A/N: I just started reading the books while I started writing this, so there is some canon from the books in this. The ages, hair/eye colors, among some other stuff are from the books, but most of the information is from the TV series.
This contains spoilers for those who have not finished the second season and/or the second book! (And please, no spoilers in the reviews for anything in book three+ since I haven't gotten that far!) :)
The salt flows through your veins, a Greyjoy of Pyke, of the Iron Islands.
But your heart, your heart howls with the throaty cries of the direwolf from the North, from Winterfell.
xxx
The whistle of the arrow you sent flying through the air fills your ears and you hold your breath until you hear the sound of flesh being pierced.
From your view, you can see the wildling crumple forward, your target hit, with Bran gasping at his side, and the look of shock erasing fear on Robb's face. You smile cockily at him, knowing well you just saved his and his younger brother's lives, but he doesn't return the grin and is instead furious. Sometimes you wonder if you will ever make the eldest Stark happy.
"It was not your place," he scolds, his tone like venom as you take his place beside the fearful woman and he goes to Bran. He had been the one who lowered his sword before a wildling and yet he speaks as though he had the situation under hand. If it hadn't been for you, the blood of Stark would have spilled across this frozen land, but no thanks are uttered.
You open your mouth to reply but shut it instead as his words from moments before the chaos ring in your memory and the victory fades from your heart.
"It's not your house."
xxx
"What's a whore?"
You're thirteen and you look at the young Stark sitting on his bed beside your own, his question catching you off-guard. You can't help but smile, the innocent air of an eight-year-old clinging to his words and making them almost shocking. You shift on your bed to see if Jon's still awake, knowing well he would object if you defiled the unsullied ears of his half-brother.
He's fast asleep so you tell the boy what you know, watching as his round eyes grow wide with wonder and childish disgust. When you're done, Robb can't help but laugh at this new knowledge, which makes you laugh in unison, feeling almost as though you belong with him in this room, when your real home lies leagues away kissing the coast of the sea. You move to his bed, putting a calloused hand over his mouth to stifle the noise. "You'll wake Snow," you warn, only freeing his mouth once he's quiet.
You seat yourself beside him and he looks at you, a smile still present on his pale lips. "So it's only men and women? Wouldn't it be more honorable to lie with a knight than a woman?"
Your gaze turns to him quickly as his whisper enters your ear. You shake your head, but you had never thought of it that way before. A knight, or a man at all, holds more honor in the tip of his toe than any woman does in her whole being, but that's not how it works for some reason unknown to you. You shake your head again, not feeling as certain of your knowledge as you had earlier.
xxx
When Bran falls from that dilapidated tower, he comes to you.
Tears trail down his cheeks and you pull him toward you before you even know what has happened. Your arms wrap around him and he leans his chin on your shoulder as he tells you all he knows of Bran's tragedy. Had he been reporting the news to anyone else, you know Robb would've kept hold of his composure, but it's you and he doesn't think twice before crumpling into your arms.
"He never falls," he says, almost a whisper as his voice breaks. You've heard the same words from Bran many times before when Lady Stark warned him against climbing the high walls of the castle. "They think he won't wake."
No words of reassurance leave your mouth because you don't want to make promises you aren't sure the Gods will keep. Your hands, rough from years of sword handling and rein holding, cradle his head, your fingers tangling themselves in his thick curls. Right then and there, you would like nothing more than to fell the fate that allowed the Stark boy to slip from that tower, anything to stop this sadness that fills the man you'd happily call your brother and much more.
But you're just Theon Greyjoy and you haven't the power to punish the Gods or fate itself, so you just pull him closer to you and hope that will be enough.
xxx
You're just a boy when you hear those words - the words that will change your highborn life forever.
"Theon Greyjoy will be taken as hostage and ward in House Stark. If you ever attempt rebellion again, your last son will lose his head."
The words echo in your ears and you don't understand. You look to your father and his face is plain with distaste as he gazes back at you, a look which he never would have sent toward your late brothers no matter how badly they failed or upset him. He nods his head, without protest, without a fight, sending you away as though you're just a dog he'll never think about again. You stare at him, your mouth agape, readying for screams that refuse to leave your constricting throat while tears as salty as the surrounding waters rain from your dark eyes.
You feel the chill hands of a man from the North touch your shoulder, trying to guide you from the room. When your feet do not obey, the man picks you up as though you are a bag of flour and carries you out.
You are a boy of barely ten when they take you from your home on the sea as the cost of war.
Your father doesn't say goodbye.
xxx
You grip the puppy roughly by the scruff of the neck, looking at it with jealousy you wish you could mask. Even the bastard Snow was gifted with a pup of his own, but not you - you were given the two for Sansa and Arya, but only to carry safely back to them. You're of the sea and have no blood-right to such a creature, but as you hold Robb's direwolf in your gloved hand, you can't help but feel envy. "What will you call the freak?" you ask him, using your earlier word for the monstrous creature.
Robb doesn't answer you right away. He reaches for his pup and, with a slight reluctance, you hand it over. He cradles it, scratching it fondly behind one of its perked ears, and the jealousy is so strong in you that you can taste it. "Grey Wind. Grey from your surname and Wind because he'll soon be as swift as it."
You look up at him with surprise and, despite your longing for a wolf of your own, you smile.
xxx
Robb sits next to you in the deep woods as you used to do back when you both were children and it's hard to believe he's Lord of Winterfell, even if it's just while his father's away in King's Landing. Nine years you have been away from your home and now you think you almost feel more at ease among the thick trees and snow than you would along the coast of the fierce sea.
"Thank you," he says, no longer using his "lord's voice," as you once heard young Bran call it. You used to excel in telling what the eldest Stark was thinking by just the tone of his voice or the look of his face, but he's older now, more guarded, and you find yourself confused as to for what he's thanking you. After a moment's silence, he adds, "For suggesting this today - I needed to get away from the castle."
You shrug your shoulders carelessly in answer but are truly happy he accepted your suggestion, missing the times when you two had all day to prepare for wars that were only figments of your imaginations or to ride until nightfall. You watch him as he draws a dagger from its sheath at his side. He touches the blade's edge gently and still a drop of blood swells through the split skin, the sharpness of the weapon not something to be doubted. You both follow the drop as it rolls down his finger, staining his fair skin a light red in its wake.
"You know," he says, tearing his eyes from the blood and turning towards you, "Jon once told me a way two could become brothers without being born them." He eyes you curiously; you can feel him watch for your reaction - your approval is something he's always sought and always hated.
You sniff, not wanting to seem interested in anything with which the bastard came up, but at the same time, the idea of binding your brotherhood with Robb intrigues you. You had two brothers once and both died at the orders of your father and the sword of Robb's father - well, his father's men, at least. And yet, your love for the Stark is stronger than anything you've ever felt for your own kin, though you would never dream to admit it. "All right, then."
"He said if two people mix their blood, then they're bound to one another for eternity." He fingers the dagger's gleaming hilt as he speaks, but his blue eyes never leave your face. "I'd do it, if you want - you are to me a brother by word, even if not by blood."
You rise to your feet and he rises in suit. There is not a doubt in your mind that you'd wish to be forever bound to him, let it be by word, blood, or love - and even perhaps a combination of all three. You offer your sword hand and he takes it in his own. He looks at you for permission, which you give silently with a nod, and he presses the shining blade across your palm, opening the skin from between your thumb and forefinger to beneath your smallest finger. The thick red blood spills from your hand, the wound deep, clean, and painful, but you show no reaction.
He turns the weapon on himself, repeating the cut more clumsily onto his own sword hand and the same color spills. He steps toward you, taking your left hand in his right, pressing them palm to palm, and as your fingers weave between his, your gazes lock. The blood forged from the salt of the sea and the iron of the island flows and mixes with the blood of the northern wilderness, the blood of the great wolf. Part of Robb becomes you and part of you becomes him, the whole experience much more intimate than anything you've experienced with any wench before. You can feel the warm liquid trickle down the skin of your wrist and onto your forearm, but you don't look at it - no, you can't move your eyes from his own.
It feels as though years pass as the two of you stand there, hand in hand, holding tightly to one another both with fingers and gazes. The seasons could have changed, wars could have bellowed past, your own brothers' ghosts could have risen up behind you and you still don't think you could've looked away from him. He's the first to move, but it's not away from you, but instead closer. His nose nearly touches your own and you can feel your breath hitch as a result of his proximity. The building tension nearly proves too much for you and you want nothing more than to capture him with your more experienced lips, but he is your lord and you know better. If he wants you, he'll take you, but you mustn't make the first move.
And he does.
You watch as Robb closes his eyes and then you close your own. You wait for what seems like an eternity and a half, but finally he presses his lips against yours tentatively, and then moves away as quickly as he had gotten close. Your lids flutter open and you feel him untangle his hand from yours, dried blood mixed with fresh blood painting his and your palms red, and you just stand there.
He closes the gap again, this time more fiercely and you lose your footing, toppling backwards onto the ground, landing roughly on your back. He falls on top of you, his toned body weighing heavily on your pained back, but you don't even notice it as his mouth ravishes your own. His bleeding hand cups your face and you grab at him, pulling him as close to you as you can possibly manage. He tastes rich, a kind of royalty never found in any of the whores' mouths you've encountered. He's much rougher than they, claiming your mouth as his and his alone, establishing you as part of his territory.
He breaks away, gasping for breath, and you just smile at him smugly. "What?" he demands, his knees resting on either side of your waist, his hands steadying himself by grasping your shoulders.
"I always wondered about you - since that night you asked if a man who bedded a knight had more honor than one who bedded a woman. Even at eight, you knew where your loyalties lied," you tease, the smile staying on your lips as you answer him, your brows rising in jest.
"You're no knight," he scoffs.
"And neither are you."
He grasps your cut hand, his thumb set across the length of the wound, and presses the tender skin. A smile appears on his own face as you swear out loud, the pain running through your whole arm. "I am your lord," he says, emphasizing the authority of the last word for all it's worth.
"Yes, my lord," you answer, mockingly. "But do not forget that I'll be a lord as well once my father passes." You may have spent nearly as many years in Winterfell as you have in your homeland, but you're still the heir to the Iron Islands no matter.
"You were my father's hostage and are mine now that he's gone off with the king." He leans close to you once more, his lips just barely above your own, his breath warm in a way you never believed someone's from the North could be. "You shan't be returning to the damned islands any time soon."
"And who said I wished to?"
It's his turn to smile before claiming your lips once more.
xxx
The first time you realize the extent of your feelings for the Stark is at the age of fourteen and it confuses you.
"Goodnight, Theon," he says as he does every night when the two of you go to the room which you share with Jon and Bran. You arrived much past the time of bed and the other two are already fast asleep, dreaming of a world not so cold, you're sure. That's what you dream of, at least.
You wait for Robb to climb under his covers and find comfort, as you do every night. The younger boy does not like the dark and he told you once under sworn secrecy that he fears it, so you wait for his signal that he's buried safely enough between the layers and layers of blankets that he feels even the creatures of the night can't get to him. He looks at you and nods and you snuff the candle with a pinch of your fingers.
As you move into your own bed, still unused to the chill of the North, you hear him speak again. "I love you" is all he says, and they are words you haven't had directed toward you since the last time you saw either of your brothers' faces alive. You feel your own face grow warm and the reaction is much different than when you last heard those words: your stomach tightens but not with unhappiness.
From that night on, you never feel the cold of Winterfell again.
xxx
"I will hand you Joffrey's head myself," you whisper into the flushed skin of his cheek, tasting the tears that swim freely from his eyes. His hands cling to you and you know if you were to move at all, he'd simply fall to the floor in a heap. He shakes with anger and sadness, his whole body and mind in shock and you tighten your grip on him. He feels suddenly frail, childlike in your arms, despite having the muscled body of a knight he's not, and it occurs to you how young he is, how you're five years ahead of him. In that moment you know you'd do anything to bring the smile back to his lips and raise his father from the dead, you'd spill the blood of all Seven Kingdom's innocent women and children if it meant his heart would lighten under the cruel burdens that weigh it down. "The heads of all the Lannisters, I will bring them to you and throw them at your feet where they belong. Tommen, Myrcella, Kingslayer - all of them and all who watched without trying to stop his execution — their heads will lie beside your boots. I swear."
Ned Stark was a second father to you; he raised you and cared for you better than your own ever had, and Joffrey will pay the iron price for the blood he spilled and for the tears Robb spills in consequence.
You take his cheeks in your hands, holding his face before your own, his eyes like sapphires clouded in a mist of sorrow, his breath releasing in shaking rattles. You lean your forehead against his and repeat the words you heard in your house a thousand times, the words you heard when your own brothers fell to the sword: "What is dead may never die."
Despite his pain, you see him smile.
xxx
The people at the table rise to him, declaring him King in the North, and he looks to his mother and you. You can see the helplessness on his face, the unvoiced question as to whether he should accept the title given to him by the people who have no true say in the matter. Lady Stark remains quiet, her face grave and unchanged since the news of her husband's execution reached her ears. She gives her son no council.
You rise to your feet and step in front of the two others, capturing Robb's full attention and gaze. "Am I your brother? Now and always?" Your words ring through the hall, the onlookers falling quiet and watching the scene before them.
Robb answers without a doubt or second's hesitation, having heard this question once before and, though it was in much different context, you're sure the memory's still fresh in his mind. "Now and always," he confirms, using a tone filled with the fondness that his lord's voice lacks.
You unsheathe your sword and hold it before him, dropping to your knees humbly. You look straight up into his eyes and swear to him, "My sword is yours in victory and defeat, from this day 'til my last day." You bow your head and know that there is no other king to whom you would pledge your sword, there is no other king for whom you would give your life.
"King in the North."
xxx
You kneel before the priest on the stones of your father's land. You repeat and listen to the words that will cleanse you by tradition of any past loyalties and you had hoped would cleanse you of any memory of Winterfell, of Robb Stark, but they don't. You can still feel the blood of the wolf pumping through your veins, blood brothers and lovers pledged in the same day, a moment of impulse and one you'll never bring yourself to regret. You bound yourself to that Stark forever in heart and in mind.
"Theon, you're a servant to be born again from the sea as you were." You close your lids, and the holy water of the Drowned God splashes down onto your face, masking the tears that had begun to flow just in the nick of time. "Bless him with salt. Bless him with stone. Bless him with steel." The last of the water is poured onto you, your loyalties supposedly gone, dripping down to the rocks, carried away by the liquid.
The betrayal of your love and brother weigh heavily on your heart, no amount of water from the sea able to drown such strong things. As you rise and complete your vows ("What is dead may never die"), you look to your father and elder sister.
("What is dead may never die, but rises again, harder and stronger.")
He wears the same expression as he did when he gave you to Eddard Stark all those many years ago.
xxx
He pushes you down onto his bed and is over you in one swift movement. The army, his army, is loud outside the tent, their cheers of celebration making you feel drunk with ecstasy, though the wine in your goblet more than likely assisted with that. He kisses you fiercely, overpowering your own tongue as though you're just another scant army in his way to King's Landing, to vengeance.
Robb straddles your waist, his hands tugging at the fine cloth that covers your skin until they find a place under which they can slip. His fingers run skillfully along the sore muscles of your chest, lightly clawing with sharp nails, but it's soothing in a way. "You were very brave today."
"Yeah?" you say as nonchalantly as you can, but inside you feel pride well in your stomach. Praise from Robb is not something to which you're accustomed; he always seems to find a wrongness in your every action. You squirm to help him remove your shirt and then fall back into his pillows; their softness almost feels better than the kisses he plants across your body, but not quite. You lie there and close your dark eyes as he marks your neck, bringing out guttural grunts from your lips as you map out the contour of his body from memory. You know you've pressed against a battle bruise when he stifles a pained moan against your skin.
"They'll write songs about Theon Greyjoy of Pyke and how he fought valiantly, so close to the notorious Kingslayer," he murmurs as he moves to kiss your lips once more.
When he breaks away to catch his breath, you add, "And how King Robb in the North captured the Kingslayer Lannister, though he hadn't the balls to take off the incestuous prick's head right then and there."
He moves swiftly, grabbing you roughly by the cheeks, squeezing so that your lips part in an odd fashion. "I should have your head for that," he says, trying his hardest to sound angry and kingly, but you can see it in his eyes that he's not mad.
"You can have my head if you take off your leggings," you jest, your brow raising in suggestion.
This makes him laugh and he leans back toward you, kissing you lightly. "Our names will forever be remembered, long after we are but dust in the ground."
His fingertips stroke your cheek as you mull over his words. There is nothing in all the lands that you want more than to prove yourself, to show your father wrong for just letting you go all those years ago. And, by Robb's side, you're sure you'll do just that.
xxx
He stares at you as if you were some sea monster, captured and brought to the North for all of Winterfell to examine by his father. You don't look at him and, instead, wrap the thick blankets around yourself even tighter. You close your eyes and wonder if you wish hard enough whether you could reappear back to your own bed in the Iron Islands, in the comfort of your own castle.
Robb is five and knows no meaning of boundaries or privacy. You crack open one eyelid and lurch back in surprise when you see his face close to yours, peering at you with bright eyes. You entertain the idea of shoving him away, but that would require exposing an arm to the bone-chilling castle air and you've no wish to do that. "Go away," you instruct in a tone as fierce as you can muster.
He blinks, and then a smile plays across his tiny mouth. "You talk strange."
"As do you," you counter, your pride slightly affected by his unintentional insult. Everyone in the North talks strangely, like Barbarians your father once said, and in your two days here, you haven't found one person who speaks as you do. There is no sign of home in Winterfell.
The two of you have a silent stare down before he reaches out slowly and touches your cheek with curiosity, as if to see whether you're made of the same materials he is. You're surprised to find his skin is not permanently chilled by the Northern blood that runs through his veins as you expected. "Are you staying here?" he asks, his baby-soft fingers still running up and down your cheek and he smiles.
You shrug in answer, but then realize he can't see your shoulders beneath the multiple layers of heavy blankets. "I hope not."
"I want you to," he says, looking thoughtfully at his fingertips that had touched your skin. He regards you a little longer before teetering out of the room on the unsteady feet of a child.
xxx
"Do you love me?" you ask, teasing him as you pull mockingly away from his hungry hands. Your clothes are already thrown around his room in the heat of the moment, and his eyes look at you greedily, wanting you for only himself. You've realized that the longer you tease him beforehand, the more satisfying the end result is and that's not something you will forget.
He growls, more wolf-like than human, and grabs at your arm, pinning you in place by the stone wall of the castle. It grazes your bare skin sharply, but you back further against it, keeping your mouth from being captured by his.
"Now and always?" you urge, refusing to submit to his desires until you have an answer.
He looks at you in the eye, divine sapphire on dark onyx, as he answers, repeating your own words in an affirming manner. "Now and always."
Though it had only been a joke to you, the intensity in his tone leaves you with no doubt that he means it from the heart.
xxx
The calm push of the tide wets your fingers, splayed against the grainy side of the rock on which you sit. You found this spot as a child and used to spend hours watching the sea, days before you knew the pain of war and the agony of love.
You look down into the water, your rippling reflection staring back up at you.
You see the face of a traitor, of a craven.
Robb had trusted you, had sent you to your homeland with full faith that you'd come back with your father's army and ships to assist him in avenging the death of Ned Stark. You had returned to the Iron Islands with the full intention of doing as you promised, of returning to him and watching him take the Iron Throne. Nothing seems to go as planned and instead you betrayed him, believing the approval of your father would be earned by doing so, believing that your father would see you in the same light in which he saw your elder brothers.
You had thought you'd only feel true happiness when you were back in Pyke, back home, but now you see you were nothing more than a fool.
But now you realize Pyke never was your home.
xxx
You sink back into the downy mattress in the same room you called your own before you were taken away to Winterfell. You think how nice it would be to feel Robb by your side, to feel his touch just once more.
But you know you never will again.
"They will write songs of how Theon Greyjoy of Pyke betrayed his blood brother and of how he regretted it until his last day."
xxx
"Now and always?"
"Now and always."
xxx
Ah, I've been really wanting to write something for this pairing because, despite Theon's blunder, they are still one of the OTPs. And anyway, it was obvious toward the end of season two that Theon regretted what he had done. :L
This is also my first time writing for this fandom so somethings might be a little off. For example, I don't know why I had thought the Stark boys all shared the same room...(maybe they did?) I dunno.
This is also a rather late Christmas present for Lovisa! She had asked me awhile ago to write Throbb and I said I couldn't, but now I tried and hopefully it didn't turn out too badly. :')
Thank you, mew, for betaing and admitting that you kinda ship them, despite not having watched/read the series. :)