Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

1.

Jon knows that there’s an Appointment happening this afternoon, but he doesn’t bother to be on his best behavior for it. He’s been on it for the first few times, except that it didn’t take long to notice that most of the social workers in the place where he’s had to grow up play favorites - years from now he’ll know that most of them weren’t really suited for the job, but at the ripe age of five he really doesn’t have that concept yet.

What he knows is that he has a file that says things about him that made sure that any potential person coming by to at least foster some of them skipped him and went straight to the next one. He’s heard a few of the social worker confirming that he’s displaying antisocial behavior and he makes other children feel uncomfortable along with a few other things he doesn’t know the meaning of but are apparently… not really good news. He doesn’t know what they even expect of him - the first time he tried to tell anyone about the dreams he was having where he’s taller and leaner and is holding a sword and has a wolf with him they sent him to one of the doctors who told him that a fervent imagination is a nice thing but he really shouldn’t let that get to his head, and fine, maybe he told some of the others when they asked, but it’s not his fault if everyone decided he was weird and never talked to him since, which is why he hasn’t talked to anyone else back.

So, he really doesn’t pay The Appointment any mind. He wears his usual clothes - not the nice one reserved for Appointments - and goes to his usual corner in the main living room. (It’s a large group home. Most of the other kids watch television. He reads instead - he’s gone through everything age appropriate that he’s allowed to read, so now he’s going through it again.)

He doesn’t notice that someone’s on his side of the room until he actually hears Mr. Slynt - his least favorite of the entire staff.

“But Mr. Seaworth,” he’s saying, “I think there are, uh, less problematic options.”

“I don’t doubt that,” someone else replies, “but when did I say I was looking for less problematic options?”

“You have not,” Slynt agrees, “but there’s something really wrong with that kid and I don’t think you want to saddle yourself with him out of everyone.”

Wait.

“Seems to me like he’s the only one doing something useful with their time,” the other man says.

Jon raises his eyes from his book.

Everyone else is either watching television or sending fairly bad looks his way.

And then he notices that both Slynt and the other man are really close to him and -

The man - Mr. Seaworth? - has to be the person who was coming for The Appointment, sure. But why are they looking at him?

“He’s five and he hasn’t said a word in months,” Slynt goes on. “There have probably been some development issues, on top of -”

“Right, right, now can I talk to him or do I need a permit?”

“Of course not,” Slynt replies, and -

Mr. Seaworth is in his early forties, or so it looks like, is dressed mostly in black and gray, has a nicely kept grey beard and a very kind smile and is… kneeling in front of him?

“What’s that you were reading?” He asks. Nicely. Jon doesn’t think anyone’s ever been this nice to him in his entire life. But he hasn’t said a word in weeks, as stated, and he feels like he’s going to go into a panic if he tries to talk, so he just closes the book and shoves it at Mr. Seaworth.

“Hm, one could do a lot worse than The Black Corsair,” Mr. Seaworth says, “seems like there’s a nicer choice in books than in staff.” His voice drops down at that and Jon kind of laughs at that because it was funny and it was true, never mind that he stole that book from the shelf for people older than he is, but suddenly he feels like he’s going to - he doesn’t know what, but something is happening and he hasn’t laughed in months and right now he is and someone’s actually having their full attention on him and that’s not what happens, that’s not -

“Hey,” Mr. Seaworth says, “easy, it’s fine -” He starts, and then -

Then -

He’s waking up after nothing and that same man is helping him stand and putting some clothes on and telling him that if he failed once he can always go back and fail again -

He’s standing in a room with people chanting king in the north -

He’s seeing a girl who looks like him and who’s most definitely his sister except she’s halfway not and then another one with bright auburn hair and blue eyes and they’re holding on to each other under the snow, and another boy with those hair and eyes his age who tells him I don’t care what anyone else says you’re my brother, and another one who’s taking shooting lessons from him and then is running against him on a horse but then is not, and a last one who was supposed to be dead and instead is not -

He’s standing in a room full of people clad in black electing him Lord Commander -

For the watch -

King Jon Snow -

An army of undead people -

He gasps and looks back up - he knows he’s crying, but -

“… Davos?” He asks, barely even hearing himself.

“Damn it, you remembered just now, did you? I was hoping it wouldn’t be this soon,” Davos says, and oh, he’s the same, he’s the exact same, and did he say you remembered -

So his dreams weren’t dreams at all?

“You told me I… I should go fail again?”

“I did,” Davos says, and then - “How would you like it to get out of here?”

Jon thinks it’s the first time in his life he’s ever cried out of pure, blissful relief.

Slynt doesn’t try to convince Davos to look at less problematic children anymore and by the time the sun has set Jon’s packed his few belongings neatly and is grasping onto Davos’s hand as he walks out of the damned place.

He still can’t get everything straight in his head, but as he feels a hand with shortened fingertips - how did it happen in this life? - ruffling his hair, he decides he doesn’t care.

2.

While every other damned kid in the facility gets dressed up for the occasion - there’s someone coming by and of course everyone’s hoping to leave - Theon doesn’t even bother. He realized no one was taking him in after he passed the ten mark - maybe kids younger and without as thick a file have chances, but no one with his credentials at the ripe age of twelve does, and he’s made peace with it.

He sticks to his chair in the living room - at least there’s some kind of unspoken agreement that since he’s been here for four years (as in, longer than most others) he has a right to it - and moves on to the next page in his sketchbook.

Not that it has much variety.

Most of it is covered in dark red ink, or black at most. All of the psychiatrists he’s ever talked to always gave it back to him as if they thought he had some kind of serious mental problem, which - well. Maybe he has. Who knows. What he knows is that no one ever wanted a meeting with him after being informed that most of his drawings are on the subject of him dying along with a red haired kid in fairly gruesome ways.

They’ve asked him who he was. Theon’s always said that he doesn’t know even if he does. But if Robb’s alive in this world, he’s probably better off without him.

He looks down at the ring finger in his left hand, which has been bent quite wrong for the last three years or so - of course destiny didn’t spare him and he had to run into fucking Ramsay at his previous group home. Good thing it ended at that.

Good thing, really.

So, he’s sketching.

Which is when he hears the conversation from his side.

“Of course you may, but I don’t see why you would. You saw the file.”

“Of course, which is why I would. I am sure a lot of kids in here have a good chance of finding a family. I don’t think he has.”

Wait. The hell?

Oh. Oh.

He turns to his side and puts the sketchbook down to see bloody Davos Seaworth talking to Barbrey Dustin, as in, someone who should not have been a social worker in this life. And then Davos Seaworth looks at him and… winks slightly?

Shit. Shit. He bypasses Barbrey and walks right up to him - Theon stands up without even thinking about it, still grasping at his red pen.

“What are you doing here?” He blurts.

“I see you remembered everything already, didn’t you?”

“I might have,” Theon says, not knowing whether he should look at the man or not, but -

“Sorry to hear your father was a piece of shit in this world, too.”

Theon laughs. “Well, what can I do. And what are you doing here, again?”

Seaworth smirks. And then - “Let’s say that in this world I got slightly better starting points than I had in the other one. What do you say if I tell you there might be a room with your name on it where I come from?”

Theon’s first instinct is asking, are you fucking joking. 

Instead - “I’d say I was making it up,” he blurts.

“What if I say you’re not?”

Theon says nothing, and looks down at his opened sketchbook.

“You know,” Davos says, lowering his voice, “no one says I couldn’t help you looking him up.”

Thing is - Theon hadn’t spent that much time around the man back in the day, but he wasn’t judging, and he was definitely a good person - better than him anyway - and -

And -

“I’d say, I hope you’re not fucking with me,” he says.

Turns out, Davos is not.

Theon isn’t honestly going to spill a single tear about leaving the damned place behind.

3.

He had been told that Davos took in other people as well - and he’d have been surprised of the contrary.

What he doesn’t expect is getting out of his room (and he hasn’t had a room he didn’t have to share with anyone for years) and see Jon Snow doing the same on the other side of the corridor. He’s around ten or so, has to be, and he looks exactly as he had back in Winterfell except slightly less broody, maybe, and -

The first instinct he has is crying in relief because it’s someone from Winterfell and someone who knew Robb and someone who he knew regardless of how much they disagreed, and then Jon’s face breaks into a relieved grin, too, maybe, and they’re walking towards each other and -

Theon can’t remember the last time he hugged anyone out of his own volition. And now he’s doing that with fucking Jon Snow, who’s kind of grabbing at his shirt and looking like he wants to cry but is trying not to, and then they move back to look at each other and -

“I can’t believe it’s you,” Jon groans, but he’s smiling as he says it.

“Me neither,” Theon replies, “but I guess we could’ve done worse? And I should’ve known you’d be brooding in another life as well.”

“Asshole,” Jon sighs, but it’s obvious he doesn’t mean it and -

And then he grabs at Theon’s shoulders again, and Theon decides that for now he’s just - not going to do anything.

He hasn’t smiled out of his own volition in years. As it happens, he decides he could get used to it all over again.

Chapter Text

1.

“Jon, I don’t really think it’s a good idea.”

“Do you have any better ones? Because we’ve looked for a long time and at this point it’s obvious they aren’t in London. Or England. Or - well, Davos has checked, and Stannis has checked, and there’s nothing here.”

Theon stares at the Deviantart page open in front of them.

With all of his drawings ready to upload, if he chooses to do so.

“I don’t - I mean, I get it, but do you really think they would - what if they don’t have the internet?”

“At least we’ll have tried. And come on, it’s good drawings, if people don’t know what’s behind them. Which is a surprise, coming from you, but -”

“Oh, shut your hole. Fine. Fine.”

He renames the entire album red wedding cycle. He flags it as original art, because what the hell should he do, say it’s historical re-enactment? Or whatever you call it these days.

Then he writes down, something that’s been on my mind for a long time.

Hopefully it’s enough to make anyone who knows realize what’s going on.

He sighs and looks at the mouse.

“Do you need me to hold your hand or what?”

“Fuck you,” Theon says, and uploads the damned pictures.

Hopefully it’s going to work.

2.

Robb knows he shouldn’t be doing this.

Except that he also knows no one else in his family remembers - not yet, anyway - and he’s not in a hurry to tell them.

Hell, he kind of hopes they never do.

Too bad that he does, and he also would really like to know where the hell Jon is in this world, and a lot of other people, as well.

Which is why whenever he goes to the town’s library - no internet at home yet, they can’t afford it with seven people in the household - he might spend time looking… his old self up. Or anything related to his old self.

It hasn’t worked until now. And he feels horribly morbid as he types red wedding on the google search bar. It hasn’t showed anything yet, not that he doubts it -

But today there’s a new result on top of the page.

Robb has no bloody clue of what deviantart is, but it has to be somewhere people post their drawings online, he figures from the name.

He clicks on the link, his fingers slightly trembling.

And then he feels like someone’s punched him in the gut because -

Because that’s him, but there’s Theon next to him, and sure as hell Robb knows that he wasn’t there the first time round. He swallows and reads down further.

something that’s been on my mind for a long time.

Oh.

Oh.

He has a feeling he might not have been so mistaken about Theon, back in the day, if he’s drawn their death (that never happened) some fifteen times.

He checks the profile - indeed, the username is whatisdeadmayneverdie. He’ll eat his own hat if it’s not Theon.

He looks at where the profile is from. London. Well, not too far from Ireland, at least.

He takes a deep breath, makes a profile on that same website figuring that it’d just be more convenient, and then opens the last drawing of the series.

He breathes in.

Theon? He types. If it’s you, we need to talk.

Then he clicks send.

3.

Dublin Airport is smaller than the one they left from, Theon thinks, but it looks fairly nice. At least they won’t get lost.

Also, he’s still freaking out that since he is old enough to travel alone and Jon’s technically not he’s coming with under his responsibility, which had made Davos laugh a lot when they had to finalize buying the tickets, but the man has a job and couldn’t come with them, and anyway, Theon has a feeling they should deal with this themselves.

Still. It’s fucking weird.

“Just don’t disappear on me or anything,” he mutters.

“I’m not five, Theon, just so you remember.”

“Well, you’re not old enough that if anything happens to you I am not fucked, so just don’t. Right. That’s the exit. Shit, I need a drink.”

“It’s eleven AM, you don’t.”

Theon would really like to say that no, he does, but he huffs and checks that his passport is where it’s supposed to be, and when he raises his eyes Jon is nowhere to be seen, damn him and -

Oh. He’s running ahead. And he’s just slammed straight into someone else who’s not so casually grabbing at Jon’s shoulders tight enough to hurt, and that someone else has bright auburn hair and -

Oh.

Oh.

Theon just waits behind Jon and hears what’s absolutely and without any room for mistakes Robb’s voice telling him something about wearing black and whatnot - well, Jon is wearing black all things considered - and then they move apart even if Jon’s hand is still clinging to Robb’s wrist and then Robb’s looking at him with those same blue eyes, all over again, and he thinks it’s too much. He’s never going to survive the next four days never mind the next ten minutes.

“Hey,” he says, “it’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” Which is probably the fucking lamest thing he could have come up with.

“It has,” Robb says, but he’s smiling and he doesn’t look angry at all and a moment later he’s moved from behind Jon and has thrown his arms around Theon’s waist too without hesitating and shit, shit, shit -

“And by the way,” Robb says, “no one should have died the way I did, but I can appreciate the intent.”

“Did you grow a sense of humor or what,” Theon blurts, and then Robb’s laughing, Jon’s snorting as well and throwing his arms around them both and Theon really doesn’t give a damn anymore.

And if Jon will spend the next year gloating because he had the idea of posting those drawings on the internet, Theon’s just going to let him.

End.