Chapter Text
“How many men have you seen them kill?”
Robb must’ve asked him that question once a week since they were younger, his blue eyes wide and eager, Theon’s narrow and evasive as they slid sideways.
“Oh hell, I don’t even keep count anymore.”
It was a lie, of course; his brain supplied the number unbidden, as though it were a rhyme or a song or a boy’s name that he couldn’t get out of his head. 12.
That kind of casual bravado used to be enough for Robb. “Wow,” he’d marvel, flopping back onto the bed. “I wonder if they’ll ever let me come with. Do you think they will?”
“Maybe,” said Theon, though he knew Ned Stark would never allow it.
Now that they were older, Robb insisted on details – the grislier the better – and Theon saw how his friend’s eyes dilated slightly, his cheeks flushed as Theon told him about the way a man’s face deformed around a bullet, the way little bits of skull and brains scattered everywhere, the way the hair caught fire sometimes. And Theon thought about the way he’d implored his own father to take him on these same terrible errands, back when he still lived by the sea, back when he was only small and curious. It filled him with shame to think that he’d ever wanted to see the things he’d seen.
The way he described it though, it was nothing. He’d lie on his bed with his hands behind his head and Robb cross-legged at the foot of the mattress, and through the buzz of a glass of whiskey, Theon enjoyed the feeling that someone was listening, that someone was interested in what he had to say, even if it was pretty fucking awful.
“Don’t you get bored of hearing about this shit?” Theon asked once, leaned over the balcony off Robb’s bedroom and puffing away at his third cigarette in the past twenty minutes.
“Not really,” said Robb, oblivious to the implications of the question. Instead, he came outside still in his bathrobe and spit over the rail onto the brick patio three stories below. “I’m bored out of my fucking mind being kept in here under 24-hour surveillance like a goddamn prisoner.”
Theon glanced at the camera poised above them.
What would you know about being a prisoner? he wanted to ask. Instead he just nodded and smiled.
“It’s not so bad. I mean yeah, you can’t jerk off without setting off some kind of security system, but at least you can give Jory a show while you’re doing it.”
Robb tried not to grin. “Gross.”
“Sometimes I say his name when I come.”
Robb laughed and shook his head. “You do not.”
“I do. You watch, next time him and me are in the same room, and see if he ever makes eye contact with me.”
“You’re fucking ridiculous.”
Theon quirked an eyebrow and in one swift motion yanked Robb’s bathrobe open and off, leaving him naked and damp on the balcony, pounding furiously on the sliding glass door.
“Open the fucking door you asshole!”
Theon tossed the robe onto the floor and stood with his arms folded, watching the blood rise in Robb’s chest, trying to ignore the blood rising in himself.
“Now who’s ridiculous?”
He heard Sansa’s door slide open and heard her shriek. “Oh my God, Robb! What are you doing? I have company!”
“You’re going to pay for this, Greyjoy!” But Robb was doubled-over laughing, one hand pressed against the glass, the other covering his crotch and Theon couldn’t help but notice that his bush was the same warm auburn as his hair. “Please open the door!”
Theon remembered the afternoon his brothers locked him out of the house. One of countless times, but he remembered this one because the din of the hailstones on the roof had drowned out the sound of his voice, pleading, “Come on guys, let me in! I promise to stay in my room! Please open the door!”
When Theon lifted the latch, Robb tackled him onto the floor, pinning Theon’s arms above his head, still laughing despite the chill. He was strong for sixteen – broad-shouldered and tall – but still no match for the three years Theon had on him. But Theon had learned when he first came to live with the Starks that he was not even to play at hurting Robb.
“Theon, tell me what happened.” Ned Stark knelt down to look Theon in the eye, and Theon looked at his toes, feeling the crush of Ned’s huge hand on his arm.
“We were playing ninjas,” he offered quietly.
“Did you mean to hit Robb in the face?” Ned’s voice was gentle, always gentle, but something fierce lurked there.
“No,” lied Theon, recalling the thrill he’d felt at the sight of Robb sprawled out in the grass with a line of blood trickling from his nose. “He just – he jumped when I wasn’t expecting. I didn’t mean to.”
“Theon, look at me.” Theon brought his eyes to meet Ned’s and cursed himself for feeling afraid, for wanting to cry and beg forgiveness. “You have to be careful when you play with Robb; he’s not as big as you are.”
“I know. I didn’t mean to.”
Ned moved his hand from Theon’s arm and laid it lightly on the crook of his neck. It was all Theon could do to keep himself from leaning into the touch.
“I know you didn’t mean to. I know Robb is like a little brother to you. And you know that someday Robb will be in charge, the way I am now?”
Theon sniffled and nodded. “Yeah. He always says so.”
“Well, he’s right. Someday Robb will be the one taking care of you, the same way it’s my job to take care of you now.”
Theon couldn’t imagine anything more humiliating, or more natural.
“Robb will be taking care of everything, and that’s why it’s so important that you make sure nothing happens to him, okay? Even if he makes you mad sometimes. Do you understand me?”
“Uh-huh.”
“That’s my boy.”
But he wasn’t Ned Stark’s boy, so Theon let Robb pin him to the carpet and tried to put up a convincing struggle.
“You let me win,” complained Robb.
Theon smirked and strained half-heartedly against Robb’s grip on his wrists. “I’d never.”
And he felt Robb’s breath on his face, Robb’s naked weight pressing down on him and for just a second he thought about breaking his promise and raking his nails down Robb’s chest just hard enough to break the skin…
“Theon, are you in there?” Poole knocked on the door.
“Yeah.” Theon kept his eyes locked on Robb’s, ground his hips upward. Robb bit his lip and snarled.
“We’re going for a drive. I’ll see you in the garage in ten minutes.”
Theon freed himself easily and began to sit up when Robb grabbed him by the jaw and brought their faces so close that he could’ve licked Theon’s lips.
“When I’m running the show, you won’t let me win.” Robb sucked his teeth. He trailed his index finger down Theon’s stomach and hooked in the waistband of his jeans, giving a light tug. “And you won’t act like you don’t want me.”
Theon laughed as he bucked Robb onto the floor and stood, tossing Robb’s bathrobe onto his face. “Better start hitting the gym then.”
*
“Garage” was a modest name for the 10,000 square feet that housed Ned Stark’s entire fleet, everything from the little red Carmengia intended for Sansa’s sixteenth birthday to the barely-functional hardtop destined to end up at the bottom of a lake as soon as the need arose. The ceiling was equipped with moveable showroom lighting, but usually the warehouse was dark, save for the corner shop where Gendry could always be found, even at the strangest of hours.
He was there when Theon arrived, a pair of sneakers and frayed black jeans sticking out from beneath a blue ’99 Civic, a metallic clang followed by a storm of cursing. Theon crouched down beside him, steadying himself with the side mirror and peering under the car.
“Hey.”
Gendry’s head shot up and smacked into whatever he was working on. He screwed his eyes shut and grimaced.
“Jesusfuck! Will you fucking stop doing that to me?”
He slung his wrench at Theon, missing deliberately.
“Sorry.”
Gendry slid his creeper out from the car and shook his head at Theon.
“I was in my universe, man. I was in my zone.” He sat up and wiped his hands with a shop rag, rocking the creeper with his heels. Gendry always spoke to him with a sort of spacey familiarity that Theon found irksome – because Gendry acted like they were equals when they clearly weren’t – but also endearing because he was the only person in Ned Stark’s employ who didn’t seem to be constantly expecting Theon to fuck up.
Theon wasn’t sure how old he was; Gendry’s face was always covered with grease and flecks of oil, and his body was thick with muscle, but he slouched like a boy still and never dared to look at the girls when they came down to watch him work.
“Transmission?”
Gendry nodded and rubbed his aching forehead. “Yeah.” He glanced over his shoulder at the car and sighed. “I fucking hate working on these beaters, you know? Like, I could pour my blood into this thing, get it purring, but it’s still a fucking Civic.” He smiled at Theon. “When are you gonna let me get elbows-deep in that sweet little Zagato?”
Theon beamed and opened his mouth to answer when Gendry’s smile faded and he stood up and wiped his hands again.
“Mr. Poole. Mr. Flint.”
When Theon turned, Poole’s light eyes were already on him, as they always seemed to be. He did his best to look unaffected as he hung his thumbs through his belt-loops and lifted his chin in acknowledgement.
“Gendry.” Poole took his gaze from Theon at last. “We’re going for a drive.”
“Yes sir,” said Gendry, almost tripping over his own feet as he moved past them into the warehouse, flicking on the lights. “What, uh… What kind of drive?”
And Theon told himself that he would be good Goddamned before he said “yes sir, no sir” to Vayon Poole or anyone else – besides Ned Stark, of course.
“Doctor’s appointment,” answered Poole, which was short for snatching a man – probably from his own home – and delivering him to a certain location on the East side of town where he would most likely spend his last day on earth just wishing it was over. It made no difference to Theon; he was only the driver.
Gendry scanned the warehouse, muttering to himself. “White. White white white. You want something white.” His eyes lit up as they landed on a nondescript white sedan with a 5% tint on the back windows. “I think this one.”
Poole nodded and opened the passenger side door. Flint climbed into the backseat.
“Keys are in the cup-holder,” said Gendry. He hesitated as he always did before telling Theon, “Drive safe, man.”
Theon nodded and absently brought a hand up to feel for the 9mm he kept holstered under his T-shirt.
*
Theon never expected Ned Stark to be generous. He thought all fathers were like his own, unyielding and cold as the wind coming in over the water; he hadn’t expected a bedroom just down the hall from Robb’s, with a flat screen TV and a view of the heart-tree in the courtyard. He hadn’t expected to hold the littlest Stark children when they came home from the hospital, or for Robb to introduce him sometimes as “my brother, Theon.”
“I promise to hate them,” he told his father when Ned Stark came to Pyke personally to collect him, the penalty for Balon Greyjoy’s doomed attempt to raise arms against the most powerful family in the North.
Balon said nothing and turned away.
Theon fell asleep on the long car ride to Winterfell, and woke briefly in Ned Stark’s arms as he was lifted gently out of the car and carried into the mansion. He remembered opening his eyes for a moment and seeing the snow falling thick and soft on the oak trees.
“If you’re not careful, the boy will grow up thinking he’s a Stark,” he’d overheard Cassel saying.
“So what if he does?” replied Ned.
But Theon was a Greyjoy, and if Ned Stark wanted to let him forget it, nobody else would.
“What does it mean,” Robb asked him, “that you’re a Greyjoy?”
“I come from the Iron Islands,” he said. “My family is the most powerful family on the coast. My father controls all the shipping that comes in from Asia and South America.”
“So one day you’ll control all that? I’ll control the North and you’ll control the coast?”
“Yeah. When I go home, that’ll be mine. I’ll have a dozen ports, and over a hundred ships.” Theon recalled the sight of the freighters coming in on a steely morning as he stood on the bluff with his sister. He wondered if she still watched them.
“Can I come visit you at Pyke?”
Theon grinned. “You better come visit. Someday you’ll need me, Stark.”
He got his first tattoo on his sixteenth birthday, sweating a little as he handed his fake ID over to the artist before sitting down and splaying his fingers over the arm of the chair.
“Oh my God, let me see it!” Robb had grabbed at Theon’s hands to read the word “Ironborn” in gothic script across his knuckles. “That is so fucking cool.” He ran his thumb across the still-raised ink. “Does it hurt?”
Robb was always asking if things hurt.
They’d been playing Red Dead Redemption when Ned knocked on Robb’s door. “Robb? I need to borrow Theon for a little while.”
“Can’t we just finish this level? He’s kind of on a roll right now.”
But Theon knew the answer was no, so he handed Robb the controller and stepped into the hallway.
“Sir,” he said, hiding his hands behind his back and trying to act like his heart wasn’t beating 60mph, wondering if he was in trouble, if maybe today was the day his father decided it didn’t matter so much what happened to his only remaining son and cast aside his allegiance to the Stark Family once and for all. He knew Ned well enough to know that in that event, he’d at least get a merciful death – a bullet through the brain, clean and quick. What bothered him was wondering what would happen with his body; would it be sent back to his father intact, or just the head?
But Ned smiled warmly and put a hand on Theon’s shoulder. “Walk with me.”
They took the elevator down to the garage, Theon still concealing his hands and suddenly embarrassed by his own fear.
“Where did you get the fake ID?” Ned asked without looking at him.
“Sir?”
“You had to have one to get that tattoo. Let me see your hands.”
Theon held his hands out and Ned turned to peer at them impassively.
“Well, where did you get the ID?”
“From Jaqen.”
The elevator stopped and Ned stepped out, Theon hurrying to catch up.
“Are you mad?” he asked, hoping that he didn’t sound like he cared.
Ned shook his head. “I’m not mad,” he admitted. “Mostly, I’m annoyed that now Robb will be begging me to get one.”
Theon looked around; he’d never been down to the garage before, and there was something surreal about it – cars as far as the eye could see.
“You remember where you came from,” continued Ned, making a beeline through the warehouse. “That’s important.”
I don’t actually remember it that well, Theon thought.
He looked down at his knuckles and wiggled them, so distracted that he almost slammed into Ned Stark’s back. Ned had stopped in front of a little bullet of a car, sleek and muscular and not cherry-red, but the deep luscious color of real cherries.
When Ned put a hand on Theon’s shoulder, Theon wondered if his own hands could ever possibly be that massive. He glanced again at his own fingers – so slender – and at the bones of his wrists.
“And when the time comes for you to return home, I want you to remember your time here.”
Theon did his best not to assume, not to hope, but he couldn’t stop a wide, childish smile that revealed his braces. It was all he could do to keep both feet on the ground.
“Are you – are you serious?”
Robb is going to be so fucking jealous.
Ned smiled in turn. “Yes. That’s why I want you to drive for me.”
Theon wanted to touch the car – to kiss it, even – but he was afraid of leaving a mark.
“Drive? For you? In this?”
Ned laid a hand on the hood. “No, not in this. This is a gift. It’s for you to enjoy. You’ll be driving most of these.” He gestured at the warehouse.
Theon did a quick spin and then resumed staring at the Zagato coupe.
“Where will I drive?” he asked, lovestruck and only half-listening.
“Wherever I need. You’ll be with Poole most of the time.”
Theon couldn’t even be bothered with the fact that he knew Poole hated him. “Oh my God, this is so freaking cool.”
Ned laughed and held out a set of keys, which Theon took and jingled disbelievingly.
“Does that mean you’ll drive for me?”
“Hell yes.”
“You start tonight.” Ned turned Theon to face him. “You’re growing up so fast,” he said with the slightest trace of tenderness. “I know you’ll do well at this.”
And that – that felt so good.
*
Five hours later, Theon clutched the steering wheel of an old Toyota while in the beam of his headlights, Poole and Flint knocked a man’s teeth out. His hands were bound and Flint clubbed him in the back of the knees, bringing him to the ground with a scream. Poole preferred brass knuckles and Theon could still hear the sickening sound they made against the man’s jaw, however loud he turned the radio. When they’d first pulled him from the car, he’d been crying, babbling and cursing; after a few minutes, the crying stopped and his face was hardly a face. By the time Poole put a bullet straight between the man’s eyes, Theon was almost relieved. The man fell backwards into the grass as though blown over by a sudden gust of wind, and Poole shot him once more before he and Flint hurried back to the car.
“Let’s go.”
Theon thought about asking the man’s name, but in the end he was grateful not to know. After a few minutes of silence, Theon regained himself enough to ask,
“Why, um – why did we kill him?”
“We?” Poole mocked. “We– ” he indicated Flint and himself – “killed him because he was warned twice to pay the debt he owed to Stark Construction.”
“There is no third warning,” added Flint.
“Was he warned that there was no third warning?” joked Theon half-heartedly.
“Just drive, Greyjoy.”
When they arrived at the garage, Poole and Flint went to clean up and as soon as they were out of site, Theon dropped to his hands and knees and vomited on the floor. The retching turned to dry heaves and once those subsided, Theon pulled himself to his feet and searched for some shop rags to wipe up the mess, wondering numbly if it was too late to say no, or if it had ever truly been a question.
But when he slid his Zagato out the gates at the end of the Starks’ parkway and a few miles later merged onto the highway, he felt his blood thicken and slow, his vision clear, his stomach settle. With his window down and the cool night air blowing up his sleeve and through his hair, the lights of the downtown district rising around him, Theon Greyjoy was fine. In fact, Theon Greyjoy had it made.
*
And tonight it was nothing that gory, at least as far as Theon was concerned. Tonight in the white four-door, Theon drove to the East end and stopped just outside a sprawling compound of storage units and waited as Poole and Flint pulled another nameless man from the trunk and dragged him towards one of the sliding doors. He heard the word “please,” and turned the radio up again.
Flint knocked five times on the door and it creaked and scraped as it opened. The light that fell across the lot was painfully bright, and Theon brought a hand up to his eyes. After a moment, he could make out the shape of a large chair in the middle of the unit, flanked by a table and a smaller chair. Poole held the man down while Flint tied him to the large chair and a silhouette appeared at the edge of the light.
He was a young man; Theon could tell by the way he stood, by the sharp angle of his elbow as he brought one hand up to drag off a cigarette, and it took him a moment to realize that the shadow was not watching the commotion inside the unit, but rather staring straight at him. And even though Theon could see nothing of the boy’s face, he felt a chill run through his bones, and something else under the chill.
Somehow his body knew the name: Ramsay Bolton.
Ramsay Bolton whose father owned this storage complex. Ramsay Bolton whose name was not to be mentioned in the presence of any of the Stark children, and who must under no circumstances know their names. Poole said he was a monster, and not the monster that a man sometimes becomes but a born monster who enjoyed pain the way most men enjoy a beautiful woman.
As Poole and Flint left, the shadow turned to speak to them and when he saw Flint glance at the car and back at Ramsay, he felt something sinking in his guts. Ramsay pulled the door shut and the now the storage yard was dark again, and quiet.
Theon was trying to think of a way to ask about it casually, when Flint – with a malicious delight creeping into his tone – offered, “He asked about you.”
“Who?” Theon asked disinterestedly.
“Ramsay. He asked who you were. Must think you’re pretty.”
“Everyone thinks I’m pretty.” Theon smirked. “Even you.”
To his surprise, Poole frowned at Flint and shook his head. “You shouldn’t have told him anything. That kid is the sickest little fuck I’ve ever met in my life.”
*
Theon planned on going out after his drive, but when he parked the car in the warehouse, his legs suddenly felt like they were made of lead. He ambled over to the shop, where Gendry’s feet were still poking out from beneath that same blue Civic.
“Hey Gendry – you wanna go get a beer somewhere?”
The only answer was a faint snore.
Theon smiled and looked at his watch. It was almost 2am.
After he showered, Theon tiptoed down the hall to Robb’s room and knocked lightly before opening the door.
“Robb?”
But Robb was fast asleep, one pillow under his head, one in his arms and one between his knees.
Theon lay in bed, waiting to feel sleepy. His body ached but his brain was still fluttering around as it often did after a drive. When he slipped his hand beneath the waistband of his shorts, he thought of Robb, who had walked in on Theon pleasuring himself three weeks ago and lingered in the doorway for a moment before apologizing and returning to his own room. Theon thought about how desperate Robb had been acting lately, how easy it would be to walk down the hall again, open the door and crawl on top of him. He thought about the tears that would form at the corners of Robb’s eyes, the way Robb would ask him to “Please, go slower” and “Please, not so much.” And as usual, he thought of Ned Stark walking in right as his eldest son and heir moaned out Theon’s name.
Theon shook when he came and didn’t bother to clean himself.