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The world had vanished in a red roar of pain and come back to him in slow, reluctant fragments, burgeoning through the dull black backdrop of his fading consciousness like spring violets breaking through a frost. At one point he'd felt his body lurch forward and his face bump against horseflesh. The air had been thick with smoke, but he had lacked the presence and the strength to cough, so the darkness had claimed him again, disoriented and hungry for air. Then he'd felt snowflakes, cold and wet against his face, welcome against his dry cracked lips. A patch of sky, dull and grey, lifeless and still. Time became amorphous, formless and void, showing him glimpses of things and bringing him moments of pain he could not understand. There was no thread to follow between his experiences, and what little he could understand was washed away moment to moment by blinding pain.
Theon Greyjoy awoke in a dark stone cell, his chin pressed against his chest, his neck sore from the unconscious weight of his heavy head. His throat was ragged and his lips were dry. He felt an insistent, throbbing pain that bloomed across his face and sunk its roots deep into the center of his skull. His tongue felt like a burnt lump of coal jammed against the painfully dry back of his throat. He tasted ash and blood. Slowly, stiffly, he picked his head up and forced open his eyes.
He could barely make out his surroundings, though from somewhere and at some distance there came a flickering light. When he tried to move, he found that he could not. His hands were bound behind him, tied so tightly together that they were numb below the wrist. There was a chair beneath him, and dirty straw beneath that, strewn over a stone floor. There was no part of his body that didn't hurt, and no part of his surroundings that seemed familiar. He tried to think, but his mind offered little besides thirst and confusion, and protest at his bonds.
Theon turned his head and saw a figure in the doorway of his cell, backlit by a torch burning in a sconce in the hall. The man was huge, a tall broad shadow, immobile against the dancing light. The sound of the door must have woken me, Theon thought. It was his first coherent thought in far too long a time. He took it as a sign that he must be, at the very least, alive, or at least returning to such a state. Theon thought to clench his jaw, to squeeze his teeth together as a poor substitute for rubbing his eyes, but he could not. The mere attempt at pressing his lower jaw to his upper sent white hot sparks pouring from his eyes. Something in the center of his face was somewhere that it shouldn't be. He couldn't feel what was broken, and couldn't dislodge his petrified tongue enough to probe at what teeth might be missing, but even the suggestion of pressure against his upper jaw was too painful to bear. He settled for swaying his head from side to side, easing the stiff and achy muscles of his neck back to life.
After a moment of intense concentration, his vision came into better focus, and recognition dawned.
"R... Reek?" he croaked out.
The eerily still figure in the doorway stepped forward, two long strides bringing him to crouch at Theon's knee.
He was an ugly man, even in so little light. His straight dark hair fell over his broad, round shoulders. His dark, prominent brows sat heavy over eerie, pale eyes, framed incongruously by dark, full lashes. His thick lips were set in a hard line. He had changed out of his fine scarlet armor and now wore a lord's clothes. A simple woolen tunic beneath a leather jerkin over dark hose and soft boots. His pale, blotchy skin was still streaked with ash.
"Ramsay, I said," said Ramsay, his voice rough and low. His lowborn affection was gone, replaced with a deep and measured tone. His pale eyes, always eager and alight, now seemed cold, dead, and full of malice. "Lord Bolton," he clarified, raising his head and looking up at Theon's face.
"Yes," said Theon, shakily. He could remember — dimly and uncertainly, as if he'd watched it happen to someone else — Ramsay in his blood red armor, riding through the gates of Winterfell to save him. And then the back of his lobstered steel glove turning all the world to pitch. "Yes, l... Lord Bolton, yes. I... please. Water, please-"
Ramsay shook his head. "It was Reek what served and clothed you and brought you your wine. You'll get no such service from me."
Theon's breath caught, rattling up through his throat as it threatened to close. He felt the hot air rush past his lips in a stuttering whimper. He couldn't understand. Couldn't make sense of it. Not of where he was or of who he was with. Not of what had happened or what was about to.
"Please," he repeated. "Water... please..."
Ramsay paid him no mind, his eyes having long left Theon's face to watch his throat as he begged, tracing the line of his neck and then watching his chest shudder as he struggled to breath. Theon could feel his heart pounding, and worse he could see Ramsay watching it do so, his eyes trained on its movement as it hammered against his ribs with such force and intensity as to make his entire chest jump with the effort. It was as if it were trying to run away from him. From this place and from this man. As if it were trying to leave Theon behind, like a rabbit flushed from the brush, desperate to get away with no thought as to what awaited it where it ran.
"Please," he said again, and watched Ramsay raise his hands. His tongue flicked out between his lips, its tip tracing along the edges of his teeth as he pressed his palms over the tops of Theon's thighs.
Theon jerked back at his touch, but found he had no recourse. His ankles where bound to the legs of his chair, and Ramsay was already pressing his weight into Theon's lap, pinning him down, stopping him from throwing his body weight back and springing away from him. Powerless to run or to pitch himself backward, Theon strained, pushing himself against the back of his seat, pressing his body as far into the wood as it could go. The weight and the pressure of Ramsay's hands followed him. He was a huge man. Strong and bulky, with hands like two bear's paws. Just the weight of them alone would have been enough to pin Theon in his weakened state. The image stayed with Theon for a moment, his panicked and pain addled brain latching on to the comforting absurdity of the thought. Reek's heavy, calloused mitts ending in gory stumps before they could become his thick wrists. They lay over Theon's thighs in his mind's eye like a set of maester's book weights.
"What are you doing?" Theon rasped. Then, in a voice even smaller and more helpless than he felt in that moment, he heard himself say, "No..."
That made Ramsay smile. A slow, tight-lipped grin that bloomed steadily over his puffy face without ever touching his cold dead eyes. His round face seemed to stretch to accommodate his widening mouth. To ripple, twist, and distort until Theon could clearly see a lizardlion braced before him, its pale eyes above the water's murky line, its toothy grin beneath it.
With more grace than Theon would have expected such a large man to have when crouched in such a tight spot, Reek pushed his knees apart. To say he "forced" them open would imply he had had to use any force at all. In fact he simply moved his right hand away from his left, and Theon's legs followed beneath the pressure of his palms, helpless and obedient. He pressed his palms up the length of Theon's thighs, his wrists turning so his thumbs ran up against Theon's belly while his fingers rounded over his flanks. They turned smoothly the other way as his hands ran down towards Theon's knees, his thick fingers brushing the tops of his thighs while his thumbs followed their inner curve. Theon could feel himself trembling. Ramsay's face had softened, and his tongue had reappeared, pressed up behind him teeth. He was calm and still, moving slowly and with care, but his breath was heavy, his broad chest rising and falling rapidly. Theon could hear some familiar voice within him that he'd last heard long ago reminding him to keep very still and very quiet.
Something made Ramsay's pale eyes flick back up to meet Theon's gaze in that moment. Neither of them were laughing. He doubted that they could. Reek's eyes had been bright, intelligent, and unnerving. Theon tried reminding himself that these were Reek's same eyes. Posed beneath him, looking up. Just as they'd looked up at him in his lord's bed chamber in Winterfell as he'd laced his boots for him in the morning, or pulled them off his feet at night. Theon knew those eyes. Had trusted those eyes to serve him.
Ramsay smiled again, and his cold dead eyes looked foreign once more. A stranger's. He reached his hands to the top of Theon's breeches and deftly unlaced them, pulling the cord free from itself in a smooth, practiced motion. Theon forgot about his eyes, or any others he may have been thinking of. He yelped, thrashed, and found himself as pinned as he'd been before.
"What are you doing?" he said again, more sharp and more shrill than he'd asked before, his voice pulled painfully through his dry throat, constricted by desperate thirst and blind fear.
"There was a woman promised me," Ramsay said calmly, pressing his weight into Theon's lap with his right hand while pulling his breeches open with his left. "But you'll have to do."
"N- no," Theon stammered. "What? No. St-"
Theon's protest died in his throat as he watched Ramsay raise his right hand. He held it aloft in front of Theon's face, who shrank back and readied himself for another slap, quivering in the anticipatory dread of his broken cheekbone being hit once again. Ramsay watched him tremble, the smile that had disappeared from his face so quickly beginning to ghost over his lips again. Theon could not tell if it was his whimpering or his silence that had pleased him.
Ramsay's hand struck out towards Theon, who screwed his eyes shut to bear the blow. But Ramsay did not strike him. Instead, he pressed his palm over Theon's throat.
For just a moment, the touch was comforting. Ramsay's calloused palm was heavy and warm around Theon's neck. Steady and firm. The moment was a short one. Ramsay pressed his weight into Theon, leaning just barely forward. It was enough to bring tears to Theon's eyes. His thick fingers were not even squeezed together around his neck. The weight he had braced against Theon couldn't have been more than a fraction of a fraction of his bulk. But it was enough.
Ramsay pulled back as the tear in Theon's left eye ran down his face and slid beneath his knuckle. He brought his hand to his mouth and dragged his tongue over his palm, staring into Theon's eyes as he did so. Theon could feel sweat running down his back and pooling under his arms. Cold, acrid, sweat that stank of prey animal fear. Ramsay chuckled, then put his hands back into Theon's lap, pulling his breeches and his smallclothes down his thighs. He winced at the sudden chill of cold air hitting his lap, and at the sticky pull of fabric being dragged down and over sweat soaked skin.
Ramsay tutted, a small, dismissive sound of mild disappointment, followed by another chuckle.
"Well, we'll have to see if it gets bigger," he said, meeting Theon's eyes again. "Or else it may not be worth keeping."
"Are you m- What are you s- saying? What do you m-" Theon's feeble, shaky protests collapsed in on themselves, becoming a yelp as he watched Ramsay duck his head into his lap and felt his mouth close around his cock.
He kept his hands resting heavily on Theon's knees. Theon could feel the weight of his head in his lap. Could feel his forehead pressed against his stomach, his nose pressed into his groin. Most acutely he felt the warm, wet, sucking weight of his mouth around his cock. It was disgusting. It was incomprehensible. Theon could feel himself trembling. Distantly, he could hear himself whimpering. A low, stifled, choking stream of disconnected sounds.
"Please stop," he managed, and felt Ramsay give one single snort of laughter, the rush of his hot breath and the flex of his throat muscles etched in sharp relief against Theon's skin.
Theon strained his wrists against their bonds behind him, flexing his shoulders and twisting his elbows, struggling to move at all. His hands were numb, but his forearms were all pins and needles, painful to move and painful to keep still. If I don't get out of these ropes soon, I may never notch an arrow again, he thought, dumbly and helplessly, his panicked mind offering new problems of little immediate consequence for him to focus on. He began to cry. Hot tears filled his eyes and flowed down his cheeks, but he did not sob. He was too afraid to make a sound. Too afraid to make his own presence known. He'll get bored of this sick game, he told himself. He'll tire of this humiliation. He'll leave.
Ramsay shifted in his lap, moving his right hand away from where it rested on his knee and worming it between Theon's legs. He cupped his balls and squeezed. When Theon gasped, it sounded wet. His mouth was slick with snot and tears. He could hear it as his lips parted. The sound seemed to encourage him, because Ramsay slipped his fingers up under Theon's body to press against his perineum. The heel of his hand pressed against his balls, and his thumb stroked over them. Involuntarily, Theon felt his cock twitch inside his mouth. He groaned, the sound worming its way past his teeth which he couldn't press closed to catch it. He flexed his spread thighs, willing his blood to rush elsewhere, and felt Ramsay tap the fingers of his left hand against his flank. It was a fluid gesture, the movement traveling from his pinky to his thumb. He made a small, satisfied sound. Not quite a laugh and not quite a sigh. A contemplative Mm, as if he'd learned something new.
Theon felt him slip his tongue under his soft cock and tap at it, bouncing it against the roof of his mouth without moving his jaw. It made him want to scream. It made him strain with all the strength he had left in him against the bonds at his wrists and his ankles. It made him press his back as hard against and as far into the chair beneath him as it was possible for his body to go. None of it made a bit of difference. His body responded to Reek's movements against his will, separated completely from his panicked mind. His cock was stiffening in his mouth, rising eagerly under his tongue's duress. Theon shook his head, screwed shut his eyes, and felt Ramsay's head leave his lap as he slid his mouth along his length. He kept his fingertips busy working circles over Theon's sweat-slicked skin and his teeth tucked neatly behind his lips. In another moment he moved his left hand off of Theon's thigh and wrapped it around his cock to follow his mouth as his head bobbed in and out of his lap.
Theon observed more than he felt that his balls were beginning to tighten, drawing up towards his body as they sat cradled in Ramsay's cupped palm. His body seemed to be not simply betraying him but separating itself from him entirely. He was a spectator to the base mechanics of its wanton instinct, as helpless against its responses as he was against his bonds and his captor. Theon opened his eyes to see the top of Reek's head rising from his lap, hoping the sight might press him back from the edge he was being forced towards. It worked for a moment, though it bought a fresh wave of helpless tears to burn at his eyes. Ramsay -- sly, low, repulsive, deviantly observant creature that he was -- must have felt the tension start to leave him, because he opened his throat and took Theon to the hilt. It pulled a wet, strangled sob from him that he did not know he had to give.
Weeping openly with his cock standing at full attention, Theon had the thought that perhaps Reek might pull his thick lips back from the teeth he'd covered so politely and end this mummer's farce in one quick snap. For a moment that seemed the most obviously preferrable ending.
"Gods, no," Theon whimpered, "please, gods, no... please stop... please..."
His orgasm felt distant. Automatic and unconscious like a coughing fit after a less than careful swallow of wine. Instinctual and unavoidable like the grunt that follows a fist to the stomach. Like a low, watery intestinal cramp rolling up from his balls. He came into Reek's warm, wet mouth, spilling over his tongue as it lapped at the head of his cock.
Ramsay pulled off and away from him, and Theon's quickly softening cock dropped from his mouth with a slick, wet sound that echoed through the dark. Theon sobbed, and found his own heaves even more disgusting to listen to. He could not quiet them, try as he might. What little resistance he'd managed to put up had now all been spent. He had nothing left.
Theon felt Ramsay's hand pushing at his face, moving to cup and then to grab his jaw. He moaned in pain as his face was manhandled, sore from the break in his cheekbone, tender from the strain crying had put on his muscles. Ramsay's thick fingers pushed his teeth apart as the squeezed his cheeks. He stood from his knees, and the motion pushed Theon's head back. Ramsay followed him, stooping low until his face loomed in front of Theon's, so close that it blocked out what little else there was to see in his cell. His face contorted for a moment, and through the haze of his tears Theon watched his cheeks and lips move under his cold dead eyes. He leaned in until their lips were nearly touching, and then he spat.
A gob of spit and semen landed in Theon's open mouth. He wanted to scream, but Ramsay was too quick. His left hand rose to pinch shut Theon's nose, his right moved to pin his mouth closed, the heel of his hand pressing up under his jaw, his fingers pressing shut his lips. He forced Theon's head back, and he screamed at the pressure it put on his injuries. It came out as a long, low moan of pain and humiliation. His raw, painful throat contracted, and he swallowed. Ramsay watched his throat move as he did so. When he was satisfied, he took his hand off Theon's nose and jiggled his head. Through the echoes of his muffled scream, Theon could hear him laugh good naturedly, as if he was tousling with a dog. He took his hand from Theon's jaw and placed it back on his neck, his fingers resting gently on its sides, Theon's chin propped up by the wide, flat space between his thumb and pointer finger. With his left hand he gave Theon's face three jolly, companiable slaps that sent white hot stars to dance across his vision.
Ramsay stared at him a moment as he held his head still. His mouth was swollen, wet and red. There was slobber drying quickly over the lower half of his broad face, which was now free of ash. Theon could see a few wet strands of his dark hair were stuck to his cheek. He didn't seem to notice them, or else they didn't bother him.
The moment stretched out between them. Ramsay stared and Theon wept. His eyes were curiously still, staring directly into Theon's rather than searching his face. They seemed to be drinking in his tears.
He dropped his hand from where it rested, and Theon's heavy head dropped with it. He choked and retched, vomiting frothy, pale yellow bile over his bare lap. It burned fiercely as it left his ruined throat, but he didn't care. He hoped it would come again. And again after. Anything to rid him of the filth he'd swallowed.
He could hear Ramsay laughing as he left, his soft boots scuffing the cold stone floor as his heavy steps carried him back out of the cell and into the hall.
He slammed the door behind him, leaving Theon in the dark.