ROBB
"I'm beginning to regret this."
The singer threw his head back and laughed, his raspy voice filling the room. The flames cast an orange glow upon his handsome face and made the thin layer of sweat on his skin glisten. "It's too late to take it back," he murmured. He pressed closer until their breaths were one. "I wasn't that bad, was I?"
Robb scanned his face, taking in the high cheekbones, tall nose, and the tiny scar that severed his right brow into two. He settled for his eyes. Beautiful they were, a blue that leaned to green so it gave one the impression that his eyes were oceans. They were different from Robb's pale Tully blue eyes, eyes that he shared with all but two of his siblings. A lock of the singer's ragged dark hair fell over the left one. Robb brushed it back, tucking it behind his ear. "No, it wasn't bad," he admitted, earning another one of the singer's snarky grins. His fingers lingered on his collarbone. They moved to the other boy's nape when he pulled him ever closer and pressed his mouth against his.
"Good. I hate to be the one who spoils your first time." Still grinning, he pulled back the furs and strode towards the fireplace. Naked he was, but the singer wasn't embarrassed about it. Robb saw the red lines he'd made on the other's skin with his fingernails. "But I'm also thinking that I shouldn't have. My father warned me not to sleep with anyone tonight—but when did that stop me? Also, you're too young and I'm too...experienced."
Robb felt himself flush. "I am not too young. I'm almost a man grown."
"You can't be more than fourteen, right?"
"I—" His fourteenth nameday had only been three days ago, a week before his bastard brother Jon's. And though Robb had gotten gifts in the form of swords and shields, and even a war horse from the Greatjon, he was not a yet a man grown. His mother still treated him like he was as old as his baby brother Rickon, and his father wasn't much different.
Robb bit his lip. It was a habit that he'd never grown out of despite his mother's constant scolding. You're scarring your lip, she always said. If she found out what he'd done, his mouth would be the least of her problems. He had never even gotten properly drunk yet.
The singer laughed again. "You probably never thought you'd be bedded by a man, either," he said as he took a seat on the edge of the bed. He stared at him as he brushed Robb's hair back. "Your hair is the loveliest I've ever seen. Kissed by fire, you know."
"I don't know what that means."
"It means lucky." He crawled on top of him and began pressing light kisses on Robb's neck. "I know a girl with red hair but yours is prettier." He kissed his chest, his lips, then the tip of his nose. "You're prettier than her, too."
Robb shuddered as his teeth worked on the side of his neck. "Um…" he began. The singer lifted his head and Robb flushed again. "Um, I never…your name…"
"Names aren't important." The other boy paused then grinned wryly. "But don't think I'm a whore or I'll have your pretty little head on a spike."
"I have to know."
"Why? It's not like we're ever going to see each other again."
Robb flinched, but he should have expected the words. Though the other boy's company was great, there was no way his lady mother and lord father would accept him. Robb's duty was to learn all that he needed to learn to become lord of Winterfell. He wasn't supposed to be lying naked in bed with boys. His father had ordered him to get to know the townsfolk of his bannermen. Robb was sure he didn't mean it this way.
"It's annoying to refer to you as 'the singer',' he said, choosing his words carefully. "I want to call you something decent."
"How about 'first fuck'?"
Robb glared at him.
"Alright…It's Theon."
Theon. The name was common to the north. There had been a Theon among the Starks once. The Hungry Wolf, they called him, and the stone model of him did look half-starved. He had to be a northman, then. And not a commoner. His wit and manner made that certain.
"You're from the north, then?" Robb asked. He slid his hands up Theon's back, then down again until they rested on his hips. "But you're not from here."
"You can say that." His eyes glimmered with amusement. "I'm guessing you're from the north, too. The way you're looking at me right now says that much."
He leaned down and nibbled at an earlobe. "So what's your name?" he whispered, his breath hot against his skin.
"R-robb," he stammered. "My name's Robb."
"Robb of the north and Theon of the north. We're concealing our identities, aren't we?"
You can't know the truth, Robb thought as Theon lifted him and sat him on his lap. You can't know I'm a Stark and no one can know I slept with you.
But his resistance died when the calloused hands found his face. And Robb shed his honor for the night and thought only of kissing Theon and wishing for a moment that he had not been born a Stark.
THEON
He left the boy in the room, naked and asleep in the featherbed. Theon had thought of waking him up to say goodbye but time was running. If he had a paper and quill, he would have left a note, but they'd brought nothing but food, silver, and a few clothes. Theon didn't even know why he bothered to think of him. It wasn't like him to grow attached to the people he bedded. But the boy drew him like a moth to a fire, and Theon wondered if it had something to do with his hair. Kissed by fire. The words had repeated themselves over and over again in his head while he unsheathed his dagger and took a lock of the boy's hair, little enough to not be missed.
He found his supposed father at the stables, wide awake and ready for travel. "You've had some fun last night," Mance remarked as he tossed him a hunk of black bread. Theon's free hand quickly went to his hair which was a bigger mess than usual. "Who was the wench?"
"Last night happened to be a boy as green as summer," Theon replied casually.
The older man sighed in mock disapproval. "Little Kraken, you never did learn the difference between a man and a woman." He ruffled his hair affectionately like any father would. "When you get back your Iron Islands, will that stop?"
Immediately, Theon froze. That again. "I'm not going back," he muttered, his good mood fading. He tore his breakfast angrily. "You know that. There's nothing to go back to, anyway."
"You can't stay beyond the Wall, forever, you know. The Seastone Chair is yours by right and we need you to take it. The rest will come easy."
"I'm a wilding," he argued as he straddled the garron Mance had stolen for him. "I'm not a Greyjoy anymore."
Mance shrugged but the look in his eyes was disbelief. Theon hated him for it. When he was a child, the idea of becoming the ruler of the Iron Islands—the home he barely remembered—thrilled him. But years of living under Mance's roof had changed all that. He was no king. He was no singer, either. He was a wilding, a hunter and raider, snow not salt. Mance should know that.
"I can never go back."
"All you need is luck, Little Kraken. Luck and wits and you can have everything you should have had at the first place."
Luck and wits, Theon thought bitterly. Even if he did want to take it back, he had too many enemies to face. His uncles, of course, were the main ones. But there was the Usurper and the wolf lord, the two men who'd butchered his family when he was five. Theon still remembered the scent of blood and smoke. He remembered being torn from his mother's breast by a bald man who smelled of lavenders, then handed to a man who smelled of manure. Then blood and smoke again and the sound of the manure man's dying scream. The rest was a blur and nothing settled until he bumped into Mance, travelling back to his frozen realm. Nothing was right until he found Mance.
Luck. Perhaps all he needed was luck. He had been lucky enough to survive the war, had been lucky enough to find Mance before the outlaws found him.
But do I want it back?
The thought did not leave him. Confused, he slipped his hand inside the pocket of his coat and pulled out the bundle that carried Robb's hair. Luck, he thought once more, as his hand closed around it and lifted it to his heart.