Part 44; To Skin Alive a Heart

If it hurts it's probably

doing you good

If it's pleasant

It's most likely wrong.

Sansa

Sansa could feel a hollow ache set into the mainframe of her bodice. As though settled into her very skin and bones—deep out of sight. Time was fickle and fleeting, she learned that from the deaths of her family members. From the losses she suffered at the hands of cruel, uncaring people. Most of all Ramsay.

She wanted to bring him back to life, just so she could end him again.

She wanted to kill him in every conceivable manner until he had suffered a thousand grueling and brutal deaths. The same kind of death she endured every single day she was bedded by her husband and saw the insurmountable pain that gouged deep into his soul. Because of Ramsay.

Because of all he took.

His dignity. His light—his ability to feel like a man that was functional in society.

The sudden appearance of Colton within the harrowing halls of Winterfell was like a deathly stab through Sansa's chest. And she was attempting to move past it. With everything inside of her. Little Robb had retreated into himself and she no longer saw a bright, shinning little boy, but a sullen child that spoke very little of what was actually transpiring in the darkest reaches of his mind.

And she kept to their chambers most days. Found solace in a bit of needlepoint that kept her hands busy and mind occupied on anything other than the bitter truth of what could never be.

Yara had only stayed for a week before she had to make way and descend back toward the Iron Islands along with her fleet. Only Colton remained behind at her and Theon's behest. Although she made a promise to her husband she had yet to keep it with any real certainty.

How could she look upon the face of a man that mirrored her husband? Shared his mannerisms and his once cocky-smile? How could she be okay with his inclination to refer to her as Mother? It was hard. And left a sinking pull in her belly.

Her husband occupied himself in the courtyard with the youngsters. Found solace in his time laid out to teach them the ways of the bow and arrow he so favored in his own youth. And to their credit, those boys devoured every word he had to teach. Even Little Robb would smile and join in—that is until Colton would appear and then he would find a hasty excuse to make himself scarce.

The blackness came to descend upon Sansa's heart. It clouded her with upset and her mind chided her with each run of a needle through the set mesh of her needlepoint about her similarities to her mother. Her icy-chilled heart toward a motherless spirit that only sought guidance and security in a cruel, unforgiving realm.

When the chamber door creaked open she did not look up from her work. Believed in full that Theon had come to check on her (possibly Reek) these days he let both personalities roam freely in order for them each to have their fair share with Colton.

"Lady Sansa." Her back stiffened with the familiar cockiness of Colton's tone.

Only then did she lower her work and turn her eyes to the doorway he darkened with his lingering form.

"Colton." She tried her damndest not to sound clipped and cold.

Uninvited, he shuffled the door closed with a loud clank.

"Theon worries for you, as do I." He made no hesitation to come down to the point. And she grit her teeth and forced her newly trembling hands to run the threaded needle through the mesh to further the pattern of the wolf's visage.

"He need not worry for me. I am fine." She lied coolly and still did not look up. Not until he crossed the room and removed the needlepoint from her hands with ease.

"We both know you are not." Although he appeared to have deserted his cockiness outside of the sanctity of her presence there was still enough of Theon in him to set her out of ease.

Was it the line of his jaw? The sea-grey blue tint in those eyes? Or the way she succumbed to detrimental attraction whenever he was near? His uncanny resemblance to Theon sometimes tricked her mind (even for an instant) into the belief that he was in-fact her husband. And just as quickly that reality would drive a wedge of deep-seeded regret and betrayal hard into her heart.

Suddenly without a manner to occupy her hands they clenched in a tight hold in her lap. "If you believe me damaged, then how pray-tell do you presume to fix me?"

Seemingly taken aback his eyes rounded. Gathering his thoughts, he spoke in evident sympathy. "In any way I can. How can I help you, Lady Sansa? What can I do?"

She laughed then—unable to quite help herself.

"There is nothing you can do. Unless you can make yourself appear less like my husband. Unless you can rearrange your face—your body so that when I lay eyes upon you, I do not see the spitting image of the unbroken man I knew so long ago. So that I cannot feel guilt when I believe for a split second, each time we are near that you are in fact my husband. Or at the very least a cruel reminder of the way he was before." It came upon her quickly – the revelation.

The unanticipated, un-withheld words.

She wished she had not inched nearer to him. Had not spoken them almost as quickly as they came to mind. Because the sight of him—stood there—with bulging eyes and stained-red cheeks made her instantaneously plunge into regret.

Why had she said those things? What would they change? How would they help?

The simple answer was that there was no help. Not for her and not for him.

He took a step backward. Seemed to ponder her words; register them as best he could.

"I wish I could, Lady Sansa. If it would ease your pain, I would in a heartbeat."

Her pain was impenetrable. It would always lie just underneath the surface, waiting to spring up and drown her in it. Theon could not fix her. Not from the twist of agony that brewed in her very bones. Suddenly, she was blinded by her own tears. As much as she hated them—they came to suffocate her in her own sobs. Her own breathless exhaustion.

"I was the one that was supposed to have Theon's children. I was supposed to marry him; it was my destiny. But I broke it all; those plans shattered and now the marriage I have is not the one I always planned it to be. And every time I look at you, I see those plans. I see Theon as he was before. There is no pain in this world that could cut deeper than the pain of that." She took in more air, through the tears and sniffles. Wiped her nose on her dress sleeve.

Instinctively, Colton's hands fell to her waist as her knees buckled underneath her. She was ready to cave down onto the stone. She wanted to give up—right there. She never wanted Theon to hear these words. Never wanted him to know that she would never be whole again. He believed he could fix her the way she fixed him; but there was no fixing her heart. Not now that she had carried Ramsay's child but never her own husband's. Not now that she laid eyes upon a handsome wonder that came from Theon's love with another woman.

She clutched at the front of his tunic and buried her face in his chest—and sobbed.

She sobbed until she couldn't breathe, until she felt faint. She sobbed until her heart bled inside and out. And she stayed there.

Just like that; with him.

His hand wound in her hair and she felt his thick swallow in his throat that bobbed his Adam's apple up and down.

She could sense his remorse, practically feel it for herself. The churn in her belly made her shudder with the proof of it. And worst of all, she knew the attraction she felt to Colton would burn her husband.

Theon didn't know how deeply it cut her to be this close to his son. To this man of Iron-Born blood and salty musk. He was inching underneath her skin and carving a piece of her heart as his own. And it wounded her.

She hurt because of it.

Because of him. Colton.

Colton was only three years her junior and yet he was meant to call her mother. Something twisted in her with that realization.

And he was nearly Theon's age when he was cut and tortured by Ramsey's cruel blade.

Almost exactly Theon's age at twenty-two years.

"Mother …" the soft whisper graced the shell of her ear and she shuddered head to toe.

It was so foreign to hear a full-grown man (a full-grown man that sounded like Theon) whisper that word, unhindered against her skin.

She tightened her fingers into the cloth of his tunic, hating herself for what she felt. What he stirred in her with his touch … with his words. She wondered how many girls his hands had touched. How many women had he buried himself inside?

Iron-Borns were known to bed as they pleased, reeve and rape. She pondered that thought, mulled and brewed it until she thought she might lose her mind from the wondering.

She pondered until she bubbled with jealousy at his carefree youth.

Three years her junior and he was scores apart from her.

It wasn't fair.

She tilted up her chin and captured his lips. Stole a kiss, the same way that Theon had once stolen one from her. There was a force behind it. A dare even, for him to challenge her. To push her away, when he'd come into her chambers and held her like he was. Told her he'd give her anything.

Anything.

As if that were possible.

And it was frustrated and angst-filled and hurt.

Most of all hurt.

His lips were soft and pink like Theon's had been once. His taste was familiar and his hands burned through her waist, where they still laid.

And she loathed herself.

Loathed her bodice for wanting the touch of her husband's son.

Theon was the love of her life. So why was she here? Why was she wanting to kiss this replica?

Tears started to fall in a hurry down her cheeks. Collecting at her chin the fat droplets fell down onto the cloth of her dress.

Colton was like a man starved for touch – affection.

His reaction was to return her kiss, bite and whine against her lips and draw her in flush with his hard-muscled frame. He was stronger than she anticipated, filled with this youthful vigor that once belonged to Theon. And he had her lifted and pinned to the stone of the wall in a moments notice. Groping up her skin. Touching, rubbing, grinding against her with the full, thick bulge of his manhood. And she could feel him.

Erect like steel in his breeches. Yet another thing he'd inherited from Theon, it would seem. His shaft at full-mast was the same she remembered all those years ago from being pushed into the earth and grass, with Theon astride her.

And she wanted to give in.

It would be so easy to let go and be ravaged against that wall, pushed over the edge and taken by Colton.

She couldn't, though.

She had to fight her will to cave. Had to try to grapple for a foothold in reality and tear herself back out of this pleasure and response. Colton was worked up enough to practically rut against her with his primal need and she finally turned her head to the side, unlatching their frenzied kisses.

"Colton … Colt … We cannot …" her skin was still fire and ache when he realized what he'd done and planted her back on her feet.

He was well-ravaged. His hear stuck up in places, his skin flushed fiery red with heat, and his lungs heaved in breaths of air, that made his whole-body quake with the effort.

And she felt disgusted with herself.

With the thought that came into her mind just before she stole that kiss.

What if he could give her children like Theon's might have been? He was the spitting image of her love. Surely his children would resemble Theon's own.

And she felt unspeakable anguish the second that thought cleared her mind.

It was repulsive. She was repulsive for even entertaining that thought for even a second. And Theon would be crushed if she ever told him about it.

"L-Lady Sansa … I …" Colton was lost for words and swollen with need and heat. Her eyes lingered solemnly on the bulge, sported in his breeches and felt sorrow for what she'd invoked from him. He was a young man, eager to bed a woman.

He might react sexually to any female that so much as touched his cheek and yet it made her no less conscious of what she'd done. Of how she'd warped their relationship in less than a second of reaction and carelessness.

"I'm sorry …"

She broke the silence that lingered between them. His shock – her tears.

He swallowed and his Adam's apple bobbled up and down, chaotically, between breaths.

"I … I should apologize … I … I look like him … I know that …" His sea-green eyes lowered until they met with the stone and he shifted his weight, trying with great effort to hide the obvious unresolved, bulge in his breeches. It was no use, however. His arousal was still painfully obvious to them both.

"It wasn't … that's not why …"

She couldn't say it. If she said it, it would breathe life into the wretched thought that had briefly crossed her mind.

The idea that could never be.

Although she didn't say it, aloud, he seemed to resolve what troubled her on his own. The spiel of words she'd yelled at him just before he embraced her, just before she was stricken with the urge to kiss him. And now, it hung in the air like a raven slain mid-flight.

His eyes widened and breaths shook.

"Oh …" he whispered in a shuddering sigh.

She couldn't bear the pitied look he flashed her. The pulse of sadness that overtook the previously uncomfortable air.

She covered her face with her hands, sobbing into them until her shoulders quivered and her sniffles resounded, bouncing off the chamber walls in echoes.

Colton slid in alongside her, draped an arm around her shoulder and cradled her to his chest.

Somehow his blatant sympathy was worse than his ignorance. She wished she hadn't kissed him – hadn't brought fruition to her thoughts. There was something desperately wrong with her.

She had a son … Robb was beautiful. He was a gift.

It was unfair of her to want more.

To want a child of Theon's.

And yet, her heart was unresolved without it. She would always wonder what their child might look like. A little girl with her hair and his eyes. A little boy with a curly, sandy-brown mop of hair. Like Colton's.

Why couldn't the Gods have been good? Why couldn't they have spared Theon's ability to procreate? It was one thing. One thing she'd wished for a thousand times.

The one thing, that could never be restored.

Not with herbs. Not with a thousand kisses. Not with anything.

Not even magic. Magic, like the kind which had restored Jon to life.

"I'd give you that, Lady Sansa … if you asked …"

The burn of those words was unimaginable. It spiraled down her spine and coursed down into her belly. Made her feel repulsive for even considering the asking.

She couldn't. Theon would break apart.

Sansa sniffled and wiped at her tears with her bony fingertips. She counted the pound of her heartbeats in her eardrums and swallowed the thickness in her throat.

Her thoughts lingered on the possibility and she was so ashamed that they did.

"It would hurt Theon, too much …" her voice cracked through a whisper and she shivered in his arms.

Colton grazed her back, rubbed the nodules of her spine and eased her muscles with the gentle massaging ministrations.

"I'd do it for him, too. To ease both of your pain, Lady Sansa. I never realized how much like him I appeared … Mum never told me … she never said … just how much …" He relinquished a low breath and squeezed her until she shivered, anew.

"I could never …" her voice cracked, "… never ask that of him …"

She knew how deep this wound cut him. She knew what she'd given up when she chose to be his wife. When she stood before the Old Gods and gave him her heart and soul. Worst of all, she knew that Theon struggled with his masculinity. His ability to still stand as a husband and a man.

It was complex in a facet she couldn't quite contemplate or describe to Colton.

Sansa pushed away from Colton and stood wobbly to her feet. Her Tully-blue eyes pierced into Colton's with excruciating thunder.

"Lady Sansa … what if it eased some of the pain? If I could … could manage that … If I could do that for you both …" he searched her eyes and she swiped any remaining tears.

"Ask him, then. See what he says, Colton. See what my husband tells you, when you ask to bed his wife," she breathed out. Nerves tore and surged under her skin. "Tell him what you told me and see how he responds. Better still, tell him how we embraced … how we nearly went to bed behind his back! Tell him that, too!"

Her voice was rising with every sentiment. Every word tore through her and rippled the atmosphere like a knife through butter. She wanted him to feel what she felt right now. Understand the magnitude of what he'd just offered so casually. So cruelly.

"Lady Sansa …" His eyes had turned pleading. His skin pale as a sheet.

"Leave me be, Colton. Please … just go …" she whimpered.

He appeared to think about drawing nearer, encasing her in his warm embrace again – and if he had, she didn't know if she might be able to rebuke him a second time – but she gave nothing away in her sordid eyes.

She stood firm and stared him down, until he seemed to think better of his impulses and scampered from the room. Closing the door with a click behind him.

Reek

The way little Robb had been acting this past week had been troubling his mind, each time he emerged. He yearned to spend time with Colton, but not at the expense of Robb's feelings.

Colton had been sent up by Theon to make nice with Sansa, and Reek had chosen that moment to reemerge.

He needed spare time away from his blood-born son to spend a bit of time with Robb.

The eyes of those in the castle lingered on him wherever he went now.

Most were simply curious as to how he could possibly have fathered a child so young. Others were bewildered by his significant resemblance to his son. It was uncanny to look in a mirror and see his son's face almost mesh with his own.

He understood how it must feel for Robb, but he needed him to be aware that his love for Colton changed nothing for him about his love for Robb.

Multiple servants pointed him in the direction of the stables, when he inquired to Robb's whereabouts. He was told that oftentimes, Robb had even taken to sleeping in the filthy stables, next to his beloved horse.

Reek had noted the absence in his marital bed, of Robb. He'd felt the complacent stares that Robb would throw his direction, whenever they were in the same room. Too often, Robb wouldn't so much as speak to him. He would attempt to approach him and Robb would scurry away and out of sight.

He just wanted to reassure his son.

He wanted him to understand that there was no difference now than there was before.

But it was like, whenever Colten made an appearance Robb would throw him a hurt glance and disappear.

He composed himself at the door. Brushed any dust from his breeches and tunic, then opened the large wooden stable door. He closed it behind him and walked the few paces to Midnight's stall.

Sure enough, there was Robb, curled at the horse's side, laying on the creature's stomach, giving gentle brushes with his fingers to Midnight's coat. The horse was at rest, and clearly peaceful, with half-lidded eyes and a slight heave to his breath.

"Robb?" Reek whispered timidly, with his hands braced at his sides.

Robb started when he noticed him and swallowed visibly, with a cornered look in his Tully-blue eyes. Sometimes, Reek could almost believe he was looking into Sansa's eyes when he saw those piercing things. It was unnerving how much like hers; Robb's eyes were.

"W-What do you want?" Robb's voice quivered uneasily and he glanced away, there were tears brimming his eyes.

Reek moved to sit, uninvited, down on the hay in the pen and Robb kept his eyes trained on him, and Reek made sure to block the way, in case he tried to run.

"Can we talk?" he asked gently, unperturbed by the harshness of Robb's tone.

"I don't want to talk to you …" Robb whispered and turned his face away, occupying his hands by brushing Midnight's mane.

The great beast gave a low whinny and closed its eyes.

Reek worked his jaw, letting the muscle tighten and clench as he puzzled through what he could say to mend what was broken between them.

"I still remember the first time that I held you. Did you know that?" he finally decided on a memory. And though Robb wouldn't have admitted it, Reek could tell that Robb's interest was piqued.

Robb shrugged, but didn't respond, which prompted Reek to continue.

"I remember how small you were and how soft. You were the only thing I had ever wanted to protect more than anything, in my whole life. I remember being so afraid that when you came out, you wouldn't be soft and sweet, but terrible and unkind, like Ramsay." He saw Robb flinch and leak a few tears. "But I found out the second you opened your eyes; how handsome you were. You had Ramsey's eyes, I thought. But when I looked deeper, closer, your eyes were really more Sansa's. Ramsey had a paler almost cerulean blue, while Sansa's eyes are a sort of cobalt blue," he explained and Robb glanced back at him, curiously, "and yours share that cobalt color. And your hair …" Reek brushed the dark auburn curls on Robb's scalp, "looks the same as Sansa's brother, Robb's used to. And I was immediately calmed when I held you. I loved the feel of you in my arms."

He remembered it all so clearly, all he had to do was close his eyes and he was there.

Holding Sansa's hand, watching while she pushed out their son.

"Robb, you couldn't mean more to me than anyone else in this world. Not even Sansa means as much as you. I'm in love with your sweet disposition and your little laughter and the way you hug me whenever you see me. I even love how you ask me wildly inappropriate questions. I don't think I could ever make you understand how much you mean. How much I would give to see you look at me and not see pain and hurt reflected back," he whispered.

"The last thing I would ever want to do, is hurt you."

Robb's eyes still shone with tears, but the shift in those eyes screamed volumes.

"Y-You mean all that, Papa?" Robb whispered in a kind of awe.

"I do," he acknowledged, with a cant of his head.

Robb launched at him and wound him up in a hug, with his arms curled around his neck and his skin body heat warm against his skin.

"I t-thought you didn't w-want me anymore ..." Robb whispered in broken little sobs. His arms still clutched tight to Reek's shoulders. "I thought you wanted him more … your real son …"

"You are my real son, Robb. None of the circumstances matter," he sighed into his neck. "I'd love any child of Sansa's. Just as she'd love any of mine." Reek wanted him to understand. More than just the truth. The reality of it.

Robb retracted from the hug and made to straddle his waist. "What if Colton doesn't like me?" he asked worriedly.

"He likes you fine, Robb. He's just not had much chance to get to know you," he explained," but once he does, then he will love you, as much as I do."

Robb swerved his head to the side and landed his forehead down on Reek's shoulder.

"Will Colton share our bed, too, Papa?" Robb asked, when he lifted his head a few minutes later.

Reek went rigid, heart pounding. "What?" he asked in a shocked tone.

"We sleep together each night … will he join us, now? He's your son, just as I am your son … so shouldn't he get to sleep with us, too?"

Reek was flabbergasted. It shouldn't have come as a great shock that Robb ultimately believed the way they slept together each night was normal, natural – and widely done, but it did all the same. Honestly, he knew that Sansa and him had fucked up their son, royally. The lad enjoyed the touch of their skin. Seemed to revel in being naked between them. And watching others bed with an almost pleasure in his eyes.

Was that a perversion they'd caused in him? Or was it another small, dark shine of Ramsay's essence in Robb? Whatever it was, Reek knew it wasn't normal, despite what he'd told Sansa.

"No … I don't think he will be," Reek uttered with a quiver in his tone.

"Why not, Papa?" Robb pried, searching his eyes with a frown on his lips, "Is it because you don't want him to see … what's under your clothes?"

Reek's cheeks stung red and his fingers trembled slightly against Robb's sides.

"It's not …" Reek swallowed and closed his eyes, breathing through the sudden anxiety clash in his mind, "He's a man, Robb. A full-grown man, and I'm sure he'll want his bed to himself." He didn't want to tell Robb that it wasn't normal – what they did.

Robb already knew it was a secret, but not the reasons behind why it was and he didn't expressly want to be the one to tell him, either.

"But how else will we all get close with him? Learn everything about his skin? I've learned so much about your skin, Papa. I've memorized it. Mama's, too," Robb whispered as though imparting an important secret.

Reek swallowed around a lump and breathed laboriously.

"And he looks like you, Papa. Mama said, just like when you were young … won't his skin be like yours was before? Before my father hurt you? Don't you want to remember?" Robb wasn't letting it go. It hurt so much and made Reek shudder with the memories until tears coursed down his cheeks.

He'd never forget what his skin used to feel like. How good, his body used to feel … How good, he used to feel …

"Robb, it just can't h-happen … I'm s-sorry …" he whimpered when his son brushed one of his scars through his tunic, pushed on the raised bump of skin, that he'd memorized.

"I wish it could," Robb continued to frown, when he saw, Theon's tears, "I'm sorry, Papa. I didn't mean to make you cry."

Reek shook his head, slowly, trying to push back his emotions.

"it's not your fault, Robb. You didn't make me this way," he admitted.

Robb seemed to puzzle over that thought and finally piped up again, after a few moments of extended silence," Might I sleep in your chambers again, tonight? I've missed them terribly."

Reek nodded his head. "Of course, you're always welcome in our chambers," he confirmed and Robb gave off another little smile.

"Thanks, Papa," he mused and Reek couldn't verbally answer, so he nodded instead.