Chapter 13

"This, you mean?" Bolton asked, picking up the very box. Theon's eyes widened for some reason.

"Don't touch that!" Jon snapped. He didn't like this Bolton bloke at all, and he certainly didn't want him touching family possessions. The game might have been for Sansa, but it had come to be for all of them.

"Sorry," Bolton said tritely, dropping the box back in place. Jon snatched it up, holding it against his chest childishly. It had been years since he played, but he knew the game thoroughly. Last time he'd played, Robb had been with him. Theon, too, but Theon was alive and Robb was not. He didn't want anything tarnishing that memory.

Theon still looked shocked by something.

"What's so important about this game?" Bolton asked, smiling his smarmy smile.

"It's just a game," Theon said hurriedly, glancing nervously at Bolton. "It isn't important."

"We used to play it when we were kids," Jon answered. Why was Theon acting so weird? "My aunt made it, so s'not like you could find it in any store."

"Did Theon used to play this game?" Bolton pressed, leering at him. Jon really didn't like this man. He got a horrible feeling about the connection between Bolton and Theon, and he didn't want to stay around Bolton long enough to find out whether he was right. He didn't much want to stay around Theon, either, but there were things Jon still wanted to talk about that only Theon could tell him, like where Sansa was now and if Arya's body had ever been found.

"Yes, he did." Theon shot Jon an irritable look. "It was mostly me, him and Robb, so yeah, he played."

"Interesting." Bolton's smile became even slimier. "I don't suppose we could play a round now? I'm sure Theon would like to, for old time's sake."

Theon looked like he would like anything but, but Jon never was a fan of Theon's. They would play a round. Maybe Bolton would even get bored and leave them alone to talk.

ØØØ

His head still trying to process the fact that it was back, Theon stared at the board clutched against Jon's chest. He had thrown it into the ocean. Even if Jeyne or someone else had found it, how could she have gotten it back to the storage unit? He was the only one with the key. Master had been holding that key for him, but Theon knew for a fact he had never gone through the storage locker. Theon had never told him where it was. Master hadn't kenned before fucking Scott showed up and demanded to see it.

The last part of Robb and the family he once had, and Master had gotten access to it. He'd touched boxes and clothing, and furniture with his hands Theon had kept him from ever even seeing. All because of Scott.

Theon was going to kill Scott. He had to ken Theon didn't want Master there, didn't want to do a thing with Master there.

Master was acting weird. He was actually using Theon's name which was both unprecedented and unsettling. Theon doubted it was anything good. Nothing good ever came from Master being nice to him.

But the game…maybe it had come back for a reason. Maybe Theon could use its horrible magic to finally rid Winterfell of Master. He didn't even care about himself anymore, but if Scott was here, maybe he could take back what Master had taken from the Scotts.

Robb was gone, but maybe, just maybe, a Scott could take back Winterfell.

Theon shook his head, feeling his brain rattle. Not Winterfell. Winterfell was in Westeros. The family home; that was what a Scott should take back.

Jon explained the first version of the game to Master tersely, handing him the pieces he needed. He gave Master the green piece and flags, the colour none of them had liked. Rickon always got stuck with those pieces because everyone grabbed what they wanted first.

Theon took the grey; Jon the black. The white was Robb's colour; the red Arya's. Sansa always had blue; Bran always had red. The purple and the gold stayed in the box.

He fingered the squid picture still stuck to the grey piece. It felt damp. He lifted his fingers, finding them smeared slightly with ink.

Master went first as the guest. He picked the Riverlands. Family, Duty, Honour was their motto. Theon found it sickly ironic.

Master rolled the die and moved three spaces, landing on the Highgarden crest, a golden rose on a green field. Since it had no ruler, Master won the Kingdom. He seemed pleased, putting a flag on it.

Jon rolled and landed on Highgarden as well. The game went quickly this way, Master and Theon claiming bits of the Seven Kingdoms, and Jon taking them away. This was how it always went when a new player played, the new person not understanding that Jon, as the Lord Commander, could not be attacked at the Wall. One had to defeat him in the Kingdoms to stop him from taking one's flags away for the Wall. The easiest way to do this was to strike up an alliance and forge an agreement that Jon would not take flags from one's territories, which was not an easy thing to do at all.

Master kenned none of this, and Theon let him suffer. They circled the board again and again, Master growing more frustrated as he realized that he could not keep a flag on all the other Kingdoms and attack the Iron Islands. Jon kept picking his flags off, so that Master was continuously retaking the same Kingdoms, while Theon sat on Pyke and did nothing, leaving almost all of his flags on the Iron Islands. Three of them were in the North with most of Jon's flags, a strange sort of solidarity they had not communicated.

Theon was actually starting to become amused, an emotion he had not felt since he met Master. The bastard just kept going around and around while Jon defeated him over and over. They could keep at this for hours.

Master was not so amused. His movements were becoming jerky, his jaw twitching the way it did when he thought someone was trying to take the piss out of him, which was exactly what Jon was trying to do. He wasn't paying much attention to where he put his hands or elbows.

The loose edge had always been there, ever since the first time they played. Maybe Robb had damaged the board when he first opened it, maybe Aunt Lyanna wasn't paying enough attention when she made it. In a battle of sharp steel versus soft skin, the steel always won.

Theon did not think to warn Master. He had learned to avoid the edge a long time ago.

ØØØ

Jon did not see the see the cut, only heard the angry snarl as Bolton ran his arm along the edge. He looked up just as Bolton's arm came up, aimed straight at Theon.

He saw Theon flinch, saw Bolton stop himself suddenly when he realized Jon was looking. Jon's jaw clenched. So that was how it was.

"Get me a towel, Theon," Bolton said, bringing his hand down.

That edge had always been loose, the glue holding the metal border to the cherry wood too weak to keep the corner down. Bran and Arya were always catching themselves on it, leaving little nicks and cuts on their fingers. Robb had once slashed a ten-centimetre long line on his forearm. Jon remembered watching the blood well up, while Robb told him that it wasn't anything big, Theon actually looking mildly concerned in the background.

Theon did not look concerned this time. He looked afraid, hunched down on the box he was sitting on with fearful eyes trained on Bolton. At a sharp glance from the other, he scurried off to find something absorbent among the family things. Jon would rather Bolton bleed out.

"I think we've played enough," he said, sweeping the pieces off the board and putting them back in the box.

"Yes," Bolton agreed, surprisingly enough. He stood up, taking the hand towel Theon had found from him. "I'll leave you two to your childish games. I'm sure you have so many things to catch up on."

Jon watched him saunter out of the storage locker in distaste. Bolton was a greasy, nasty, vicious creature who didn't deserve the family home.

It'd be a fucking miracle if he turned up dead.

ØØØ

"You could leave," Jon said, avoiding Theon's gaze. He didn't have a good reason for trying to help Theon; they'd never been friends, never so much as shared a kind word in all of Jon's memory. "Just pick up and go."

Theon shook his head. He had a bruise forming on his too visible collarbone. Jon didn't think it had come from a lovebite.

"Not that easy, Scott."

Jon's jaw twitched, but he didn't press further. Theon was as infuriating as ever, even if he had stopped that stupid smiling of his. He'd smiled once since Jon had been back, showing what looked like two missing teeth on the right side. Jon shuddered to think how he had lost them in less than five years.

"What happened to Cat?"

Jon couldn't tell if it was apathy or joy he saw in Theon's eyes.

"After Robb, she gave up, wasted away." Of course. Jon, for all his own miserable childhood and suffering under Mrs Scott, had known Theon hadn't stood much higher in Cat's eyes, certainly not as high as any of her own children. "Sansa got married. I think the last time anyone saw her out of bed was at the wedding." Theon's words were dull, no thought to them. He didn't care.

"What happened to you, Grey?" Jon asked too softly. "What made you turn out like this?"

Theon's smile was as bitter as midwinter.

"I'd like you to leave now, Scott."

ØØØ

Theon stayed in the locker when Jon left with his mate. Master had forgotten him, just left without remembering his favourite toy was three miles from home in a storage unit. Theon did not feel forgotten. All he felt was relief.

He had a few minutes alone, a few minutes where he could dream and think, and remember without worrying that Master was nearby, waiting to snatch any happiness from him. Master liked building him up, giving Theon a false sense of security, then tearing him down even harder. It was better not to be happy at all.

Sitting on a dusty cardboard box, he leaned back against a bookshelf and closed his eyes.

"You are a fool," Theon had once told him as he cleaned the grit out of Robb's arm after yet another fight with Joffrey Lancaster. By then, the line between friend and lover had blurred so greatly that every word, every breath was an exercise in just how far Theon could go. "A goddamn fool and lucky it isn't any worse or I'd have to take you to hospital."

"Mm," was all Robb said. Theon, unsatisfied with that answer since he was taking the trouble to clean the idiot up so no one else had to ken his idiocy, jabbed the alcohol swab into the deepest part of the cut. Robb hissed and glared at him. Good.

"Why don't you tell Cat? She'd stop all this." The grit was almost out. If Robb hadn't decided Joffrey needed a smackdown in the driveway when he dropped Sansa off, Theon would not be doing this.

Joffrey had been courting Sansa for years then, taking her out twice a week, bringing her back with bruises she covered up with long jackets and heavy makeup. She never saw her friends anymore, just Joff, who she said she loved. Sansa still thought the fake engagement was real, that Joffrey still planned on marrying her.

"Mum can't stop Sansa, y'ken that." Robb grimaced. Theon had wrapped the bandage too tight. Theon gave him a look that told him to suck it.

"And the coppers?"

"The coppers couldn't get Joffrey's mother on murder charges. Do you think they'll get him for this?"

Theon just kept rolling the bandages.

The scene changed, turning to months later, after Robb's engagement to a girl he had only met once.

Robb's breath was hot against the side of his neck. Theon closed his eyes, sucking in a breath. Hands touched him, laying on either side of his hips, so desperately close.

"Do you want this?" Robb asked, his voice low and not a bit husky.

Theon was proud but not too proud for this. There was little possibility if he turned Robb away now that he would get a second chance.

"Yes."

Theon grasped at the memory, trying to keep it going, but it unravelled in his mind. Time went further back, to some party somewhere. Theon was nineteen, Robb sixteen. Theon had just hit on Robb, spinning it off as a joke, and everyone, everyone was laughing.

Robb gave him the tongs and Theon laughed. Scott wanted him, no doubt about it. He tried to deny it, but it was impossible. Theon was the epitome of manliness and Robb was susceptible to that. As all people should be.

The other memories always faded, but that one remained: Robb giving him the two-fingered salute while his lips quirked up at the sides, telling Theon he could never be honestly mad at him, no matter what stupid thing Theon said or did.

ØØØ

Jon did not take Bolton up on his offer to stay in his "old bedroom", as though Bolton even knew which room that was.

He stayed with a mate from school. Jon had changed a lot. Ewan hadn't. It was interesting. They went out drinking, got back late and slept until well past noon. Jon woke up on the couch to the smell of beans, toast and eggs. His stomach growled unpleasantly. Maybe no breakfast for him today.

"Hey," Ewan said, tossing the newspaper at Jon as he padded into the kitchen, scrubbing at his face. Jon caught it. Barely. "Didn't you say you went to see that bloke yesterday?"

"Who?" Jon asked, unfolding the paper.

Ewan took a gulp of his tea and pointed at the paper.

It was a copy of the local paper, the Kirkintilloch Herald. There, on the front page, in the corner was a sliver of an article.

LOCAL MAN DIES IN FREAK LORRY ACCIDENT

Last night, Ramsey Bolton, owner of the late Lord Eddard Scott's residence, passed away in a car accident. While driving home last night from Evans Easystore, the realtor suffered car trouble and pulled to the side of the road. A lorry driver coming in the opposite direction lost control of the wheel and drove into Mr Bolton, killing him instantly.

The lorry driver, Mr John Patterson, was…

Jon whistled. "Fucking hell. Bolton was an arse, but- fucking hell," he repeated. His mate nodded, though that might have been in time to the Finnish death metal he was listening to.

"So, beans on toast?"