I pick my poison and it's you.

~r.o.

He dropped the tray on the table and in the silence of the room it sounded like an exaggerated crash.

"Eat," his voice was pressured with ire, "I haven't come a long way just to hear you starve yourself. Eat."

In the shadows she was unstirred, huddled into a small grey ball at the edge of the bed. She wasn't even rolled between the blankets. Her feet were bare, her hair a thick mass of bland orange, her back a bent bow that that faced him. She looked like a corpse, if not for the slow rising and falling of her shoulders, the one thing that Ramsay sought to examine.

He stared at the other tray that lay beside the new one he almost scattered. The food: a large slice of baked barley, a bowl of oats and fruit, and a platter of buttered venison remained cold and untouched.

It wasn't the first tray she wasted, he was told. When he, his father, and half a dozen men left Dreadfort the day after the wedding night to urge a few old Lords (a bunch of useless, wrinkled bag of bones) to a council meeting, he secretly left instructions to keep her well provided even when it was the first of times he would have done such.

And it was a tedious task, he thought. Tedious and boring. His father again proved himself an ass this time to choose the best night of his life to ruin and added two more nights away from his wife.

"Eat and bathe," again he commanded, "We've fetched guests to dine with us. It is best they see you."

Again there was no response but her silent breathing and he took it as an added cinder to the fire that began to curdle his cold blood. It was as though indifference were an infection that had entered her veins it was everywhere in her body. His fingers dug into his palms, his teeth clenched and in his jaw appeared taut muscles.

But the blotches of ugly purple on her now pallid skin cascaded like cold water to his boiling point. He knew what he did to her, he does. And in his mind he stared down on her that night, reminiscing the feat of tightening on his breeches which screamed an entirely different elation that almost made his lips quiver now. He could still recall his lips on her long marvellous neck, her naked shoulders, her deep and sweat-stained cleavage peeking through a dismantled corset.

He was supposed to be guilty, he knew, but no. No amount of guilt could diffuse the arousal that always sends power filling between his legs at the slightest whiff of her fear. But there was a sort of pity he felt for her which he did not know whence it came from.

Ramsay pressed his temples with a thumb and forefinger, almost begrudgingly, stifling the urge to touch her. "What do you want?"

Nothing.

"Food? Beverage?"

Nothing.

"A dress? Jewelry?"

Nothing.

"Have it your way then. If it seems you want nothing then I'd better lock you in this chamb—"

"Home."

Ramsay's last word was left hanging when her weak voice cut him icily. "What?"

"I want to go home," she continued and sniffled, "to Winterfell."

This time it was he that ran dry off words. His mind began to race in consideration. Winterfell wasn't at all bad, he acknowledged. It is the Northern Capital, and his life-long plan to man it would mean he had to be there all the time.

And a deeper layer of him wanted to fulfil anything that would make her up to her feet again.

"Show yourself at dinner," Ramsay spoke, "And we'll be back in Winterfell in a fortnight."

"On the morrow,"

He frowned. "There are things that need straightening yet, Sansa. It is not possible to leave on the morrow."

"I'll go alone."

He chuckled with mocking, a thing he did so naturally. "You think I'll let you do that?"

"Go to your dinner, then. Please announce to those Lords I've just hanged myself."

Ramsay Bolton restrained the waves of staggering cold that hit him from behind as he merely watched her burrow her arms underneath the pillow. Any other person he would have flayed on the spot. He would have strangled her, or yanked her off her lying place and have her beaten naked to the dungeons. But with Sansa Stark, he felt like a requiem. And he hated this yielding to her, this is a battle he merely wins except, of course, with the influence of a drug.

He gave out a frustrated sigh and ran a hand through his hair before heading out the door.

"We'll leave in three night's time," he said in an almost calmed manner, "Now get dressed."

He wanted to see her budge or awaken at least, and so he kept looking on with his fingers on the latch of the door, waiting for a shift of her sheets. When the familiar sting of ache touched him, he bit the wall of his mouth and left.

He mentally cursed when Roose's icy, wasted stare angled at him, ready to fire. Impatience was a part of his father's frame, one thing that Ramsay always touched in him as often as disappointment does. He remembered father's recent words, with a firm and dangerous hold in his arm and a much more dangerous mood, behind the curtain that led to the dining hall.

"I heard." father went on with gritted teeth, stuffing the chills down Ramsay's throat, "Chances come and go, Ramsay, and I gave yours to do as you please but if your wife is withdrawn from their sight, what I've given you, I can take away as easily. They need to see her unharmed, do you bloody understand? You might as well start praying she doesn't show up skin and bones if the rumors of her starving is true."

And there he left him as if he's never spoken to a son at all and the boy spat. He talked of unharmed and yet was into nods at the decision of the drugging.

He began tapping the cobbled floor with the heel of his boot, the rims of his eyes darkening with pious anxiety. He watched every head that entered the hall and all the more his palms went moist and his imagination ran wild when she doesn't appear.

"Where is Lady Sansa?"

It was a question he wanted to flay. Shut up, you fucking fool. His rattled eyes would stare at the lesser lords that wanted the proof of her safety. Sansa Stark is standing him up, and his thoughts went grim over having her locked indeed in the fort with no more hopes of seeing Winterfell again.

When the question battered him for the last time, he managed a faux leave and could see in the corner of his eyes, his father's hostile, sanctimonious gait. But as he turned his back to escape, his ears ticked.

"My lady,"

The lords were bowing and kissing the hand of the beauty that finally appeared. He felt ventilated at most, and the sweat that glistened on his temples began to evaporate easily out of relief. Sansa was in the mood for play, he considered. She wore a cobalt frock and her auburn hair was done in a clean coil behind her head. She was every inch a lady with her steady graceful curtsies and queenly smiles and it hit him like winter instead. She was as beautiful as when he first saw her, but when her sorrowful eyes met his and her smile faltered, he felt a pang of jealousy.

Ramsay stretched his hand out for her to take and he felt her hesitation reject him through and through. Finally she touched his hand to be led but the trembling in them was so relevant even until they sat side by side, across Roose Bolton.

Father was eyeing his wife, and Ramsay's mind flared like lighted wildfire. No, father does not just think highly of his wife, Ramsay hypothesized, father wants her for himself if he failed to have her impregnated. With this he shook his head to elude him off the frenzied thoughts. Of course not. It can't be. Father has an honor to protect. He couldn't. He wouldn't. He gave her to me.

But you're a bastard, fool. The devil would whisper, a black-breathed homunculus trapped on the closet of his brain. He could cross you off without conscience, and will take everything from you. And with it a murderous laughter hung.

He can't fail. He can't. The resolution took its toll on him there and then, he can't fail this time or it will be hell unleashed on him as if he hasn't been feeling the heat of it yet.

All this time he fretted like a child and haven't noticed the lords on the long table have started dining, and whispering among themselves, too. Ramsay watched each of their faces: old, ugly bluebloods begging for another chance at youth.

His eyes caught the glances of the lords at his wife, and the angst he nursed bit deeper. They're pitying her, or wanting her, and think nothing of me. His hand tightened on the spoon he was holding. You grey-haired fucks, you traitors, all wanting to put me aside to have her. With that his breathing deepened along his now dusking eyes.

And then father announced it. His pig of a wife is pregnant and highly expectant of a boy.

Sansa beside him sucked in a breath that resembled that of enduring pain. And Ramsay actualized his hand was on his wife's thigh, clutching fiercely, pouring the anger on that grip without giving a hint to anyone in the room. And as it remained there, a different hue of hunger begged on him. He wanted her, now, there and then. He wanted to release tension, to release the familiar disturbance that gathered in his guts. And under the table, his hand travelled closer to her groin whilst relishing the way she sat uncomfortably.

He inched his eyes to her to see the reaction if he could reach...a little higher...towards...

"What's on your mind, Ramsay?" Roose Bolton snatched his concentration before sipping from his goblet. He must have noticed the strangeness between the two. "House Glover has not yet bent the knee, indeed Lord Glover is not here celebrating with us. What's on your mind?"

Ramsay's eye twitched with ire. Fucking my wife, idiot. "I..." Putting her on a platter and eating her. "I'm yet to decide, father." His hand stilled on Sansa's thigh and she cleared her throat.

"I'm surprised," Roose leaned on his chair, "You seem to be quiet. I remember you've always had a say on these matters."

Ramsay did not look at his father. Instead the forefinger on Sansa's thigh began to draw small circles. He was thinking, but he couldn't. Lust had clouded his mind and he partly cursed it. But his eyes shot open when Sansa's calm voice spread.

"My lord husband has been quite fatigued, my lords, please spare him,"

He quickly turned to her and she did not give back the attention.

"Perhaps you ought to give him a breather out of the word on his stepmother's pregnancy. I hope you understand the cost of it to him."

Soft chuckles rang from the table.

Ramsay's blood turned cold. No. She can't be doing this. Not here, not now. He used to be skilled at hiding the vexation on his face but right now there was neither of it. Cold bullets of sweat plagued under his hairline and words were robbed off him.

She held the hand that perched on her thigh and he succumbed to defeat as she removed it off her like disease. The way she silenced herself, though, laced a guilt that slightly glowed.

Sansa inhaled and he just felt the need to rip the breath off her, and yet he couldn't. He couldn't with her next words: "But it is not at all that, my Lords, my husband has been seeing to my needs even in his absence. If you could at least spare him tonight to retreat early as I need him to see me to my chambers. I've been plagued by headaches for quite some time."

There was a while of concern from the old men and Roose Bolton gave them the leave. "Perhaps a goblet of dreamwine, Lady Sansa, will help you rest."

It took a while before Ramsay and his wife tailed along with her arm on his. And once they were concealed behind the curtains, she slipped her arm off and headed straight to the winding stairs without words. Disgust and anger moved Ramsay to run to her and in an instant pushed her against the wall. Her brows furrowed at the sudden shake and he made out she indeed was suffering from a throbbing on her head.

"That comment was unnecessary!" He spoke between grinding teeth, his eyes an alloy of fire and ice.

But she looked on at him without any wont of trepidation and dread. "And neither was raping me."

With this Ramsay's jaw stilled and his muscles condensed in stupor. He must have loosened his hold on her for she freed herself easily and continued up the stairs instead.

He spied on, watching the blue gown slip off her arms and gather a crumpled pool around her feet. The white small gown left on her was so thin it showed her flesh like a spectacle only he had the ticket to watch. When she caught him staring from the door post, there was the split second fear that made her cringe but it disappeared quite easily.

And he examined her, examined the red and purple marks on her shoulder, the bites and finger scrapes, and it was a sick thought but he loved her that way: he loved her fierce eyes and stiff face as if she wore them like a badge of honor. She grazed her eyes on him from face to feet before looking away with callused hatred and he could taste the disgust under her skin. Little did she know that her own brooding hostility had ignited a fire in him that swelled into the wanton awe which showed in his facade.

Ramsay thickly swallowed with a sudden craving for this growling wolf. The thought of her this beautifully angry had surged power that began to fill between his legs.

"I want you," he suddenly blurted, and was unsure why he did. "I want you, Sansa."

She stopped moving and twisted her neck to see him square in the eye, "Should I be surprised, Ramsay?"

It hurt. Indeed. There was no unkindness that hurt like this before. It never would have hurt if it were Myranda, or Violet, or Tansy. It has not even equalled the childhood hurt of rejection from his father. They were as angry at him but he did not give a fuck on what they felt as long as he satiated his desire with blood on his bed or on his arrows.

With Sansa it was unlike any, it was more than different and he could not fathom why she had such rain on him. Such rain that pushing him away would not budge his desire for her.

Ramsay silently moved towards his wife and pulled her shoulder so she could face him. In deft and graceful quickness, he cupped her face so as to feed on the bitter odium in her cold blue eyes. Gods, even in rancor she's so beautiful. He caught her deep loathful sighs and his hands landed on the cloth draped above her shoulder.

Once upon a time his mother asked him what he wanted and all he would have thought of was his father's acceptance. I want to ride with Domeric, I want a castle of my own. He recalled the answers rolling on his head. I want to hunt, I want to flay. I want Dreadfort, yes, and I want Winterfell too. But all of those melted like snow dying under first light. He now knew that the ultimate answer was standing resentfully in front of him.

The sound of ripping cloth bellowed and he watched the silken dress gash in his hands. And her. Shreds of white flew in parting directions.

Just her.