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Three months after he asks Ramsay Bolton for his Uncle’s head, Theon goes to collect pine resin.
It’s base work, perhaps more fitting for hollow-eyed chambermaids or even the children that work in the kitchens. But, the sun is also out for the first time in weeks, and the stumps of Theon’s fingers hurt less than usual, and Walda is happy to accompany him to the grove of pines a mile north of the Weeping Water.
His fat little mother-in-law is a hardy and strong walker, glad to be rid of dark stone and smoking smells, if only for a morning. In the poor light of the Dreadfort, it’s easy to forget that they’re both Westerners in an Eastern fortress. Her breathy prattle about the letters she and Roose exchange and the importance of keeping the stores up for the return of the Bolton army is strangely welcome.
Theon rubs his incomplete hand, looking out into the forest. Despite the house’s men following the two of them at distance, it’s easy to imagine they’re alone in the sept of trees, with the sounds of dripping water echoing off hard wood and snow. He thinks of his own husband.
Ramsay had achieved legitimacy through the marriage contract between Roose Bolton and Balon Greyjoy, and with that Theon had achieved the perverse sanctity of Ramsay’s family name. Ramsay disgraced their union regularly, while also gifting it with his obsessive focus. Just as he did with his own acquired lineage.
It was to be expected. Theon had been a bit of a whore and a cad himself, after all. Though those days of fingering tavern girls were long gone. Ramsay had made that perfectly clear, on no uncertain terms, with the line of a blade pressed to Theon’s throat. His jealousy was almost endearing, even with the dark terror of it.
Theon felt he knew that as well as anyone. In addition to a sadist and a killer and a child and a soldier and a hunter, Ramsay Bolton was also a bit of a whore. And with his husband’s twined whoring and possession, Theon transformed into the obligatory long-suffering bride.
And yet.
There are those things that they do share.The pleasurable darkness of kindred spirits.
Had he sensed it during their odd little betrothal? The diplomatic wedding and treaty signing in Winterfell? Perhaps. And if not then, surely by the first half-year of their marriage.
They arrive in the grove of pines by midday, breath misting and cheeks pink from the cold. The tree-injuries he applied a few days before are already glistening with the evergreen scent of resin, dark and viscous above the fresh snowfall.
As Theon pulls out his knife and begins to scrape at the sap, he forgets the winter chill, and returns to a warmer memory.
“Daddy.”
Ramsay’s hand stilled when it connected with Theon’s arse, forcing the impact to settle heavily into the bruising flesh. Shifting against the hard press of Ramsay’s cock, Theon could only bite his lip and tremble at the discomfort of every stinging spank and slap.
He’d always known that Ramsay liked pain, but this was just demeaning.
The two men were roughly the same build. In fact, Theon clasped onto the private opinion that he was just a thumb’s print taller than Ramsay. But that made no difference when he was draped like a shadowcat pelt over the wide spread of Ramsay’s thighs. With his bruising flesh and red face, Theon felt like a brothel whore caught pocketing a few too many coins.
Though I suppose that is the point, he thought, shivering as the calloused hand that had been spanking him drifted up and down the dip of his spine.
Just six months after the official ceremony had taken place in Winterfell and Ramsay was once again taking Theon “in hand” for some act of disobedience or mischief. This time, the offense had been shooting a summer boar that Ramsay had been aiming at. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, until Ramsay turned and loosed his arrow into the branch a hand's length above Theon’s head.
He’d actually expected a beating right then and there but, as Ramsay wrestled him into the leafy underbrush and bit at his neck, it seemed Ramsay was more content to punish Theon with his cock than his fists. At least until later.
It was still difficult to parse his husband’s dark whimsy and fickle moods. At one moment, almost childlike in its sadism. In another, sensing power differentials or exploited weakness with the ease of a longboat cutting through still water. The novelty of it all gave Theon the itch to...experiment. In his own cruel way.
He might pale in comparison to his husband but, if years of betrothal and six months of marriage had taught Theon anything, it was that he harbored his own strange wants.
Would he do it?, Theon thought. Yes, but now, for you? I want to see if he would. What a strange thrill that would be.
Another smack hit the crease of Theon’s ass and thigh like a thunderclap, scattering all thoughts of his little fantasy. Theon yelped into the breezy air.
“If this is some sorry beg at leniency, I won't hear it,” Ramsay intoned grave as a septa, as he palmed at Theon’s ass. Theon could hear the cruel smile in his voice. “You don’t ever take what’s mine.”
Smarting, relentless spanks rained down in tandem with his words until Theon felt blood gathering in his face with the heated pain of it, squirming and whimpering like a maid in the midsummer heat of Ramsay’s lap, the press of a hard cock through hunting trousers.
They lay in bed together, after.
Ramsay had thrown the windows open, and the cool breeze was welcome on Theon’s stinging body. He doubted that he would be able to sleep on his back for at least a week’s time, though the upcoming dinners and meetings could not be passed up. Ramsay would make sure he attend, if only to get a first-hand view of Theon shifting in his chair.
It was an uncharacteristically long summer that year, especially for the North. If the heat sparked Theon’s internal scheming, it rendered in Ramsay a disquieting stillness that resembled the tension before an electrical storm.
He lay across the bed from Theon, equally naked on his back. A haze of lazy energy hung over the whole of the keep. Ramsay distrusted summer, and the heat it brought. But he did enjoy an excuse to lounge around shamelessly.
Theon found himself caught, for a moment, on the hard line of his husband’s folded arms. From across the bed, a cold eye tipped open, glancing sidelong at Theon’s bruising ass and then his blushing face, before closing again.
“Unless it’s important, or you want the belt, best keep whatever you’re thinking to yourself.”
What was it they said? That summer was the time for trying new things? Theon gave himself mere moments to parse over his claim, before he dove in, head first.
“Grunt put his hands on me,” he said, careful not to sound too hysterical. Or too happy, for that matter.
Ramsay didn’t move, but his eyes blinked open, tongue clicked lazily against the roof of his mouth, as it sometimes did when Ramsay was thinking.
“He did, did he?” His voice was like his flaying knife. Lazy, and calculating. “And you let him?”
And that, too, was predictable. For this to work the way he wanted, Theon was banking on Ramsay’s possessiveness. Provided that it was directed at the right outlet, of course.
He buried his face in the furs of their bed, hiding his grin behind the clenching veneer of shame, before sidling up to Ramsay’s side with a sad pout.
“Of course I didn’t. But he’s stronger than me and I, I…”
“You what, pet?”
Inside Theon only felt black desire, but his eyes were simpering and kicked-dog, when he looked up at Ramsay.
“I don’t think I’m respected here.” A perfectly simple thing to say, for a simple highborn wife.
Ramsay laughed.
“Well, sweetling,” he patted at Theon’s cheek. “I can’t imagine why that would be.”
In their scant half year of marriage, Theon had been bent over, fucked against, or straddled Ramsay on the majority of surfaces (both horizontal and vertical) that the Dreadfort had to offer. It had become an obscene right of passage for men-at-arms or serving girls to inevitably come across Roose Bolton’s bastard heir and his red-mouthed, moaning bride going at it like May hares. A degenerate exhibitionist, Ramsay always enjoyed having others watch, as he took what was his.
“That’s different,” Theon said. “I can slap him as often as I please. Still don’t like him thinking he can touch me like that…
He bit his lip, ever conscious of the way Ramsay’s knife blade attention sank to the red, swollen flesh.
“The way you can,” he finished. Internally, he grimaced at that last bit.
Laying it on a bit too thick, perhaps.
If Ramsay was holding Theon against the edge of his suspicion, he was content to simply pat at Theon’s summer hair, eyes gazing up at the timber ceiling above their bed.
“Close your eyes and stop shifting about,” Ramsay ordered. “And don’t turn over.”
Theon was conferring with one of Walda’s lady’s when he heard the commotion across the inner ward.
Servants scattered and horses lunged, but Theon’s attention held fidelity only for the the steady footfalls and quiet, wordless groans and the sight of Ramsay dragging one of his longest-serving men-at-arms into the center of the dusty courtyard, as its other occupants cowered along the periphery. Dust rose as Ramsay wrestled the man onto the ground, knees a pinning weight on the struggling man’s forearms.
Be it his ferocity or reputation or some unnamed animal force, Theon didn’t know, but Ramsay was stronger than he looked, and uncompromising in the way he dealt out pain. Even his impulsive acts of violence often looked rehearsed. Inevitable. Theon found he liked that.
The dirk glittered cruelly in the midday sunlight as Theon watch his husband unsheathe it.
Theon felt something black and sticky pool in his gut, as the knife swam in and out from the ribboning flesh. So deep, that he could see white bones exposed behind the twitching, ruined muscles of Grunt’s hands.
And then Ramsay started on the rest of him.
And Theon felt the black heat spread. And Theon watched.
Watched, as men-at-arms who’d bragged about raping the maiden daughters of enemy commanders averted their eyes. Watched, as serving women bent at the waist and retched. Watched, as Ben Bones turned to the kennels and struggled (for the first time) to calm the barking of the hounds, taken as they were by the smell of suffering and their Master’s own dark pleasure.
When Ramsay finally straightened and stalked towards Theon - immediately, as if he’d felt Theon’s eyes on him the whole time, and perhaps he had - to drop Grunt’s head in his hands. Well.
It was quite possibly the most romantic thing that someone had ever done for him.
Theon watched the tight line of Ramsay’s receding back, dirk sitting bloody at his waist, and felt the eyes looking at him and heard the ugly dripping of Grunt’s low blood into the dust between his two feet, and realized for the first time that he could, someday, come to love Ramsay Bolton.
Not just manage or survive or wrangle him. But love him. Despite everything.
Or perhaps, he thought, looking into Grunt’s sightless eyes, because of it.
Ever conscious of the eyes following him, he stuck the head on one of the empty pikes along the battlements of the keep. And then he returned to their rooms.
Ramsay was waiting for him. His bloody jerkin and shirt were discarded on the floor. Maids had arranged a steaming basin of water and a small pile of linens on the side table. Theon didn’t need to see Ramsay’s face to know what was expected of him.
He dipped a cloth in the hot, clean water and stood at the edge of their bed. And waited.
Ramsay watched Theon’s face with keen heat, as the damp cloth smoothed over the line of his blood splattered throat.
“I put myself at quite a bit of risk this morning.”
His voice was the calm of a dark, still river. Often, Ramsay’s worst rages began with his softest, kindest voice.
“My men will think I’m buried in your sweet little cunt. That you’ve bewitched me.”
Biting his lip, not daring to look up, Theon dabbed at the hollow or Ramsay’s throat, his collar bones.
A hand settled on his shoulder, tacky with spilled blood. Squeezing.
“Out with it,” Ramsay smiled, eager and blood-hungry. “Before I drag you back out and show the rabble something they really won’t forget.”
Theon swallowed.
“I told you yester - “
“Please,” Ramsay scoffed. “You’re even denser than I thought, if you think I believed that tale. I knew Grunt before the sorry retch lost his tongue. He’s never gone after cock, not once.”
Several of the Dreadfort’s residents were known to have … diverse tastes. Theon for one, though he also knew of Ramsay, Damon, and the kennel master’s daughter who laughed like a bell whenever someone was flayed. There were surely others in the dark keep, though apparently that list did not include Grunt.
Aware of Ramsay’s bloody hand and the fact that his jig was up, Theon sat down on their bed with a sigh, all too conscious of the sting in his bruised ass.
He hoped that Ramsay wouldn’t punish him. Too harshly, at least.
“Well, he scared my attendants, for one.”
Ramsay’s bloody hand withdrew from his shoulder, leaving a dark handprint. Theon tensed for a harsh smack, but froze as it was dangled, like a lord’s hand waiting for a serving man’s kiss, before him.
He glanced up at Ramsay’s face, and found himself startled by the fond warmth in the man’s eyes.
“Did I say you could stop?”
Theon was all too aware of the heat in his husband’s gaze, as he worked a second, damp linen over Ramsay’s strong fingers. Drops of blood scattered, fine as dust, onto his lap.
“You’re beginning to get to the meat of it, aren’t you?” Ramsay said, eyes dancing and half-lidded. “But lots of men grope teats. That’s what they’re there for, no?”
“I’ve certainly done worse. You want I should strap myself up in my dungeons?”
And if Theon’s cock jumped a bit at that image, he did his best to ignore it.
“You’re...different. The heir to the Dreadfort, and my husband. You’re untouchable,” Theon laved soap under Ramsay’s fingernails, and scrubbed at them with the corner of a cloth. “And there’s only one of you, and hundreds of sworn men in these walls, who’ve seen you do worse than kill a mute. I know he’s not well-liked by others in the keep and, if I’m to be your consort, I need to establish that I hold their interests close. And...”
Ramsay tilted his head and switched hands, tucking his clean wrist into the line of his bare waist. Even in the larger context of their marriage and the day’s events, it felt distinctly surreal to have this man who hunted people for sport and delighted in torture looking down at him like a dissapointed Mum.
Except, the comparison ended there. Ramsay’s trousers were slung low on his abdomen, leaving the vee of his hipbones exposed. Theon swallowed, once again fighting to ignore his cock.
“...because I didn’t like him. Because he was the least competent of your men - could scarcely fight off two women, let alone support you in a siege,” Theon continued, unbidden as he scrubbed Ramsay clean. “Because he was stupid. Because he had no tongue and no letters and couldn’t defend himself against my charge. Because the other men will see, now, that they can’t get complacent in their duties.”
The washcloth fell to the floor. Theon began to gently dry Ramsay’s clean hands.
“Because I wanted a wedding present. Because I wanted to see you raw, in front of everyone. Because I wanted to see if you would do it. I…”
His voice stuttered, at the cloying truth of his desire.
“…I wanted to watch you do it. I liked watching you do it.”
Shuddering, Theon breathed into the lightheaded pleasure he’d felt as Ramsay tore skin from muscle and muscle from bone. In front of Theon. In front of everyone, because he had asked. The depth of his own want surprised him, the ferocity of it. Black as any Bolton banner, and flayed open indeed. Made headier by the desire to have something like that, again.
“Theon,” Ramsay said quietly from above.
Ramsay so rarely said his name. “Theon,” like a rare gift among the more common “pet” and “girl” and “slut” and “puppy” and “wife.”
And Theon did look up.
Ramsay’s eyes were blown black, like the depth of Theon’s want. The dark alcoves where he liked to fuck Theon into the wall.
And then he pounced.
Theon yelped, felt rough hands tearing at his tunic in the mid-afternoon heat. Ramsay wrestled him prone in the center of the bed, cheek crushed against cool softness. Shivering, Theon’s hands fisted for purchase into the thick wolf and shadowcat pelts as Ramsay tore his pants down his thighs, as he did before a spanking or belting, and tongued down the bare dip of Theon’s spine.
Sharp teeth dug into the meat of his well-punished ass, right at the tense swell of it.
He’s going to beat me now, Theon thought.
Ramsay had layered punishments before, even took delight in spanking Theon’s used body. He whimpered, at the dig of rough palms into the meat of his ass, thumbs pressing into bruises, spreading him. Imagining the punishment, and knowing that he would deserve it and -
And Ramsay buried his awful face between his awful hands, and laved a wide, rough lap from Theon’s taint to his tailbone.
Ramsay moaned into the tight muscle, kissing and licking and digging his thumbs into Theon, spreading him open, further still, circling his tongue until Theon keened.
Kept open, big palms forcing his hips to tilt back and up into the press of Ramsay’s face.
Ramsay had made him cum before - on his fingers, and his cock, and even the hard press of Ramsay’s boots or thigh when Ramsay made Theon grind against him like a bitch in heat - but never with the wet heat, the slick press and nip of teeth opening him up like a whore. The press of Ramsay’s thumbs into his cheeks was especially evil, squeezing in tandem with the rough laving of his mouth, as if testing the give of the muscle. Two slick fingers tested at him, before pushing inside in a single relentless press. They pressed into the space behind his sac. Massaging, circling.
Theon cried out at the stretch and pleasure of them, the humiliating openness of his own body. Thighs forced open around Ramsay’s ribs, he tried to wriggle his hips away from Ramsay’s tongue and face and hands.
It was a mistake. The strange brush of the thick pelts against his throbbing cock was both not enough, and somehow worse , overstimulating him on both sides and -
“Don’t you fucking run away from me, you little slut.”
The slap landed on his bruises, and the little dignity that did cling within Theon’s body scattered like a dust mote in the summer breeze.
Theon cried out, collapsing limp on the furs as his cock came all over his clenching abdomen and the pelts of the animals that Ramsay had hunted and killed in preparation for their wedding day.
“Playing dead won’t get you anywhere. Come now, I’d just as soon take you this way -“
Floating in a strange between-space, Theon was vaguely aware of Ramsay’s voice behind him. He whimpered at the brush of warm furs against his smarting backside and the empty twitch of his softening cock against his own skin, as a pair of strong hands flipped him onto his back.
As the comedown cleared, he felt the cool breeze and the flutter of the curtains. And he saw the mid-afternoon sun slanting across the stone hearth, and he saw Ramsay, wiping the back of his hand across his chin and staring down at Theon’s stomach with a queer sort of disbelief.
“Did you just?” Ramsay panted.
Whatever bleary, fucked-out, tear-stained look Theon gave him was answer enough. Ramsay’s red mouth tipped up in a smug grin and slick fingers prodded at Theon’s loose, slick hole. And then the fingers were gone and there was just Ramsay. His hard warmth pressing down onto Theon, and the rough grind of his voice.
“It would have been a fucking humanitarian service to lock you in my kennels,” he growled against Theon’s jaw. There was a fondness to his voice, like he was saying you’re mine.
“You’re a Gods-damned menace.”
Theon blinked more damp from his eyes, from the pain or the intensity of his pleasure he didn’t know, but it seemed only natural and right to wrap his arms around the line of Ramsay’s shoulders, as strong hands dug into the downy backs of his thighs.
Pressing Theon open, Ramsay settled closer into the cradle of his hips, eyes sparkling and electric in a way that Theon had never seen before. Not even when he’d watched Ramsay shoot a shadowcat through its gray eye, or the first time Theon got on his knees to suck him.
“Mm’ not,' Theon muttered, not even vaguely convinced by his own voice.
“Mm,” Ramsay adjusted his grip slightly, widening the tight stretch in Theon’s thighs, spreading him like a maid. “Yes, you are. Gonna have me kill half the continent, that it?”
Theon whimpered at the faint shift of the man above him, struggling not to be flattered by the queer breathlessness in Ramsay’s voice.
“You minced around like the only Highborn in the North. If I’d have known how wet you get every time I make a statement, I’d have had you good and bred before the wedding.”
“Stop, Ramsay, stop.”
Theon’s mind felt runny, formless as he wriggled. As if, if not for the press of the man on top of him and the dead things beneath, the whole sum of his personhood would escape through the open windows.
“M’ not gonna have you…have you… “
He couldn’t remember what he was going to say, only that Ramsay was nodding with mock gravity above him.
“No, I suppose you’re not,” Ramsay said, reaching down between their hips and looking kind indeed.
“But you are getting fucked, now.”
And then the blunt head of his cock was splitting Theon open, in hitched, aborted movements that rubbed all the sweet, tender parts inside. He felt himself pulling Ramsay down into him, and the surface rushed up around him, rippling and dark like fine furs.
“Why did you kill him?” Theon said in between kitten licks to Ramsay’s palm. His husband had just finished an apple, and the juice was still crisp and sticky on his pale hand. “If you knew I was lying?”
“Do I really need a reason?”
“Some would say so,” Theon glanced up at Ramsay, in the cooling evening air. The maids finished rinsing the blood from the dusty inner bailey hours ago. “He was your friend.”
“Please.” Ramsay rolled his eyes. “The man had no tongue. What am I supposed to do with someone like that? A waste of coin. You’re interesting, at the very least.”
Theon tried and failed not to preen at the compliment, as Ramsay turned to face him. Pale eyes glittered with hidden plans and energy in the fading light.
“You know,” a smooth hand travelled along the central dip in Theon’s spine.
They’d pushed the furs and pelts onto the stone floor, and Theon snuggled further under the remains of his own ruined clothes. Taken, once again, by the cruel pleasure in Ramsay’s gaze.
“When I first saw you flouncing about. With your skin and your mouth and your teeth.” Ramsay’s body was warm against his own as they sidled against one another, his hands rough and searching. “I thought you quite the fit for my leal serving man. Or my pet wife. You only needed to learn. That’s what I thought.”
“And now?”
The line of Ramsay’s teeth was sharp under Theon’s tongue. He found himself savoring the hard press of the canines.
“Now,” Ramsay said, smoothing a thumb over the corner of Theon’s mouth. Close enough to bite. “All I think about is having you watch.”