Chapter Text
It’s an exclusive club, Theon ponders. Being tortured for days, that is.
He’s known pain in his life. He’s lost family. He’s been abandoned. He’s had his arse beat for being a right awful young boy in Ned Stark’s honored house. Theon’s got enough emotional scars to fill Ironman’s Bay, but this is something far beyond his worst nightmares.
Theon loathes the young man standing in front of him, standing there nice as you please with a flaying knife in hand. The casual, even tone as he pontificates. Theon thinks his tormentor enjoys hearing himself talk. The rise and fall of his voice grates on Theon’s nerves.
Theon always liked listening to himself, he can recognize the trait in others.
Pale grey eyes pin him to the saltire. He’s got this sharp grin that morphs into place without warning. Theon hates and hates, because he shared all of his painful secrets when he had thought this man was his ally, a friend. Theon has never called himself naïve, but he certainly never expected this slight man to tie him up and start removing pieces of Theon without blinking an eye.
Theon’s always been too eager to find affection and belonging. The whores that Theon paid were always willing to play along; Theon loved that. Never you mind that he had paid them. Never you mind that they didn’t always enjoy him, but some did enjoy his body.
This time, he’s made a grave error. Theon tried to see belonging, understanding even, in someone who viewed his sentiments as a game. Oh, how this bastard must have laughed and sneered about Theon’s moment of weakness in the forest. His worries about belonging. Being a Greyjoy lost among the Stark’s.
Theon’s chest burns with the thought, throat tight with anger.
This man had seen a piece of Theon’s soul, even before the flaying started. As a result, Theon feels a great sense of shame and fury, knowing he told something so personal to someone who wished him ill. He wants to crush that stupid grin into nothing, he wants to grab that knife and shove it into those grey eyes repeatedly.
As if bored of the sound of his own voice, his captor stops talking quite suddenly and saunters closer to where Theon is strung up. Theon can smell the forest on him, he’s so close. He’s got this square face, his captor, and a slight, unassuming frame accompanied by a razorblade for a tongue.
Ice cold eyes, as harsh as a barren wasteland, framed by lashes dark as a raven’s wing. A touch as unforgiving as the sea consumed by a storm.
His tormentor stares into him, eyes half-mast. He takes in the expression on Theon’s face. “You are a prideful piece of nothing, aren’t you?”
I’m not nothing, Theon thinks furiously, I’ll never be nothing. “I’m a Prince of the Iron Islands, you have no right-”
The backhand is hard enough to split Theon’s lip. The slight bastard with his contemptible pale fucking eyes examines the red of Theon’s blood on his hand. His gaze rests there briefly before flickering back to meet Theon’s defiant stare. In a low, even tone, his captor says, “Continue to bore me with those words and see what I do.”
Theon spits at him, watches as it lands on his pale cheek. The other man blinks carefully, eyes going colder than the North itself. A sneer twists his lips as he grabs Theon’s face hard, gripping his jaw in a bruising hold. With an ugly look shaping his face, the other man pointedly spits into Theon’s mouth, forced open by his hand.
Disgust rolls through Theon in a coiling mess, his throat tightening with bile as he gags, spluttering. He yanks his head out of that awful grasp, repulsed. He wants that small, nauseating piece of his captor out of him. His spit is yet another invasion of his person, an affront to his very being.
The torturer steps away from him, absently wiping Theon’s spittle from his face. Flicks his hands. “You are no Prince here.”
“Why are you doing this? Why am I here?” Deep down, Theon is afraid Robb has done this to him. He fears that Robb set one of his bannermen after him to torture him for his brothers, the brothers that Theon never touched, never laid a hand on.
He could never hurt Bran or Rickon. Never. How could Robb even imagine he could do something like that to those boys? They were like younger brothers to him-
Visceral pain laces through his heart at the thought. No, Rickon and Bran were never his brothers. Theon’s brothers are dead, his real ones, his Greyjoy kin. No matter how he loved the Stark family, he would never be one of them.
Which is why he is torn between hate and love, a never-ending circle of confusing emotion.
He’s always been lost, but never as lost as he is now.
As if sensing Theon’s inner agony, his captor smiles beatifically, as if feeding on his misery, lusting for it. “Do you want to play a game?”
I don’t really have a choice, do I? Theon muses with twisting rage. He would crush this whoreson, if only he wasn’t strung up.
He makes Theon guess all the reasons why, but his cruel grin only gets wider with every answer that Theon provides. Each answer only offers more insight into Theon’s damaged psyche and the taste of it is wine on his poisoned tongue.
It’s a shame really; Theon still operates under the impression that who he is will set him free.
“You’re here because I want you to be. And when I’m done with you, even you won’t recognize yourself.”
He carves into Theon, drinking in his screams as if they are part of a delicate vintage. The bastard strips away flesh from muscle and bone, the same way he strips away all of what Theon has made of himself, all the shields and guards he has erected through the years around his soul.
As parts of Theon’s flesh drop to the stone floor with a sickening splat, Theon groans in sheer agony. Bile heaves out of his stomach, up through his throat. His spits it onto the floor, the taste acrid on his tongue. Hoarsely, Theon says, “I’m going to tear your liver out with my teeth when I get down from this fucking rack.”
With bloodied fingers, the other man brushes hair from Theon’s forehead gently. So gently. A contradiction to the blade still clutched in his other hand.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” the bastard whispers.
It takes time, but Theon slowly pieces it together. He slowly finds out.
His captor is actually a bastard. Not because Theon loathes him to his rotten core, but because his name is Ramsay Snow.
Theon also learns never to call him that. Snow, that is.
Ramsay Snow is part of the family Bolton and the flayed man is their house sigil. Theon should have known; perhaps he wouldn’t have lost another finger.
Ramsay smirks a little, glittering eyes pinned to Theon’s mutilated hand. “You’re a slow learner. That’s okay. I have time to teach you. You’re important to the war effort, we need you!”
Then he laughs and Theon puts it together that the last bit is a lie.
No one needs Theon; no one ever has. For as long as he can remember he has always been a drifter. When his true brothers died, he had been traded away to the cold, strange North. Not his sister, no she was too important to his father.
His father traded Theon. Gave him up to be a prisoner and forgot all about him.
It pains him to think of how he must have been a burden to the Stark’s. The arrogant, prideful Greyjoy boy whoring around the village, causing all sorts of embarrassment. Catelyn Stark must have loathed having to host him in her home, a disgusting example for her own sons and daughters.
“My…my father. He will have my sister come for me. You will pay for this,” Theon says, though there is little fire in his words.
Ramsay examines Theon with a knowing look, the look that makes Theon want to crawl away and hide from the knowledge there. Blinking away his thoughts, the bastard shrugs his shoulder’s slightly, giving Theon a dismissive expression. “I wouldn’t hold out for your father, if I were you. But, wait all you like. I care not.”
Then those sharp teeth take over his grin as he laughs. Theon knows and Ramsay knows; Balon Greyjoy isn’t going to save his only living son. Theon has been dead to him since the day he sent him away.
There are certain things that Theon Greyjoy, Prince of the Iron Islands, is known for. He’s a handsome son of a bitch. An arrogant one with a sarcastic, asshole sense of humor. He’s quite insufferable, to be frank.
He loves archery, loves the pull of the string in his grip, the feel of the wind in his hair as he scopes out his target beyond.
He also likes whores. Loves them, in fact. Well, he doesn’t love them, that would be stupid; he loves how they make him feel.
Theon Greyjoy always liked how he could treat them like nothing, like they were less than him. He even believed that they were lesser and it boosted his own shattered sense of self. Now though, he wonders if this is how those whores felt. His torturer has spent countless days and nights with him and the young man looks at him in a way that makes him feel naked, like every filthy piece of himself is on display.
Ramsay views him as an object and little more. His screams and his pleadings fall on ears that gleefully listen to his brokenness. Theon’s pain and suffering mean nothing to the other man; he is barely human to him. He is this thing that Ramsay must break, this thing that he harms simply because he can.
He’s a boy with a toy and no one can convince Theon of anything else.
Under that black hair and those raven wing lashes lies a monster. His gaze hungrily consumes the red that drips down Theon’s naked chest, the lines he has carved into his flesh. He likes the way Theon’s skin splits like butter around the blade, parting like the legs of a whore.
Everyone has heard of Theon Greyjoy’s legendary escapades and Ramsay wonders if any of those girls have ever heard the sounds that he has heard come from the Greyjoy’s mouth. The raw things that tear from his hoarse vocal cords, rough from yelling.
It’s an intimate thing, to see someone else come apart before you. People have heard of Bolton’s Bastard too; not the same sort of stories as the Stark’s Greyjoy, but they are nearly equally infamous. Ramsay has always enjoyed watching desperation and horror in the eyes of another, he loves fear the way Theon Greyjoy likes being worshipped in bed.
Ramsay can get on board with that; fear and worship can go hand in hand.
Grinding his teeth into a pained smile, Theon meets that grey gaze in rebellion. He can feel the warmth of his blood as it makes trails down his abdomen and he allows himself to feel like some sort of martyr. “Is that all you have? A few cuts for me here and there? I’m almost disappointed,” Theon rasps, quirking his lips into a sardonic grin, the one that always drove girls mad.
Theon knows he is a Prince and he will never let that go. This monster in human skin tortures him because Theon will always be something that he is not and never will be. Theon loves rubbing the sting of that fact in even though it’s like playing with fire.
Theon Greyjoy is a Prince of the Iron Islands and Ramsay Snow is just a bastard that hates the way that Theon smiles.
The bastard’s eyes fall to Theon lips, tracking the shape of them with slow precision. “I’ve always heard that the whores liked you. Or hated you. Perhaps both. I bet you thought that smile of yours would make them love you.”
A brand of cruelty that Theon lives and breathes shapes the words that slip from his tongue as he stares down into those arctic eyes, a winterscape of hell in a human gaze. He widens his grin. “I bet you have no idea what a look like that can do to a girl. I’m sure no lass has ever looked at you with anything but disgust and fear.”
Ramsay grits his teeth as slight flush colors his neck, hand tightening on the handle of the knife as he steps closer. “Then you should know better than to look at me the way you are now.”
Theon laughs through the backhand that busts his cheekbone, enjoys that humiliated rage twisting Ramsay’s face.
It’s almost worth the pain.
Time becomes aimless and unending. Weeks pass, perhaps months. Theon can barely tell for sure. Bit by bit, the Bastard of Bolton breaks him down, weakening his body all the while fanning the flames of rage in his heart.
Theon’s been caned, whipped, burned, and cut. He’s been flayed. All of this for the amusement of a lowly bastard who enjoys the art of pain, the canvas of another’s body.
He learns to tone down his defiance eventually. He’s been brash, arrogant to a fault. He has appeared as a strung-up predator when he needs to appear as weak and broken. After a time, Ramsay has his friends join in with their torturous games. Theon loathes them almost as much as he loathes the bastard.
Theon bides his time, plays broken, waiting for the inevitable that someone will eventually let him down from the St. Andrew’s cross. His patience and suffering eventually wins out.
When Theon is let down from the dreaded, loathsome saltire, he plays his hand. The wounds on his back festered well beyond his captor’s ability to heal and the Bastard’s Boys are told to bring him down to Wolkan the maester. The strange man works on Theon’s back under Ramsay’s scrutiny. “I want him back on the rack, Wolkan. Soon.”
The maester appears to refrain from rolling his eyes as he applies salve to Theon’s burning wounds, pus seeping from them. He can barely groan at the touch, so weak from infection. “I need to draw the contagion out first.”
“How long will that take?” Ramsay snaps with impatience.
“Do you want him to die on the saltire? No? Well, then you will need to let me do my job. It will be a few days.”
The bastard storms from the room with a dark glance at Theon.
“Aren’t you unlucky,” the maester mutters, finishing his work on Theon’s back. “Usually he just lets poor shits like you die of fever and sepsis. Looks like you won’t escape him so easily.”
Theon sleeps better than he has in weeks with the salve on his back. Days pass without the bastard bothering him, leaving him in the maester’s unfeeling care. It is days before Theon finally realizes that he is not chained to the table he is on, realizes that he is strong enough to sit up.
It is a burning realization and Theon knows that he can’t miss his opportunity. This one moment of possible freedom.
Theon takes his chance. He runs and in retrospect, he really should have just thrown himself off the battlements.
He’s not at his strongest and weakness eats at his joints and muscles. He has withered away under Ramsay’s ministrations, but the rage in Theon’s breast is still there, compelling him to run back to the Iron Islands.
It isn’t too hard to escape the keep, no one is really watching for the weak, injured prisoner. He runs up the stairs and finds his way to the main floor. The servant girls give him horrorstruck looks at he tears by, darting through the kitchen like a mad boar. He smashes into one of the serving boys and throws him to the ground, yelling at him to give him his shoes. The boy begins to cry but does as he is asked, shivering in fear. Theon puts them on quickly, never minding that the shoes are slightly too small; it doesn’t matter, he needs to run.
One of the women screams loudly as he knocks into her on his way to the servants door, the metal pot in her hand crashing to the ground loudly.
The sound isn’t nearly as loud as the pound of Theon’s heart in his chest. He is sure everyone can hear it as he breaks out into the daylight, eyes darting wildly as he looks for his next route out of the walls. He doesn’t have time to steal a horse; that would be noticed.
He sees a small drain in the far corner and makes a mad dash, sliding in, holding in his scream as his back breaks open. Hot blood begins to stream down his back under his shirt, but he pays no mind. He crawls and crawls until he is on the other side of the wall and begins to run again, heading for the forest.
Theon nearly laughs, because he can’t believe he’s made it out.
A mile passes under his feet when he finally hears the horns sounding out far behind him. The bastard has finally realized that his captive is gone and it fuels Theon’s desperation to run even harder.
He knows they will come on horseback, but if he can get to the river he can escape, he can lose the hounds. Theon just needs to keep running.
It is only a few minutes more before he hears the wild hoots of laughter echoing through the trees, over the open valleys. The sound of hooves pounding the soil. Ramsay and his Boys are on the hunt and Theon is their game.
The hounds are baying loudly and Theon can barely breathe. He dashes in multiple directions, looking for water. He breaks through into another tree line, panting so hard that he feels his lungs bursting with effort.
His heart nearly stops when he hears the thunder of hooves behind him. Still running, Theon looks over his shoulder and curses, seeing Ramsay charging him at a mad gallop on his red stallion, Blood, blade held out as he leans forward in his saddle.
All is already lost, but Theon doesn’t want to admit it. He’s always been too fucking stubborn for his own good.
Time slows as Theon tries to get more from his weakening body, the thunder behind him all he can hear above the rush of his breath. Within two more strides, Theon is hit hard in the back with the flat of a blade and it knocks all of the remaining air out of his lungs in a rush as he is flung forward.
“You filthy cunt,” Ramsay snarls, face red as he dismounts. “Who do you think you are?”
Perhaps it is a last ditch sliver of self-preservation, but murderous rage fills Theon in that instant as he rolls onto his back to look up at his torturer. Ramsay is approaching him, clenched jaw and eyes filled with death.
It may be the fact that they are both on even ground, that Theon isn’t on the saltire anymore, unable to fight. A false sense of confidence and fury forces Theon to throw himself at Ramsay’s knees, knocking the other man onto his back with a yell.
“I may be a cunt, but you’re a motherfucking bastard,” Theon yells, smashing his fist into Ramsay’s face.
Ramsay’s face snaps to the side with the blow and blood leaks from his nose. Theon is shocked to see it is red like his own; he always figured Ramsay would bleed black. The bastard laughs, but there is no humor in it. He headbutts Theon and Theon grunts in pain, falling away. Ramsay pushes Theon off of him and Theon uses the momentum to roll away, kicking at his opponent in the side twice. Theon takes satisfaction in Ramsay’s snarls of pain.
Ramsay gets to his feet and Theon circles away from him. He knows it is stupid; he can’t possibly fight on equal ground in the state that he is in. The problem is, Theon is prideful and he wants revenge. Ramsay knows this just as well, a sneer shaping his lips, red with blood. He leaps at Theon with a growl.
“I’ve hunted animals, women…never really hunted a man before. You’re the first.” Ramsay grunts with effort as he grabs Theon around the waist and wrestles him to the dirt, all while Theon lays his fists into his head and shoulders. “Isn’t that romantic?”
From the distance, they probably looked like a pair of schoolboys brawling across the sticks and leaves. Theon is good a wrestling, he grew up wrestling with Robb and Jon. He’s good, but now he is weak from torture and malnutrition.
It isn’t fair.
The only thing allowing him to hold his own is his fury and desperation. He would rather die than go back to the St. Andrew’s Cross in Ramsay’s dungeon, for that is surely where he will go if he allows Ramsay to drag him back.
His opponent is strong, deceptively strong. Even if Theon were full strength, he isn’t sure he would be able to contend with the pure viciousness that lends Ramsay the upper edge. He can feel the muscle definition in his arms when they fight for the upper hand and the snap of teeth near his ear makes Theon shudder.
If he didn’t know better, he would think he is fighting an animal, not a man.
With a stroke of luck, Theon knocks his elbow into Ramsay’s nose and the bastard laughs viciously as his own blood spurts onto them both, covering Theon’s mouth. “If I had known you could fight like this, I might have let you down sooner!”
The taste of his blood on Theon’s tongue is pure copper and sin. Ramsay’s pale eyes are dilated madly and Theon hates him for it, hates the yawning black of those pupils as they take him in, as if this is all part of his master fucking plan.
As always, Theon is his greatest source of entertainment.
“You’re not supposed to be enjoying this,” Theon rasps blankly, because he just doesn’t understand this man.
In a whirl of brute force, Theon is thrown over onto his stomach, Ramsay kneeling on his back. Theon tries to dislodge him, but he isn’t strong enough. He pants into the dirt furiously, yelling in frustration. This isn’t supposed to happen!
Ramsay’s breath is coming just as hard, though Theon can’t tell if it is from exertion or excitement. Probably both, knowing the sick bastard. “Get off of me,” Theon snarls into the dirt, trying to push himself up once more.
His opponent leans over him, his mouth close to Theon’s ear. “Don’t you want to know what it’s like being all those girl’s you always paid for fun? Even though they didn’t want it? I think it’s time you learned your place.”
For a moment, all thought leaves Theon as the words sink in. He thinks of Ros and Kyra and thinks of the times their faces had scrunched up with pain that they had tried to hide, the way they had sometimes averted their faces from his when he was inside of them-
“No,” Theon cries out, a whisper of horror entering his tone, “No…don’t…you can’t!”
Ramsay pauses behind him, tenses. His gloved hand wraps into Theon’s hair harshly, pulling his head back hard. Growls with teeth, eyes wild. “Don’t ever tell me what I can’t do to you. You will never like what happens next.”
If Theon fought hard before, he fights for what remains of his honor now. He thrashes hard as Ramsay tears down his trousers, exposing him to the chill air. He throws his head back hard and makes contact with Ramsay’s lip, feels the blood drip down onto the nape of his neck. Ramsay does not falter in his purpose despite the injury and Theon struggles, tries to crawl out from under him.
Something cold kisses the skin of Theon’s neck and it only takes a few moments for him to realize that it is the touch of Ramsay’s curved dagger against his jugular. Theon freezes instantly and considers throwing himself into the blade, slitting his own throat.
Blood blood blood everywhere and he wouldn’t even care.
“I hear struggling makes it worse, so you may want to be careful,” Ramsay says huskily, his other hand resting on Theon’s hip.
The hand is shaking, the one against Theon’s skin and Theon doesn’t really understand why. Maybe the shaking is coming from Theon, making them both vibrate with energy. “I will fucking end you,” Theon hisses brokenly, staring straight ahead, seeing the dying green of the grass spread before them.
He feels rather than hears Ramsay undo his breeches. Feels the rasp of his hand as Ramsay touches himself, runs his hand up and down his length with rough sounds of concentration, trying to get himself hard enough. Torn between disgust and horror, Theon realizes that men really are not Ramsay’s thing.
But pain and control are.
“Don’t you see,” Ramsay pants harshly, the heat of him briefly touching Theon as he moves his hand up and down. Theon twitches violently, the blade at his neck thinly slicing his skin. “The very idea of this is killing you inside and I’m only giving you what you deserve. I’ll never give you anything you actually want.”
Then, without warning, something blunt pushes against Theon’s entrance, but there is no give. Theon curses loudly, furiously, says all sort of things that he is sure will get his neck cut then and there, but instead the burn in his arse is all that he gets. Ramsay grunts, pushes again, trying to seat himself inside of Theon with little luck.
He can’t get in.
With a touch of the macabre, Theon ponders that Ramsay is a virgin and it makes him cackle with hysterics, fueled by the horror of the situation. He knows it isn’t true, he’s heard stories of hunted women, but the idea of it soothes his pain for a brief moment.
“I don’t see the humor here,” Ramsay says hoarsely, the hand with the blade coming away from a moment as Ramsay hits Theon hard in the back of the head.
Theon wants to tell him he’s terrible at this, but with a hard lunge forward, accompanied by a curse, Ramsay forces his way in. A cry dies in Theon’s throat at the sensation of his tissue ripping to accommodate the man behind him, dry as a leaf.
The burn is dreadful and for a moment Theon thinks the pain inside of his body will kill him if nothing else. He can feel the organ inside of him, full and heated, pulsing with the heartbeat of the man behind him. Theon twists violently, once more panicked. His hands come up to push at the hand holding the blade against his throat, but Ramsay plasters himself to Theon’s back, an arm like iron around his waist as he sinks as far as he can go. Theon can push all he wants at the hand with the blade, but they are already entwined and he can’t push the hand and the cock away from him.
Theon has never felt such hate and despair in his life, never felt what he feels for his torturer. He’s ruined him and with so shameful an act. The bastard is breathing hard against Theon’s neck and the scent of him, forest and earth sends him into a mindless fury. Theon tries to dislodge him, trying to send them sideways, but Ramsay snaps his hips hard, groaning as Theon cries out in agony.
He’s sizeable and Theon has never been with a man, never even wanted to be with a man. This is too much for his body and his mind is screaming its rejections.
Ramsay is shaking against him; Theon can feel him clear as day through his thin shirt and Ramsay’s leather jerkin. A slim piece of power shifts into Theon again as he senses a moment of weakness, wanting to cut deep into it. Despite the pain, he bucks his hips and thrashes one of his elbows out, once again trying to escape his current dilemma. “What’s wrong back there? Do I need to tell you how this is done?” Theon says the words and they are just as hideous as he feels inside.
His elbow catches Ramsay in the side and the other man grunts in discomfort and a hand wraps in Theon’s hair roughly as Ramsay takes control again. “I’m sorry, Prince. Am I too slow for you?”
Then it starts and Theon shouts earnestly as Ramsay slams into him hard, repeatedly. It feels like his insides are being shredded by razors and fire all wrapped into one. He instantly regrets goading Ramsay, regrets it with every fiber of his being. Theon never knows when to back down from a fight, after all.
The battle begins again, Theon struggling hard, pulling against the arm around his waist, kicking out his legs to try and move away from the hips behind him. However, it’s no use as Ramsay plants his knees between Theon’s legs, using his own hips as a way to keep him spread open from his body.
Liquid begins to trickle down Theon’s thighs and he vaguely realizes it’s his blood and he’s being humped like a bitch in heat. He whines in horror, buries his face into the dirt in dismay. His stomach is cramping violently against the assault and he’s sure that he’s going to die, his body isn’t built for this.
“By all means, keep up that racket,” the bastard sneers lowly, “Do you want my boys to see you like this? See you bent over like a woman? Taking my cock?”
Terror so blinding strikes Theon at those words and his mouth snaps shut. The idea of anyone seeing him like this is too awful to imagine. He can barely bear the humiliation of being taken like a woman by this man, but being seen by others…that is nearly worse.
The burn of flesh pressing into his own is unbearable and his own cock hangs limply between his legs.
“Would you bloody well hurry up!” Theon snarls harshly, mind spinning with agony. He wants it to be over, he wants it all to be over. He leans against the blade at his throat and feels it cutting deeper into his neck. He begins to press against it harder, ready to end it all when Ramsay sets the blade aside quickly, showing his hand that he’s unwilling to let Theon kill himself.
The now free hand presses Theon’s face into the ground and Ramsay twists his hips into his arse faster, harder. “Shut your insolent mouth and maybe I can finish this, annoying cunt,” Ramsay grunts and Theon flushes at the insult.
He really does feel like a whore now and for a moment he regrets how he treated Kyra and Ros.
Finally, the bastard at his back grips him hard, his hips stuttering in a pattern that Theon recognizes. He feels the pulse of his cock inside of him and it is strange, feeling a man releasing versus how Theon felt climaxing inside of women.
Once Ramsay’s grip on Theon relaxes, Theon sags fully into the dirt, mind shutting down, trying to not think about the fluid filling him. He feels raw, like he’s been used and abused forever. Anger burns in him still, but it is broken, weakened. Shame is his bed partner now, telling him on repeat that he is worthless, something his family would be ashamed of, he’s become something they wouldn’t recognize.
Theon wants to dig his own grave until his fingernails break and bleed against the earth.
Ramsay pulls out of Theon quickly and Theon sobs into the dirt, wanting to claw his own eyes out. There isn’t much that is more horrible than this, Theon is sure.
The moments pass in silence aside from their equally harsh breathing. Ramsay’s face twists as he stands, buckling his belt and adjusting his breeches. His gaze settles on Theon, who hasn’t found the will to move from where he has sunk miserably. “Pull up your trousers and stand. We’re done here.”
Theon numbly opens his eyes and slowly fumbles with the laces of his bottoms. His body aches and every moment hurts. His hands shake uncontrollably and cold eats at his heart. This…what had just happened…it was not something Theon ever wanted to dwell upon again.
The humiliation of it…treated no better than a common whore.
Faintly, Theon can hear the bastard walking away, most likely to his horse. He could try running again, but he doesn’t think he can even stand. His grits his teeth against the tears that spill down his cheeks as he finally gets his trousers fully on.
“Get. Up.”
Theon stiffens in place, digging his face into the dirt in an effort to hide his tears, his shame under the filth. Slowly, he stands, gasping in discomfort. He stands there awkwardly, knees pressed together, arms clutched around his body. He does not turn to face his captor. He can’t.
“Look at me.” The words are soft, a contradiction to everything that has just transpired.
Slowly, painfully, Theon turns to face the Bastard of Bolton, doesn’t want to see those eyes, fears they will be laughing at him. Only, they aren’t; his eyes are still like the ocean after a storm has passed and Theon allows him to grab his wrists without a fight.
He’s tired of fighting, he’s got nothing left now.
Ramsay ties a rope around Theon’s wrists, testing it to make sure it’s tied tight. His eyes flicker up to Theon own red rimmed gaze and something flickers there within his expressionless face. There’s an acknowledgement between them, unspoken.
The horror, the filth that had just recently occurred. Theon can hear Ramsay’s words in his head, never really hunted a man before…you’re the first.
Something tells Theon that the bastard would be pleased to hear that he’s also Theon’s first man and the thought is unwanted and unnecessary. Theon swallows hard, tries to think of anything other than what has just transpired.
A new sort of torment.
Ramsay gets back on his horse and ties the rope to the saddle. To Theon’s relief, Ramsay doesn’t canter off, but allows his horse to walk. Every step is pain and Theon can feel the trickle of blood and…other fluids leaking down his legs.
Shame shame shame look at how disgusting you are
After twenty minutes of walking, Ramsay turns to call over his shoulder, his good-natured tone back in place. As if what had just transpired had never occurred. His split lip says otherwise. “If you imagined that I ran an inn that you could leave at will, you imagined wrong, Prince.”
Theon cannot bear to look at him; he can feel Ramsay in every step, a physical touch on his body. He doesn’t want to look at the cut of his shoulders in his dirtied coat, the pale skin of his neck that is colored with a hint of a flush. The way his trim waist moves and sways with the rhythm of his horse.
After all, Theon has no desire to look upon the body that had dominated his only a short time ago.
Ramsay Snow sees his captive blatantly ignoring him, sees how Theon stares down at his tied wrists. A sneer shapes his lips and he turns to face forward, gloating in silence.
Theon is sleeping on the saltire when he is roughly yanked down by multiple sets of hands. He yells, struggling, flashes of horror racing through his mind. Hands, holding him down. He imagines them stripping him down, holding him down and violating him, because it is truly the worst thing he can imagine happening now that it has already occurred once.
He hates himself for his weakness, his fear. He hates how he could have allowed something so horrid to happen to him, so shameful and disgusting.
Balon Greyjoy would disown him if he knew and a piece of Theon withers at the thought.
A torch is lit, showing the faces of the men holding him down on the stone floor. Skinner and Damon hold him tight while Alyn holds onto his legs. Just beyond, Ramsay stands holding the torch, gazing down with coals for eyes, a fallen angel in the night with black hair for a halo.
There is a promise in those burning eyes and Theon doesn’t like what it implies.
Dread coils like a snake, slithering down Theon’s spine as he fights against the rough grip on his wrists. “But…” he croaks out hoarsely, mouth dry from thirst, “what…yesterday…you punished me already…I haven’t done anything…”
The stone floor is cold against his back as the Bastard’s Boys wrestle to keep him pinned to the ground, wrists held tight. There is a manic excitement in their gazes as they look between Theon and Ramsay, giving Theon the impression that something horrible and creative is coming his way.
The bastard himself chuckles, flipping a strange blade in his hand as he looks down at Theon from his place against the wall.
“Yesterday? Oh, you thought that was your punishment? You stupid whoreson.” The bastard smiles at Theon, eyes innocently wide, flames reflecting there. “That was a privilege, but I guess I didn’t make that clear enough for you. That’s my fault; you’re slow and I should have known.”
Theon stares at him blankly, breath coming hard and fast along with the tremors in his limbs. He called that…what he did…a privilege?
He can almost feel the heat of him against his back, firm and present. A brand against his flesh as he drives into him slowly, with effort, because Theon’s body isn’t ready for this, the bastard isn’t prepared and doesn’t know what he’s fucking doing back there and Theon’s body isn’t accommodating-
Theon closes his eyes and whines miserably, blotting the memory from his mind. His body still aches where the bastard had been.
Ramsay laughs raucously at the disgusted expression on Theon’s face. “Didn’t make much of an impression on you, I see. I didn’t live up to your high standards? The technique wasn’t just so? Well, now you’ve got me embarrassed.”
The two men holding Theon’s arms down, Skinner and Damon, both have confused looks on their faces and Theon is glad they have no clue about what is being discussed.
Sour Alyn remains holding only one of Theon’s ankles as Ramsay gestures. The bastard pushes away from the wall and comes to stand between Theon’s now spread legs. Theon tries to close them, but Ramsay kicks them apart again. He kneels, eyes boring into Theon’s furious ones. In a tone only meant for Theon, Ramsay says, “I’m sure you’re thinking you could teach me a thing or two. I’m sure you could! Yes? But…you see…I just don’t like the idea of you thinking you’re better than me. Can’t have that, can we? Because you’re not. You’re not better than me and that’s because you belong to me.”
Spitting at Ramsay the best he can from his position on the floor, Theon hurls himself against the hands holding him down. Ramsay watches him from under lowered lashes, darkly amused at Theon’s weak insolence. “You don’t own shit, bastard, and you certainly don’t own me.”
Those eyes of steel darken, almost going black. The blade in Ramsay’s hand plucks into the waistband of Theon’s trousers with ample threat, causing Theon to halt in his breathing. “You see,” Ramsay whispers softly, razorblades in his voice, “You are mine. I can do what I want with you. Anything. And that part of you that you derive so much pleasure from, that part that gives you all your pride and sense of being…it’s mine.”
The blade cuts through the fabric, the sound loud in the dank dungeon. Sweat drips down Theon’s neck, cold against his terrified skin. The trousers part and expose Theon to the room and when he locks eyes with the bastard, he knows exactly what he has planned.
“Bind his ankles,” Ramsay says blandly to Alyn. “We don’t want to nick an artery on accident when he’s struggling.”
Theon screams.
“Most girls are liars, but they didn’t lie about you,” Ramsay muses later, eyes like a winter night.
Theon is another piece less now and the pain is a howling storm in his body, raging and screaming with all its might.
He’s not quite sure who he is without this crucial piece, this part of himself that made him famous with the whores and the ladies. He’s been in and out of consciousness for the better part of…well, he has no clue how much time has passed.
Time is a black hole down in the dark of the dungeon.
Theon remembers being held down and the blind fear that came with the curved blade, waved in his face so that he might understand. He never quite thought it would come to this, never quite thought the bastard would sink to this level of depravity.
But he did. Oh, he did.
The bastard shifts in his chair, legs spread as he studies his mutilated captive. His head lolls back on his shoulders with a lazy sort of ease as he gazes at Theon from under lowered lashes, down his nose. He has full control, Theon muses sickly, it calms him.
“It’s strange,” Ramsay utters softly, “to think that I’m the last one to have fucked the man that all those whores used to talk about.”
Theon makes a retching noise, bile rising in his throat. The pain and the memories are unwanted, unnecessary. He wants to disassociate from the bad dream, from the grass and dirt, the chill air around them as they wrestled. The dying sun had been surreal, its light making all color bright with painful clarity as Ramsay thrust into-
“That wasn’t me,” Theon stutters out, shaking, “I wasn’t-”
Ramsay’s eyes drift up and to the left, thinking. “You’re right. That wasn’t you.” He points his knife. “That was Theon Greyjoy. You’re not him anymore, not really. You’re not even a man.”
A small amount of sun trickles through the barred window, the small amount of light allowed into the dungeon. Theon’s eyes catch on the sight of dust floating through the slim rays of sun. It’s like watching stars, gentle stars falling through the air, through the stillness.
Theon let’s his mind drift. The dust is beautiful, even as if drifts into nothingness. Theon would like that. To drift into nothing and nowhere.
Together, they remain in silence. Theon examines the slim rays of light, avoiding the eyes that follow the lines of his throat and clavicle. He’s too ashamed now, to meet that gaze, to be the defiant Theon Greyjoy that he used to be. He fought hard, but it wasn’t enough.
Theon’s lost the war and he can’t bear to look at the victor and have him see defeat in Theon’s sea green eyes.
Waiting with a sort of tense anxiety, Theon waits for Ramsay to grow bored of looking at him, looking at him like his own personal prize. It has finally sunk in; Theon is owned and he has no choice but to accept the fact. He has spent months under the knife all for the pleasure of a sadist who appears to be in no rush to end his suffering.
When the bastard finally sighs and leaves the dungeon, a sliver of Theon’s soul leaves with him.
He doesn’t think he’ll ever get that piece of himself back, but he knows the bastard will keep it like a trophy.
“What is your name?”
He doesn’t want to say it, but he knows he must. There is only one answer and Ramsay only wants to hear what he wants to hear. “Reek.”
Demented joy is a wicked flash in those wolf eyes.
Theon sags into himself, feels something cracking, breaking. It could be his heart. Maybe his soul. He sees an expectant look shape Ramsay’s face and knows that the sick bastard wants to hear him elaborate. Theon’s humiliation excites his captor in the way that naked women excite the average man.
A slow blink, a calculating look, the way he tries to hide his elevated breathing. Theon knows. Theon sees, he isn’t blind, deaf, or stupid. When you spend your weeks examining the body of one person and one person alone, you know the signs.
“My name is…Reek.” It feels like Theon is speaking around knives in his mouth.
Pale eyes dilate and the shark like grin widens, canines glinting in the firelight. Theon briefly wonders what it would feel like to have those teeth tear out the artery in his throat. What it would feel like to have the warm spray of his blood pour down his naked chest as his lungs struggle to breathe their last.
Theon blinks the thought away as a warm hand curls around the nape of his neck. Controlling. Claiming. He’s been so cold in this dungeon with only his trousers for warmth. He wants to cringe away from the touch, but it is the only touch he has received that doesn’t hurt.
He burns with indignity; how low he has fallen.
“That’s my good boy,” Ramsay mutters, because above all else he enjoys being obeyed.
But, Theon figures that Ramsay probably enjoys it even more when he isn’t. Obeyed, that is.
Ramsay likes it even better when he’s punishing unwilling flesh.
He relishes it even more when the unwilling flesh begs for punishment and begs to be cut, begs to die, because he gets a thrill hearing that level of desperation enter another human’s voice. He loves denying them what they want.
Theon knows. He’s asked.
To die, that is.