or if the filth had become part of his new self's waxy skin. He imagined Palaeolithic man, stretching and yawning, walking into the rain and becoming clean.

His knees hurt where they touched each other. His shoulders and his arms with the sharp knobbly elbows and wrists were like a pile of brittle, thorny sticks, and he couldn't get comfortable.

***

I'm only calling to tell you officially that you are not welcome in my home. Fuck you, Theon.

Hey, Theon. It's Robb. Bran and Rickon are fine. In case you cared. Give me a call, if you're interested in apologising. Ok. Bye.

It's Robb. Do you just not answer your phone anymore? Where are you? I got my own place now, and - no, Jon, I'm leaving a message - text me or something. See you.

Theon, it's Robb. I'm in town this Saturday. I haven't heard anything from you, and no one seems to know where you are. If you haven't moved, I hope we can talk. Bye.

I don't know if this is still your number, but Robb would have wanted you to know that his funeral's on the 15th at Westview, no matter how much of a slimy bastard you are. It's Jon, by the way.

***

"Oh - fuck - god dammit, Reek, what are you doing?' Ramsay asked, appearing around the corner from the hallway.

Reek was trying to sweep a broken glass into a dust pan. He'd dropped it when, while trying to steal a glass of milk from the fridge, he had passed out, briefly, on the kitchen floor 

''m sorry,’ Reek murmured, picking up a larger piece with shaking fingers and setting it atop the rest of the mess on his pan. 'Sorry.'

He was not afraid of Ramsay in that moment, that volatile man on the other side of the broken glass wall, who was bleeding from a poke in the toe. He was too full of a more ancient, more desperate fear: a hunger so deep and demanding it twisted his gut worse than a stabbing. His thoughts flowed like molasses down the side of cake. He pinched another piece of glass, slowly, between his cold fingertips, and put it in the pan. Milk was sliding under the fridge, soaking Theon's threadbare sweatpants. He wanted desperately to have it, to cup it between his hands like a hiker at a bubbling brook, but couldn't make himself move any faster than he already was or to bend down to lick it. His head ached steadily.

'I didn't ask if you were sorry, Reek. I asked what you were doing.'

Reek sniffed. 'Cleaning up,’ he said thickly.

Ramsay flashed at him, pulling his hair, making him drop the broom with a clatter and spray the glass in a pretty arc across the floor. 'Why?' He shook the fist that had a hold of Reek, so he shook like a metal sheet in the wind.

'I dropped it, 'm sorry,’ Reek babbled, 'I won't... I'll clean it all away, I'll pick it up, I'll clean it, 'm sorry.'

'You're such a bumbling idiot, I can't even understand what you're saying.' Ramsay shrugged, and dropped Reek back onto the tile. 'This is what happens when you try to do anything for yourself, Reek.'

Reek nodded vigorously. 'I'm useless, I am,’ he slurred, 'I won't do it again, I promise.'

'No, you won't. Look at you, you've cut yourself.'

He had, when Ramsay had dragged his knees through the glass, but minorly.

'Here, let me help you.'

Reek's shoulders shrunk, but he didn't flinch away when Ramsay picked him up under the armpits and stood him on the worst of the mess.

'I need to know that you understand why what you've done is very wrong.' Ramsay pursed his lips patronisingly. His hands were warm and soft, and Reek wanted so badly to be embraced by him, to apologise until he was hoarse, to be forgiven. He wanted it through a heavy haze of exhaustion and curdled fear. 'I had an uncle who lost half his finger when someone dropped a window pane on him.'

Reek nodded.

'It's a dangerous world, Reek. You need to learn that.'

Reek nodded.

***

The lights were on in Theon's flat when Jon pulled up in his truck. He didn't want to see Theon - as far as he was concerned, the past year without him had been a gift worth treasuring - but Robb had been faithfully texting his old best friend right up until his untimely death, and Jon thought Theon owed it to Robb to show up at the funeral and mourn him.

He knocked forcefully at the door, and waited.

'Oh! Hi?' It was a woman.

'Hey. Theon inside?'

'Uhh... sorry, you must have the wrong address.' The woman shook her head.

Jon could see Theon's glossy pleather couch, fuzzy white rug, and dark coffee table over the woman's shoulder. 'Isn't that his stuff?'

She turned around to look out over the living room. There was a big potted plant next to the TV that was new and the place was clean, but other than that it looked the same. 'The last tenant left all their stuff behind...' The woman said. 'Like, food, clothes, everything. We moved in a couple months ago.'

Jon nodded understandingly. 'The guy I'm looking for must have moved. Sorry to have bothered you.'

'Ok. Hope you find your friend!'

***

Reek cradled his new fingers. They were short now. Two short fingers. Ramsay was letting him rest on the couch, with a grey throw wrapped around him and a pillow for his head. Ramsay had cut the fingers with a saw in the garage, and then bandaged and disinfected them with iodine and polysporin.

Ramsay was watching television, holding Reek's ankles in his lap and rubbing them absentmindedly. He had tried to feed Reek potato salad, but Reek was too fuzzy with pain to chew it or want it. Tears stuck to his cheeks and wouldn't dry. His eyelids were heavy from crying, but he couldn't sleep because of the flashing hurt.

They watched hunters on the television hold the dead head of a buck like a swaddled babe, smoothing its antlers lovingly, caressing the cold rigor-mortis mouth. It was erotica for Ramsay. Reek felt a familiarity with the deer, saw himself reflected in the bulging glass eyes.

'I'm looking after you,' Ramsay had crooned after the surgery, covering Reek's gasping, breathless mouth with a bloodied hand. 'Shut up, Reek, I'm here.'

He had lifted Reek into his arms like Reek's body was just a pile of dirty laundry, hanging limp off the hinges of his elbows. Reek's blood leaked all over the floor, red, and bloomed where it struck the tile in the bathroom like carnations in a greenhouse.

'Ahhah,’ Reek groaned when Ramsay dipped his three fingered hand in a bucket of water. Blood blossomed, and the water was red. It was warm and it stung like acid.

'Shut up, my Reek, I'm with you,’ Ramsay cooed.

''m sorry,’ rasped Reek. His vision was spotty.

When Ramsay put the antiseptic on his fingers, it hurt worse than the cutting. It hurt like having his soul separated from his body and then shoved back in again. He bit his lip and bled there, too.

'Don't ruin the couch,’ Ramsay had told him when he put Reek there, because Reek was too faint to walk and felt close to dying.

When he slept, he took his awareness with him - the smell of the garage, the tangy iodine, and in his dream he bled on the forest floor instead of oozing. In his dream he looked through the gaps in the trees, hugging himself tightly, and red splattered the leaves and slunk between the jutting roots, clean and pungent and human.

***

Ramsay was worried Reek might be about to die.

Reek was sweating, curled up in the backseat of Ramsay's truck, hiding his face from the streetlights that flashed across his eyes like bright brands.

His missing fingers hurt. The stumps had turned black and brackish, seeping pus, still bleeding when Ramsay took the bandages off. They stank of decay and horror.

Ramsay swore loudly in response to a chorus of honking that battered Reek's aching head - he had run a red light. Reek covered his ears. He could feel his heartbeat in his palm like a drum of pain, pushing the sick blood around his system, from hand to heart and back again.

Reek had suffered for weeks in his bandages, gritting his teeth while Ramsay doused him with antiseptics and scrubbed him with betadine, and now they were going to the hospital because Ramsay couldn't keep the black creep of necrosis at bay.

'Stay quiet,’ he told Reek, when they had parked in an emergency spot in front of the hospital doors. 'You don't have to answer any questions.'

Reek leaned on Ramsay, shuffling across the pavement in Theon's old canvas shoes. He was slow because Ramsay had broken most of his toes, and they hurt.

The noise and busyness in the waiting room hurt his eyes and ears. He tried to block the sounds and sights of sick people by thinking about paleolithic man, soaking an injury in a river, silent and alone in a vast world, free and simple. His breathing sped up impossibly when Ramsay grabbed his arm to show it to a nurse. He hadn't seen anyone who wasn't Ramsay in a long time, since the sight and stink of Reek was annoying to Ramsay's friends, and Ramsay didn't like it when people talked about Reek like he was gross and a crime.

'How did that happen?' The nurse asked curtly, typing something quickly in her computer.

Reek was silent.

'He had an accident,’ Ramsay answered. 'He's a bit... touched.' He smiled pointedly, wolfishly, but the nurse ignored him.

'Ok. We're going to get you in to see a doctor right away, because that looks infected, ok? Why don't you go with - Monika, can you page Doctor Blue? - go with Monika and she'll look after you.'

Ramsay led Reek after the nurse, but the woman at the desk stopped him. 'Only the patient, please.'

'I'm family,’ Ramsay lied, 'He's not able to function independently.'

'I'm sure we can handle it, sir. Why don't you take a seat?'

Reek watched forlornly as Ramsay went to sit among the crying babies and kids with head colds. The eyes of ten different tired parents glared back at him. Ramsay looked uncomfortable, his gaze shifting from the nurse at the desk to the police officers flanking the door and back again.

The doctor who came to examine Reek's fingers was not called Blue, but was actually Dr. Stein. She chatted to Reek while she hooked up an IV, cleaned him, and told him he would be admitted because his injury was life threatening.

'I'm required to ask you if you're in a relationship with someone who threatens or hurts you in any way,’ she said casually, after Reek had been made to change into a hospital gown and settled unhappily in a bed.

Reek was silent.

'Anything you say to me is confidential. That means no one will know about it.'

She had seen the broken toes, the bruises on his legs, the emaciation that had sloughed the fat and muscle off his body like an avalanche taking snow off a mountain.

'Who's the man who brought you in?' She asked relentlessly.

Reek was silent.

'Does he ever threaten you or call you names?'

Only the names that describe me. Reek thought, privately.

She had asked him his name, too, and he hadn't answered. She'd asked him lots of things, like how he liked to spend his weekend or if he had any pets.

'I'm concerned about you, because your injuries went so long without treatment. Would you tell me if someone did this to you?'

Reek was feeling overwhelmed and worn, like he had been run against a cheese grater. He needed Ramsay to tell him how to behave. He licked his cracked lips and looked at the spot where the IV had been tucked into his arm.

'Would you know where to go for help, if someone were to hurt you?' the doctor asked him, with a little sigh.

Reek was silent. The room was pressing him like a sponge. He was so worried he would leak all his tears and blood, would crack under the pressure of Dr Stein's worried looks. He dipped his chin onto his chest and clenched his jaw, but ended up crying anyway.

Dr Stein was in the middle of saying that she would like to give him a pamphlet and some phone numbers when she noticed. 'Oh,’ she said breathily, stopping mid-sentence to flit to Reek's side. 'Everything you tell me is confidential.'

'I haven't got a phone anymore,' Reek whispered to his naval.

'Why don't you have a phone?'

'He took it.'

***

Theon was an asshole. He betrayed his best friend, the only person who actually gave a shit about him. He always made choices that hurt others. He had a rotten core.

He learnt, that day at the hospital, that Reek was much the same. He ratted out Ramsay.

After an emergency surgery to cut his necrosis away, Reek was left in his room alone to feel the weight of his guilt and regret behind a barred window. He thought of Ramsay, wearing his cunning smile and sitting in the backyard with a bottle of beer, looking at Theon like a crow admiring a shiny coin that glittered in a gutter, ready to pluck him out of his own filth and let him apologise and repent for the sins he had repressed and let fester in his black heart. Something inside him had wanted badly for Ramsay to let him hide under his control, to start his life over new and to be guided so he wouldn't fuck it up again.

But, at the first opportunity, he had done just that.

He needed Ramsay, and he had betrayed him. He had chosen to disobey, and now Ramsay was gone.

He was evil, whether he was Theon or Reek.

He was evil.

***

'Wintertown County Hospital, am I speaking to Robb Stark?'

'No, this is Jon.' Jon shrugged and made a face at Sansa across the table. They were eating breakfast outside a cafe. 'Sorry, I'm... handling his affairs. What's this about?'

'We have urgent information for Robb Stark.'

'He's actually passed away. About a month ago. I'm his brother.'

Sansa's mouth twitched, but she looked otherwise composed as she listened to Jon's conversation and picked at a raspberry scone.

'Are you an acquaintance of Theon Greyjoy?'

Jon put a finger to his lips and then put the phone on speaker, so Sansa could hear. 'Sorry, did you say Theon Greyjoy?'

Sansa's eyebrows shot up.

'Yes sir. He is ready to be released into care. He's told us Robb Stark is his only contact. Have you spoken to Theon recently?'

'No, I haven't seen him in a long time. Three years. What do you mean "released into care"? What's he done?'

'Okay,’ the nurse sighed. 'We believe it would be best if Theon had the support of a family member or close friend during his transition. Do you know if he has any relatives who could come pick him up and... offer some... familial support?'

'We can pick him up!' Sansa said in a rush, leaning over the table. 'I'm Robb's sister, we grew up together. We'll help!'

Jon gave Sansa a sharp look. 'It's Theon,’ he whispered, covering the mouthpiece with his hand. 'Theon!'

Sansa took the phone from him with her nimble, tricksy little fingers before he could take it off the table and out of her reach. 'Mhm. I can be there in... a little over an hour? Thank you for calling. Bye bye.'

Jon finished his eggs in a gloomy silence.

'Robb would have helped him,' Sansa reproached him softly, after they'd paid and finished their coffee.

'And where did that get him?' Jon snapped. 'Where did helping Theon ever get anyone?'

***

Robb had slumped forward in his fold-out camp chair, holding his phone, several weeks after cutting off ties with Theon. A fire was burning merrily in front of him, and Jon was cooking two hot dogs over it with a stick he'd found in the woods.

'I just don't get it,’ Robb said. 'Where is he?'

'He's probably in jail,’ Jon suggested, knowing without asking that Robb was talking about Theon. Jon had been always at Robb's side after Theon's disappearance, watching him go through the stages of grief: fury, disappointed, sadness, and longing. 

Robb shook his head slowly, but they both knew it was possible. Theon had been the worst sort of guy, the worst sort of friend. 'It's different without him.'

Jon nodded. 'Quieter.' He pulled his hot dogs out of the fire. He didn't understand how Robb could forgive Theon over and over, like a battered wife, no matter how many times he puked in his shoes or broke his laptop or kissed his crush. This flippant abandonment just seemed like another atrocity in a long line of cruel missteps, or a final good deed by an irredeemable bully, depending on Jon's mood

'He won't answer the door, he won't answer the phone. No one's seen him in months.'

'I heard he's hanging out with Ramsay,’ Jon said.

'It's not like him.'

'I wouldn't put anything past him.'

Robb frowned. 'I did tell him never to speak to me again.'

'And you should stick by that,’ Jon advised. 'Catelyn would chase him out of the house with a broom.'

'Lucky she doesn't live in our place, then, isn't it?'

'I'd take the job in her absence,’ Jon shrugged. His tone was light, but he hated talking about Theon. He hated Theon.

'You're right,’ Robb conceded, accepting a plate from Jon and putting his phone back in his pocket. 'If he wanted to stay friends, he'd text me back.'

***

Every reproachful word Jon wanted to say to Theon dropped into his stomach and shattered at the sight of him.

Theon was narrow. His cheeks were hollow and waxy, full of sunken shadows. His eyes were dull and unfocused, like he was looking at the world through a fogged-up mirror, brushing his gaze over everything without ever seeing. The thick black hair he'd hogged the bathroom to coif was shock-white and brittle as candy-floss, drifting over his forehead like a ghostly fog. His arms were skeletal, his collarbone looked like it would snap in a gentle breeze. He limped severely and leant on a walker like an old man, gingerly palming it with only eight fingers. He was wearing a pair of black jeans with a rip in one knee that Jon thought he recognised from years ago, but they were hanging off him from a belt with a hundred holes, now.

Sansa gasped beside him. 'Theon?'

The nurse smiled at them. Theon wouldn't take his eyes off the ground. 'You must be Jon and Sansa? His friends?'

Theon swallowed thickly. Jon couldn't keep his eyes off of him. It was looking at a roadside accident, enamoring and horrifying. He was embarrassed to stand near the bandaged waif that Theon had become.

The nurse explained to Theon which pills he needed, how he must clean himself, the contact info of the therapist he'd been referred to. An emergency crisis phone number was handed to him, but he didn't move to take it or move at all. He was like a puppet with its strings cut. Jon was sure the nurse was saying these things in front of them on purpose, because they were a better audience than the brain dead Theon doll breathing raspily before them.

Theon signed himself out with his left hand, a child-like scratching that didn't look at all like his name. His eyes stayed bug-like and distant.

'It's good to see you again, Theon,' Sansa said tentatively when the nurse had finished saying a kindly goodbye to Theon's walking skeleton. Sansa’s face didn't betray her horror like Jon's did, but Jon knew her grief so well that he could see it anyway, pricking at her eyes and twitching her mouth.

There was no reply. Jon thought Theon looked scared.

'What the fuck?' he hissed to Sansa, stepping in beside her as she tried to guide Theon towards the doors.

'Shhh. Don't be rude,’ she whispered back to him. And then more loudly, 'Would you like to come home with us and have some tea, Theon?'

Theon's shoulders were definitely shaking. He looked around the waiting room like he was searching, frantically searching.

'Or do you want to be dropped off at home? Where do you live?'

They had stepped out of the doors. 'Home,’ Theon croaked, so quiet it was almost a sigh.

'Ok!' Sansa chirped. 'Where is home?'

'Ramsay.'

***

Reek hadn't seen the house in daylight in nearly a year. It was too normal - plain, healthy lawn; dark bushes; clean stoop. It was anyone's house.

He stepped ahead of Jon and Sansa so he wouldn't have to look at them. He could guess at how Ramsay would feel about them driving Reek in their car, talking to him and seeing him. He shuffled to the door like a man going to the gallows, but his heart was floating in a soup of confused relief.

He rattled the doorknob. He knocked tentatively at the door. He rang the bell.

Behind him, Sansa and Jon were standing like guards. It had been many months since he'd seen anyone other than Ramsay, and now he felt as though he was flanked by all the people in the world. He remembered them but he tried not to think about who they were or what their presence might mean.

He went to the windows and looked in. He walked across the empty space where Ramsay parked his truck. He slunk through the back gate into the yard. The shutters were drawn, the barbecue was closed, the chairs were empty. Evidence of old parties - empty beer cans, full recycling bin, tennis ball - lay on the lawn.

'Looks like he's not home,’ Jon said. 'Do you have a key?'

Reek pretended not to hear him. Of course he didn't. It wasn't his house. He tried the sliding glass door and it slid open. The kitchen was as they'd left it, mostly clean but with a half-empty jar of salsa and a plate of nachos on the counter. Ramsay's beer was there, too.

Reek went inside.

They'd given Reek Theon's cellphone and some of Theon's IDs at the hospital. He hid these in a kitchen drawer, desperate as a caught thief to be rid of them.

He heard Sansa whispering urgently to Jon behind him, but ignored it. His room was only a short walk away. Ramsay would like it if he waited in his room. It would be good for him to wait in his room.

'Hello?' Jon called into the house. 'Anyone home?'

Reek started when Jon yelled, and covered his ears.

'It just doesn't feel right,’ Sansa pleaded.

Reek continued to his room and opened the door. He closed it behind him, and settled on the floor. He had ruined everything, but now he'd fixed it as best he could. He thought of palaeolithic man, waiting in a tree while wolves circled him, waiting patiently for them to leave so he could climb down to safety.

But they did open the door, and came inside, and Sansa cried, but Reek didn't know why. And Jon tried to touch him, which he didn't want, and picked him up under the armpits and dragged him to the car on his broken toes, away from his home and against his wishes, and then he cried silently in the backseat, hiding his eyes and trying not to look at the things Ramsay had worked so hard never to let him see again.

***

In the dream, Reek was curled up beneath nightmarish trees, under a sky as impenetrable as the depths of the ocean. The air was heavy and musty, dank as an old cellar. It stank because he stank, of soap and whorish perfume. His hands were Theon's hands, whole and strong. His body felt wrong because it was large and painless. He tried to spit the taste of toothpaste out of his mouth, and spit up the same black bile he spit out every night.

The tainted truth of him was pooling around him, wetting him like a tepid bath.

He was calm in the dream and he woke calm, and then panicked when he saw the dawn touch a bed and dresser from the spot where he'd slept on the floor. The walls around him were dark grey instead of blue. There was art, too - a framed The Cranberries poster, a dark wood bookshelf displaying old, serious looking spines, a black rug covered in white dog hair. Robb's face laughed in a picture frame on a shelf, surrounded by postcards from distant places.

It was Jon's room.

Jon had slept on the couch. Sansa had spent the night in Robb's room across the hall. Robb had shared this house with Jon until his death in a cliff diving accident. Jon had made the bed for Reek without once looking at him, patted it awkwardly, and told him to make himself at home, after a difficult dinner on the living room couch during which Sansa and Jon ate pizza while Reek tried to stay as still and silent as possible. He had been very hungry, but was afraid Ramsay wouldn't like it if he ate without permission or assistance.

'We'll save you a slice and leave it in the fridge, ok?' Sansa had said, after trying without success to prod Reek into eating. 'Help yourself to anything you want.'

'Except my rib-eye.'

Sansa had given Jon a reproachful look Reek didn't see, because he was staring at the carpet, exhausted and frayed.

'Anything you need, just ask,’ Sansa told him firmly.

She told him about Robb while Jon was scooping ice cream into bowls for all of them in the kitchen. Reek was too wrung out to feel any more emotions, so Robb's death crashed over him like ocean foam on a dead and beached whale. He covered his ears. He wasn't even allowed to think about Robb; Ramsay had explained why. Robb was too good for him, Robb deserved space, Robb wasn't what he needed, Robb didn't matter.

'How did you meet Ramsay?' she asked gently.

Reek shrugged.

'Robb missed you, you know. He talked about you all the time,’ she murmured. Her fingers were fidgeting with the hem of her sweater. 'We thought about you, too.'

But you didn't find me, Reek thought resignedly, you didn't try.

***

'Promise me you'll be good to him,’ Sansa called as she descended the stairs to the front landing. She was bundled up for colder weather than it was, with scarf and puffy jacket and wool socks.

'I will, Sansa.' Jon had a sore neck from sleeping on the couch so that Theon could have his bed; he was being plenty good to him. 'I'm not a perfect beast.'

'I know, I know.' And she was out the door, looking pale and worried as a mother duck with a wayward brood.

Sansa had been staying with Jon since Robb's death, helping him sort Robb's things and watching Jane Eyre movies with him at night. They had become close during the years of Theon's absence, and now they were inseparable in mourning. He'd asked her if she wanted to move out of the Stark family home and room with him in Robb's empty bedroom only a week before, and she'd been slowly bringing her things in after a dewy eyed agreement. She walked to Uni every weekday morning except Thursdays, leaving Jon alone until he went into work in the afternoon.

Jon fed Ghost, his long-legged wolfdog, and made toast for two, but hesitated to call Theon down for breakfast. What should he say to the wretched phantom of his long-time bully? The man for whom he had cultivated hate like a farmer afraid of going hate-hungry in the winter?

How many times had he crossed his fingers hoping Theon would trip over a soccer ball and stay home with a broken leg for a while? How often had he wished Robb had never met Theon, or that they would fight so Jon could have a moment of peace in his own house? How many smiles had he refused to hide when his parents criticized Theon when he wasn't there, for his drinking, his rough mouth, his poor manners and mannerisms?

And how often had he rejoiced to be camping with his family and not have Theon there, telling crude stories? To be watching a hockey game with Robb, and not have Theon yelling rubbish about bodychecks and fouls? To toast his sister at her 18th birthday party without Theon chugging a beer beside him? He'd liked his life much better without Theon in it, and would be happy to continue without him forever.

He knocked at his bedroom door with one knuckle, plate of toast and marmalade in one hand, glass of water in the other. 'Theon? You awake?'

The house was deathly quiet.

'I've got some toast here. I'm just going to put it on the floor. You better grab it before my dog does.'

Jon straightened, feeling thoroughly awkward in the answering silence.While he read news articles on his phone later in the morning, listening to a music channel on the television, Ghost carried a piece of toast into the living room, flopped down at his feet, and set to eating it.

***

Jon looked up from his laptop screen and met Theon's eye. Theon froze on the landing. He'd been so silent on his bare feet, Jon hadn't noticed that he'd left his room.

'Its a family emergency,’ Jon said into the phone, keeping Theon locked in his stare. 'I don't think I'll be in until next week. Thanks.' He put his phone down on the coffee table. Some madness had convinced him that Theon - a grown and capable, albeit unclean and rude, man - shouldn't be left alone in the house for the two hours between his leaving for work and Sansa coming back from school.

'You need something?' Jon asked, a little gruffly.

Theon looked even more uncomfortable than Jon was.

'Ghost ate your toast.'

Theon nodded once, and broke eye contact to stare dumbly at the wall.

'I can make you another.'

Theon twitched. It was impossible to say if it was a yes or a no type of twitch, but Jon stood up anyway. 'Come on, then,’ he said.

Theon took an agonisingly long time coming down the stairs. First he waited, looking vaguely at the wall. Then he shifted painfully down the steps, breathing hard like he was doing a triathalon. It was difficult for Jon to watch him, and he had to look away. He had already given him a nice black pullover to hide the yellow bruises on his arms.

'Just... bathroom,’ Theon mumbled when he was finished the long ordeal. He glanced at Jon with a wild, chaotic look. 'Please.'

'You know where it is.' Jon said, pointing anyway.

Theon nodded that tight, twitchy nod again, but didn't make for it until Jon had moved into the kitchen.

Jon was still determined to make toast.

'Help yourself to my shampoo,’ Jon said, when Theon emerged from the bathroom. 'This is yours.' He put the plate of toast on the table.

'Thank you,’ Theon said, unnervingly. Jon had never heard him say those words before.

They sat across from each other, Theon looking exhausted and nibbling at the toast like it was a horrible block of burnt charcoal and not a well-buttered golden brown. He put it down often and held his shaking hands over it, staring at it.

'I want to go home now,' Theon said, when the barely eaten toast had sat cold and untouched for a couple awkward minutes.

Jon didn't know what the fuck he was supposed to say. The house had never felt so empty, cold, and strange, and he had never felt so sickly inside, even when Theon was teasing him or harassing him about girls.

'You shouldn't,’ he finally said.

***

'Aren't you going to thank me, Theon?' Ramsay asked.

'Huh?' Theon was eating cereal at Ramsay's new table. Ramsay had invited him to spend the night after his house warming party, and he had.

'Well, you're eating my food and wearing my shirt,’ Ramsay said.

'Yeah, thanks.'

Theon didn't move into the house so much as he transitioned in. When Theon left, Ramsay never said goodbye, he said 'don't you think that coat is a little too nice for a simple drive home? Who are you trying to impress?' and laughed to himself, shooing Theon out. When Theon spent the weekend, they sat in the backyard drinking or shared a blanket Ramsay on the couch while they watched war documentaries on Ramsay's huge TV, and Ramsay was a good friend - his only friend in the world.

'He really hates you,’ Ramsay said one night, when Theon had slept over several days in a row. Ramsay was reading Theon's texts, something he always did. He had to make sure Theon wasn't whoring around, talking to the wrong people, or going anywhere suspicious. He was Theon's moral compass. He always deleted Robb's messages. No matter how earnest and friendly they were, Ramsay was quick to tell Theon Robb was being sarcastic and spiteful.

'He has every reason to hate me,' Theon said.

'That's true.' Ramsay put a hand in Theon's hair. 'You're not exactly charming, are you?'

Theon was quiet. He felt like he deserved that. He'd driven Robb away all by himself. He was just glad Ramsay was willing to give him the time of day despite his flaws.

Once while they were intimate, Ramsay said 'you should be grateful' and Theon said nothing. He had always known he said wrong things, and Ramsay's speed in punishing his rotten tongue had finally taught him to hold it.

'I'm really all you have left, aren't I, Theon? I don't think anyone would notice if you died right now,’ he said, holding Theon in his arms like a constrictor holding a dying man.

Theon agreed. No one had asked about him since he'd pulled away from his friends and their parties. No one seemed to give a shit where he'd gone, or why, or with whom.

'Have you ever been in a serious relationship, Theon?' Ramsay asked. Before Theon could even begin to answer, he said, 'I'm sure you haven't. You're not very loyal, are you?'

'I'm not - ' Theon started, but Ramsay cut him off.

'No, so I'll have to keep a tight leash on you, won't I? I haven't got a choice, do I?'

When Ramsay's friends were over, Ramsay would sometimes pull him aside to talk to him. 'Haven't you noticed they aren't interested in hearing your stupid stories?' he would say. 'You'd better apologise and shut up before you embarrass me.'

Theon cried, once, unprovoked. He had been sitting at the table while Ramsay was making himself a sandwich, looking at the birds outside.

Ramsay had sat across from him and started to eat, and Theon tried to sob very quietly.

'Are you finished?' Ramsay had asked, when Theon's gasps had settled and his eyes were raw from embarrassed rubbing.

Theon had nodded, and Ramsay had said 'Good. Clean this up, I'm going to the gym.'

And Ramsay would often say, 'you're so fucking lazy, Theon.' He would say it when Theon was sitting on the couch, drinking a beer. He said it if there were dishes in the sink or the laundry timer had gone off but Theon hadn't taken the clothes out. He said it randomly, when they were eating dinner, so Theon would look up in surprise only to see Ramsay smiling at him.

But many people had said this to Theon before, so he only said 'I know.'

***

Jon was endlessly grateful to Sansa. She was a lit match in a dark room when it came to Theon.

'It's nice of you to always make Jon's bed,’ she said, three days after Theon had started staying with them. She didn't know he hadn't once slept in Jon's bed.

Theon was a quiet, non-disruptive guest. He only came downstairs to use the washroom, and had to be coaxed into meals and conversation from there. Despite this, there was no sign that he had ever actually washed.

'It would be doubly nice if you'd make use of the deodorant in my cabinet,’ Jon added. They were sitting on the couch, watching youtube videos. Theon had slunk out of the washroom and was trying to tiptoe past the TV screen without blocking it.

Sansa kicked Jon with a stockinged foot. 'Use whatever you like, Theon,’ she chirped. 'Or don't. It's up to you.'

Jon knew he wasn't the only one who smelt Theon. Being in a room with him was like standing next to a bowl of rotting fruit. Jon sighed. 'I actually think we need some rules if you're going to live here.' Jon tried to catch Theon's eye, but failed. 'Why don't you sit, so we can talk?'

Theon sat on the edge of the couch, as far away from them as possible, which wasn't very far. He looked like a well-kicked dog.

'You need to shower every day,’ Jon said.

Sansa actually nodded. 'We care about you, Theon.'

Jon thought that was just a generic thing people said when they had these sorts of difficult conversations. Neither of them had given a shit about Theon for a very long time, and neither of them had wanted to give a shit about him now. It almost felt disingenuous, since Theon had been thrown at them whether they wanted him back or not.

Theon always paused unnaturally before he spoke, and then sputtered into speech like a faulty motor. 'Ramsay...' he started, and then looked around like Ramsay might be hiding behind the DVD player, or might be summoned at any moment at the sound of his name and appear in a puff of smoke in the living room, 'I don't think he'd like that.'

Sansa took a deep, steadying breath. 'Ramsay's not here. Just us.’ She reached out to put a hand on Theon's hand, and he let her. Sometimes he didn't. She smiled at him. 'And we only care about what you want.'

Theon swallowed and said 'I want to be loyal.'

***

Reek was anxious.

He had always had a lot of spare time to lie on the couch or the floor, disconnecting himself from reality, half in dream and half aware of the sounds outside the window or the dishwasher running. He thought about paleolithic man, because it comforted him to think about someone who was free but also simple, as simple as Reek. Sometimes he thought about black dirt under his fingernails and a crushing sky, the forest he saw while sleeping. It made him feel righteous, because he thought it represented the ritual cleansing of his bad blood.

He never thought about Robb, or Jon, or Sansa, or Arya, Bran, Rickon, Catelyn, Ned. He didn't think about the girls he'd been texting before Ramsay, or the ones he'd fucked, or the boy he'd fucked. He didn't think about his father or his sister, lounging across the pond, because they didn't think about him. He wondered if thinking about someone created a physical, invisible connexion to them. If there were such a connexion, it would be one-sided, since no one cared about Reek. The thought depressed him because it felt so true.

He could do this in Ramsay's house because he knew he was allowed. For hours at a time, he had permission and sometimes orders to lie still like a corpse and not think about the Starks or about Theon or Theon's life. He was supposed to sit around the house, when it was clean and Ramsay wasn't around, being boring, weak, stinking, Reek. It was his purpose.

In Jon and Sansa's house, Reek drifted through the days never really knowing what he was supposed to be doing. Sansa said he could make himself at home, but then they treated him like he was not at home - asking him to shower, making him sit at the table, cooking for him.

He was waiting, so nervous his stomach hurt, for someone to punish him for getting crumbs on the couch or smudging his dirty feet on the floor The longer he went without being punished, the more sure he became that he was drawing closer to making a catastrophic mistake.

There had been a time, years ago, when he left uneaten pizza on the coffee table and went to bed, and no one, least of all Jon or Sansa, said anything about it. And if they did, it never bothered him. But that was before, and now he needed to know the rules and to follow them, because he had been horrible before. So it didn't matter how it had been before and he shouldn't think about it, because he had been horrible before, and anyway it wasn't really him before, it was Theon.

Reek had learnt who he was in Ramsay's house, how he behaved and thought. The prospect of relearning who was in Jon and Sansa's house was so daunting he cowered before it.

***

 
Jon suspected that Sansa had already forgiven and forgotten the Theon Greyjoy who once cut a large piece of her hair in her sleep before a middle school dance, and who referred to all women as either bitches or prudes. The lech, the bully, the drunk - that person was gone for her. Theon was brand new, now, and innocent.  

The horror on her face when Theon asked for the tenth time if they could drive by Ramsay's house and look for him was felt by Jon as well, but he struggled with those feelings in a way he never saw from her.

Should he forgive Theon because he had suffered? Did the hideousness of that suffering absolve him of the cruelties he had committed in the past? Was punishment in general, for unrelated things, enough of a reason to wipe clean his slate?

Jon was uncomfortable thinking about these things, and moreso because he had to think them while Theon was in great and obvious torment there in front of him, meek and as brittle as dry kindling. Pity crushed his old anger. Confusion stole every vengeful fantasy he had ever considered enacting against Theon should they meet again like a brisk wind lifting a leaf from a dead and hobbled tree.

Jon didn't know how to spend time alone with Theon. Before, they would have shared their dislike with one another, trading insults, turning away to look at their phones. Very occasionally they had cheered for the same hockey team and eaten from the same bag of chips while Robb was in the other room, and once Theon had taught Jon how to dive off the dock at the lake where the Stark family camped every year. It had been turbulent, sometimes awkward, but never uncertain between them.

Maybe if Jon could see Theon as a needful stranger, the way Sansa did, he could speak tactfully. It bothered him constantly that he couldn't navigate their conversations without running aground. Sometimes it flat out annoyed him that Theon never reciprocated the effort, and never seemed to think about their old relationship or the terms of their new one at all.

'Jon Snow,’ Theon muttered, while Jon was staring darkly at him across the table, watching him eat.

'You can still call me Jon,' Jon said, not for the first time.

'What will you tell Ramsay when he comes to get me?'

Jon took a big breath. He resisted the urge to slap the table. His stomach turned over; he was suddenly in stormy waters. 'Neither of us are ever speaking to Ramsay again,’ he said. 'And we are never going back to his house. And if he comes here I will bash his head against the doorframe until he begs for mercy. If he comes back, I will do it again. That answer your question?’

Theon shook his head, clutching his hands against his chest like he was afraid of the intensity in Jon's voice.

'How does it not answer your question?'

'I sleep on the floor,' Theon said. 'Please don't tell him I sleep in the bed. Sansa thinks I do and it's not true.'

Jon hesitated. 'If you sleep on the bed, I promise I will tell Ramsay you don't. But only if you actually do. Understand?'

Theon's face fell.

'And don't tell Sansa you've been sleeping on the floor.'

’I won't.' Theon said breathily. 'I won't.'

'I guess we have a deal.' Jon went back to staring at Theon, absentmindedly petting Ghost's head under the table, while Theon shredded a waffle with his damaged fingers.

Should Jon forgive him, just because he had suffered more than enough already?

***

'So,' Sansa said, moving her purse to the backseat so Theon could sit, 'how did it go?'

Reek was wearing some of Jon's old clothes from high school. Black jeans and a knit sweater, which he'd been stretching over his hands to hide his missing fingers. 'She brought her little dog. Sadie.'

'Cute!' Sansa smiled. 'I thought we could pick up some cookies; my treat.'

Reek didn't like going out because he felt very embarrassed about his fingers, his hair, and his missing teeth. He knew he was gross to look at and that people didn't want him around, so he felt like Sansa was forcing him on other people when she took him anywhere after his therapy sessions with Martha Gibbon.

He wanted to wait in the car while Sansa went into the bakery to get the cookies, but he was afraid of being left alone in public, so he stepped out onto the sidewalk, kept his chin on his chest, and followed Sansa with the same sense of trepidation as someone might feel going into a haunted house.

'Do you think Jon would like anything?' Sansa asked him playfully, 'Or should we just buy things we like and eat them on the drive home?'

Reek shrugged, tugging at his sleeves. The cashier and the other customers were staring at him, and when they looked away he knew he'd made an impression in their minds. The more people who saw him, the more hated him. Every time Sansa took him to a bakery, a cafe, and ice cream parlour, or a quiet farm-to-table diner, he was judged and despised by everyone there, so that instead of being loathed by Ramsay, Ramsay's friends, and all of Theon's friends, he was hated by an ever growing collection of strangers. This bothered him, because he wished it could be otherwise, but he knew he deserved to be hated.

'Do you think Jon would like a cinnamon bun?' Sansa asked him.

Reek didn't know what Jon would like. He tried to avoid Sansa's eyes so she wouldn't ask him again.

'They've made heart shaped sugar cookies! 6 for 8$. That's not bad. I forgot it was Valentine's Day soon.'

Reek nodded. 'Are we still buying cookies, then?' he asked shyly.

'Of course!' She stepped up to the counter, letting Reek hover behind her with his nose almost in her hair. 'We'll have 6 of the pink heart cookies, a lemon square, and a loaf of sourdough, please. And a cinnamon bun.'

'Sample our new nanaimo bars? They're pretty good.'

'Sure!' Sansa took two pieces off the plate offered by the cashier. 'There you are, Theon.'

Reek held it in his palm until they were in the car, embarrassed to eat it in front of the people in the shop.

'Did Martha give you any homework we can help you with?' Sansa asked him over the low volume of Top 40 radio, on the drive home.

'Yes,’ Reek said.

'Okay! Let me know.' She was eating her lemon square, and then brushing the crumbs off on her jeans.

Sometimes Martha Gibbon suggested that Reek should tell Sansa and Jon the things that made him uncomfortable when he was at home or when they went out on errands. Sometimes she wanted him to ask them a question that he had been afraid to ask, and then tell her how it went. His first session with Dr Gibbon, she had quickly asked if he showered, and then told him that he would have to try it before coming back. Reek was starting to feel patronised by these homeworks, but then he would try to do them and feel his breath catch like a fish in a net, and he would have to go back to his room to be alone until he was up to trying again.

He was supposed to go buy something of his own, like a pair of pants or a shirt or a notebook. Dr Gibbon thought he was allowed to have things that belonged to him, and that he controlled. He was worried that Jon wouldn't want him taking those sorts of liberties in his bedroom, so he was trying to think of something that he could hide in his clothes.

'Could we go to a store?' Reek asked, after a pause.

'Right now?'

'No, sorry. Nevermind.'

Sansa pushed the radio off. 'Now is fine, Theon. Which store were you thinking?'

Reek shrugged. 'It's just that I have to buy something.'

'Ooh, fun. How about we get you some jeans that fit?'

Reek pinched the loose fabric of Jon's ripped, faded old jeans. He was scared to dress better, because he knew it would clash with the way he looked, and trying to look good was pointless for someone like him. But Jon was probably annoyed that Reek was always taking his clothes. He nodded.

Reek didn't like the attention the employee at the clothing shop gave him, trying to suggest sizes and styles. He just nodded at everything she said, and ended up with an overwhelming pile of jeans to try on.

'Are you excited for Valentine's Day?' Reek heard the employee asking Sansa while he was staring into the mirror in the dressing room. The mirror in Jon and Sansa's bathroom was small, so he only had to look at his face. He could see stringy hair, empty spaces in his gums, shadows under his haunted eyes, and emaciated shoulders, but was never forced to face the entirety of his hideous body.

'I'm single,’ Sansa sighed. 'I'll be spending it with my brother and my... Theon.'

'Aww, but that'll be fun! Family and friends are the best company over any holiday.' She knocked at Reek's door, making him jump. 'How are you doing in there? Need any different sizes?'

Reek wrapped his arms around himself and wordlessly shook his head.

'Let me know,’ the girl called.

'He has a lot of pants to get through,' Sansa said. 'Could you give us a minute?'

'Of course. I'm Gabby; I'll just be behind the counter if you need me.’

'Thank you.' Sansa's voice was closer, now. 'Are you alright, Theon?'

Reek wanted to put Jon's jeans back on and go back home, but he was in horrified rapture looking at his reflection. 'I'm a freak,’ Reek bit out, fighting past the lump in his throat. 'I look like a freak!'

***

'You look like a call boy,' Balon Greyjoy said from his chair.

Theon had been trying to sneak past him on his way out - Robb was waiting outside in the car he'd gotten as a present when he passed his driver's test. Theon was wearing a Gucci sweater and a tailored black coat; nothing extravagant. He'd starting dressing according to the trends and the seasons in middle school, becoming mindful and prideful of his image.

'I'm going to a party,’ Theon defended himself. 'Everyone will be dressed nice.'

'You call that nice, do you?' His father grunted. 'I never raised you to be so goddamn soft.'

Balon Greyjoy had barely raised his son at all; Theon had spent every weekend and holiday at the Stark's since he was 8. Most nights he was driving with Robb, watching Robb play hockey, or, when Ned and Catelyn were away, playing games in Robb's room and waiting for Robb to come home from whatever function Theon hadn't been invited to. He made a concerted effort not to be home.

He ignored Balon and slipped through the front door, running to Robb's car with his arms over his head to fend off the rain.

'New coat?' Robb asked when he was in the passenger seat. 'I hope you don't mind that I have to stop for gas, and we're picking up Jeyne.'

'Yeah. Whatever.'

'It looks nice.' Robb took his eyes off the dark, wet road to look at Theon like he mattered.

'Thanks.'

***

What was the point in buying clothes for a body that wasn't his? Maybe in three months they wouldn't fit, because he would change. If he hated the way the jeans looked on his hateful legs, what was the point in buying them? And why should he own any clothes when he was so hideous? Why shouldn't he wear Jon's baggy jeans and stretched sweater until he died, hopefully soon?

Sansa put the cookies they'd bought out on the table, and they all sat down in the fading sunlight of the dining room with cups of tea. 'How was your day?' Sansa asked Jon.

'I went down to the recruitment centre. I have to do some written tests next month.'

'So you're really joining?' Sansa clapped her hands together excitedly. 'That's great news!'

Jon smiled at her and took a cookie. 'I can get a posting here, so I'll only be gone for six months starting April, once I pass the polygraph.'

'We'll miss you,' Sansa said earnestly, looking from Theon to Jon and back again.

'I'll Skype you.'

'What will we call you? Officer? Constable?'

Jon laughed. 'I don't know. But once I have the badge, I'll hold you to it. How was your day?'

'Good. Theon and I went shopping... we bought bread, too. We almost bought some new pants, but I think Theon's just going to borrow yours for a while longer.'

When Sansa said it, it sounded so mundane. Reek was stewing in self-directed revulsion. He looked at his thighs, at his mangled hands.

'You can have them,’ Jon said, suddenly turning his intense dark eyes on Reek. 'I never intended to get them back from you, really. They're yours if you want them.'

Reek nodded stiffly. 'Thank you,’ he said, sincerely. 'Congratulations on your new job.’

'Thank you, Theon.' Jon pushed the cookie plate at him. 'And thanks for the cookies.’

Reek let out a lengthy, relieved breath. 'You're welcome, Jon.'

***

While Jon was away at the RCMP Training Academy, Theon settled more deeply into his room. Sansa bought him a birthday present - a watch like the one he'd had before Ramsay - which he displayed on Jon's cluttered bookshelf. He still didn't feel like it suited him, but he was proud of it and grateful to Sansa for having given it to him.

He started using his bank card to buy his own things: a pair of waterproof boots he could wear in the spring rain, slippers to protect his feet from the cold hardwood in the house, and he went for a haircut at a salon downtown.

In May he testified against Ramsay in a trial that nearly broke his heart all over again, admitting that he had been kept in an unfurnished bedroom, starved, and beaten. He testified while Sansa looked out from the audience, her moon face a comforting but embarrassing sight. He had never told her what Ramsay was like directly, or about how they had met and started to love each other (because Theon called it love, when he was testifying), about how Ramsay had cut him away from himself and changed him. He could hardly remember what he had said during his time on the stand, but he did remember the grotesque smile on Ramsay's face when he told the judge and jury that he loved him. He saw in Ramsay's face a certainty that if Reek were alone with him for even a minute, he would be Ramsay's creature again.

Sansa insisted that he should continue to live with her, even though he was embarrassed to need her. She drove him to therapy, to the grocery store to help pick out his favourite soups and buy salmon, and once to her school to use the library to read. Theon hadn't read anything in a long, long time, but he enjoyed the silent companionship. It was easier than most public places for his nerves.

Theon texted his sister, who was going to the University of Cambridge and who his father had followed back to England 2 months before Theon had graduated highschool, to tell her that he was doing well. She had texted back a couple times, short but friendly.

And he had gone to visit Robb's grave.

It seemed devilishly unfair that Theon should go through such horrific, purifying torture with Ramsay, and then come back to a world without Robb Stark in it. He had been robbed of the opportunity to miss him and to mourn him. He wept when he crouched at the headstone, because Robb had been abandoned by his best friends, and because he had been trying to reconcile with Theon, but Theon had chosen to bend under Ramsay instead of falling to his knees at Robb's feet and begging his forgiveness.

He hated himself. He thought he probably always would. And he knew, because he was kneeling now at Robb's grave, that nothing would ever truly redeem Theon Greyjoy. Not even Ramsay.

***

'Oh my gosh oh my gosh, that's him!' Sansa cried, running from the window to throw open the front door. 'Jon!' She embraced him whole-heartedly, and he dropped his bags with a bang to hug her back, rocking her side to side. 'I missed you,’ she said into his chest. 'I'm so happy for you!'

'I'm glad to be back,' Jon said, and pulled away. He looked over his sister's shoulder to see Theon standing there, still wearing Jon's oversized clothes with his white hair and wet blue eyes, like a wraith in his house. But he smiled. 'Good to see you, Theon.'

'You too,’ Theon said.

Just then, Ghost barrelled past Theon, knocking his knees and making him stumble into the wall in a rush to greet Jon.

'You have to tell us all about cop school,' Sansa said, after Ghost had finished licking Jon's face and they'd picked up his bags.

'I will,' Jon replied.

Theon tried to take a bag, but Jon hefted it over his shoulder before he could get his hands on it. 'Sorry,’ he said.

Jon looked at him with uncertainty. 'I've got it.'

Theon nodded. 'I'll put the kettle on.'

'Thanks, Theon!' Sansa chirped. 'We just did the shopping. And we have your favourite beer, Jon! We were going to make an angel food cake but then...'

Theon's lips quirked. 'We didn't follow the recipe properly.'

'It was my fault.' Sansa opened the cupboard and took out three mugs.

'Neither of us were paying enough attention.'

Jon was surprised to see Theon helping around the kitchen, laughing with Sansa. He'd never seen him like this before, relaxed and happy in the fading sun. The autumn light looked nice on him. 'You'll have to catch me up on everything I've missed,’ he said.

They sat at the table. Theon poured the tea, and Sansa laid out a packet of butter cookies. They looked at each other. Sansa's cheeks were warm, her mouth was gentle. Theon had lost some of his defensive deference, and now looked like a wave-battered sea stone in a wool sweater: quite well, all things considered. Jon had had the empty cynicism drilled out of him, so he was brooding and self-possessed instead of brooding and aimless.

'We want to hear stories,’ Sansa insisted, leaning over her tea. 'Do you have a gun?'

'Not yet. I start next week.'

'After Hallowe'en?' Sansa asked. 'We bought candy for the trick-or-treaters.'

Jon nodded. Theon was holding his mug with both hands, missing fingers where Jon could see them. It was so striking a difference in behaviour from six months ago, Jon couldn't help but ask, 'How are you, Theon?'

Theon shrugged and looked down into his tea. 'I'm fine.'

'You look it.'

'...Thank you.'

***

'I don't think anyone could ever love you, do you, Reek?' Ramsay had once asked, after Reek had lost his fingers and Ramsay had broken his toes again. 'No one would be able to hold your hand, would they, Reek?'

Ramsay had been holding Reek's hand lightly between his own. It still ached. 'You would,' Reek had mumbled.

Ramsay looked thoughtful. 'Do you think so?'

Reek nodded.

'Well aren't you a pet,’ Ramsay said, leaning his face close to Reek's, grinning. His breath had smelt of garlic. Reek was sensitive to those sorts of things, because they aggravated his headaches. 'Do you love me?'

Reek had nodded, and Ramsay had laughed, delighted and huge in the quiet, empty white room where Reek slept. 'That's stupid of you, isn't it, Reek?'

Reek had nodded, confused.

'Why do you think you love me?' Ramsay asked.

'You... I... you're the only one there is,' Reek whispered, afraid.

'Reek, you barely make any sense,’ Ramsay scoffed, petting Reek's hand. 'You're such a senseless idiot. I don't know why I even try to talk to you.'

'Sorry,’ Reek said.

'And I certainly don't love you, Reek. That would be like loving a mangy dog. So you're very lucky I keep you. Anyone else would have put you out of your misery months ago.'

***

There was a knock at the door, followed by the chime of the doorbell.

Sansa jumped up from the couch, tugging on Jon's sleeve so he'd follow. Theon came up behind them, still holding his beer. He had been dressed as a werewolf, to match Jon and Sansa. It was Sansa who had organised that.

'Boo!' she cried when she opened the door. 'Oh, look at that: a princess, a fairy, and a skeleton. Great costumes.'

Theon picked up the bowl of candy from the table by the stairs and offered it to the kids outside. 'Pick two,’ he said.

'I thought we agreed on one?' Jon asked, raising an eyebrow.

'I don't answer to you,’ Theon joked.

The kids riffled through chocolate bars, looking for their favourites, thanked them, and then skipped away into the night.

'And one for me,’ said Jon, reaching into the bowl.

Theon hugged it to his chest, but Jon had already escaped with an Aero bar. 'Aren't cops not meant to steal? Especially from children?'

Jon laughed. 'I did pay for these ones.'

Sansa rolled her eyes and settled back on the couch. She was drinking a Smirnoff Ice and eating skittles out of a pouch in her pocket.

It was Theon's first time drinking in... 3 and a half years, maybe. He felt warm around the edges, sitting next to Jon on the sofa and sharing a bowl of popcorn between them. Jon snapped his Aero in half and offered a piece to Theon, and clanked his beer against Theon's like they were old friends.

By the end of the night, the bowl had been emptied twice and there were still enough candy bars and twizzler packs for a feast. Sansa turned the deck light out and blew out the pumpkins.

'Can we watch something scarier now that children aren't coming to the door?' Jon asked, hopefully.

Sansa looked at Theon. 'Are you alright with a scary movie?'

'Dunno. Put it on.'

Sansa pursed her lips, but Jon didn't hesitate to flick through Netflix looking for something suitably MA rated.

Theon didn't find it too bad. It was nice, in a weird way, to jump at sounds and faces and see Jon and Sansa jump along with him. He had a good stomach for blood, and was only barely bothered by memories of cleaning Ramsay's bathroom floor, of putting pressure on a deep cut and watching the blood leak between his fingers and onto his shirt, of Ramsay telling him not to be sensitive and to get over it. Fear on purpose was cathartic. And he was getting quite drunk.

'I'm going to bed, you boys have fun,’ Sansa said when the movie was over and Jon was arguing the merits of his second choice to Theon, who was not arguing back at all.

'Goodnight,’ Theon called after her, lifting his beer to her back in a salute.

'Night, Sansa,’ Jon parroted.

They tore into more chocolate bars, and Jon made a second bucket of buttered popcorn. 'Can you catch it in your mouth?' he asked, throwing a kernel at Theon.

'I think I could if you didn't launch it at me like that.'

Jon tossed another in the air, and Theon missed it.

'This is weird, isn't it?' Jon asked, taking a long breath out, like he was deflating.

'Maybe. I don't know.' Theon shrugged.

'I just mean... I hate you.'

Theon nodded. 'I hate me, too.'

Jon's face was very serious, very honest. 'I don't mean it like that. You were awful to me. You were awful to all of us, even Robb sometimes. I never understood why.'

'I'm evil,' explained Theon.

'No. No, you're not.' Jon sighed again.

'Theon is a bad person,’ Theon turned to look Jon in the eye, and realised they were floating closer to each other like enemy ships. 'But I've been trying to be different.'

'That's all you can do, I guess.'

They had both slumped against the back of the couch. Theon didn't know what was happening in the movie. He was looking at Jon's face like he had never looked at it before, because he had been nervous to meet his eye or be caught staring. It was a stronger face than it had been when they were teenagers, and handsome.

'I forgive you,’ Jon said, suddenly. He was looking back at Theon. He'd been avoiding looking at him, because it was painful to see someone he'd known as proud and willful looking so hurt and meek. 'And I'm sorry about what happened to you. No one deserves...'

'I've been sorry,' Theon said. 'I left because I was sorry for being such a prat, and I thought it would be best if I just fucked off to Hell.'

Jon's eyes slipped closed. 'I think he knew that.'

'I hope so.'

***

He still dreamt that recurring dream. In it, he was kneeling in sickly-sweet mulch, face pressed to the ground, dirt in his mouth. He felt wounded and tired. He lay in slick liquid, like spilt oil, and it soaked his skin. When he opened his mouth, he breathed in toxic air and choked, spitting and coughing.

He tried to breathe in and out calmly, to count to ten in his head, to look into the trees steadily and to focus on the feeling of his knees buried in the forest floor, on his ripped-up palms pressed to the ground. He shivered, he cried. The dream was painted with anxiety that crushed him down beneath it, but when he shifted his body, he found that he could roll.

So he rolled away from the puddle he'd made on the floor onto a clean patch of dark, dewy grass.

***

Theon had shifted to the side in his sleep, so his foot was under Jon's chin and Jon's knee was pressing into his waist. He tried to untangle himself without touching Jon's leg too much, and failed - it thumped to the floor loudly enough that Jon startled and sat up straight.

'Hullo,' Theon greeted him.

'Oh Jesus Christ.' Jon yawned. He looked out over the empty bottles of cider, Smirnoff, and beer. They both had empty mugs on the coffee table, from which they'd been drinking warm Bailey's.

'Good morning!' Sansa called from the kitchen. 'It's November now so we're going to get the new Starbucks latte flavours for breakfast.'

Jon chuckled. 'Can I brush my teeth first?'

'Please!' came Sansa's reply. She walked into the living room with two glasses of water shortly after.

'I ate too much chocolate,’ Theon complained, laying back onto the couch cushions when Jon scooted forward to take a glass.

'I have gravol in my room,’ Sansa told him. 'I'll fetch you one.'

'You're the best,’ Theon said.

Sansa gave him a thumbs up. 'Love ya, too, Theon.'

***

It was early December. Jon was in the laundry room, washing his uniform and listening to heavy, pounding music. Theon shuffled into the kitchen in his slippers, wrapping himself up in a heavy cardigan with big buttons Sansa had found for him at a Thrift Shop.

He had always tried very hard to follow the rules in Jon and Sansa's home - whether they were definite rules, like cleaning up after himself, or unspoken ones. It made him nervous to presume on them by taking food from the fridge or the cupboard when they weren't also eating, even though he chipped in for groceries now.

When he was alone in the house, it could have been anyone's house, and not everyone was as nice as Sansa and Jon. It could have been Ramsay's house. Sometimes he even thought it was, and then he would spend the hours while Jon was at work and Sansa at school standing against the wall in Jon's room pitying himself for getting so comfortable in the new life they'd given him, clutching his empty fingers (they hurt like they were really there), and calling himself names out loud in a harsh whisper until the door clicked and someone shouted out from the landing.

He could hear Jon in the laundry room, singing unashamedly in a barking voice, and it sounded like confidence.

Theon put the kettle on. He chose an herbal tea from the cupboard, and put it in a strainer. He took out two cups, one for him and one for Jon, but fumbled putting them on the counter. There was a delicate, high sound as one of Sansa's nice teacups shattered at his feet.

This is what happens when you try to do anything for yourself, Reek! he thought viciously. You never learn.

'What was that?' Jon called out from the other room.

Theon bent down and started picking up the shards of broken ceramic.

'Hey - what are you doing?' Jon had poked his head around the doorway. Seeing Theon collecting the sharp pieces of a cup in his palm, he rushed forward and took his wrists. 'You're going to cut yourself.'

'I''m cleaning up,’ Theon said woodenly. 'I'm sorry.'

'Don't worry about it. Here, we have a little broom thing behind the garbage can.'

Theon rubbed his eyes with the sleeve of his cardigan. 'I won't do it again,’ he told Jon earnestly. 'I know it's dangerous.'

Jon frowned. He knelt down so he could look into Theon's despairing eyes, and saw the tears. 'It's not dangerous if you use this,’ he said, shaking the hand broom. 'There. And it's in the garbage. Like it never happened. Sansa won't care.'

Theon swallowed thickly. 'There was a man who lost a finger because he dropped a bit of glass,’ he said. 'It's a dangerous world.'

'I'll bet it wasn't a teacup that did it,’ Jon said. He pulled Theon up by the shoulders. 'I don't think you're going to lose any fingers in this kitchen.'

Theon sobbed wretchedly at that, and Jon froze, looking at the mangled hand that Theon was cradling against his chest.

Jon felt as distraught as Theon looked - he felt as though he'd tripped and landed face down in a tar pit, dark and reeking and sucking like quicksand. The snow muffled the light from the windows, so they were standing in oppressive grey shadow. A bizarre bleakness settled over him like a quilt. He saw Theon's face mottling red with shame, saw him as he'd never seen him before, and was blinded by compassion that was not pity.

He tipped forward and lightly kissed Theon's temple, still cupping his upper arms, because he couldn't think of anything to say.