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January 4th, 1989
The landline rings as Davos locks up the cash register for the night – he has just gone back to it after turning the closed sign on his pub’s door towards the road – and he thinks, this can’t be good.
Mostly, because if someone’s calling after closing at two in the morning it has to be Stannis, and if it’s the case, it’s not because he wants to talk shop. All right, Stannis is the person who calls him most who’s not a supplier and he detests talking shop as a general rule, but still, given that he usually comes over if he wants to talk – the bloody madman actually walks the four kilometers between Porthcawl and Aberogwr all the time because he finds it soothing – there can only be one reason he’s calling. As in, when your best friend is the local police inspector and he needs to house someone for a few days and can’t find them better accommodation sometimes he calls you, and he doesn’t wait until morning to do it.
Well, Davos figures reaching for the phone, he’ll see. Certainly it’s not Marya, but she wouldn’t call at this hour.
“Seaworth’s,” he answers as he grabs the phone, “how can I help you?”
“Davos, you know it’s me. Suppliers or your ex-wife don’t call you at two in the morning.” Right, definitely Stannis.
“Well, you can never know. And what can I do for you?”
“A whole lot, and not just for me. Sorry for bothering you this late, but – we have a situation. And I might need you. Can you come over to the station or were you already –”
“I can come. I’ll get the car and be there as soon as I manage.”
“Thank you. This godforsaken entire area doesn’t deserve you.”
Davos would have said flatterer to anyone else, except that the thing with Stannis is that he actually means it when he says this kind of thing.
“Honored to be of use. I’ll see you in a few.”
Stannis doesn’t even say goodbye before hanging up – Davos has known him four years and he still hasn’t grasped that basic nicety, but he doesn’t like to hang around Stannis for his lack of social niceties. Actually, it’s also for entirely different reasons.
He figures he should get a move on – he brings the day’s earnings to the safe, makes sure it’s locked, grabs his coat and his car keys and laces the coat up before leaving and locking the pub’s entrance for good. He figures cleaning up can wait for the morning – Stannis sounded fairly worried on top of everything and he can’t afford to linger around just in case. He spares a look for the beach on the opposite side of the driveway – admittedly, that was what sold him on this particular establishment when he bought it off four years ago. It was a truly gorgeous sight and Davos always figured himself living up to his surname when it came to loving the sea. Sure, he figures that if he ever manages to save up enough money for a small boat it’s going to have to happen when he retires for good, given that he has a mortgage to pay off still, but he still likes having the sight in front of him when he wakes up every day.
He breathes in the cold evening air and then goes for his sensible, thrice-used Escort, turns the engine on and drives away – the station isn’t really that far if you aren’t walking and he’s there some fifteen minutes later just because he doesn’t like to go too fast when it’s dark out.
He finds a free spot on the opposite side of the road – he leaves the car there and walks up to the police station’s building. The lights are on, though just on the lower floor – everyone else except Stannis and a few officers probably left already. He walks up to the door and gets in without knocking – the officer sitting at the entrance is that nephew of Stannis’s, Gendry. Nice kid. Too bad he’s eighteen and already doing the night shift – maybe it’s better paid, Davos figures.
“Mr. Seaworth.”
“Gendry, how many times I told you to call me Davos? Anyway, Stannis called me before –”
“Yeah, he told me. He’s over in his office, he’ll be expecting you.”
“Thank you, I’ll be over there.”
Davos heads for the office – he knows his way by heart – and knocks just out of politeness before letting himself in.
“Davos,” Stannis says without losing time – he stands up and nods at him as he comes around the desk, “thanks again for coming at such short notice.”
Davos takes a good look at him – shit, it has to be bad. He has bags under his eyes worse than usual and he looks like he hasn’t slept in a month. Given that he’s actually younger than Davos, it’s fairly fucking worrying.
“How much have you slept in the last week?”
“Let’s say this was not supposed to be my night shift. The previous six nights were, but – never mind. I have a situation.”
“You need my spare room?” Davos asks, sort of joking, but it falls flat when Stannis sends him a deadly serious stare.
“I might. Well, I would not. Not yet, anyway.” Stannis doesn’t say anything else and Davos figures that he still hasn’t figure out if he’s going to divorce his wife already or not, but it’s hardly the time to bring it up. “However, someone else might. But I have to show you what kind of situation I have on my hands directly. Come over.”
Davos follows Stannis out of the office until they reach the only spare room in the entire station where they usually interrogate whichever people they arrest. It doesn’t happen often - it’s not a very exciting place to be in, and not many crimes deserving of an interrogation happen in their area, but it’s still there. They stop just outside the room - the door is open though, so he can’ see who’s inside.
“Right. Take a look at them. Quiet.”
There are two kids inside the room – well, she is definitely around sixteen or seventeen. He might be a bit older, so maybe he’s in his mid twenties, but still, that’s hardly the point. The point is that he immediately understands what Stannis meant with I have a situation.
Now, never mind that they’re both holding hands convulsively but not touching otherwise.
The girl’s hair looks like it hasn’t been brushed in days, she’s wearing a light summer dress and sandals that are >not appropriate for the climate at all. Fuck’s sake, New Year’s Eve was three days ago, how didn’t she get frostbite yet? That’s not what’s worrying though – what’s worrying is that he can see bruises on her legs and feet. There’s one on her neck that makes it look as if someone tried to choke her and he’s only too glad he can’t see her arms since they’re covered in an oversized police jacket. She’s crying, her free hand wiping at her face without quite managing to get rid of tear tracks.
The man, though. The girl’s holding to his right hand. The left lacks one finger entirely and is bandaged and set with a few splinters – at least another couple have to be broken. He has also long and unkempt hair, but differently from hers it’s kind of brittle and it looks absolutely wrong on someone in his early twenties. He’s also way too thin for it to be healthy, what stubble can be seen on his face also looks as healthy as his hair – as in: it doesn’t look healthy at all – and he’s also wearing summer clothes, but doesn’t have any extra police jacket on him. He’s shuddering all over and he’s holding himself so still as he does that Davos almost feels sick. He’s also not looking at the girl in the face even if he’s holding her hand that strongly. In between the two of them, they have a frayed backpack along but that’s about it.
“What the hell,” he finally whispers, moving away so that Stannis can explain without them hearing.
“They showed up around ten, just when I was about to go home,” Stannis says, gritting his teeth. “She has spoken maybe three sentences in this entire time. Mostly to tell us to please treat him nicely because according to her he saved her from – from we don’t know who, but I don’t even think it’s necessary to get an inkling. He has spoken some more but prying anything from him that isn’t yes sir, no sir and please and a few other things is impossible. From what we all gathered in two hours after I called in Luwin to look at his hand, they ran away from someone I would really like to arrest myself a few days ago. Given that their shoes are about to fall off, they must have walked here for a good part of that time. No money and no identification, of course, and the moment Gendry asked names he about froze and she started saying please no, so – we didn’t push any further. They won’t say anything other than that they can’t and won’t go back.”
“Didn’t look like they would want to go back wherever they come from. So, what’s the matter other than the obvious?”
Stannis glances at the phone on this side of the room with utter distaste. “In between Gendry, Sergeant Tollett and I, we called about every bloody place in the area that might take them in – I certainly can’t put them in a holding cell. This isn’t a place for people who aren’t criminals, never mind these two. Anyway, the moment we described the situation, obviously no one wanted either. Finally we found a few nuns over in Bridgend who’ll take the girl in, for the moment.” At that point Davos can hear Stannis’s teeth gritting. “Of course they won’t take him even if she swears to hell and back that he wouldn’t even think of looking at some of the precious girls going to school at their convent the wrong way and that he’d probably stay locked in the same room as her if they didn’t want him walking around the premises. As if suggesting they shared a room could go over well with those bigots. Anyway, she’s going to have to take it for the moment - it was quite literally the last choice on the list and it’s either that or neither has a place to sleep.”
“Really? I mean, just looking at them one would –”
“I know. But it looks like finding him a roof is just a lost cause. And – I just can’t make him sleep in a cell given that all things considered he’s a lot worse off than she is.”
“From here it looks about the same.”
Stannis shakes his head and looks straight at him. “We tried to lend him some clothes. He just said that he wanted to have a wash in the bathroom and didn’t accept. Gendry didn’t know we told him to go ahead with it and he walked in for a moment. He says the lad’s back has been flayed.”
“What?”
“Not all but there were clearly – patches of skin that were removed at some point recently. And you haven’t seen them standing. She can walk upright without a problem. He holds himself so still it’s a miracle he doesn’t topple over. I can’t – for a moment I thought I could let him sleep on my couch but I would like to not give my wife further causes to spin it in some bad light if we end up fighting for custody. By the way, he said he could sleep on the floor. In my office.”
“What?”
“Do you understand why I’d feel better with myself if I knew he was sleeping in a real bed?”
“I do,” Davos sighs. “And I guess I understand who you’d like me to put in my spare room. How long would it end up being for?”
“That’s the problem. Looking at them, I doubt it’s going to be a situation that will get solved soon. It could be a while, especially if he doesn’t tell us if he has any family and whatnot, and I couldn’t ask you to go through with it just like this. You should talk to him.”
“It’s not necessary, I mean –”
“Davos, it might be a commitment. Please do talk to him first.”
“All right. All right, just bring him here.”
Stannis gives him another terse nod and motions for Davos to sit in a chair in his office, then goes to the interrogation room - Davos can hear him telling the kid that maybe he found him some accommodation but he has to come with him. Then he tells the girl that Gendry would be more than amenable to order some take-out if she wants to eat while they solve this matter. She gives him a grateful nod before skittering away.
Davos sees the lad walk out of the room but he understands what Stannis means when he says it’s a miracle he doesn’t topple over – he wasn’t really holding himself still but rather shaking.
Fuck’s sake, he’s not sure he wants to know what actually went down.
The door opens a moment later and Davos stands up, not moving forward. It doesn’t look like it’d be a great idea to crowd the lad right now, wouldn’t it.
“Here,” Stannis sighs. “We can discuss arrangements.”
“Right,” Davos starts, extending his hand and hoping it’s the right course of action. “I’m –”
The words die in his mouth when the lad looks at his outstretched hand like he’s some kind of alien just dropped off in front of him. He looks up at Davos for a moment, then looks down at the ground again. And the worst thing isn’t just the body language – it’s how tired he had looked in that moment when their eyes met. Never mind that Davos thinks he can recognize someone so desperate they’re at their last straw – shit, he looks like he’ll fall apart on his own feet if he gets one more turn of bad luck.
Davos has an inkling that he hasn’t had much of anything going for him lately.
“Sir,” the lad says, keeping his hands firmly to himself.
Davos, who has never once in his life been called one, barely manages to not burst out laughing, and just because he knows that if he did it right now it would be a massively bad idea.
“Well,” he says a moment later, trying to sound as nonthreatening as possible, “that’s, er, very polite of you, but – it’s Davos. Just that. No need to be that formal.”
“I wouldn’t presume. Sir.”
Davos is kind of feeling sick to his stomach. Especially since the lad’s still looking at the ground. Well, he’ll try to convince him that he’s not a sir of any kind later, or maybe he can try to compromise.
“Listen, if we really have to be formal, Mr. Seaworth will do. Sirs aren’t paying off mortgages for the only pub in the area.”
The lad visibly swallows. “All right. S – Mr. Seaworth.”
“Okay. That’d be better. And what’s your name?”
One would have thought it a harmless question.
Instead, the lad goes completely still before glancing at Stannis in abject fear for a moment before he somehow schools his features back into looking discomforted rather than terrorized.
Davos has a clue that this is not how they’re going to accomplish anything.
“Stannis, I’ve got this. You think you can leave us alone one moment?”
Stannis looks at the both of them, then shrugs minutely. “Of course. You know where to find me.” He leaves, closing the door behind him, and the lad’s shoulders get slightly less tense. Good.
“Okay,” Davos says, “it’s just you and me now. Never mind Stannis – he looks sour but he’s the best person you’ll find around these parts. But I guess you didn’t want him to know, which is fine, but maybe you just don’t want to answer that particular question?”
“I – no, it’s just – he said, I wasn’t supposed to – I’m not –”
“Hey, calm down a bit. Let’s just do it like this – if you tell me, I swear I don’t tell anyone else.”
“The inspector –”
“I’ll deal with Stannis, never mind that I’m paying him a favor technically, so he won’t press if I don’t say. How do I call you?”
For a moment, he gets nothing. Then –
“Re – no, it’s not, that’s not it, I – Theon,” he finally blurts out, looking like he’s expecting a punch to his teeth.
“Fine. Theon. Nice name. Now, with that out of the way, I hear you need a place to sleep?”
“I can stay on the floor, s – mister. Really, I wouldn’t presume –”
“You need a bed,” Davos cuts him.
“I don’t –”
“You do. And I wouldn’t let anyone sleep on the floor when I have a perfectly good guest room. And don’t say you’d be imposing, I’m offering. Now, my guest room is on top of my establishment, so it means that you won’t get to sleep until two in the morning since I own the only bar in the area, but it’s not too small and the bed’s decent. It’s also smack in the middle of nowhere – more than this place anyway – and that’s nowhere fit for someone your age, but I guess it’s not the main problem now.”
“Anywhere would be good. I’m sorry if –”
“Again, if I didn’t want to do this I wouldn’t be here – I lent that bed to at least ten people Stannis sent my way, don’t you worry.”
“Thank you,” Theon chokes out. He sounds like he’s about to start crying.
“That’s fine,” Davos says – he almost wants to touch the lad’s shoulder because he looks like he needs a hug or ten, but – no. It would be the worst idea ever given that he looks like a livewire ready to snap. “I’ll go talk to Stannis a moment. Just, I guess you might want to talk to your – friend? I guess I can’t ask her name if –”
“She’s Jeyne,” Theon mutters, barely audible. “And – if you have time –”
“Go talk to her and take your time, ten minutes more or less won’t change a thing.”
Theon nods at him and pretty much runs out of the room, as much as someone shaking that hard can run in the first place. Davos stands up and goes for Stannis’s office.
“How did it go?” Stannis asks.
“He’s coming with.”
“Did he tell you his name?”
“His and hers, but I told him I wouldn’t tell you. Sorry.”
“That’s fine, it’s already a miracle he talked to you in the first place. I mean, when they got here Slynt was about to finish his shift and I asked him to talk to them. Let’s not even discuss it - whoever thought that man was fit to be a psychologist needs their license to teach revoked. Whenever he’s ready to press charges you know where we are, though I might drop by tomorrow just to see how the situation looks like. Also, you look terrible.”
Davos sighs, figuring there’s no point in denying it. “Last time I felt this disturbed it was the fourth time I got arrested.”
“Wait, was the fourth – really?”
Davos shrugs – the fourth time he was arrested he had been picketing at Orgreave and he ended up in a hospital ward with a minor concussion, and it went better for him than it did for most of the people picketing along, and it’s not as if he didn’t go back to protesting two days after the union paid their bail money.
“Yes, really. Anyway, it’s just – shit, it’s bad. What the fuck even happened to them?”
“I wish I knew,” Stannis says. “Well, since they won’t press charges for now and I doubt they’ll give us their information, you’re free to go whenever you want. You’ll see me tomorrow.”
“I absolutely look forward to preparing you breakfast.”
“Do not try to push the beans on me, Seaworth.”
“I won’t, I won’t. Right, I’ll best be going then. If anything happens I’ll let you know,” he says, and waves Stannis goodbye.
He goes back to the entrance and he doesn’t have to wait for long - he’s chatting with Gendry when Theon shows up from whichever room they had put Jeyne in, clutching at his summer jacket and bringing the backpack along - so it has to be his. Davos is tempted to give him his coat but he figures it wouldn’t be accepted so he doesn’t.
“I have a car just outside,” he says when Theon stops abruptly in front of him.
He receives only a curt nod - well then, he should just get going. He goes on the driver’s side, gets in and opens the door for Theon, who pretty much runs in before shutting it closed - his teeth are chattering. Davos starts the car and turns up the heating without commenting on it.
The drive is silent and he doesn’t attempt to change it - thankfully no one is around and they’re back in Aberogwr in minutes.
“We’re here,” he says, turning the engine off. “Come on, it’s on the upper floor.”
Theon follows him without saying a word - by the time Davos has let him into the pub and locked the main door, he’s trembling for the cold all over again. Nothing to be surprised about, Davos thinks bitterly.
“I can give you the grand tour tomorrow morning after I clean up I guess. The stairs are this way.” He heads straight for the Staff Only door, Theon following without even looking at the rest of the room and not even touching any of the tables as he comes closer. Davos notices that he seems to stumble a bit as he goes up the stairs but says nothing. It’s just one floor, at least. He moves a bit as he steps into the hallway of the apartment on top of the shop - it leads into a small living room and then moves forward towards a bathroom and another two small rooms. Good thing that the heating was turned on - Theon’s teeth aren’t chattering so hard anymore.
“All right,” Davos says, “you look exhausted but you must be cold. Let’s just - bathroom’s over there on the left. I’ll find you something to sleep in and leave it outside the room, how about it?”
“I can sleep in my clothes, it’s -”
“Your clothes are barely holding up and I think I have something that might fit you. And you really need a warm shower. Go in there, I’ll leave the clothes out of the bathroom and make the bed, I haven’t had guests in a while.”
“There’s no need. I can make the bed if you tell me where to find the sheets. I shouldn’t bother you -”
“I’ll make the bed, don’t worry about it. Do you want anything to eat before -”
“No. No, thank you, I - I don’t. Really. Please, there’s no need.”
The guy sounds as if he’s about to collapse - Davos figures that nagging is not a good idea right now.
“Fine. I’ll go make the bed. You get into the bathroom. Don’t worry about using up the hot water, there’s enough for a good half hour and I showered this morning. Just go to the guest room when you’re done, I’ll probably turn in before then.”
“Thank you,” Theon says in a voice so tiny Davos can barely hear it.
He sighs and goes to the guest room - he makes the bed quickly, puts some three quilts on top of it and then goes back to his own room, grabbing a certain box he had kept in the upper part of his wardrobe since - since.
Right. There they are. He sighs and checks the measures - it looks like Matthos’s old clothes might fit, after all. He leaves the only heavy pair of pjs he had in the box out, along with a few socks, and hopes that Theon has some underwear in that frail backpack of his because he can’t offer any. He leaves the clothes outside the bathroom - the shower’s running at least - then he leaves the light on and the door open. Then he goes back to his own room, changes into his own nightwear and decides that for this evening he can skip on brushing his teeth and he can shower again tomorrow morning. He listens to the water rush for another couple of minutes, and as he turns on his back into his small, functional bed with a comfortable mattress but no one to share it with, he can’t help wondering what the fuck happened with his guest, and he doesn’t know if he really wants to learn the answer.
Around four in the morning, he’s woken up by screaming coming from the next door over.
For a moment he has to kill the instinct to stand up and going next door - he doubts it’s ever going to go away, but they’re not related, they barely even met and it’s not his place to presume anything. Not when he’s plenty sure that Theon barely trusts him if he does at all.
He turns on his other side and tries to go back to sleep - when he wakes up for good at nine, a bit later than his usual time, he doesn’t feel rested at all.
Well, it’s nothing new now, is it? He gets up and glances at his hallway - the guest room’s door is closed and the bathroom’s is open. He’s not going to check let Theon might actually be sleeping and he disrupts it - fuck knows if he looked like he needed some. He heads for the bathroom himself, washes up, gets changed properly and then grabs a piece of paper from the living room, writes breakfast downstairs if you want it (in block letters, he’s aware that his handwriting is barely readable), attaches it to the guest room’s door with a piece of tape and heads downstairs for the kitchen - he might as well clean up other than make breakfast, given that he didn’t do it yesterday.
He cleans up - good thing it had been a slow evening yesterday and that today it’s not open in the morning, or he’d have had to deal with customers and he’s not too sure it’d have been a good thing for today. He puts together the least heavy breakfast he can manage if only because from how thin both Theon and Jeyne looked yesterday he doesn’t know if he could actually stomach bacon or the likes. He leaves the eggs and toast in the pan so they keep warm, makes himself another couple of scrambled eggs with bacon even if he doesn’t have much appetite, and finally gets to eating them after sitting at one of the empty tables. He’s halfway through when he hears footsteps cautiously coming down the stairs.
He keeps on eating, figuring that if he doesn’t make himself look weirded out he can’t do any harm. Theon does indeed come out of the staff only door not long later - he’s still in the clothes Davos found him yesterday, and now that Davos can look at him clearly in the daylight after that shower he also can deduce a few other things. First, that the lad can’t have cut his hair in the last six months or so at least while given that it’s even longer that it looked like now that it’s not tangled all over. Second, that those clothes are really large on him and given his height they should not be. Third, that from the way those socks are hanging on, it’s not just that he doesn’t have one finger on his left hand, he definitely also doesn’t have at least one toe on his right foot. Davos doesn’t really feel hungry anymore but he keeps himself going for the sake of not giving a bad impression.
“Good morning,” he says, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. “I have something to eat in the kitchen. You can sit down.”
“I can go get it myself, it’s not a -”
“I’ll get it. You can sit down.”
Theon doesn’t even look at him as he does. Davos keeps himself from sighing out loud and heads for the kitchen, puts the eggs and toast on a plate, finds some orange juice - not that his clientele orders it that much but sometimes people bring their children in and he certainly can’t serve them whiskey - and brings everything over to the table.
“There you go. Take your time, I’m not opening until early afternoon.”
He opts to look down at his bacon lest the poor guy feels scrutinized as he tentatively reaches for a fork and starts eating the eggs. He eats like he has to savor it, which, given that Davos is a decent cook but sure as hell was never famous for scrambling eggs to perfection, isn’t giving him any good vibes about the situation. Still, he doesn’t comment - when the both of them are done (and he did notice that it takes Theon a hell of a long time to get through it, even if he eventually finishes the entire plate) he grabs cutlery and plates before Theon can protest.
“I’m going to wash these. If you want the tour of the place I didn’t have time for yesterday you can start taking a look around, no need to stand there.”
“I could wash -”
“You could, but I will. I’ll be back in a moment.”
As he washes the plates he spends a couple of minutes breathing heavily and trying to just keep himself in check - fuck, he doesn’t think he can imagine what the hell happened to either him or his friend but he has a clue that if he ever learns he’ll have to curb homicidal feelings. Someone who’s at most twenty-five from the looks of it shouldn’t sound that deferential, fuck’s sake. At least he comes back to the shop to find Theon on his feet, which means that at least he is taking a look around.
He’s also staring at one of his walls - right. That one wall.
“Everyone asks the question you’re itching to ask,” Davos says, moving to his side but not near enough to crowd him. “Just do it.
“Uh - I wouldn’t presume, I -”
“Given that you’re most probably wondering where the fuck you ended up since not everyone has five bail-out receipts to hang on their wall, you have all the rights to presume. That said lighten up, I did get arrested five times, but it was because I was protesting during the miners’ strike. Good thing the union managed to put together enough money to bail me and the others out every bloody time.”
He doesn’t comment on the way Theon’s shoulders immediately relax a fraction. “The - the union bailed you out?”
“Sure thing they did. With money scrounged from donors, of course, but they did.” Davos says. “Hey, I’m still in the bloody union, even if I’m not a miner anymore and we’re still licking our wounds. Fucking Thatcher. ‘S been almost four years and I don’t hate her any bloody less.”
Theon looks like someone who’s just about to comment on that but then he obviously stops himself from doing it. Davos kind of wants to tell him that if he wants to say his piece he can, but then -
“Did you say four years?” He asks, sounding like someone who’s about to faint.
“Uh, yes? The strike was over in ‘85. Last I checked, it’s the anniversary in a couple months, everyone from my former pit comes here for a drink that day.”
Theon quite literally blanches, but then he takes in a few deep breaths and seems to get himself back under control. “That - that sounds nice?”
“Well, could be worse. Everyone gets reasonably drunk, we all hope she loses the next elections and at the end it’s not like we could do anything about it after so horribly losing that war, but what can you do. That said by the end it was inevitable. Fuck her sideways and fuck whoever voted for her, but what can we do.”
And then Theon kind of - snorts? Not too much, but it definitely looked like someone laughing when they think they ran into some horrible ironic coincidence.
“I could agree with that,” he says quietly.
“Can I ask why?”
Theon glances at him, then shrugs a tiny bit, grabbing his left hand with his right. “Er. My father. Uh, I haven’t seen him in years, and good thing that, but - er. He voted for her. More than once. He might deserve to get fucked sideways if he hasn’t changed in the last ten years or so, but I doubt it.”
Davos does notice the cold sweat all over Theon’s face.
“If that wasn’t clear already, if you want to insult someone who voted that harpy into office in my humble establishment you’re entirely free to do that, don’t look like I’ll have your head for it.”
He receives no answer but at least he stops looking like he’s expecting someone to get angry over it. “Good to know,” Theon finally says. “Uh, can I ask you something?”
“Sure. Just ask it, no need to ask me permission first.”
“How far are we from Birmingham?”
… That was not what Davos had been expecting. “If you had a car and drove straight without hurrying up too much it’d be some three hours or four, but not many people come over here unless they have a reason to. Am I being the bearer of bad news?”
“Maybe not,” Theon whispers, looking like he’s doing some maths in his head. Davos decides to take pity on him.
“Listen, let’s just assume that you have told me nothing but that I just got there myself based on that question and what I’ve seen. You don’t have to say anything but that’s just to make sure you get whatever maths you’re doing right.”
“You don’t have to -”
“Come sit down, you look like you’re going to faint in a moment.”
Theon silently follows him - Davos goes behind the bar and motions for him to take a seat at the front. He kind of hopes it might look less formal of a setting.
“First thing, are you sure you don’t want a drink? I tend to not offer any to people before midday but you look like you sorely need one.”
“Maybe later,” Theon doesn’t disagree.
“Okay, so, let’s say that whatever happened to you and Jeyne, you had to run from Birmingham. I mean, makes sense if you’re asking me how far we are. Now, given the state of at least your shoes yesterday, you walked here, but I doubt it was all the way from Birmingham.”
“No,” Theon admits in a thin voice. “I - there was enough money for two bus tickets. Until Newport. That took two hours. Maybe.”
“Right. So you waked from Newport, which I guess must have taken you at least a couple days? Three?”
“Could be,” Theon says, looking down at his injured hand.
“I imagine you stopped here because it was more or less the literal end of the road, wasn’t it?”
“Pretty much.”
“Well, given that no one ever walks here - not even people who come to climb rocks come walking -”
“People come here to climb rocks?”
At least one genuine question, Davos figures.
“Hey, you have barely seen the place. It’s full of beaches and there’s this one where people do come for rock climbing, it’s hardly someplace I’d advise young people to live in but it’s nice. I ended up buying out this specific establishment because I liked the view.”
“... There’s a view?”
Right, maybe Davos has to rectify this, though - not right now. He needs to finish the previous conversation first.
“In a moment. So, no one ever walks here. So unless you stopped overnight -”
“No, we didn’t. We did in Newport, but that was it.”
“Then I doubt many people saw you. Which means that whoever might be looking for you at best can track you as far as Newport, and then good luck guessing where you ended up. Don’t worry, if they actually managed to reach that conclusion and ran into Stannis he wouldn’t tell them that you ever were seen in his station. I doubt people might track you here without being given a clue. Does that make you feel any better?”
“... it does. I’m sorry if -”
“Stop apologizing, there’s no need. And as far as the view goes, if you can handle being outside for a minute -”
“I can handle a lot.”
He doesn’t add anything else. Davos stands up and goes towards the staff door and the stairs - Theon follows him even if he doesn’t look too steady on his feet. While passing through the apartment, Davos grabs one of his wool scarves and keeps it to himself until he has brought Theon to another flight of stairs.
“Here,” he says, “it’s cold outside regardless of how much you can handle.”
“I don’t need -”
“Humor me.”
Theon puts the scarf on and Davos walks up the stairs and opens the door that leads to the pub’s roof.
For some kind of miracle, it’s not raining today. There aren’t even clouds and a pale sun is shining down. The pub is on the outskirts of the small town, and you can see a sizable stretch of green grass that turns into a small beach and eventually gives way to the sea. Given that the sun’s shining somehow the water looks sparkly and clear and it looks a lovely shade of azure - Davos doesn’t look at the view, though. He has seen that every day for the last four years or so. He looks at Theon’s face instead - he can see his eyes go a bit wider, his lips part slightly as he breathes in and the wind makes a mess out of his hair.
“I bought it out when I saw the view,” Davos says, breaking the silence. “I figured - I spent all of my life down a mine and I barely even saw the sun or breathed fresh air when I was working, this seemed like a nice change. And it wasn’t too far from Bridgend. Where my pit was. See what I meant?”
“I do,” Theon says, and he sounds - he sounds like he’s not humoring Davos. “I really do.”
Davos doesn’t ask for explanations and only goes back inside when he sees that Theon’s feeling the cold regardless of the scarf.
“So, it’s a hole of a small town, but it could be an uglier one,” Davos says as they go down the stairs.
He’s sure Theon’s muttered something like as if that’s the problem, which makes sense given that he’s probably had to endure worse than having to forcibly reside in small towns in the middle of nowhere. They’re back in the apartment when he realizes that maybe he should find Theon some clothes that aren’t nightwear. Except that he thinks he has no other option than that same box he found the rest before.
Well, he supposes he should explain the situation -
“Can - can I ask - I mean, these aren’t your clothes?”
… At least he’s not going to have to introduce the topic.
“Not really, but - just sit on the sofa, this requires some background explanation.”
Theon does, gingerly, as if he’s not adjusted to sit someplace with cushions.
“So, those are - were - my son’s.”
“You - you have a son? I’m sorry, I shouldn’t - I can put back mine -”
“Lad, calm down. Never mind that he wouldn’t have minded it, he died in a car accident during the strikes.”
Theon pretty much blanches at that. “I’m -”
“You couldn’t have known and I certainly didn’t tell you before, did I? Calm down, it’s been a long time and there was nothing to be done - the guy who hit his car was drunk and going over speed limit and it was over in a minute at most. Me and his mother are still friends but we really - we tried to stay together after, but in between that, the fact that I wasn’t working because of the strikes and the fact that we all lost our jobs it just - didn’t work anymore. After the pit closed we both moved - she’s gone back to her family’s in Cardiff and just moves a lot around for work so I don’t see her as much as one could be we do talk regularly. I used the severance pay from the pit’s closing to buy this place out and I ended up taking Matthos’s things with me, I couldn’t quite bring myself to throw them away. Which is why I have those clothes. I can give you at least a couple changes more after I give them a wash -”
“Please, you don’t have to -”
“At least they’d have some use other than lying in my darned closet gathering dust. I’ll just go and get them out. If you want to talk to your friend or something I can call Stannis and see if he can arrange it?”
“No, I mean, maybe - maybe later. You’ve already done too much, I - I’ll just - I took up too much of your time already, I’ll be out of your hair.”
“You weren’t bothering me or anything but whatever you’d like. If you’ll be in the guest room I can bring the clothes when they’re washed. If you want lunch I’ll put something together around midday.”
“Thank you, but I don’t think there’ll - I mean. Breakfast was enough. For now. Thanks again, I don’t know how to -”
“Save that, it’s fine.”
Theon just stands up as quickly as someone can in those conditions and heads for the guest room. Davos sighs and just goes to get some regular clothes from that darned box before putting them in the wash, then figures he’s going to get down to business. He has a joint to run, after all.
He’s not surprised when Theon doesn’t come down for lunch, or when he doesn’t come down at all, but Davos figures he needs space and just leaves the washed and dried clothes in front of the door later that afternoon, calls Stannis to update him as much as he can on the situation, opens up and serves alcohol to most of his regulars as usual for the rest of the evening.
He’s woken up again in the middle of the night by muffled screaming.
He still doesn’t dare go to the guest room.
--
Marya calls him for their customary check-in phone call that next morning. He tells her everything.
“Wait, so you just - took him in? Just like that?”
“Anyone with some basic sense of decency would have,” Davos says. “It’s not the first time I do it, anyway.”
“It sounds different,” she says.
“How?”
“The other times you didn’t sound half as concerned. Then again, I still don’t think that living there on your own while talking to four people regularly that aren’t your clients is the best idea you ever had, so if you have company it can’t be too bad.”
“I had enough company for years,” he sighs. He couldn’t deal with working with a large group of people again after having lost the pit job, not when he had to see most of his friends in even worse luck than him and when he’d have been reminded of it every other moment. Besides, at most he could have gone into a factory and he was frankly tired of that kind of work.
“Sure, tell that lie to someone else. And if you ever want to take a drive and have a coffee, I’m in Cardiff for the entire next month.”
“I’ll let you know. Thanks. But really, I’m doing fairly decently. My guest could do better, but -”
“Then let me know if he does get better. If he doesn’t, you’re already doing a fair lot from what it seems to me.”
He doesn’t disagree even if it hardly feels like he’s doing a lot. It really doesn’t.
--
The next few days are fairly uneventful, and Davos couldn’t say in which sense. The positive is that at least Theon gets downstairs every day for breakfast and lunch or dinner, never both of them. For the rest he’s spent all of his time locked up in the guest room - the only thing Davos is sure of is that he takes a quick shower each day, but that’s about it. He doesn’t push it - he could bet money that if there’s one thing his guest might need is space and he won’t be the one saying no. Stannis does drop by regularly and informs him that Jeyne seems to be doing halfway decently - or better, she’s apparently talking to the other girls living or studying in the convent, though she hasn’t said a word about what she had been doing before. Davos does tell Stannis that whoever they were running from is probably in Birmingham, but refrains from sharing other information - he only shared that in case someone from there dropped by at the police station asking for them.
Overall, he figures things could be worse.
Until one week after receiving the phone call, he leaves earlier than usual in the morning because he has to go to the bank down in Porthcawl to pay off his monthly mortgage. He walks out of it thinking that at least he only has another three years to go before it’s entirely paid off and he’s more than halfway there, and after all it’s not as if he has anything else to spend his money on so at least things are balancing themselves out. Sure, he’s never going to be as relatively rich as the people who can afford to vote bloody Thatcher, but he’s not going to arrive at his retirement age without a penny. That’s something.
He heads back to base, figuring that he’ll just go and clean things up since last night he was tired enough that he decided to forego it.
And then he walks inside the pub to find the bar cleaned up, all the chairs on the tables and Theon sweeping the floor. He’s so intent on the job that he doesn’t notice Davos walking in or so it seems, at least until Davos clears his throat and he looks up from his broom and dust pan with a somehow guilty expression.
“Well,” Davos says, slowly, “thanks for saving me the work. You didn’t have to.”
“I - I kind of do,” Theon replies, not quite looking up at him.
“And I’m saying you don’t, but thanks for that anyway. Can I ask why is it or -”
“I’m not - I mean, I can’t pay you for the hassle, and you were hardly asking to get saddled with - with the current situation you’re in, and I -”
He stops when he notices that Davos has seen that the kitchen’s door is open. He hadn’t cleaned anything up there either yesterday, but -
He walks inside and sees that it’s all sparkly clean. Fine, the glasses and plates are on the counters rather than in their cupboards but Theon probably didn’t know where they were supposed to go.
Davos turns back towards his guest. “Let me tell you, you’re better at this than about most of the men I ever seen having to deal with cleaning a kitchen in my entire life.”
“I - let’s say I had to learn. For reasons.”
“You don’t have to tell me. But - all right. Listen, let’s sit down and moment and discuss this.”
Theon swallows, looking more or less terrified of how this conversation might turn out, but he does sit at the table Davos has in the center of the kitchen.
“First thing out of the way, you’re not in trouble for having spared me three hours of work here, don’t worry. Second thing, why is it that you think you have to?”
For a moment there’s just silence, then Theon starts speaking, though he looks definitely down at his hands, and Davos would like to know how he managed with a few splintered fingers and a missing one.
“I don’t have anywhere to go,” he finally says.
“I had quite gotten that far, or you wouldn’t have ended up here,” Davos says, taking care to not sound reproachful.
“Well, I can’t - stay here without doing anything.”
“And if I said you could? Hypothetically.”
Theon shakes his head at once. “I’m taking up that room and I’m not paying for food and -”
“I wasn’t renting that room in the first place, you know.”
“So maybe you weren’t looking for roommates,” Theon says, still not quite looking up at him. “And - on top of that - I can’t - I need something to do. But I can’t leave. Not for now.” Now he sounds almost as if he’s begging, fuck’s sake.
“Okay,” Davos says slowly, “let’s have something in the open. If helping out is what you want I could use a hand, after you take those splinters off.”
“It’s not a problem -”
“Sorry, whatever happened to that hand of yours, you don’t want to make it worse. That said, you don’t have to. If I hadn’t wanted anyone around I’d have told Stannis no the moment he called. Also, I guess that if your father voted for that harpy you weren’t properly informed about how the strike worked?”
Theon sighs. “I wasn’t, though - not exactly because of him. Why?”
“Because while we were striking, we didn’t survive on the air we breathed. People were helping us out direct and the union’s funds were blocked - it’s not like we were getting paid either. Others helped. Associations, the likes. What was that one, ah, right, lesbians and gays support the miners, they showed up at our pit a couple times as well. We didn’t hold out for a year and some out of sheer luck. Except that in the end we lost that battle and I can’t do a thing about that. However, I can do something to help others out if I can. I mean, I’m not bloody bankrupt and I can afford to give some back to others since if I’m not bankrupt right now it’s also because others supported us back in the day. So you don’t have to do anything and I’m not going to kick you out on principle. Now, given all of that, if you still want to help out all right, but I just want out in the open that I’m not requiring it if you need to stay a while. Clear?”
At that, Theon does finally look up at him, almost disbelievingly.
“Clear,” he answers, sounding none too sure of it. “But I want to. I’d - I’d just feel better if I did.”
“All right. After you get those off. That’s mandatory.”
“Okay, but again, it’s really not -”
“I’m not putting you to clean anything with - can I ask what happened there? Other than one being missing? You don’t have to tell me. I mean, are the others broken?”
“... Yes,” Theon admits..
“I’m not making you work with two broken fingers, fuck’s sake. I’m not a sadist.”
At that Theon openly blanches, and Davos doesn’t want to think that he might have hit a sore point here, but he might just have, and shit, does that mean he actually had to do it before? Or was it the sadist comment?
He figures it’s time to change the topic, and that’s when he notices what Theon’s wearing.
“Huh. That was my shirt once,” he says.
Theon looks down at the shirt in question - it’s an old Clash band shirt that Davos had eventually passed on to Matthos and that he hasn’t worn since.
“Uh, really?”
“Hey, forty-seven might be old for your standards but I’m not ancient, I love that band. Stannis doesn’t really agree.”
“What?”
Davos shrugs, not bothering to keep in the smirk. “It might not look like it, but he’s actually some ten years younger than me and I’m fairly sure that he thinks Wagner is too modern for his tastes.” Davos always found that fairly endearing, truth to be told. “However, I’m a lot less refined. I handed that down to Matthos because he liked them as much as I did and I figured that I was getting too old for band shirts anyway, but it doesn’t mean I changed my mind.”
“I - I don’t think forty-seven is... old?” Theon asks, sounding like he’s not even too sure of how it’s going to be received. “I mean. I guess you should wear what you want if you can.” He visibly shudders. “Anyway, I wouldn’t know. I don’t think I ever listened to them anyway.”
“What? How?”
Theon shrugs again. “My family’s taste in music - uh. Let’s say it’s not their area. And then - well. It wasn’t for anyone else I lived with. So. I wouldn’t know.”
Davos can’t help noticing that it’s at least one size too big for him but he’s not even surprised by that.
“Did you have breakfast yet?”
“Uh, no. I could cook it, but -”
“You’re not using that hand. Especially if you’ve done it until now. Well, I guess I can put on some record of theirs while I cook it, fuck listening to the news. I mean, given that you might wanna wear that again you should at least try them out. I have a London Calling tape lying around somewhere.”
Theon looks like he’s about to tell him to not go out of his way but then thinks back on it - then again, Davos did just say that he likes that band so he couldn’t possibly do anything displeasing now, could he. The tape is next to the player he sometimes turns on in the evenings - he usually just sticks with the radio so that most customers are happy with the news or whatever it is that it passes but not always. He pushes it in in and turns the player on - they’ll hear it in the other room anyways.
He comes back into the kitchen as Joe Strummer sings that war’s declared and battle’s come down and heads for the refrigerator to grab some eggs - by the time he has scrambled them and grabbed some toast and bacon the record has reached Hateful and Theon’s looking - like someone who’s listening with some attention.
“So, what do you think? Don’t worry, you can say it if you hate it.”
“I - I don’t.”
That’s when Davos realizes that he actually looks as if he’s nodding along with what they’re hearing.
Oh, anything I want he gives it to me
Anything I want he gives it, but not for free
It's hateful
And it's paid for and I'm so grateful to be nowhere
This year I've lost some friends
Some friends? What friends?
I dunno, I ain't even noticed
“No, I think - I think I like it,” Theon finally says.
“Well, then you have great taste. Food’s almost ready, by the way, but if after we’re done you want to bring this upstairs feel free to.”
“Really? I mean, if you need it -”
“I have a radio down here. You can bring it up as long as it comes back down at some point.”
“... Thanks,” Theon says, and he actually looks tentatively excited about that.
Davos is going to be thankful that he’s not apologizing for anything and shoves the eggs in front of him, and tries to not think about the possible implications of what it might mean that he seemed to be relating to that specific song.
Theon does, in fact bring that player upstairs. He returns it two weeks later when Luwin, the local doctor in Porthcawl who had splintered up his fingers in the police station when he arrived, comes back at Stannis’s request and says that he’s good to go even if he shouldn’t put too much effort on that hand.
After his tape’s returned, Davos can’t resist from asking the question. “So, you got a favorite song at this point?”
Theon shrugs. “Could be. Probably Hateful,” he says, sounding like someone who’s marveling at the fact that he’s standing here, expressing a casual preference.
Davos somehow isn’t surprised.
“Do you have one?”
Wait, did he actually ask a question?
Davos smirks ever so slightly. “Sure, though it’s not on that record. I Fought the Law. Story of my life,” he says, and Theon doesn’t quite laugh but for a moment he looks like - someone his age, Davos figures, not like someone who can’t stop looking over their shoulder. Bless Joe Strummer for that, too, then.
--
Fact is: Davos doesn’t really want to know how it is that Theon’s plenty good at cleaning up the place efficiently, but when it comes down to it he’s better and faster at it than Davos is when left on his own - three weeks after he starts helping out Davos’s kitchen and floors are so sparkly clean that a few people ask him jokingly if he hired a maid or something. Davos says no, but he can’t help recognizing that you can see the difference. He’s almost tempted to ask Theon if he can also cook halfway decently but he already feels bad about Theon actually doing any work at all and so he doesn’t.
What he doesn’t like is that he hasn’t ever seen Theon leave the place unless it was to go to on visits where Stannis has more or less arranged for him and Jeyne to meet about once a week, and Gendry comes to drive him anyway. It can’t be healthy, not if he thinks about Theon’s face when they went out on the roof, and especially for someone that young - it’s not really right.
Never mind that it’s fucking sad to pass in front of the guest room and see that it’s still empty of anything that wasn’t there first.
Which is when Davos realizes that maybe it’s also because Theon can’t actually have money to buy something with now, can he?
He considers the matter for a short while and then does a bit of maths before deciding it’s actually doable, and the next day he comes to find Theon in the morning as he cleans the bar as usual by this point.
“So,” he says, “you’ve been cleaning my floor for a month. Don’t worry, I’m not kicking you out.”
“How did you know -”
“It was written on your face. Relax. I just have to give you something.”
Then he slides an envelope across the table and Theon reaches out to take it with the maimed hand. Davos is halfway sure most of his nails are regrowing. Fuck, he doesn’t want to know. Not really.
Anyway, he looks back up at Theon as he opens it - his eyes go so wide it would almost be comical, and then he closes it again and puts it back on the bar.
“I can’t take it,” Theon finally says.
“And why’s that?”
“I’m not - I’m not doing this for - you don’t have to, the point was that -”
“The point was that you didn’t have to and you’re also doing it to distract yourself, which is fine. But I mean, given that you’ve done a pretty damn good job and that I was raised to believe that hard work should be rewarded, I don’t see what’s the problem if I pay you some. It’s not even that much but honestly, I can’t more or less employ someone working for free. It’s completely against my ethics.”
“It’s not - I did what?”
“A damn good job. I’m just telling the truth. And please take the money and go buy yourself something. This is hardly central London, but if you want to buy yourself some clothes there’s a thrift shop near the place where the tourist pass to reach the climbing rocks. I can tell you where it is or I can come with you on closing day if you want.”
“... Really?”
“Sure. This isn’t a prison. And I think you earned to spend some money on yourself.”
“If only,” Theon mutters to himself, but then he takes the envelope again and counts the money another time. He’s looking entirely too much like someone who had not expected it and wasn’t expecting it at any point for Davos to not feel somewhat horrified all over again. “Are you sure? I don’t want to -”
“Listen, if my former union rep saw that envelope he’d tell me I’m not worthy of carrying a card because if we count how much that is hourly, I gave you way less than minimum wage pay. I’m sure. Tomorrow I just open in the evening, if you want to go I can show you.”
He has a feeling that Theon might not want to go on his own. “If it’s not a bother -”
“I offered, didn’t I?”
“Then - I guess - thanks, Mr. -”
“Listen, how about I don’t have to feel like someone’s granddad and you call me Davos? Seriously, last time someone called me Mister it was that bank employee who worked over my mortgage payment, I’m not going to feel personally offended if we’re not formal.”
“I - okay. I guess. It’s just that - never mind. Thanks. Davos.”
Finally, Davos doesn’t say. “You’re welcome.” He doesn’t give him a pat on the back just because it was enough of a breakthrough on its own, better not to push it.
The next morning he waits for Theon outside the pub’s entrance and decides that at least he’s going to try and convince him to get a coat - Davos doesn’t have any in his size and it’s fucking early February in Wales, he can’t go around with his threadbare jacket and the only sweater Davos had lying around in his closet that would fit him - his own would be too large and there was just one in the godforsaken box. Good thing that he dropped by at Mance’s shop yesterday afternoon and made sure that he wouldn’t ask questions - people in town do know that there’s someone living at his place because he’s paying Stannis a favor, and they’re usually fairly laid back and they actually like him (and his establishment), so he doubts that anyone’s gossiping, but the last thing Theon needs is questions from complete strangers, probably.
Mance has a nice shop - it’s small, barely one room and a small other for changing, and it’s all second-hand, but then again it’s not like Aberogwr is the kind of fancy town where people go for designer clothes - most people just go over to Bridgend if they want any, or Cardiff if they feel particularly adventurous. The good thing is that it’s cheap - Davos couldn’t spare more than seventy quid at short notice and he feels horrible about that - fuck’s sake he’s in the bloody labour party, paying someone that much for working a full month feels like betraying his own principles -, but hopefully it’s gonna be enough for more than one change of clothes.
Davos stops in front of the door before getting in, then looks at Theon who seems about ready to bolt. “Are you all right?”
“I’ll be,” he answers. Not what Davos was hoping for, but still.
“I’ll just talk to him while you look around.”
“Uh, thanks. I just - never mind. I’m fine.”
“Sure. And listen, you don’t have to buy what I tell you to or anything, but he does have a few decent coats stashed usually. I’d look through them, you can’t afford to go around in that thing much longer.”
Theon gives him a curt nod and Davos just walks in figuring he won’t let him freeze on the outside for real, good thing it’s not raining.
Mance, thank fuck, sticks to what they had agreed on yesterday - says hi, doesn’t ask for less formalities when Theon goes all Mister on him as well and sticks to talking shop to Davos while Theon looks around the place. Davos decides that next time Mance comes in for a drink it’s on the house when he keeps up the act for ten minutes straight, even if it’s obvious he’s itching to ask if the lad needs help - it’s his job, after all.
“I, er, can I try some?” Theon finally asks some twenty minutes after they come in, interrupting their chatter.
“Sure. There’s the changing room, knock yourself out.”
Theon disappears inside it with a stack of things.
“Well,” Mance says, his tone of voice suddenly dropping lower, “whatever happened to him sure as hell wasn’t a walk in the park.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Davos sighs, “but let’s just not mention in. It’s enough that he’s actually come all the way over here.”
“By the way, I don’t have to tell you that people might have started to chitchat about it, do I?”
“Shit, where.”
“Well, not here. No one gives a fuck and we haven’t for ages, it’s not the first time you lend people a bed just ‘cause Inspector Baratheon asked nicely. No, it’s more about his wife.”
“The hell is Selyse up to now?”
“Nothing different than usual, she’s just going to use anything she can for her custody battle even if given that her daughter wants to stay with her father she should just give it up. So she’s basically telling each and every of her friends that you’re housing some maybe-criminal who ended up at her fomer husband’s workplace. Which of course is just a given since you also had your run-ins with the law. The usual.”
“Christ. Well, if anyone asks I volunteered, I guess, it’s not like it’s illegal. Then you wonder why she hates me.”
“She hates you because you’re a bloody socialist and because you and her husband got along better in three weeks than she has in ten years of marriage, don’t flatter yourself too much.”
Davos has to laugh at that - nothing to argue on that point - and that’s when they hear the door of the changing room open. Theon, who’s again in his old clothes, discards some stuff on a chair, then moves closer. His hands are visibly shaking.
“Er. These - should be good,” he says. Mance just nods and starts looking through the clothes. There’s a black coat, thankfully, some three pairs of jeans along with a couple of heavy pajamas, then there’s - a stack of dull gray and black sweaters that Davos thinks his own grandfather would have hated wearing. Also, a stack of flannel shirts. The moment Mance grabs one Theon can’t avoid making a face suggesting that he doesn’t really like that specific item of clothing, either.
“Mance, can you give us a moment?” Davos asks.
“Sure,” he says. “I’ll go check a thing in the backroom, but you owe me a drink.”
“Make it three,” Davos agrees. Then, when he’s gone, he looks again at Theon, who on his part looks like someone who’s expecting a bloody scolding.
“You know,” Davos says, “I understand this place has hardly a great choice, but I’m sure you can pick something you like better than flannel.”
“Uh, I don’t dislike it?”
“You obviously loathe the idea of wearing that stuff. And I’m fairly sure those sweaters are fucking ugly, mind that my wife used to tell me that I only wore brown and gray because my fashion sense was so terrible I knew I couldn’t go wrong with those and never strayed. You can get whatever you want, you don’t have to go for that if you don’t like them.”
“I don’t - I mean, it’s complicated.”
“Try me.”
“I don’t know if I can say it.”
At least he’s talking.
“Okay, humor me. Can I see something you actually like in here?”
“I liked the coat,” Theon admits.
“Fine. Other than that?”
Theon shrugs, looking resigned, and moves back towards the sweaters rack. He rummages a bit, then grabs this one which is - well. Not dull and not cut for someone completely unimaginative, Davos supposes. It’s still heavy, but it’s not that coarse wool that probably itches like fuck. It’s soft wool, dark green with a few random abstract patterns sewn into it in black. Very - refined, actually. Almost distinguished, Davos would say.
“Now I’d like to know how Mance ended up with something this nice in this hole,” Davos just says.
“Wait, that’s - that’s what - sorry, I didn’t mean to -”
“How about you just say what you were about to say?”
“... That’s the only thing you have to say?” Davos thinks it might have sounded maybe a bit insolent in another life and for a moment he thinks, was this how you might have used to sound?
“What else should I say?”
“... That just a girl would wear it?”
“And even if it was the case? I mean, that bloody harpy can run a country, someone with a prick can wear a nice sweater by that reasoning. Sure as fuck it’s less grim than the ones you had over there.”
“That’s - logical,” Theon has to agree.
“Good. Now how about you get out of that pile whatever you think real men should wear and grab something you actually might want to wear? For that matter, if you really want to know what I think of it, I’m fairly sure that most of the real men from that gays and lesbians association who used to bring us extra money wore bloody lilac and it didn’t make them any less real men. Or at least, to me they definitely were.”
“... Lilac might be excessive,” Theon says cautiously. Was that supposed to be sarcasm? Davos hopes it was.
“Good thing for both of us that I don’t think it’s the range of colors Mance deals in. Just buy yourself what you want, you earned that money. Also there’s nothing wrong with what girls wear, consider that as well when you have time.”
Davos goes to get Mance so that Theon can have some extra privacy - when they’re both back, the flannels are gone and the ugly sweaters are, too. In their place there are some regular button-up shirts in colors that are not black and grey - Davos can see light grey, light blue, a red one and a black one, a few random t-shirts and long sleeved undershirts and a few sweaters all in the same vein as the first one he saw before.
“I, uh, I’m done?” Theon says nervously. Mance rings it up - it ends up being some forty-five quid total. Theon keeps on looking flabbergasted through paying and getting the change. Mance thankfully treats it as a regular business transaction before bagging everything up.
“Well, that was good. I guess you won’t ever give me this much money at once, but it could be worse. Just wash all of that before wearing it. Except the coat, I guess.”
Good thinking, Davos figures. Mance doesn’t bag that one and Theon puts it on - well, Davos notices as they leave after saying goodbye, it’s a good coat. Second hand, sure, but it has a very… refined cut? He doesn’t know how to say it, he barely even looks twice at the things he buys as long as they fit him, but sure as fuck someone in between the two of them does have a clue of how to dress.
They’re going back with Theon bringing all the bags, he refused to let Davos carry any, and Davos figures he should just say it. “You know,” he says, “having a fashion sense is not a crime. And if you want to keep any of the stuff you were already wearing do it, I wasn’t having a use for it regardless. Though I guess none of that really fits you.”
“Thanks,” Theon replies without looking at him. Davos doesn’t push it. Three hours later, all the clothes he had given him the first night are returned, neatly folded, except for the Clash shirt.
Davos smirks to himself and doesn’t ask back for it.
--
“I still think our resident psychologist should take a page from your book,” Stannis tells him the next morning. He’s come in for breakfast after walking his four kilometers as usual and he’s glancing at Theon, who’s currently in the kitchen washing plates. The door’s open, though, and that’s why one could see that he’s wearing things that at least fit him, including one of the new sweaters - it was the one in worse conditions when they bought it but it’s obviously soft wool, not coarse, of a nice red, and it’s a bit large but not overtly so.
“What?”
“For real. When he tried to talk to the both of them they didn’t tell him a thing and the nuns surely could not get anything out of his friend, and it looks like she’s fine as far as it doesn’t imply going outside for any reason or actually talking about what happened to her. He has been here instead and he’s up and about and you at least know where the hell they came from, you’re a miracle worker.”
“Sure as fuck I’m not,” Davos says, “and well, okay, it’s definitely miles better than when they arrived here, but he couldn’t believe his own eyes when I paid him for that work. And it wasn’t even bloody proper payment.”
“I should tell your representative.”
“Please don’t, he’d have my head and he’d be right. Anyway, your resident psychologist has been an idiot since forever, anyone would do better.”
“I will not be the person arguing with you,” Stannis sighs. “Then again, I also should tell you that his friend wants to talk to you.”
“Jeyne?”
“Indeed. She specifically requested that. And she hoped it could be face to face. Can we arrange that the next time he visits? Or maybe she could visit, the nuns already want to murder Gendry for daring to bring a man to their humble abode once per week.”
“I don’t remember it being humble.”
“That’s because it isn’t. So, what should I tell her?”
“Sure. Of course she can visit, did you think I’d say no?”
Instead of replying, Stannis takes a sip of his pomegranate juice - he’s about the one person coming here who drinks it, but Davos couldn’t quite bring himself to take it off the menu since at least he orders it every other day.
Then -
“Wait, he has been here for what, a month and some, and you already corrupted him with your pathetic excuse for music?”
Right, because London Calling is playing in the kitchen.
“Joe Strummer isn’t a pathetic excuse for anything and you need to graduate from bloody opera.”
“Not quite yet, I think. Very well, then tomorrow Gendry is going to bring her over. Don’t corrupt her, too, even if I guess it would be better than whatever the nuns think is appropriate for young girls in their care.”
Davos doesn’t even want to know what is that the nuns in question deem appropriate if they have issues with those two even talking.
The next day, Gendry drives Jeyne at four PM sharp - at least she isn’t looking at the ground when she walks in, and she does immediately agree to call him Davos. She’s wearing a dress and coat that can only be described as modest, of a dull gray that doesn’t really agree with how young she is or how pretty she looks when she smiles, but he figures that it’s what you find when you live with, well, nuns.
“I’ll go get him now, if you want to?” He asks. “He’s upstairs but -”
“Actually, I was hoping I could talk with you first?”
“Sure.” He sits down at one of the tables, motioning for her to do the same. She looks down at her hands, then up at him. He can see some fading bruises on her collarbone, showing up from the dress’ turtleneck - at least they’re fading.
“Can - can I ask you what you know? I mean. About - about how we ended up here.”
“As in, what he told me or what I deduced?”
“It doesn’t make much of a difference.”
“That you ran away from Birmingham and his father was a patented arsehole is what I’m sure about, the rest - let’s say I don’t like to presume. Also, that wherever he comes from he’s had a pretty fucked turnaround of things in general, not just whatever you’re running from. Did I get anything wrong?”
“No,” she agrees, “you aren’t. Well - I can’t - I mean, until he chooses to talk I can’t either, I owe him that much.”
She looks at him as if she expects him to ask for a clarification. “Fine,” he says, “as long as you both agree on that. Stannis isn’t in a hurry to hear you out anyway and I don’t think the nuns have an expiration date to their charity.”
“Do you?”
Davos shrugs. “Not really. Never mind that he’s saving me from cleaning up the kitchen, which is the part of the job I dislike most, but it’s not like I was needing that room, and if someone else is in the place it’s not a bother.”
Whatever she sees in his face obviously convinces her that he’s trustworthy, because then she produces a small paper bag from the bigger one she had with her.
“I have a favor to ask you then,” she says.
“All right.”
“It’s - his birthday tomorrow. He probably wouldn’t have told and - never mind. Can you give him this from me? Without looking at what’s inside?”
“Sure.” He takes the sealed paper bag - there’s something wrapped inside, and an envelope, he can feel the shape. “Tomorrow, you said?”
“I’d have come myself but it’s Sunday and it’s complicated, given where I’m living right now. Thank you.”
“Don’t bother. By the way, you knowing when’s his birthday means you actually knew each other for a while?”
She half-smiles - her bottom lip has a small scar on the side, as if someone split it open a while ago and it hasn’t quite healed yet. “Maybe. You’re observant, Mr. - sorry, Davos.”
“When you live here for more than six months either you turn observant or you die of boredom, but thank you. If you want to go upstairs he should be there.”
“I will, thank you.”
He watches her go, then hides the package in the drawer under his cash register. When she leaves one hour later she looks sadder than she had when she came in.
“Is something wrong?” He asks her before she can get outside where Gendry’s car is.
“Not really, it’s just - nothing out of turn. But - I’m really glad he ended up here.”
Then she pretty much runs out of the door and Davos is left standing near the cash register. Well, it’s nice to have endorsement from her of all people, at least. He opens the drawer, looks at the sealed paper bag and then closes it again, thinking that it’s pretty sad if that is your only present. Then again he’s half sure that if he tried to do anything about it himself it might not be too well-received given that he’s pretty sure Theon hasn’t spent a penny of the shamefully little amount of money Davos handed him for the second month of kitchen cleaning.
He ponders the situation throughout the evening - good thing that there was a game on and he’s installed a television exactly to capitalize on that kind of event, so he makes fairly decent money - and by the end he thinks he reached a decent compromise.
He just hopes it works out.
--
The next day, he goes about his business as usual. He comes downstairs to find Theon doing his usual business, too - the kitchen’s so clean you could look at yourself in the tiles. Davos is sure that his own mother, who proudly declared herself a cleaning freak, was not as thorough with it back in the day.
He’s also wearing that Clash shirt again, even if he doesn’t put it on too often these days. Davos doesn’t exactly know what to make of the fact that he’d wear it on his birthday, but never mind it.
“Good morning,” he says. “Any breakfast preferences?”
“Uh, not really. Whatever you have.”
As usual, then. Well, it’s been ages but he thinks he can come up with something more decent than the usual scrambled eggs. Theon moves on to sweep the floor in the main room, not that he needs to but Davos has given up on convincing him not to.
When Davos brings up a plate of pancakes with what fruit he could scrounge up last time he went to buy groceries - it’s February 14th, there’s a limit to the choice of fresh fruit you find in Porthcawl’s market if you can’t go farther than that - Theon’s eyes go so wide it’d be comical, if it wasn’t really just adding to the list of things that are making Davos feel disturbed lately.
“Is - you usually have eggs?”
“Yes, but I thought I might spice it up. Since it’s a special occasion and all.”
“Special… occasion?”
Davos goes to the cash register and grabs the bag.
“This,” he says bringing it over, “is from Jeyne, who left it yesterday. Happy birthday, by the way. I figured you could take a break from eggs for once.”
“What, did she - did she - seriously?”
“Seriously. Take it, I doubt it’s going to bite you. Eat however many you want, I think you can indulge.”
For a moment Theon’s face just looks blank, but then he gives him a small nod. “Uh, thanks. I really - I mean, it’s not a great deal.”
“Possibly. Can I ask how many is it?”
Theon eats the bite of pancake he had cut a moment before, then he looks down as his fork stabs into a piece of apple.
“Nineteen,” he says, before eating that too, not looking at Davos as he talks, and fuck but Davos had thought he was in his mid twenties. What the hell did even happen to him, he thinks, and suddenly he doesn’t think he’s that hungry anymore, but he should pretend he’s not fucking disturbed by that statement, so he sits down at the table and eats a couple pancakes too. Theon does end up eating most of them, which just confirms Davos’s suspicions that he actually is lying when he says he’s fine with whatever small food portion he takes for himself every damned time.
“Well, if there’s anything you’d want to do just because, feel free to - I mean, the best you can hope for is a walk on the beach around these parts, but still. Or the rock climbing place. Even if you don’t climb rocks it’s still nice.”
“I wouldn’t even know how to get there.”
“I don’t open for lunch today. If you want to go then I can walk you there.”
“You’d just waste time, it’s -”
“I wouldn’t have been doing anything else with my time, don’t worry.”
“Well - okay then, but just if -”
“Good. Be down here at midday, I’ll leave you alone if you want to open that on your own.”
“I can just - go up, don’t bother.”
He grabs the package and hurries upstairs as if someone’s chasing him and Davos thinks, he’s fucking nineteen.
He wishes it was the most disturbing thing. Because the most disturbing thing he can think of is and what even happened on his last birthday?
--
Theon is downstairs at midday. He’s bundled up in that black coat he got from Mance and he also has around his neck a white wool scarf he had gotten along with everything else and good thing that because it’s fucking cold. Given how pale he is and how dark his hair is, even if there’s a few white hairs in between that really should not belong on anyone younger than twenty-five, it almost looks like everything is a deliberate fashion choice.
“Are you all right with walking? I can drive there.”
“No, no, walking - would be nice. Thank you.”
Well then. Davos heads for the car parking from which the path to the beach starts and Theon follows - he keeps up without looking too distressed. It’s not that long until they reach the parking area - there’s not many cars there, and when he glances downwards Davos can see that it’s mostly rock climbers. Then again, who’d bathe at this time of the year?
“Right. It’s just below, pay attention where you put your feet.” He starts going down and Theon does look downwards all the time, which means he’s probably missing the view, but never mind that. When his feet finally hit the shore and he moves away enough that he’s not obstructing the way.
“Right. You can have a look, you know.”
Theon does look up and his face gets that look it had on the roof back in January - the cold wind is messing up his hair as he stares at the wide expanse of sand and sea in front of him and Davos thinks that maybe now he does look closer to his age than at any point before.
“That’s - lovely,” Theon finally blurts out.
“I have to go to the next town over to find a cinema but this is a fairly decent consolation,” Davos agrees. You want to take a walk?”
“Why - why not,” Theon agrees, and then breathes in deeply, like someone who hasn’t had the chance to in a long while.
He’s probably not too far off the mark, is he?
Anyway, he keeps his mouth shut as they go on. He checks but it doesn’t look like Theon’s getting tired at any point soon, which he hadn’t expected for someone who barely even goes out, but he figures it’s a good thing, isn’t it? He says nothing until they reach a point where you have to at least climb over a few rocks in order to get to the other side, and it was a long distance all things considered. Theon turns back to look at the horizon line, his left hand loosely fisting a part of the scarf.
“It’s really nice,” he finally says. “I can see the merits.”
“In summer it’s even better. At least there’s the sun out sometimes.”
“I could do a lot worse.” Theon doesn’t comment further but Davos can believe that. “Do - do you mind if I just - stay here some?”
Davos hadn’t quite expected that, but he looks at the time and right, he should probably head back, he has some suppliers dropping by at two in the afternoon.
“Unless you need someone to unload -”
“I’ve done that on my own for years, I think you can spend your darned birthday however you want. And since I think you’re an adult, technically, you don’t have to ask me for permission or anything.”
Theon drops sitting on the ground at that, and Davos figures it’s high time he goes through with the rest of the plan. He rummages in his coat’s pocket, hoping that he hasn’t forgotten the thing back home, but no, he has it.
“By the way -”
“What?”
Davos says nothing before throwing one of his old tapes at Theon - he catches it at once, good reflexes indeed. It’s Combat Rock, which he doesn’t still like quite as much as London Calling but is still a bloody great record.
“I had a few friends who never checked what I owned or not back in the day before buying me Christmas presents and the likes. I have about four tapes for that record, you can have one and I won’t miss it.”
“But -”
“Come on, birthdays without at least a couple of presents are a sad affair. You know the way back, take your time.”
“All - all right. Thank you, it wasn’t -”
“It was nothing. Get back whenever, just don’t freeze out here when it gets dark.”
He doesn’t wait for the most probably inevitable round of thank yous he doesn’t need to hear and he heads back home. Theon does come back a few hours later, just after darkness falls, and he goes immediately upstairs - his cheeks are cold-flushed but at least it was a healthy flush, and Davos can see that he’s clutching the tape.
He doesn’t really mind that he can hear Straight to Hell playing faintly from the next room over as he goes to sleep. He resolutely doesn’t linger on thinking about how much Matthos used to do the same thing years ago.
--
A month and some goes by. Nothing of import really happens - Theon keeps on not spending the horribly low wages Davos pays him though at least he stops trying to return them, Davos’s establishment has never been so sparkly clean, Stannis says that no one has dropped by searching for them and keeps on telling Davos that they should just fire Janos Slynt and hire him in his place. The only other couple of times he sees Jeyne, she seems to be doing fairly decently all things considered. Actually, those two times Theon looked almost pained as he watched her leave, but Davos hadn’t inquired. All in all, everything is uneventful until one night Davos is woken up by serious screaming going on in the next room over - it’s not news either, generally, but this time it’s really bad, and he’s almost tempted to just get in the guest room and wake the poor bastard up when all of a sudden it stops.
Davos doesn’t move or say anything for a bit, but then he hears noises - the door opens and the bathroom’s does as well. He’s entirely not surprised to hear that Theon’s throwing up in there, and then - then he hears the water running for a short bit, and then he hears footsteps going downstairs.
He stands up, puts on a jacket over his pajamas because it’s fucking cold and he doesn’t turn on the heating downstairs at four in the morning, and he follows.
He finds Theon sitting at one of the tables, his head in between his hands, staring down at nothing towards the table top - or maybe he’s not staring at nothing.
“This is probably not what anyone responsible would ask,” Davos says, and Theon flinches a bit before turning towards him, “but you look like someone who might need a drink or ten. Do you think you might want one? I won’t get you anything that loaded.”
“As if it’d be a problem,” Theon blurts out. “But - fuck that. Yes. Please.”
As if it’d be a problem?
Davos shakes his head and finds some liquor on the sweet side - at least it might take the edge off throwing up - and pours it, then brings it over and sits on the other side, moving his chair from the table a bit lest he looks too invading.
“There you go.”
“Thanks,” Theon says, taking a sip. His hand is shaking. “Wow. That’s - good.”
“I wasn’t going to get you anything cheap, all things considered.”
“Sorry if I woke you up.”
“I can handle that, I think.”
There’s no answer for a long moment, and Davos notices that Theon’s hand is shaking harder.
“Listen, is there anything I could do or -”
“No,” Theon interrupts. “It’s - it’s me. I mean. It’s my fucking problem.”
Well, he has been cussing more now than in the last two months. Davos thinks maybe it’s not a bad thing altogether.
“I am the fucking problem.”
“I don’t really think -”
“No. I am. And Jeyne - she’s just - she’s ruining her life for that and I just can’t -”
“Wait, how is she ruining her life? She didn’t seem -”
“She doesn’t get it,” Theon says, sounding frustrated, and then he looks up at Davos with a face that says I might be trusting you right now don’t fuck it up. Davos just nods and -
“She wants to talk to the inspector.”
“Stannis? About where you came from and the likes?”
“She’s been wanting to for a month. But she’s not. Because I can’t. And it’s unfair and she should, but -”
“I don’t think blaming yourself is doing much good.”
“Yeah, well, that’s all I can do, since it’s my bloody fault. All of fucking it.”
“Whatever happened to you I sorely doubt -”
“No. It is. It just - oh, fuck this. Can I have another drink?”
“Sure. Why’s that?”
“I can’t be sober for this conversation.”
Davos thinks it might be a horrible idea, but he still stands up and brings the bottle along before refilling the glass. “Okay. Refill when you want.”
“God, thanks,” Theon says before downing an entire glass at once and shit, no one does that at his age unless he’s adjusted to it. Then he refills it again, takes another sip, and -
“I guess you worked out that my dad was a bloody asshole already.”
“Yeah, I might have.”
“Good. But it’s not - he owned this small fishing business near Liverpool,, but by the time I was born he already had managed to fuck it up because he was shit at accountability. I had two brothers and one sister - well, I have her still I guess, my brothers died when I was twelve. Rodrik was an accident at sea - I mean, he was inspecting the fishing boats, he was drunk when he showed up and managed to fall down from the pier.. Maron - he was another fucking idiot and got himself killed in a car accident. He was drunk when he was driving. Obviously. My mom never quite recovered from that blow - she died the next year over. Don’t say you’re sorry, I can see that on your face.”
“... All right,” Davos says, sounding horrified.
“My sister was sixteen at that point and she had kinda moved in with our uncle. On my mom’s side, he was the only sane person of the lot. He has a publishing house and she just started working for him and sent money home, he lives way up in Newcastle. I stayed.”
He sighs, then he grabs the long sleeve covering his arm and drags it upwards - Davos can’t help the flinch when he sees four cigarette burns scars littering the inside of Theon’s arm.
“That was -”
“Balon Greyjoy’s awesome parenting skills. Not the only visible results of it, but whatever. Back then he was pretty much a lost cause - he was drunk most of the time and he didn’t like that he had to partner up with his brothers so that he wouldn’t have to default on the fishing business. Anyway, the neighbors heard him one time too many and called child services on him. Long story short, Asha wasn’t living with us anymore but our uncle’s business is small and he lives alone and they were really too far, he couldn’t take me in, too. So they sent me off to a foster home figuring I might get back with my dad if he got himself back together. He never did, obviously.”
He takes another long drink.
“I imagine the foster home wasn’t that great either?”
“Actually, no. I mean - it wasn’t typical. I mean, for one it took a couple months to work it out because you know, difficult cases and the likes, and they only found me something in Birmingham so I had to move there, but it was either that or nothing. And - it was this family who had six kids already but lived in a freaking mansion or something and they had taken in a bunch of us to give back to the community and the likes. So it wasn’t just me, it was - me and another five coming from all over the country. Including Jeyne over there. And - like, the thing is that they were all very nice. All very decent. And I couldn’t really deal with it that well. I mean, I went from that to the fucking Hallmark cards family in the span of two months and given that I didn’t really mingle or anything they always mostly were - well. Nice. Polite. But I never really fit in. Except - shit, I need another drink.”
He finishes the glass and refills it again with shaking hands.
“Robb, uh, he was the eldest. Of the six kids. Was - is. Anyway, I think he had some kind of martyr complex or something because while everyone else gave up he never - really did? I mean, he spent some six months trying to make friends and eventually I gave in because he was a persistent little shit and you couldn’t resist too long. Then after that everyone was there asking him how did he even want to spend time with me, but he still - did, I guess. And - it was - well, fuck me, I didn’t have best friends before, and I’m not sure he was getting much out of it but it was the nicest time of my life. Pretty much. Then, since he was a smart bastard, he actually got into uni at barely seventeen and he won this scolarship on top of that. So he went off to Oxford, obviously, he’d have been an idiot not to. That was - one year and some ago.”
He stops, drinks half of the glass and then slams it down on the table with shaking hands.
“That was where I just - I couldn’t really deal. We were back at everyone is nice but no one cares, I was an almost eighteen year-old idiot, I was worried they’d kick me out the moment I turned legal and - and I ended up talking to the assholes living three blocks over. Or better. The asshole.”
Theon eyes the bottle, then shrugs and refills again. This is alarming, especially since he hasn’t started even slurring yet, and he’s drank… a lot.
“Fucking Ramsay. You know when you read those stories about people falling in with the wrong crowd? This idiot had it all. Sold pot, tortured innocent animals when he was a kid, probably, but then obviously figured he needed an upgrade, fuck him, and had this group of other assholes with him wasting their lives - he was some twenty-five when I ran into him. Christ, what an idiot. Anyway. I had the occasional drink but for the next few months I just - it wasn’t occasional any more. And I could see that Robb’s parents weren’t thrilled at all, after all they had a ten year old around, so I was barely in the house anymore and - anyway, some day they were all out camping or something, I mean all of them, including all the other foster kids. While I was with them since I stayed at home. Someone suggested having some fun and throwing a couple stones at the house’s windows, but you needed a key to get past the gate for it to be effective. Mansion and all. Guess what happened?”
“You provided it?”
“I was fucking hammered. I realized it was a bad idea the moment I did it, and I sort of tried to stop them, but then someone hit me at the back of the head and - yeah. I woke up in Ramsay’s fucking basement. With my hands tied.”
“Wait, you said that was close to a year ago?”
“Pretty much. My last birthday - not this one - was hardly a party.”
He raises his left hand. “That was him.”
“What?”
“All of it. It wasn’t even half of what he did. At some point I ended up sleeping with his dog because it was fucking cold and the basement didn’t have heating. That wasn’t the worst thing at all. I just - I can’t - I might throw up again if -”
“I don’t need further details,” Davos is quick to say.
“Good. Well, time passes. Then she shows up. Jeyne, I mean. She was alone in the house for some reason, same as I was, and had gone out to get groceries and - I don’t know why he decided he could play horror movie scenarios in fucking Birmingham, but that’s what happened. At least he didn’t throw her in the basement, as well, but - his bedroom was above it. I heard her screaming every damned other day. When he decided to reintroduce us - fuck.”
He downs another half glass. Now his hands are really shaking. “Anyway. I couldn’t - I mean, I had kind of given up there because hey, sure as fuck if they didn’t like me before, Robb’s parents and siblings hated me by then, my sister didn’t deserve her life ruined and imagine if my relatives would give a shit, and Robb - I pretty much went and proved him wrong about every damned good thing he might have thought about me. He was better off without me around. But I couldn’t let her - I just couldn’t. I had been there long enough to know where Ramsay kept the keys and the likes, and he went out for New Year’s because like hell he could let his dad suspect he had anything better to do - I figured it was then or never. I just grabbed the keys and Jeyne and stole some money from a wallet he had left lying around and we took that bus you guessed a while ago. No one wanted to sit next to me except her, blame them.”
“And why’s that?”
“I hadn’t had a shower in three weeks.” He does slur over that sentence and shit, he looks just so bloody hunched on himself at that, Davos is about to ask him to stop because he can’t take it but it’d be the worst idea in existence. “I had one at the motel we stopped at before, well, walking here. Anyway, the thing is - Jeyne, she was friends with Robb’s sister, same as we were, and I know she misses being there, and I know she wants to talk to the police because even if she doesn’t press charges at least she’d go back there. But she’s not doing it because I couldn’t handle it and - I don’t deserve that,” he finally blurts out.
“How so?”
“Please. They most probably hate me and the bare prospect of pressing charges and seeing that asshole again makes me want to throw up all over, never mind that his dad is rich enough that he’d just corrupt a couple of people and all of a sudden I’d have agreed to all that bloody charade of being tied up in the basement for months. Not like they’d have a problem justifying it since the moment a judge sees my child support case file they’d think I was a lost cause. But I can’t let her rot here when she doesn’t want to, and I know she’s lying when she says she doesn’t mind waiting.”
“I didn’t get that impression from her, but maybe she really doesn’t?”
“Yeah, well, as it is she might want to wait a long time. I can’t do it. I just - she should just go and talk to them anyway and fuck the rest.”
“Or maybe she doesn’t want to do it because she respects your wishes?”
“She shouldn’t.” It’s a sob by this point. “And it’s all my bloody fault, if only I hadn’t -”
“So you’re not going to give yourself any credit for, you know, getting her out?”
“It was the least. Shit, shit, I can’t - I thought - I thought saying it would make it better.”
“Sorry, you mean - telling me?”
“Telling someone. Aren’t you supposed to just feel better about it once you have it in the open?”
“Who says that?”
“Every other fucking therapist I talked to in my life from the moment social workers showed up on my door.”
“Is it working?”
“No. I mean, maybe I’m just relieved I don’t have to hide it anymore but it’s not - really - making it fucking better.”
He sounds like he’s trying to not break down crying, and Davos has an inkling of why he might be trying that, but it can’t be healthy in any way whatsoever.
He stands up, moves in behind Theon and tentatively puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezing ever so slightly.
“You know, if you’re trying to keep that in because you think real men shouldn’t or I’d think less of you, forget it and do it. If you don’t want me to be here it might take me another fifteen minutes to find you another bottle. Because I can’t really fault you if you want to get drunk until you can’t think anymore right now.”
“Please,” Theon blurts out. Davos squeezes his shoulder again and heads for the kitchen - he has more of that liquor in storage. He comes back ten minutes later and Theon’s eyes are so red it’s a miracle he can keep them open. Davos puts the already opened bottle on the table, trying to not feel too irresponsible about what he’s doing but honestly, it’s barely time for responsibility now.
“If you want an aspirin or ten tomorrow morning just ask. We can discuss whatever you want when you’re sober, how about it?”
“Thank you.” Theon’s voice is so tiny he can barely hear it.
Davos squeezes his shoulder again, very briefly, and goes upstairs thinking that Stannis’s psychologist would have his head, and the moment he’s in front of the bathroom he walks in, locks the door and throws up himself, because fuck that was worse than a horror movie, and he can barely wrap his head around how Theon is somehow that sure it was his fault when teenagers do dumb stuff all the bloody time and he’s not even fucking twenty-one himself, and when he certainly didn’t end up in the system for anything he did.
Christ. No wonder he wouldn’t know how to handle having money or that it’s taken him bloody ages to drop the formalities when speaking.
Nineteen, fuck’s sake.
Davos doesn’t really sleep that night. Not that he thought he would, but it doesn’t come as a surprise at all. He doesn’t hear any noise outside, either.
--
The next morning, he brings down an entire tube of aspirin and comes back to the exact same scene he had found the night before, with the only difference that the bottle is almost empty and Theon looks physically pained, not that it’s a surprise.
“I guess you haven’t slept, have you?”
“I wish.”
“Are you still drunk?”
“Haven’t been for a while.”
Davos says nothing and puts a glass of water and the aspirin next to him. “Do you think you can eat?”
“Not really. Shit, that was a bad idea.”
“Don’t tell Stannis’s psychologist or they’ll think I’m some kind of irresponsible bastard.”
“Sure as fuck you aren’t one.”
Davos resolutely does not voice that it was kind of heartwarming to hear.
“Right, then would you mind if I tell you a couple of things? From the point of view of a responsible bastard who only knows what you said yesterday? Or was that something you didn’t want to discuss anymore?”
“No, go ahead. Might as well hear them.”
He doesn’t sound that thrilled about the prospect. Davos grabs a chair and sits down on the other side of the table.
“So, when I was young and stupid I ended up ditching school a lot and I’d hang out with my friends. Most of them were just straight-up anarchists, and while that never was exactly my thing let’s say that at some points we might have spent some… three months not so occasionally stealing food from supermarket storage rooms. Then we’d give it for free to starving families and the likes. We had it worked out fairly well since they never caught us.”
“What?”
“I did. I also stopped after a certain point when I realized that maybe fighting injustice with crime isn’t exactly the best way to go at it, never mind that I didn’t want to completely fail school and get stuck there for an extra year. Now, we can discuss the motivations for a long time, but does that make me a shitty person?”
“No! I mean, of course not, but -”
“Okay, then how making a few dumb mistakes that are kind of a given when you’re young and stupid means that you deserved all of that shit happening to you? I mean, let’s be real, it doesn’t look to me like you fucked up that terribly. Except for letting those idiots into the house I guess, but you’re saying you regretted it the moment it happened, doesn’t that count for something? And it’s still more legal than what I did.”
“I doubt it counts to the people who matter. Never mind that I knew it was going to happen eventually.”
“What?”
“Ruining everything decent I had going on for me.”
Davos wants to ask him if that’s Theon talking or anyone else, but maybe it’s too early for that kind of questions. “Well, I think you should stop drawing conclusions until you actually ask them.”
“Hell, no. I don’t - I can’t see them again. I blew that up.”
“You’re a wee bit fatalist, aren’t you?”
“Maybe, but it’s just - better. At least you aren’t disappointed later.”
Nineteen, fuck. Davos has talked to people who were less fatalist about things the day after the pit closed in ‘85, for that matter.
“You aren’t, or others are?”
“Both. Same as Jeyne will be in a bit, because there’s no way in hell she won’t get tired of waiting for me to get my shit together.”
“I don’t think that she’s of that opinion, but if it consoles you any, as far as I am concerned you haven’t disappointed whatever expectations I certainly didn’t have. The only thing I’m disappointed in is that you aren’t letting me pay you a wage that my union rep would deem halfway acceptable.”
“You shouldn’t pay me in the first place, it’s already enough -”
“Don’t offend my socialist sensibilities and drink some water - if you want to just go lie down and work through that hangover you’re free to.”
“No, I haven’t done anything yet -”
“You spent the night drinking and I ran this establishment for a long time, I can spare your unpaid work time for one day.”
“Er - thanks then. Really, I’m sorry if -”
“Hey, you needed to tell someone. It’s okay, just go take some rest. And again, you haven’t done anything disappointing as far as I’m concerned.”
No one should look that grateful at something so - matter of fact, Davos thinks as Theon leaves after shooting him a look that would have made anyone feel unworthy of being at the receiving end for having just stated the truth.
He goes to clean the kitchen, wondering for the umpteenth how exactly is Theon that more proficient at it than he is. But now that he has some new details to add to the picture, he thinks that every answer he can come up with is an entire new level of disturbing, and when he opens the pub mid-morning he has to remind himself to stay as cheery as it goes every few minutes or so. Stannis is the only one who obviously notices but doesn’t inquire, bless him.
He’s not really surprised when Theon doesn’t come down for lunch or dinner, but whenever he goes upstairs he hears movement going on in the guest room so he’s probably just working things out. He leaves him some dinner outside the door before going downstairs for the night and finds the plate clean when he comes back at closing time - better than nothing.
He doesn’t try to knock or anything, fuck knows if after what he heard he can understand that Theon might want some privacy whenever he likes to have it, and just heads for bed instead. Maybe he could try talking to Jeyne himself, now that he knows, and see what she thinks of the entire matter.
A voice in his head that sounds remarkably like one of the policemen who brought him in the third time he got himself arrested at a rally asks him why he does even care that much.
(Maybe because that had been the only policemen in five arrests who bothered asking. Imagine not being able to do your job and getting thrown in the street along with your entire family, Davos had answered.)
Another that sounds remarkably like Marya answers that he’d be a different person if he didn’t care half as much.
--
He doesn’t know how long he has been asleep when he’s woken up by screaming coming from the guest room again, but this is plenty worse than usual. He looks at the clock - four AM. He waits a bit, wondering if it’s going to be over in a minute like usual, but - it’s not.
He takes in a deep breath and walks out of the door, then the screaming abruptly stops as he moves in front of the guest room, but - usually there’s silence, now he can hear that Theon’s definitely saying something in there.
Also, it doesn’t sound good.
Well, fuck that. He knocks on the door once, twice, and he receives no answer.
He opens the door, figuring that if Theon tells him to leave he just will, but then he walks in and - fuck. First and foremost, the bed is perfectly made and Theon’s currently sleeping on his carpet and now Davos can’t help wondering how often that happens - he has washed plenty of bedsheets since January that weren’t necessarily his, but still, maybe it’s not a single occurrence? But he wishes it was just that - the one blanket Theon’s using is tangled around his legs and he’s clutching that hard enough his knuckles are white, and he’s - really not awake, but he’s muttering something under his breath.
Davos only wants to wake him up before it gets worse. He moves closer, kneels down and then he actually hears what he’s saying.
I’m sorry, I won’t get it wrong again, I know it, I was wrong, mynameisreekitrhymeswithweak -
Before he freezes in horror, he just reaches out and shakes Theon’s shoulder as gently as possible and for a moment he goes still and then his eyes snap open - he looks around the room in a panic but then he seems to notice that he’s not - wherever he thought he was.
“Hey,” Davos says, “I, uh, I heard you. Figured you might use someone waking you up.”
“Uh - yes,” Theon says - he’s shuddering with cold now that he’s catching up with the temperature. “Thanks. You didn’t have to. I -”
“Never mind that. Listen, I - I didn’t mean to hear it, I really didn’t, but - that was why you couldn’t introduce yourself back in the day?”
“Yes.” Theon isn’t looking at him and his tone is so low it’s barely audible, but that was fairly clear.
“Shit. I -” There are a lot of things he can think of saying right now, but then he glances at the way Theon’s maimed left hand is pretty much shaking into thin air and there’s just one that comes out of his mouth. “You know, I don’t know how you’re even functioning,” Davos finally says, and the way Theon looks at him in complete disbelief would have been enough to make anyone feel like shit if it was directed at them.
“What?”
“No one deserves that shit and you’re more or less keeping yourself together after a year of that, sounds like a fucking accomplishment to me.”
“It’s really not.” Theon’s voice isn’t anywhere near steady, for that matter.
“It really bloody is,” Davos says, figuring that if he insists he can’t do any damage, and then Theon just - pretty much slams his bad hand against his mouth, obviously trying not to break down crying.
Well, fuck that. He can always back off if he’s told not to.
He breathes in and moves a hand so that it’s almost on Theon’s shoulder. “Hey, can I -?”
Theon sends him a fairly surprised look but then he gives him a tiny nod and Davos curls his palm around it - fuck if it’s cold. Then he tries to tug just a tiny bit and shit but the disbelieving look he gets is just - he doesn’t have words for it.
“What - what is this about?”
Fuck’s sake, Davos thinks he could murder whoever this Ramsay person is just on principle.
“What does it look like?” Davos finally says back - that’s about the one thing he can think of without sounding horribly patronizing.
Then he realizes he should have specified one thing at least. “And if it’s not fine with you you can say no, I’m not taking it personally.”
He doesn’t know what he expects. Certainly not Theon pretty much closing his eyes and as he gives up on trying to not cry and his head falling on Davos’s shoulder tentatively as if he doesn’t know what to expect, which is probably the worst thing about this entire situation - that’s just fucking sad.
Davos puts a hand behind Theon’s back and an arm around his shoulders and says nothing as his shirt gets soaked in tears - he has an inkling there’s about nothing he could say to make that any better, so he doesn’t and just waits it out, and he kind of feels ridiculously touched the moment Theon doesn’t bolt away when his eyes are somewhat dried up.
“Shit, sorry about that,” he says weakly, moving back some and eyeing the damp patch on Davos’s shirt.
“I think I can handle that. And you needed it, don’t apologize. That said, I don’t think sleeping on the ground is a great idea.”
“Yeah, uh, that’s not - it doesn’t happen often. Just - sometimes - you heard me before, if I slip into that I just - I slept on the ground for a year, I wish I could just forget it.”
“Well, that’s comforting. I mean, that it doesn’t happen often. You think you might want to not sleep on the ground now?”
“Right. Good idea. I, uh, thank you, really, it’s -”
“Stop being embarrassed about it, it’s fine. You needed that, no one’s angry for perfectly normal reactions here.”
He reaches out and drags the cover downwards and then he helps Theon to stand up - he sits down on the bed a moment later but it didn’t look like he was up for moving.
“Are you sure you don’t want a tea or anything?”
“No. No, you’re already done too much. But thanks again. Really.” He moves so that he’s under the covers and Davos risks a squeeze to his shoulder again.
“Good. And just let me say it again, it’s a bloody miracle you’re halfway functioning. Don’t be too hard on yourself, all right?”
“I - uh, I guess I can try that,” Theon agrees, and he smiles very very faintly as he says it but he does, and as Davos leaves and closes the door softly behind him he wonders how in the seven hells is possible that everyone but maybe two people in the man’s life have completely pegged him wrong.
--
The next morning, there’s a certain awkwardness in the air when Davos walks into the kitchen and Theon can’t quite meet his eyes, but honestly, he’s not going to have any of that.
“This doesn’t have to be weird or anything.”
“Sorry?”
“Come on, that improvable pep talk I gave you last night shouldn’t make things awkward. I mean, until now you did look at me in the face when I came in.”
“I guess.” He does look up at him, throwing the kitchen towel he was handling on the counter. “I just can’t - there’s a part of me saying I should be embarrassed as hell for that.”
“Can I just tell you something in all honestly?”
“Sure.” He doesn’t sound too sure of that, though.
“You’re nowhere half as bad news as you think you are, but you’re a lot better to have around when you drop four swear words into each sentence rather than when you can’t look at me in the face. With that, I don’t mean that you have to look at me in the face if you don’t feel like it, but merely that there’s absolutely nothing fucking wrong with it if you do.”
He lets that sink in and - and Theon does not look downwards as he’d have two months ago, which is entirely good news as far as Davos is concerned.
“I’d disagree on that first thing, but - well. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Good.” Davos wonders if it’s too soon to ask him something he has been planning for a bit, but then again he figures that at worse he’ll get told no. “And listen, no pressure whatsoever, but if you want to graduate from washing dishes you could.”
“What?”
“Well, washing dishes and cleaning all the time has to be fucking boring. Hey, I think it’s boring and I don’t do just that. If you want a crash course on serving drinks or if you can cook or whatever we can discuss it, you don’t have to stick with the kitchen.”
“I’ll - I’ll let you know?”
“Not going anywhere, am I? Think about it, I have a supplier dropping by in ten at the back.”
Davos leaves him to consider his options and heads for the back of the shop - he can get distracted unloading the alcohol reserves for the next week.
--
At his next phone call with Marya, three days later, he doesn’t even try to lie when she asks him how things are going with his guest.
“Well, uh, he’s still here. For one. I also might know why he’s currently residing in my guest room.”
“I imagine nothing good?”
“The stuff of nightmares,” Davos admits bluntly.
“And what did you do about it?”
“I don’t know but I think I offered him a job.”
“You think. That’s kind of hard to be something you don’t know that you’ve done.”
“Er, it wasn’t put in official terms, but it might as well be.”
“And what did he say?”
“Hasn’t said a thing yet.”
“Are you aware that you’ve never kept anyone in that room for more than two months, when Stannis asked?”
Good point. Shit, is he ever glad that even now that they haven’t been together for years she still can see through what he does without even needing to be here.
“I am.”
“Well, as long as you’re okay with it, I guess that it’s a good thing that Stannis isn’t most of your social interactions. His daughter doesn’t count.”
“Hey, now that was mean.”
“Well, true. He only has social interactions with you, so he’s probably even worse off. Anyway, if you’re sure about it -”
“I am. It’s just, he looks like he really needs someone older than twenty to actually not assume he’s a disappointment to the universe.”
“Then I’m sure you’re not to disappoint that expectation. By the way, you still aren’t tired of living in that barely noticeable dot on any map?”
“Like hell, I have a mortgage. I’m retiring here for all I care.”
“You’re a complete masochist, but far from me to advise you to join civilization again. Call soon, all right?”
“Sure. And you can drop by if you want, civilization isn’t really that far when you can drive.”
“Next time I come over,” she agrees, and he feels maybe a bit lighter when he closes the call. Good thing that they were friends before anything else - it made everything a lot more bearable.
He’s about to get out of the office - not that it’s huge or anything, it’s just where he keeps the accountability and the likes - when someone knocks on the door.
“Come in.”
Theon opens the door a moment later - he looks like someone who hasn’t slept much during the night and he’s wearing the only sweater he got two months ago that still looks overtly large on him, which makes for a fairly sad look all things considered. Still, he also has a sort of determined look on his face - good thing that.
“Uh, about what you said a while ago.”
“About upgrading your humble mansions?”
“Yes. Well, you might have guessed that I’m decent at cleaning because someone had to do it where I come from. And someone had to put some food together also back in the day, so - I can handle that. I guess.”
“I imagine, but are you really sure you don’t want the bar upgrade?”
“I - really, I can do the rest -”
“Sure you can, but I’m just asking if you’d rather try that. At least it’s not something you probably hate already.”
“I don’t hate cooking, not really, but -”
“So you do hate cleaning.”
Davos has to smirk at the look on Theon’s face - it reads well shit I just gave myself out.
“Listen, you’ve seen how my hand is. I’d risk breaking stuff and I can be clumsy and you really don’t need that -”
Davos remembers perfectly what he heard that night, though.
“Do you know how many clients break glasses? I have to order new ones every three months. And you still haven’t said no. How about you give it a try for a couple of days after I give you some pointers and if you hate it then you can cook or whatever? Hell, you can try that on Stannis when he comes mid-morning, you wouldn’t even have to pour alcohol.”
For a moment he can just see how much Theon’s not computing his speech, but then he shrugs and does not look down, thank fuck.
“Fine. I guess it can’t be too bad.”
“Excellent. Be there in ten, I’ll come in a moment.”
Davos should also try to guess if he has even, finished school or whatever it is that eighteen year-olds should be doing, he figures as he files away his bank receipts. But one thing at a time.
--
Thankfully, bartending is hardly rocket science, especially when you don’t have to mix cocktails and the likes, and Davos’s clientele is hardly the kind to ask for that for that matter. Which is why Davos manages to do his little crash course in barely an hour, just in time to have Stannis come in. Bringing his daughter, because of course this is the week of the month when he has Shireen at least until they get over with the custody case.
Stannis, to his credit, only looks somewhat baffled when he sees who’s behind the bar, but doesn’t vocalize it.
“I see you got help?” Stannis asks, moving closer to the counter.
“I’m getting old.”
“You aren’t old,” Shireen proclaims. “If Dad isn’t you can’t be, you’re only ten years older.”
“Why, at least someone here appreciates me. So, what can I get you?”
Stannis sends him a look, but then he goes and stares straight at Theon. “Well, unless Davos forgot to order them in, I will have my usual pomegranate juice.”
“I haven’t,” Davos sighs, “below the counter.”
“Right,” Theon says before ducking under it and grabbing a few pomegranates. Davos had explained him how that hellish squeezing both them and oranges machine worked before, hopefully he remembers without accidentally getting another finger chopped off. He doesn’t and while Davos gets Shireen her peach juice Theon does manage his own without wasting fruit in the process.
“Thanks,” Stannis says curtly as he drinks.
“Damn,” Davos says, looking at how many pomegranates are actually there, “they forgot to bring them last time or I’m getting old for real, they’re less than I thought -”
“Fewer,” Theon mutters at the same time Stannis says the same thing with a long-lasting sigh - right, Davos never quite got the bloody difference and Stannis has a certain pet peeve when it comes to blatantly incorrect grammar.
But that’s not the point. Theon looks like he wants to bite his own tongue after having said it, but Stannis looks - impressed?
“Uh. Sorry?”
“I was telling him the exact same thing, I don’t think you should apologize. I’ve been trying to explain that for ages. But I feel like I have to congratulate myself with you, given that it’s not many of us who actually know the difference.”
Theon looks like he doesn’t know whether he should run for the hills or take the compliment for what it was. “Er. I liked to read. Even if I flunked English class all my life.”
“Your teacher obviously couldn’t appreciate someone who knew some grammar,” Stannis sighs. “Well, keep on telling him, maybe he’ll get there someday.”
“Dad, that was mean.”
“I took more than one year of striking, your father won’t be what destroys me, but thanks for sticking up for the minority here.”
“Well, it’s not like it’s an obvious difference.”
Good thing someone agrees with him, Davos thinks, but now that he notices it Theon isn’t looking alarmed just because Stannis is on the other side of the counter. Good thing that, too.
--
“Really, we should hire you,” Stannis tells him without preambles not long later, after having asked him if they could have a talk outside. Davos just figured he could walk with him a bit - Shireen is ahead of them, good for her that she looks so excited of walking back to the police station all over again.
“And fire Slynt?”
“If it were for me I would have fired that incompetent idiot years ago. Alas, it’s not up to me. But seriously, how are you doing it?”
Davos shrugs. “I’m not doing anything really? Other than what I usually do with about anyone?”
“Your charming self should have picked a different field of work,” Stannis says. “By the way - listen, the girl, she said she might want to talk to us soon but not right now. What’s his stance about it?”
“I don’t think he wants to talk to you, though after your stint today he might change his mind, but - er, I know.”
“He told you?”
“Yes, but I can’t exactly share.”
“I wasn’t asking. Can I just ask if it’s as bad as I had imagined?”
“Probably worse. Just - if anyone from Birmingham not named Robb comes looking for them just lie and take their generalities. That’s about the only thing I can tell you.”
“Fine. Let me know if he changes his mind, and even if he doesn’t, the day I get Slynt fired I might hire you even if you aren’t qualified.”
“I’m touched, and now go before your kid gets to the station one hour before you do.”
Stannis scoffs and goes after Shireen - Davos looks at them with a small pang of envy, because it seems both years ago and yesterday when he was in that same position but he’s not anymore, is he.
Then he walks back to the pub and decides that while Stannis might be exaggerating at this point things could be going a lot worse.
That evening, most of his usual clients do not thankfully bat an eyelid at seeing someone else behind the bar, and even if the entire town knows why Theon’s there they take the I needed some help excuse without questioning it.
When they close, Davos cautiously asks Theon if he wants a celebratory beer, nothing heavier.
“I think your liver might want a break after last day.”
“I can’t disagree but I’ll have that beer, I think,” Theon replies, and then he snorts under his breath and Davos decides that maybe he’s not doing too bad of a job here, whatever the hell it is that he’s doing.
--
The next day, Theon comes downstairs with half of his hair gone - he’s obviously cut it himself, because it’s fairly uneven, and it’s still on the long side of it since now it reaches his collarbone, but it’s not a terrible cut and damn but it does give him a fairly healthier look. He doesn’t ask for explanations - it’s good enough he’s done it at all.
--
“You know,” he tells Theon three weeks later, when he has decided that if this was the trial run then it went fairly great, “if you want to go to Newport or somewhere less depressing than here once in a while I guess it can be arranged. I mean, you haven’t left here except to go see Jeyne, at your age I’d have died of bloody boredom.”
“But you aren’t dying of boredom now, so it’s not a given that I should. I’m good.”
Well, he’s sleeping better, Davos would know that. And when he doesn’t at least he knows he can just go wake him up without overstepping boundaries. He’s also not terribly underweight anymore, even if he’s not quite at his healthiest potential yet.
“Well, nice to hear that. But - listen, that’s about something else.”
“If you need me to leave -”
“Don’t jump to conclusions.” The fact that Theon looks relieved at that should say about everything - fuck, if he needed some more reasons to quietly despise the system and in this case social services, Davos thinks he has them in spades now. “I was saying, given that you’ve been working seriously for almost a month and the likes, I could actually just hire you because like this I really feel like I’m taking advantage.”
“You wouldn’t -”
“Never mind that, I think I would. But that would mean pretty much asking you to stay here permanently and no one under thirty should ever want to live here, never mind that you said you didn’t know if your sister or your friend in Birmingham might actually want to talk things out with you. So it would feel kind of shitty if I asked you without making sure first that you don’t want to, you know, talk to them.”
“It’d be useless.”
“What?”
“I’m - I was damaged goods before, I am even more now and they’re really better off where they are. But wait, did you just say -”
“I said take your time to think about it, especially because it would mean actually writing official papers down and if you’re trying to lay low it might be a problem. But the offer’s there.”
“Thank you, I -”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
Theon doesn’t try to push it and Davos has heard a lot in that sentence.
Specifically, that he never said he didn’t want to see them.
--
He asks Stannis if he can talk to Jeyne on his own. Stannis agrees and Davos drives to the convent the next day and leaves Theon in charge - by now most people know what he’s doing there anyway and Davos has a feeling that the more he actually talks to other human beings the better.
Jeyne looks a lot better off now, and at least she’s not wearing black anymore. Not that pale green is that much more exciting, but at least she doesn’t look like a middle aged madam.
“So,” he tells her, “I wanted to ask you something. That also concerns our common friend.”
“All right.”
“He might have told me you wanted to talk to Stannis, but you weren’t because he didn’t want to.”
“I can only imagine why he wouldn’t,” she says. “And - how much do you know?”
“All of it.”
“Oh. He said he wanted to tell you but he hasn’t said how much. Anyway, good, it means - you know. And - he got me out. I owe him and I don’t care if I have to wait - I mean, they do have a school here so as far as I take the final exams somewhere I’m not losing the year or anything for now, but it’s not even that I wanted to press charges. I wouldn’t if he doesn’t. But - I just miss home, you know?”
“Right. You said you were fostered?”
“Yes.”
“But he never told me the names. Right. Listen, thing is, I talked to him and I’m fairly sure that the reason he doesn’t want to contact them is that he thinks they’ll hate him. Not that he doesn’t want to. Or at least, that would be valid for his friend?”
“God, he’s such an idiot. Theon, I mean, not Robb.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I know Robb. And like, Ramsay and his… friends, I guess, did trash the house, some, though it could have been worse, but they did look for him after and they knew that it wasn’t just his fault. But then when they told Robb he wanted to come back up to Birmingham just to look for him - they persuaded him not to but I know that he’s been worrying himself to death. I don’t know about his sister - I mean, Theon’s sister, but -”
“Right. I was thinking. Let’s say you help me track down Robb and he tracks down Theon’s sister because I guess he’d know where she lives more than I do. Let’s say I see if they’re amenable to come down here. If they are, well, I guess no one stops you from seeing Robb as well, which I guess wouldn’t stop you from going home, right?”
“You - you’d do it?”
“I’m pretty sure that he deserves to be sure of that before he decides to waste his life in someplace with less than one thousand people living in it and you deserve to leave when you like instead of wasting the best of your years here. No offense intended but I don't think this place is eventually good for anyone in the long run.”
“None taken, it’s kind of a nightmare,” Jeyne admits in a whisper. “But - all right. If you want to. How can I help you?”
“I need to contact just him. Can you tell me the full name, if he’s not back home?”
“I doubt he is. It’s Robb Stark. If you need the house address -”
“No, just warning him would be good. I’d rather not risk alerting social services and the likes. Well, I’ll let you know how it goes. Hopefully you get to leave this valley of tears soon.”
“That’s appreciated,” she replies, sort of maybe blushing a bit. Davos goes back to his car and drives straight for the police station.
--
“You need to make a phone call.”
“Yes.”
“And you can’t do it at home.”
“No because if my current bartender understands that I’m trying to see if his best friend really hates him he might start hating me.”
Stannis’s eyebrow rises just a tiny bit and he looks like he’s about to tell Davos that he really is taking it too personally, but then -
“Fine. Where do you need to call?”
“Er, Oxford University.”
“I shall hope at least he knows the difference between fewer and less if he goes there,” Stannis mutters before punching him a few numbers and contacting the university’s switchboard.
“Okay,” he says handing Davos the phone, “that’d be the students’ office if they didn’t lie to me. If they protest - wait, just hand it to me.”
He takes the phone back just in time for someone to answer. “Hello? My name is Stannis Baratheon, I’m the local police inspector in Porthcawl. I need to speak to one of your students, please. No, he hasn’t done anything, but he might help us identifying someone.”
What? Davos mouths. Stannis has never once in his life lied, that Davos knows of at least.
“Yes. Possibly now. Do you need a number? Of course, but possibly within the hour. Thank you.” He recites his reference landline number before closing the call.
“Well, he’s going to call as soon as they find out where he is.”
“Stannis, what happened to that policy you’ve always had of never lying to someone?”
“I wasn’t lying. I still don’t know the kid’s surname, talking to this guy might help me find out.”
Davos would have answered, but then the phone rings.
“Well, if it’s him that’s fast. Inspector Baratheon, who is - Mr. Stark. You were in the office already? Well, good for all of us. Wait, no, you should talk to someone else. Wait a moment.”
He hands Davos the receiver. “There you go.”
“Thanks. Uh, Robb Stark?”
“Yes,” comes the answer. He sounds younger than Theon, and also hella confused - Davos doesn’t begrudge him. “Who am I talking to, if I may ask?” Uh. He’s very polite though.
“Right. Uh, Davos Seaworth. You wouldn’t know who I am, don’t you worry. But - I might know someone you also know.”
“All right. What’s going on?”
“Do you know a Theon Greyjoy?”
Stannis smirks just a tiny bit and Davos would flip him off - well, he did learn the surname after all - but he can’t because Stark’s tone suddenly changes and turns downright worried.
“Oh my - Theon? You know where he is? He’s alive, for that matter? Is he all right? Christ, you don’t know how worried I’ve been -”
“Slower, lad, I can’t follow like this. The answers to those questions are yes, yes and more or less, and I know because - well, he showed up in the station I’m calling you from just after New Year’s Eve. I happened to have the only free guest room in town and he’s been there ever since, and when he got there he wasn’t really all right at all, now let’s say he gets by. Oh, and there was a Jeyne with him that -”
“Jeyne Poole?”
“She never shared the surname but I imagine so. Brown hair and eyes, short, fairly pretty, has a tattoo on her wrist?”
“God, yes, we couldn’t find her either and - wait, they were together?”
“Long story. Don’t worry, they didn’t just run away together or anything. It’s not a nice story, but - I guess I can deduce that you don’t hate him right now, do you?”
“What? No, of course not! I mean, okay, I was kind of angry when I heard about the house but I was more worried that he seemed to have disappeared without taking any of his things for that matter? I thought he was dead in a ditch somewhere, of course I don’t hate him!”
“Good, because he’s convinced -”
“Don’t tell me, that I finally realized he was a waste of time?”
“... Pretty much.”
“Fucking idiot. No, of course not - shit, listen, where -”
“Not so fast. I have to ask you a favor or two before sharing.”
“Of course. Anything.”
“First, I know that you’re still in school for another month, and I don’t think he wants you to fuck up your grades, but never mind. Because the second point is - do you have a clue of how to track down his sister?”
“Who, Asha? I know the name and I know where she lives and the name of their uncle’s publishing house, even if I saw her… once, I think. Why?”
“Because he says she’ll have the same opinion as you, and I’m not so sure, and he really could use two people he knows assuring him he’s not damaged goods. So I was wondering, would you amenable to track her for me and then when you’re done with your finals or whatever you come down here and then you take Jeyne back with you? I think she’s itching to move somewhere less fucking boring. Possibly, don’t tell your family.”
“All right. All right, that’s doable, but there’s a reason why I shouldn’t? They aren’t angry -”
Davos doesn’t really want to make a breach of trust here, so he looks at Stannis who rolls his eyes imperceptibly and moves to the next room over.
“I don’t doubt it, but - see, I can’t say anything more because he told me. He never said I could tell anyone else, but I’m lead to believe that the reasons why they’re currently here is your neighbor.”
“Who, Bolton? Oh, fuck, I should have - yeah, well, they left the country.”
“What?”
“Early February. From what I’m told, happened in a rush. There was something fishy about it or so my parents said, but I think they’re not even in the country anymore for that matter.”
“Makes sense,” Davos agrees, and - well, there goes locking that psychopath up, but at least if one of them wants to go back home they don’t have to live next to the person who pretty much held them prisoner for months. “Right. So, can you look his sister up and maybe give me a call when you have a clue of how she feels about this?”
“Sure. Sure, I will. And I swear I’m not going to show up on your door the day after tomorrow even if I’m tempted to.”
“I wouldn’t kick you out but as it is - I’d rather know. Anyway, I live in Aberogwr - that is, Ogmore-by-Sea, I’m calling from the Porthcawl police station.”
“Wait, how did they even get as far as there?”
“Walking, I’m told. Well, a good third of the way.”
“Christ, I just - okay. You said the name was Davos Seaworth?”
“Yeah, I own the only pub in the entire place. It’s still named Seaworth’s, I was always bloody unimaginative with names.”
“Well, I called my dog Grey Wind because he was grey and fast, imagine how my siblings took that back in the day.”
“Then you feel my plight. Anyway, I’ll leave you the phone number, try to call in the evenings. Or call Stannis here, I’m sure that he’d be delighted to bring me the message.”
Good thing Stannis isn’t here to hear that, Davos thinks as he recites his number.
“Right,” Robb says, “got it. I’ll let you know. God, thank you, you don’t even know how relieved I am right now.”
“I can hear that. Good. Let me know.”
“Sure. And - listen, I’m sure that - did he tell you that Jeyne and my sister were best friends? I’d feel bad keeping it from her, but -”
“As long as your sister doesn’t come here or tell your parents it’s fine - not that I’d want to keep it from them but let’s say he doesn’t think they’re his greatest supporters right now and if they decided to have good intentions and come here to check on the situation… well, I already shouldn’t have called you according to him.”
“Of course. I understand. Thanks again, I - I will call soon.”
“Good. I count on it.”
When he leaves the room, Stannis asks how it went.
“Fairly great,” Davos replies. “Maybe we’re getting somewhere. By the way, the person behind what’s happened to them, er, they might have fled the country.”
Stannis grits his teeth. “Obviously. Well, if they press charges I guess Interpol can take that. Let me know how that works out. Hopefully with less bloodshed than my custody hearing next week.”
“I take Selyse can’t still handle that Shireen would rather live at your place?”
“You might willingly vote Tory before that happens.”
“Don’t even suggest it or I’m only talking to you through your daughter, clear?”
“Nice to see some people still have principles around here.”
Davos doesn’t even try to find a worthy answer to that and drives back home - now good luck to him pretending that he hasn’t called Robb Stark for the next month or so.
--
It takes Stark considerably less to call back - two weeks later, Davos picks up a call while Theon’s out taking a walk on the shoreline, which he’s doing at least once every couple of days lately and good thing that, at least he’s going out of the house regularly.
“Seaworth’s, how can I help you?”
“Uh, Mr. Seaworth? It’s Robb Stark.”
“Oh, hi. That was relatively fast. And you can call me Davos, please don’t be that formal.”
“Duly noted. Okay, so, I did manage to call her.”
“And what did she say?”
“Literally? Does that idiot really think I wasn’t worried sick, and where did you say he even ended up in, followed by a fairly long list of curses about small as fuck villages lost in the middle of nowhere. Then she asked when we were leaving.”
Well, that’s - a lot better than Davos thought it might turn out. “Right. How long until you’re done with school?”
“I have my last midsummer final next week I think.”
“Right. Take it and work out with her when it is that you can come down, if one of you is fine with sleeping on a couch and one on the ground I have enough space for two people.”
“Thanks, but - uh, I was thinking that I could maybe rent someplace one month or so? I mean, unless he doesn’t want us there I have nothing to do - no, okay, I guess I’ll give up on a dumb internship I might have taken but it wasn’t necessary and I’d really rather be there.”
Wow, wasn’t Theon completely wrong about his assessments of how Robb would react to the news. “Yeah, but you’ll still need somewhere to crash for two days, so just keep that in mind.”
“Sure. Thank you. I’ll let you know the date, then.”
He calls again a few days later - seems like he and Asha worked it out and they’re going to show up on the first of June. It’s May 16th now. Davos smirks a tiny bit to himself and not let it get to his head. Now if only he manages to not sound suspicious when telling Theon that he’d like him to take a bit more time before responding to that job offer for good, everything might actually turn out as well as it can, for the circumstances.
--
It’s probably a good thing that they finally arrive when while Theon’s out for some ridiculously early walk on the shore - Davos doesn’t know why the fuck sometimes he goes at six in the morning, but far from him to question it.
He actually hears them before they even knock on the door - he’s downstairs sweeping when the voices start coming from the outside.
“Fuck, so that’s where it is. Remind me again why you didn’t just let me drive us here?”
“Because I’m using my own money for this nice trip to Wales and the train was cheaper than splitting gas with you. And since we should rent -”
“Have you seen this bloody place? I’m fairly sure I can rent a house here for six months with one paycheck and still have leftover money. How did he even get himself here anyway?”
“How about we ask him later?”
“Right. God, sharing a house with you if he doesn’t tell us to fuck off is going to be downright hilarious.”
“Don’t worry, my mom taught me how to take care of myself. People in uni want to room with me.”
“I don’t dare imagine the alternatives if you’re the best Oxford can offer. Well, let’s just -”
Davos opens the door before she can knock, not even bothering to hide his amusement, and - yeah, right, the person in front of him can only be Theon’s sister. Same hair color, same eye color, roughly the same face shape; she has shorter hair than him though, she’s wearing no make-up at all and if she doesn’t boxe Davos would be surprised - he can see the muscles for it under her light shirt and jacket. Robb Stark, instead, isn’t the same type at all - red hair, bright blue eyes, a neatly kept short beard that makes him look slightly older than eighteen, dressed neatly in jeans and a sensible blue jacket. He has a heavy backpack on his shoulders while she has a much lighter one at her feet, but she looks like someone who doesn’t like to travel with anything more than strictly necessary.
“Robb and Asha, I imagine?”
“Davos Seaworth, I imagine?” Robb asks, extending a hand. “Nice to meet you in person.”
“Likewise,” Davos says, shaking it and then moving on to Asha. “Same to you.”
She shakes his hand back, and damn but she has a strong grip. “So, is my brother on the premises?”
“No, he’s out, but he should be back… sometime before eight. Just get in and sit down, I’ll get you something while we wait.”
“Where the hell is he at seven thirty AM?”
Davos shrugs. “Taking a walk on the shore, I think. Sometimes he goes early.”
“What?”
“Hey, it looked like a nice beach from the bus,” Robb says, sitting down.
“Christ. Beaches.”
“I imagine you’re a city person,” Davos says dryly.
“Yes, and I could do with a drink. I know it’s not even nine AM but I don’t care, after that trip I’m owed one.”
“Fine. Your poison?”
“Just a beer, I do have limits.”
He gets her one while she drops her backpack and starts walking around - Robb politely asks for tea and Davos puts a kettle on.
“Huh,” Asha says when she stops in front of his framed receipts, “I see you aren’t a fan of our current government, are you?”
“The day she’s voted out I’m offering free drinks to the entire place for a week,” Davos replies. “Why, are you?”
“What? My father might have been, sure as hell I’m not. Wow, five arrests? That’s hardcore.”
“Thanks, I’m fairly proud of that.”
“Sure as hell if he had to end up in the middle of nowhere at least he ended up with someone with some basic sense.”
Robb snorts openly at that. “I told you for the entire trip.”
“I had to see for myself.”
“And you’re convinced by bailing receipts?”
“Of course I am, what kind of dumb question could that be. And I hope you aren’t disagreeing.”
“Are you insane? I’m voting Labour next elections, who do you take me for?”
“Good to know,” Davos interrupts them, “at least I don’t have to kick out the both of you.”
“That’s good, I’m not sure I can go look for an apartment just today,” Robb says. Davos brings him the tea while Asha reads his receipts all over again - she looks seriously impressed with that. Well, Davos is just thankful he’s not on her bad side, because he has the impression that being on this woman’s bad side would be a fucking poor life decision.
They do talk shop a bit while Davos also has some tea, and then someone puts a key in the lock opening the entrance door.
“Right,” Davos says, “that’d be it. He doesn’t know, so just - be considerate.”
There’s no time for further talk because then Theon walks into the room - he shrugs off his jacket without looking ahead and is he wearing the Clash shirt, and then he does look straight ahead imagining that no one would be there.
For a moment he completely freezes in his tracks and Davos can see a panicked look show up on his face. He also notices that Asha openly bites down on her tongue so that she doesn’t curse out loud - right, he looks miles better than he had in January but someone not having seen him in a long while wouldn’t know that.
Robb, on the other side - for a moment he looks quite literally pained, then he stands up so fast he kind of kicks the chair to the ground and about runs in front of Theon without leaving him time to bolt upstairs, which he was totally going to do - he had been eyeing the door.
Good thing one person in this entire room is acting.
“Hi,” he says, sounding as if he’s about to break down in tears.
Theon just stares at him for a long moment, then -
“Robb, I’m s-”
“Theon? Shut up,” Robb cuts him, and then he takes the last step forward, throws his arms around Theon and grabs at his shoulders without even blinking.
For a moment Theon just- freezes on the spot, and Davos is painfully reminded of what happened that night a few months ago, but then he grasps back and he kind of hides his face against Robb’s neck while grabbing at his jacket and one of Robb’s hands moves up to the back of his head. Asha looks at the scene with a half-smirk before standing up.
“The apartment is upstairs,” Davos tells her. “You’re welcome to just stay in the living room or the guest room or whatever. I’ll be here opening.”
“Thank you,” she says, and there’s a certain sad look to her, but it’s obvious that she means it. She moves towards the other two, asking if they’d consider leaving her some space already.
Davos smiles to himself, figuring that at least he won’t get a punch in the face for this, and heads for the kitchen - they probably should have some time for themselves without anyone else getting in the way. And at least he knows he did the right thing - patience if it means that he might find himself with an empty guest room soon when he knows that by this point he wouldn’t have minded at all if Theon eventually decided to stay, but it wouldn’t have been fair and he knows that even too well.
--
“You’re incredible, you know that?”
“Is that sarcasm I hear and if it is, can I rejoice in it?”
When Theon walks into the kitchen and kind of rolls his eyes at him Davos decides that he likes what he’s seeing a lot better than the deferential demeanor. There’s not even the hint of a contest.
“Maybe,” Theon concedes. “You know, I didn’t - I mean, why?”
“Because it was obvious that the point wasn’t that you didn’t want to see them anymore. I had to make sure you were assuming things right, and I had a clue you weren’t. Never mind that it would have been - well, not exactly fair if you took life-changing decisions without knowing for sure, wouldn’t it?”
“I guess not,” Theon agrees. “And I guess I really was an idiot. I just - never mind.”
“I’m not apologizing for having done that, by the way. And if Robb over there had slammed the phone in my face I wouldn’t have tried to give him my address on the second try.”
“No, fuck, you were right. It’s just - fucking weird.”
“What exactly?”
Theon shrugs. “Let’s just say that - you know the whole thing they say about... people not listening to you because they actually do know what’s better for you, and that’s not what you’re doing?”
“I might.”
“I thought it was the stuff of legends until one hour ago. I don’t think anyone else’s ever - well. Fuck this noise, I don’t even know how to have this conversation.”
“I think I got the meaning.” Davos hopes that Theon hears that he’s genuinely touched by the fact that he’s even there trying to get through the damned conversation in the first place, never mind knowing how to have it.
“Good, then - uh. It’s just, I don’t know how I can -”
“If you were about to say what I think you were - how about you just take at face value that I do things because I want to and I happen to go out of my way if I think someone deserves it?”
The look he gets at that is kind of a punch to the gut - the only thing he can say about it is that if Theon couldn’t have that other conversation sure as hell he’s not going to have this. Which is why he figures he should just give him an out.
“Now, thanks for that, you don’t owe me anything, and if you want to show those two around for whatever little there is to see and so that they can decide who they should rent from you have the day free, though I think Clegane’s your best bet if they want to rent cheap without finding rats and the alternatives are in the next towns over. How does that sound?”
“Good. But - I don’t think I need the evening free. I mean. If they’re staying here -”
“Just do whatever you want, I’ll survive either way. You’re welcome.”
“Right. Then - I’m going, but really, thanks.”
Then he flees from the room, pretty much, but his shoulders aren’t nowhere near as hunched as they were when they met the first time.
--
“Haven’t you gotten attached,” Stannis proclaims later when Davos tells him the entire story.
“What?”
“Davos, I don’t know if you heard yourself, but the last time you sounded that proud of something or someone was... ah, yes, the first and only time my ex-wife set foot in this establishment. During which my daughter told her to stop looking at your precious receipts wrong, since they were a necessary evil or whatever it is that she had said. All things considered, I can assume that you are, in fact, quite attached.”
… He can’t argue with that, can he. “I might be, but it tends to happen in these circumstances.”
“Which no one forced you to go along with. I mean, if you had a problem we could have found a new arrangement.”
Which is also true. Stannis can be irritatingly on point in these circumstances but then again it’s his job, isn’t it.
“Fine. You might have a point. So?”
“So nothing. But it’s not a bad look on you. All the contrary.”
Davos could say that it’s not like he’s had that many reasons to sport that look in the last five years or so of his life. If he’s actually sincere with himself -
“Well, maybe I didn’t do anything to, well, change the circumstances because I was fine with them.”
“See? You’re attached.”
“And what if I am?”
“Then it’s a good look on you.”
“We’re cryptic today, aren’t we?”
“Merely stating the obvious.”
Thing is - Davos isn’t an idiot and he’s understood even too well what Stannis is implying. Fuck knows he didn’t plan it, but he has gotten attached after all, and he figures it’s going to at least moderately hurt when his guest room becomes empty again, but that’s just inevitable at this point. And that’s how it should be, for that matter. He’s just glad he had a moderate hand in helping things out. It was nice to have someone else around while it lasted, and maybe if it did somehow brought moderately back to life a part of him he thought was dead and buried and that he might have missed having, there was no hurt in it.
He thinks that it’s not as easy to put it into terms now, but never mind. He’s glad he did the right thing. That’s it.
--
Robb and Asha do rent an apartment from Sandor Clegane (who hates the place as much as he hates the whole of his family who used to reside in it and rents at a lower price than the market’s just to make his brother turn in his grave, or so he says) just at the entrance of the freeway for the next month. They also do resolutely show up every day. At least they’re very serious about getting into Theon’s head that they actually never not cared about him, which if you ask Davos is a very good thing. Asha is also way scarier than anyone around the area when it comes to drinking- she pretty much drinks all of his regulars under the table within the first week. Good thing that most people around here saw two renters as some exciting novelty - then again, not much happens in the first place, so it’s understandable. At some point Robb’s sister Sansa shows up as well - Davos ends up driving Robb to the bus station to get her and then they go see Jeyne, and damn but Davos had wanted to tear up seeing those two running towards each other. Stannis talks to whoever’s the chief inspector in Birmingham and agrees to pass on at least Jeyne’s case to them so that she can go back with Sansa - which was obviously what she wanted. Davos can feel her palpable mixture of excitement and relief when she’s confirmed that she can leave the nuns’ for good - blame her for that. He’d have been equally excited and relieved.
They stay for a few days, then he drives Theon, Sansa and Jeyne to the bus station - when Jeyne throws her arms around Theon’s shoulder and hangs on in the middle of the waiting area and whispers something in his ear he looks away after a moment. It just doesn’t seem like something that should be intruded upon and at least there’s not that many people around in the first place - still, they’re both crying when she kisses his cheek before moving away and joining Sansa on the bus. When Davos asks Theon says that he’s fine, he really is, and it’s probably telling that from what it seems, he might - well, not be lying.
Then three weeks in Asha walks into the bar outside opening time.
“You have a car,” she says without preambles.
“Yes?”
“Okay. I physically need to spend an afternoon somewhere civilized - those two might be fine with talking their hearts out while walking on the beach and looking at the sunset in vomit-inducing ways, but if I don’t see a movie or eat some Chinese or spend some time somewhere bigger than here I’m going to go mad. And I think my brother could use some civilization, too, given that he hasn’t seen any in ages , so if you lend me the damned car I might drive us to Cardiff or - somewhere.”
“Hey, I’ve been telling him for months, not my fault if he’s okay with walking on the beach. That said, I might actually go with you if you wait until closing day. As in, two days from now. I haven’t been to a civilized place for your standards in a while, I might as well go for it.”
“I can wait two days. If you give me some stronger whiskey to bring home. Because I can take walks on the beach up until a certain point.”
“Duly noted. I’ll find you some for when you’re back.”
“Good. At least Stark isn’t the kind of person who’d steal it without asking.”
“He doesn’t look like it.”
“Nah. He’s way too nice to be fucking real, which is a good thing because maybe my brother can use that. I mean, he could have used that a bloody long time ago.”
“Don’t beat yourself up.”
“Sorry?”
“You sound like you are. I doubt it was your fault or anything - how old are you anyway, twenty-five?”
“Twenty-three.”
“You’re way too young to beat yourself up about things you probably couldn’t and shouldn’t have handled, just think about what you should do now. Shit, is it a family trait or what? Anyway, two days is a deal.”
“Good. Fuck, you wanna know something?”
“What?”
“Sometimes I think that there has to be a catch with you. Seriously, I don’t know where the fuck did my brother end up for a year and from what I hear the rest of the time he’s perpetually miserable and I figure he managed to get himself killed somewhat. Then I find out he’s not lying dead in a ditch and ended up with someone who actually gave half of a shit in a good way, actually doesn’t think taking people in like that is weird or anything and that I don’t feel like murdering the moment they open their mouth to discuss politics. Then I remember that you purposefully chose to live here and I realize that yes, there is a catch, and the universe rights itself. More or less.”
“... I think that was the most long-winded compliment I ever received in my life, but thank you.”
“You’re fucking welcome. I hope that whiskey is good.”
Davos decides to take it as the flattery it was meant to be and he won’t tell a soul about it, but it actually felt damn good.
--
He drives them to Cardiff. Asha says that she’s going to handle those two and possibly force her brother to buy himself something that’s not second-hand and then drag them to a movie or something - Robb teams up with her without blinking, Davos tells Theon that he has about six months’ worth of shitty paychecks to spend on whatever and says he’ll meet them later that afternoon. He takes a long walk around the center, goes to see both the castle and the Civic Centre throughout the day, which is actually quite nice - maybe he should just get around more often and maybe he did isolate himself a bit too much since he decided that he was just settling and worrying about paying off his mortgage.
He does meet up with Marya for lunch since she’s in town - she looks fairly great. Then again, after she left Bridgend she enrolled in university, got herself a psychology degree and now works for this organization that does counseling for troubled kids in schools and when she’s not doing it in Cardiff they send her to other towns. A job that implies moving around looks good on her. She also tells him that he looks fairly better than the last time he drove here a couple years ago. Lunch goes great, when she asks him how are things back home he spills the entire story, she tells him that he really does have some penchant to try and help people that will be the death of him.
“Then again, your paycheck wasn’t exactly what made me decide you were a good choice when we married,” she says as she laughs, and he can’t disagree with that at all, can he? When she has to go back to work she makes him promise that he’ll drive there more often and he finds himself not lying when he says that he’ll definitely try. After that, he walks around some more until it’s some half hour before he has to meet Robb, Asha and Theon back at the car - he’s headed there, taking his time and wondering if he could get Shireen something since it’s her birthday in a couple of weeks and he doubts he’ll get a large choice of shops back home. And that’s when he walks in front of what looks like a fairly huge record shop.
He thinks that Asha and Robb are most probably leaving in a little less than two weeks. He figures that most probably Theon’s going to want to go with Robb, which would only be expected, and - well. A farewell present never hurt anyone, especially when Davos still feels guilty for all the minimum wages he hasn’t managed to pay the poor guy until now - if Theon protests he can just mention that and be done with it.
He walks inside, passes straight the used section - for once he can splurge some money on a new cd, come on - and goes looking for the right area.
Ten minutes later, he’s walked up to the cash register with a brand new copy of Sandinista - he doesn’t go for the tape, but he figures that the rest of the world has wisened up and moved on, and Robb’s family most probably did as well - and a shirt with the London Calling cover on the front. He gets them wrapped up and everything and hides them in the car’s trunk - the other three are late anyway, which he had expected for that matter.
They do have some bags with them, Theon is definitely wearing a new scarf (at least) and wait a moment -
“Er,” he asks, looking in between Robb and Theon, “is there a reason why you both look like you’ve been crying for the last two hours?”
“Well, she wanted to see a movie,” Theon says, not quite looking at his sister but sounding fairly embarrassed about it.
“And I let you pick it. Well, he did also, but he’d have picked something he thought you’d like, so.”
“You could have objected, you know.”
“What? If I say I let you pick then you should, who do you think I am?”
“Er, what movie was that anyway?” Davos interrupts.
“Dead Poets Society,” Robb answers - those other two won’t anytime soon, he figures. “It might have been moving. She was the only person in our row who wasn’t crying.”
“I’m surrounded by a bunch of sentimental idiots,” Asha proclaims. “I’m driving back. I physically need to drive.”
“Uh, suit yourself,” Davos says, handing her the keys - if she turns out to be a menace, he can always step in. She isn’t though, and when they get home he hides the package in his closet - at least no one’s going to find it for the moment.
--
The next two weeks are fairly uneventful - Asha still pretends to hate the basic concept of walking on the beach but she does go along with it, Robb ends up charming every other little old lady in the village which somehow does not surprise Davos at all, Jeyne calls once every two days or so and she seems to be settling well decently enough. One time Stannis drops by with a long-suffering look to him and Janos Slynt lagging behind and saying that he had started an evaluation with those two back in January and he should at least close that file. Slynt stares at Theon who’s pretty much bickering with his sister over the counter, looks at Davos with an expression that Davos isn’t quite sure he can classify but sure as hell wasn’t pleased and storms off.
“I might have told him you’d be a better fit for his position,” Stannis calmly informs him before ordering his usual.
That’s about the most of the excitement that comes to pass as June winds down. Then, the day before Robb and Asha’s rent lease expires, he’s in the office looking over the month’s expensese when someone knocks on the door.
“Come in,” he says.
Theon walks in, his shoulders squared straight and isn’t Davos happy to see it, and he looks - well. Not quite nervous. But as if he’s - cautious?
“I - I need to ask you something.”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“I, uh, they’re leaving tomorrow. And I think - well, I need to talk things out with Robb’s parents. We sort of did talk on the phone - we called from where Robb was renting - and I really need to work that out. Even if I don’t particularly want it, but - I have to.”
“I imagine you do. But they’re taking you in again, I guess?”
“Actually - fuck, okay, see, thing is, it wasn’t... bad when you look at it objectively. But if Robb isn’t there I can’t be there. He’s family, probably as much as Asha is at this point and for that matter we’re probably closer and have been for years, but his family isn’t really - mine. And I don’t know if I can live there again. Sure as hell I can’t go live in Oxford on my own either though.”
“Right. So I guess you’re going with your sister after?”
“I could, but - she has a life, and she says she wouldn’t mind but I’d kinda fuck it up for her. And - it’s just that - well, let’s say that while I’m in Birmingham I try to straighten shit out with the police about my current situation, getting my ID back and the likes. I’ll have to deal with it.”
“Yes?”
“Then - is that job offer still valid? I mean, I’d probably take some vacation days to see them and they’d drive here and the likes, Robb already worked out trains and bus routes from Oxford to here, but -”
For a moment, Davos is completely taken aback. “Wait, you mean you want to come back here?”
“Well, just if it’s still valid. I mean, you could have changed your mind and you’d have -”
“Stop right there, I didn’t change my mind. I just - wasn’t thinking you would want to?”
“What if I do?”
“Fine, but you’re accepting regular wages or we don’t have a deal.”
Now, fact is, Theon’s been living here for months and hasn’t properly smiled once. Robb did talk to Davos face to face at a certain point, with a couple beers in between the two of them. He had told him that back when he lived with them, after the first couple months where he just wouldn’t fit in, Theon had just started to pretend he was perfectly fine and would smile at anyone. It wasn’t really true, though, Robb had said. I could see it. Anyway, I just thought that it wasn’t fair that he seemed to have no friends or anything, so I might have kept pushing. Guess he told you, I might have been persistent. Then one day I did manage to make him laugh and - you really don’t know how much his face changes when he smiles for real, you know. That was when I just knew it was worth to keep trying and be friends with him, you know?
Davos hadn’t known, not quite so, because he hadn’t seen it quite yet. But the moment Davos says that they have a deal Theon’s mouth actually breaks into a full grin that is honestly heartwarming to see and lights up his entire face, and now that Davos is seeing it - well, fuck him, he gets what Robb had meant before.
“Deal then,” Theon says, never mind that he sounds kind of choked.
But it’s fine, Davos is fairly sure he’d sound the same should he talk now.
--
One month later, he wakes up at six in the morning because someone is walking up the stairs. Given that there’s just someone else who has a key to the front door, he doesn’t panic at once - rather, he gets out of bed figuring that if it’s Theon he can stand the sight of him in his sleep pajama pants and one of his old shirts he used to wear during pickets, and goes checking.
It’s indeed Theon, who has dropped a way heavier backpack than the one he had the first time round outside the door and has walked inside the room. Where Davos had conveniently left the infamous package which he hadn’t given to Theon when he left, figuring he’d come back.
He stands there on the doorway without saying a thing as Theon unwraps it. He also sees that his hands shake ever so slightly as they open it.
Davos just stands there figuring he can make his presence known later - he can’t see Theon’s face when he takes out the shirt and finds the record wrapped inside it, but his fingers are still shaking wildly as he turns them both over.
Davos clears his throat and takes a step forward; Theon goes still for a moment and then turns towards him, his hands clutching at the shirt. He looks - saying moved probably doesn’t cover it entirely, but that’d be the best Davos can come up with right this moment.
“What - what does this mean?”
Davos smirks and takes a step forward. “Ever heard of welcome home presents or are the overrated where you’re from?”
“The - the latter isn’t too wrong,” Theon says - he’s barely getting out the words. “Shit, did you just say it?”
“I’m not repeating myself when you heard it perfectly. Okay, admittedly, I bought those when I thought you were actually leaving for good, but then I decided it was better to leave it for now. Don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” Theon agrees, “all things considered - yeah.”
“That said, I just realized you can’t even listen to it since I haven’t upgraded from the tape player, but I’m sure that now that I’m paying you properly you can worry about it yourself now.”
“I - sounds like a plan. So you can look your union rep in the eye now?”
“Not thanks to you, but I can. When you want to sign on for good, contract’s downstairs. Don’t you even think about telling me to change it because I did call the goddamn union rep to draft it. I have a reputation to hold up.”
“Okay. I swear I’m not questioning it.”
“Good. Welcome back then.”
“It’s - it’s good to be. And I mean it. I might have missed the lack of civilization, as my sister likes to call it.”
“Nice to know I’m not the only masochist in this town.”
They stare at each other for a moment, and Davos can see that Theon’s kind of forcibly trying not to move forward. Well then - one thing Davos has never believed in is being emotionally constipated with people you care about.
“By the way, your sister did tell me a bit about - where you both come from.”
“Oh. And?”
“Just so you know, life is too short for that kind of bullshit. Go ahead and do what you want to, I think I know anyway.”
“Do you?”
“How about you try me?”
For a moment nothing happens. Then Theon throws his jacket, the record and the shirt on the bed, takes a couple steps forward and throws his arms around Davos’s shoulder the way someone who has no clue of how the gesture might be received would, but the moment Davos actually returns it he stops being stiff and just - goes for it. His heartbeat slows down a tiny bit, at that, and one can feel how utterly relieved he is right now.
Davos holds on tight and maybe he couldn’t put into words how the two of them got here exactly, but it happened and he doesn’t regret a moment of it.
He’s also sure he’s not alone here, is he?
Epilogue
November 23rd, 1990
“Oh, fuck this sideways,” Theon groans as the damned car dies on him again.
“Come on, don’t you be that damned pessimistic. You’ll get the hang of it. It’s parallel parking, not rocket science.”
Yeah, Theon doesn’t say, it’s easy to say from Davos’s fairly less embarrassing position standing outside on the sidewalk.
“You say that. Couldn’t you at least having bought an automatic?”
“You wish, do you know the price difference? And you have the exam in a month, calm down. Parallel parking won’t be your greatest challenge yet.”
“Right, whatever.” Right now, given that he has managed to have the car die on him twice while he was trying to park it and he’s kind of stuck in between the other two cars, he could think of easiest situations to get out from.
“Do you want me to drive it -”
“No.”
“Suit yourself. Want me to tell you where to turn?”
“... Yes.”
Davos starts reciting how and when to turn after he manages to not fuck it up with the clutch enough that the car actually starts. How did Robb get a license at the first try, again? Sure as fuck he’s not going to pass the test with these premises. You’d think that after everything he went through he wouldn’t get stuck at parallel parking, but then again Davos does have a point. He has a month to actually figure out how to not have the fucking car die on him while he parks. He has the rest pretty much down already. He can manage that. If he ever gets out of this spot, but then he follows Davos’s indications and he does manage without wrecking either of the cars in front or behind the Escort.
“Okay,” he says as Davos gets into the car, “I’m driving back.”
“Who said I was volunteering?”
“Good.”
He starts it again, it doesn’t die on him as it used to every time he tried to start it in the beginning, thank fuck, and he heads back to base. He has had enough for the day and it’s what, eight in the morning?. He doesn’t bother turning on the radio, it’s a five minute drive, and he leaves it in front of the pub while Davos goes back inside - he should probably start getting things ready since they’re opening in thirty minutes.
There’s really nothing out of the ordinary. They serve breakfast, the usual regulars show up, his sister calls him from the bus station saying that her train was on time and she’s coming over - good, she did say she might visit when they called each other last week.
Then, at around nine, they get a phone call. Davos takes it.
“Seaworth’s, how - what? I want to do what? Okay, okay, sure. Theon, can you turn on the television? According to Stannis I want to see it.”
Theon does, he’s the closest to it. And - wait, why is there some extraordinary edition of the news at this time? It’s weird -
“- after the last leadership election, it’s rumored that the majority of Mrs. Thatcher’s cabinet might not back her in the second ballot -”
“Wait,” Davos says, slamming the tray he had in his hands on the counter - good thing it was empty. “Wait, they - her own fucking party is voting her out?”
“So it seems,” Mance Rayder says after swallowing a forkful of eggs.
Davos stares at the television for a moment, then leaves the counter and grabs a chair.
“You take the orders for the rest of the day,” he tells Theon, “this needs my fucking full attention.”
“Sure. Far from me to distract you from it,” Theon agrees, figuring that if there’s one topic he shouldn’t joke about around here it’s this specific one.
“Hey, this is too good to be real. I mean, voting her out would have been great, but her own party? That’s even better. Shut up. I need to follow.”
Theon is not the kind of idiot who will pursue that conversation and he goes behind the counter to take orders. Stannis shows up in the flesh not long later - he goes to the counter and said he drove here, but he didn’t want to risk losing the chance to witness Davos’s reaction at the entire thing. Theon gets the man his juice - he’s still looking fairly scary but he’s had to admit, he’s nowhere near as bad as one might think when you get to know him. And he’s a lot less grumpy since he got custody of his admittedly adorable daughter.
He also doesn’t know how Asha manages to get here at the exactly right time, but she walks in just as the two news presenters on television argue on how much of a reliable information is that.
Asha listens to the television for a moment, then she walks up to the counter and drops her backpack on the ground.
“I see that I came in to witness something glorious going down, didn’t I? I’ll have coffee and eggs.”
“Don’t you jinx it,” Davos tells her without even turning to look her way.
“Since when you’re superstitious?”
“I’m not, but in this case it can’t bloody hurt. If she resigns, free drinks the entire day for everyone.”
“I could never jinx an opportunity for free alcohol later,” Asha declares. Theon goes to put on her coffee and marvels at the fact that she actually bothers to come down here once each month if she can and hasn’t once told him he’d be better off somewhere more civilized according to her standards.
She has barely started drinking her coffee when breaking news turns into the journalist staying at Downing Street interrupting whichever debate they had going on in the studio to inform them that an official statement has been issued and that Mrs. Thatcher is in fact stepping down as Prime Minister.
For a moment, no one says anything and they let the man talk, but then -
“So, free drinks?” Asha asks hopefully.
“For the entire bloody week,” Davos says before standing up and grabbing the nearest person to him who was in fact Stannis, who probably didn’t think he’d end up hugged to bloody death over Thatcher resignating, but - he actually doesn’t stand still and returns it?
“Well,” he says when Davos has moved on to Mance - he’s probably going to hug everyone in this joint at this rate, “it was worth it to drive here. Davos, can I have free non-alcoholic drinks?”
“You can have anything free. You can tell your entire bloody station, I don’t care.”
That’s not a good idea if they want to breathe at any time before the next month, but Theon doesn’t voice the objection and by lunch time the place is fucking packed, everyone is indeed getting free drinks, his sister is saying that maybe she’d consider moving here if it was like this all the time, Davos’s old tape player has been playing some old Clash live bootleg for the last two hours and the television is airing some debate they recorded yesterday in which Labour called for a no confidence vote - Theon guesses it’s moot now, but whatever. He’s too worried trying to serve about everyone since Davos in theory should be to, but he’s too busy commenting said debate.
“Have you fucking heard her? Like, she had the gall to say that the strike was not her fault?”
“Hey, didn’t you hear, it’s her merit if the Berlin Wall fell down,” someone - right, Sandor Clegane - says. Probably it was for further riling up, it looks like he’s fully enjoying it.
“Yeah, sure, and I got richer in the last eleven years according to her. I’d like to fucking show her.”
“You are aware that she hasn’t been prime minister since this morning, yes? Chill, that debate’s outdated,” Theon says, figuring that maybe it’s time to kill that conversation before Clegane riles Davos up any further and he has to serve the entire place free drinks on his own.
And then -
“Son, I’m aware of that, doesn’t mean I still don’t hate her fucking guts - what?”
Davos doesn’t realize what kind of bomb he dropped - the entire bar has gone silent at once, you can only hear the poor House of Commons chairman shouting order every other moment and Theon, well, Theon’s there and he quite doesn’t know what to say. Some people do call pretty much everyone younger like that and if Davos was one of them he wouldn’t have stopped dead in his tracks staring at him and not knowing what the hell he should say or do. But Davos is not, and he obviously wasn’t exactly thinking about what he was saying - it was definitely a heat of the moment thing.
And fuck but it’s embarrassing how many times Theon had thought if only my ass of a father had been anywhere like that back when he ended up here first, and it’s embarrassing how many times he has thought that hey, maybe he scored terribly as far as parental figures went but it’s not too bad now and if sometimes he thinks to himself that he sort of did eventually find one, no one had to know. Davos doesn’t know any of that of course, but now that he’s said it Theon has no clue of how to answer without it turning horribly embarrassing -
“Well, about bloody time,” Stannis proclaims.
“Sorry?” Theon blurts.
“Come on, how long has it been? I’m fairly sure everyone guessed it already. My daughter guessed it already.”
“Shireen has what?”
“When I told her that you two weren’t somehow legally related she thought I was lying. It was what, six months ago?”
“Come on,” Asha chimes in, “he’s right. And good fucking thing that, he’s been better for you in three months than our dad has in ten years,” she says, staring straight at Theon. “It’s not like I’m considering it a betrayal or anything.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“It’s obvious that you think that. And it’s fine. Let’s be real, anyone in your place would. You’ve got my blessing for what it’s worth.”
On one side he wants to sink underground. But if there’s one thing he’s learned in the last two years is that after what he went through, talking to people that actually care for you regardless of how much you think you deserve it isn’t half as hard as one might think, so he just forces himself to look back at Davos again.
“Er,” Davos says, and now he looks like he’s fishing for words but more because everyone is watching them, not for anything else. “If you want to actually talk about it when we’re not in front of the entire town and they’re all drunk later I’ll be glad to, but - well, I wasn’t thinking about it.”
“It’s okay, really -”
“But I also meant it.”
“You - you did?” Damn, he is fine enough now that he can actually joke about things the way he used to before fucking Ramsay Bolton, but right now he’s too floored for sarcasm. Or joking about it.
“I did.”
“Uhm. Well - let’s say if - if it had been me not thinking about it and doing, you know, the contrary, I might’ve meant it as well?”
That was - way too convoluted, but he really didn’t want to say it in front of an audience.
“Seems like we agree then,” Davos says, sounding fairly relieved, and - is he smiling in a way that’s totally different from how he was before when he heard about the resignation?
“Seems like it,” Theon says, wondering if the way his throat is closing up in all the good ways is showing on his face, and then -
Then the phone rings. Neither of them reaches for it. Stannis rolls his eyes openly and grabs it herself.
“Davos Seaworth’s, the owner is currently not available - oh, no, no, you don’t have to call back again. I’m putting you on speaker.”
“Who -” Davos starts.
“That’s his best friend,” Stannis says nodding towards Theon. What, Robb is calling?
“Robb?” Theon asks.
“Hey,” Robb answers - the reception is a bit disturbed but you can hear it. “Nice as it is to hear from you, I just wanted to congratulate your employer. I mean, I’m sure he enjoyed today’s news more than I did.”
“Thank you,” Davos says, “I still don’t know how he managed to be friends with someone as considerate as you are. But yes, I’m offering everyone free drinks for a reason.”
“Sweet. No way you can do it for me too when I drop by next?”
“For you I can definitely make an exception.”
“Robb,” Asha interrupts and fuck, yeah, Theon always forgets those two were pretty much forced into being friendly because they lived together for a month. He’s happy about it most of the time. Most of. As in, not right now. “These two bastards aren’t even telling you the best news yet.”
“What? Are there more news?”
“Robb, ignore her -” Theon starts - by now most of the customers are desperately trying not to laugh openly.
“No, she’s right.” Damn, now Stannis is on it, too? “Let’s say that by this point I’m sure your friend shouldn’t go by Greyjoy anymore since it’s official that he’d rather have a surname switch, but -”
“Stannis, damn it,” Davos groans.
“Wait,” Robb says, “did you two finally just tell each other that there’s been an accidental adoption happening all along? Because it’s not news, it was obvious.”
A few people spit their beer, Asha breaks down laughing and tells Robb that this is one of the moments when she’s grateful for his existence and Theon just pretty much shoves another whiskey into Clegane’s face before moving on to the next person. “Call later,” he shouts towards the phone, “we’re kind of busy here.”
“Sure, you can forget I’d let that go anyway. Drink for me as well, I have dinner with people who are actually fucking sad she resigned. My life is horrible,” Robb groans before closing the call, and then they get thrown into serving drinks again and thankfully both Stannis and Asha drop it, except that - damn it, he’s sure he can’t stop grinning to himself once in a while and at some point he stops himself from trying.
That’s it, until they’re grabbing two different beers at the same time and they have their backs to the main room.
“Admittedly,” Davos says slowly, low enough that no one else can hear it, “this was the worst moment for that to come up, but Theon Seaworth doesn’t sound half bad to me.”
Fine. Theon can feel beer overflowing from the glass all over his hand as he listens because he completely forgot he actually was filling the damned glass, but it really doesn’t matter in comparison to how much he’s feeling like he could burst with joy right now.
“That doesn’t sound half as bad to me, too,” he answers, and means it completely.
End.