Archive of Our Own

Jon fucks her the way she likes best, on her hands and knees, his hands curled at her hips as he thrusts into her hard and fast, her back arching as she pushes back against him, her gold hair clouded around her face and her fingers knotted in the furs. The heat burning in his belly is a living thing, twisting and flaring, throbbing as it rushes under his skin, as it sparks the ruthless snap of his hips. He wants her so badly it shocks him, a restless need he can scarcely bear to think about; he has been with her for months, took her into his bed well before he left the Wall, but he cannot seem to get enough of her, kissing her as often as he can, making any excuse to put his hands on her skin.

Val peaks suddenly, her cunt pulsing and fluttering around him, her ragged moan muffled by the furs. He slides his arm underneath her and pulls her back against him, mouthing at her neck as he pushes up into her, as he tries to get closer, deeper inside her. She makes a low noise against his jaw, twisting her arms back to wrap around his neck, grinding her hips down to meet his thrusts; Jon spends with a low, desperate noise, his fingers biting into her skin, his teeth scraping along her neck.

She slouches back against him, tipping her head into his shoulder as she catches her breath, and Jon noses at her hair, kisses the sweaty line of her temple. He wants to see her peak again, wants to watch her skin flush and her eyes darken, his cock twitcing weakly at the thought of it; he curves one hand over her breast, pulling and teasing her nipple the way she has taught him, slides the other down between her legs, rubbing and pressing until she hisses his name -- Jon, oh, oh, Jon -- until she bats him away, a tremor running up her thighs.

Jon sinks down into the furs, bringing her with him, sighing as she settles against him, a warm and familiar weight he can no longer sleep without. They gave up the pretense of separate tents days ago, at her insistence, her mouth folding with a frown as she told him it was nonsense, and while he still worries his lack of restraint will shame her in some fashion, he prefers having her head pillowed on his chest to empty furs, thinks her soft, breathy snores are the sweetest sound he's ever heard.

He presses a kiss to her shoulder, strokes his fingers over the hollow of her throat, trails them into the dip between her breasts. She murmurs softly, arching her back as she stretches her legs and folds her arms behind her head, and Jon notices it then, the barest swell of her stomach, tiny but unmistakeable. A slow ache hollows into his chest; he knows it for what it is before he lays his shaking hand on top of it.

"Val," he says, in a quiet, trembling voice he doesn't recognize as his own.

She sits up slightly, narrows her eyes. "Yes."

"I'm sorry," he whispers, shaking so badly now he can feel it in his shoulders, thinking of how often he has bedded her, all the times he has spilled his seed inside her. "I shouldn't have been so careless."

"Perhaps I wanted this, Jon Snow," she says sharply, resting her hand on his. "You are a strong man when you choose to be. Strong men father strong children."

"You," he mumbles, his tongue thick and his voice hoarse, the ache in his chest spreading down into his gut. "You wish to bear my bastard?"

Val sighs and pulls him down to lie beside her, curls her hand into his hair, tugs a little. "There are no bastards where I come from."

Dawn breaks heavily, the sun fighting through bruised clouds that promise another storm, and Jon worries as he gears up for another day's march, concerned that they are short on supplies, that they will lose more horses, that the men will sacrifice more fingers and toes to the cold. Val rides double behind him, the swell of their child pressed to the dip of his spine, and Jon tightens his jaw, bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood. They are only two weeks away from the Wall, close enough that Jon can see it if he looks north, can feel it looming behind him, a frozen weight pressing on his shoulders, and guilt gnaws at him until he is doubled over with it, wearing at him like wind and water over rock.

"The crows threw you away," Val says, brushing her hair before the brazier in their tent, her voice soft but edged like a knife. "You owe them nothing."

Jon knows she has the right of it, that his debt to the Night's Watch was paid the moment they betrayed him with knives, but his seed quickened inside her while he still wore black. He can still hear the sad whispers that curled into the corners at Winterfell, can still see the cold hatred in Catelyn Stark's eyes, remembers a secret vow he made when he was eight years old, never to father a bastard of his own.

She is naked when she slips beneath their furs, her skin warm and smooth under his hands, her breasts swaying as she slides into his lap and rides his cock, her hips rolling slowly, her cunt hot and wet and perfect. Her face flushes with heat, spots of color blooming high on her cheeks; Jon strokes his fingers between her legs, brushing the place where he fits inside her, rubbing his thumb over her nub until she shudders around him. He spends with his other hand splayed over her belly, the soft swell still little more than a shadow.

"Val will give you a fine son," Tormund says, his voice jovial and loud as they set up camp on the bleak fringes of the Wolfwood. "Fine and handsome and strong."

Snows pile around them thickly, climbing up the trunks of the trees, sagging low in the branches, soaking their breeches to their knees. Jon's army is a ragged, motley bunch, made from free-folk and black brothers who fled the Wall when Jon lost his command, swelling slowly with smallfolk and men from the mountain clans, and Val moves among them with her back straight and her chin high, her hair bright as it tumbles over her shoulders, looking every inch the princess Stannis once tried to make her.

"You're a lucky man," Dolorous Edd complains, hunched over the cookfire as he tries to turn scrub grass and wilted turnips into stew. "I couldn't get a girl that pretty to talk to me if I had gold in both hands and a sack over my head."

Jon pushes her back into the furs that night, burying his face in the soft, wet heat of her cunt, licking and sucking until she throbs and flutters against his tongue. He wants inside her so badly his cock aches from it, his hands shaking as he nudges her thighs farther apart, as he thinks about crawling on top of her, of biting her neck as he slides his cock into her, but he has no control of himself when he is with her, often fucks her so roughly it shames him when he remembers it later, his face heating with embarrassment, arousal twisting into guilt in the hollow of his gut.

Her fingers knot in his hair as she peaks a third time, her chest heaving as she catches her breath, as he drags his wet mouth up to her breast, curls his tongue over her nipple. She hooks her leg around his, tilting her hips up as she tries to coax him inside her, but he brings himself off with his hand, spending in the damp dirt beside the furs, and he falls asleep with his head resting on her belly, his palm pressed to the pale, thinning skin below her navel.

They move south slowly, hampered by hunger and poor weather, often camping after just a few short hours on the road, forced to halt because of the dark skies and driving snows. Ghost follows Val like a shadow, padding after her on silent paws, his head bumping her hip as she picks a careful path between the tents, his tongue huge and pink as he licks the back of her hand; he sits at her feet when she talks to the men, sniffs suspiciously at anyone who comes near her, snaps his teeth at those who bring steel to close to her belly, even blunted knives barely fit for cutting meat.

She grows heavier every day, swelling until her thick cloaks and furs no longer hide the obvious curve of his child. The former black brothers smile when they see her, despite having trained with Jon as recruits, having said their vows on the same icy, starless night as he, and the free-folk clap him on the shoulder, raising what little beer they have in boisterous toasts to his coming son. Jon fills with a pride he doubts he truly deserves, a slow warmth that nearly drowns out the guilt waiting under his skin, and he watches Val closely, his nerves fraying whenever she carries firewood or hauls water or climbs down from their horse.

If she is bothered by the sickness and exhaustion common to breeding women she does not show it; if anything she seems stronger, more beautiful, her eyes vivid and her skin bright, her temper sharper than it has ever been, as honed and deadly as a dagger.

"I want you inside me," she says, her breath hitching as he draws her nipple into his mouth, as he curls three fingers into her cunt.

He stretches up to kiss the corner of her jaw, twisting his hand to brush his thumb over her nub. "I am inside you."

"I want you cock," she says, digging her fingers into his arm, letting her nails bite into his skin. "You act as if I will break."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"You haven't hurt me yet." She slides her hand into his hair, tugs until his scalp stings. The wind shrieks outside their tent, bringing more snow, the one thing they don't need, the only thing they have to spare. "If you ever do, you will know."

Jon stretches out behind her, curling his hand over her thigh, biting his lip as he pushes his cock inside her, close to spending just from the heat of her, shaky and desperate after so many weeks without. She presses back against him, rolling her hips to meet his thrusts, turning her head to suck a wet bruise into the skin below his jaw; she curves her arm over her belly, slides her fingers over her nub, tells Jon to look as she rubs herself harder and faster than he is fucking her.

He lies awake long after she falls asleep, his hand resting on her belly, watching as the babe moves within her, weighing the soft kicks with his palm, tracing the shifts under her skin with careful, anxious fingers. The spearwives are sure Val carries a son, speak of the set and shape of her stomach in a way Jon doesn't understand; he wonders who the boy will favor in looks, if he will be healthy and happy, if he will grow to hate Jon because he doesn't have a name.

Winterfell greets them with broken towers and blackened walls, its yards churned into mud and littered with rubble, its dusty halls crawling with men in Stannis Baratheon's service, and a sickly ache twists into Jon's chest when he sees the splintered front doors, the drunken lean to the armory, the charred and sagging roof over the stables, the shattered panes of the glass garden. He remembers sparring with Robb as Ser Rodrik watched, teaching Arya to shoot arrows behind Catelyn's back, chasing Bran into the godswood with Ghost and Summer at their heels, and he tells himself things are not as bad as they look, that he can find men and money and stone enough to set things to rights.

Val is nearly eight moons gone; the look on Stannis' face cuts Jon like a knife, shames him to the bone.

"You refused to marry her properly when I offered," Stannis says, as if Jon had somehow forgotten.

"I was the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch," Jon replies, his voice too thin around the edges.

"And what were you when you got her with child?"

Jon takes a deep breath, forces himself to meet Stannis' eyes. "The Lord Commander of the Night's Watch."

Her pains start on the heels of a snowstorm, ripping through her as the clouds break and the sky clears for the first time in weeks. She labors for one full day and the better part of a second; Jon paces outside the door, restless and useless in equal measure, his knees weak and his hands shaking, his stomach twisting so sharply he fears he will be sick, his skin crawling every time Val screams. He wishes he was with her, wishes he could hold her hand or stroke her hair, but Val and her midwives are free-folk women, bound by free-folk customs, haunted by free-folk superstitions.

He kneels on the cold stone floor, unwilling to leave her long enough to go to the godswood, prays with his eyes closed and his jaws tight and his fists clenched in his lap. Ghost noses at Jon's jaw, then curls up in front of the door, his head resting on his paws.

The sun stretches for the horizon, staining the sky purple and red. His son's first cry is tremulous, beautiful, and Jon feels something snap and loosen inside his chest.

Val's face is pale and drawn, her hair a sweaty tangle against the pillows, the skin under her eyes the color of an old bruise, and she smiles tiredly when she sees him, offers him the babe as he perches on the edge of the bed. He has slate-blue eyes and silky tufts of dark hair; Jon traces his finger over his tiny nose and mouth, across the soft curves of his cheek, likes the warm weight of him in the crook of his arm.

"Are you well?" he asks Val quietly.

"Well enough."

He leans in carefully, presses a kiss to her temple. "I thought to name him Jeor."

"The old crow?" she asks, her voice sharp despite the exhaustion in it. She studies him for a moment, her mouth curling at the corners. "You loved him as a father."

"Yes."

"It's a strong name," she says, nodding slightly. "In two years, we will call him Jeor Stark."

"Snow," Jon says, his stomach twisting and roiling again. "Jeor Snow."

"Your name is not Snow. Your king made you a Stark when he gave you this castle."

"Yes, he did. But--"

"Am I not your wife?" she asks, sliding her hand up his arm, pinching the loose skin at his elbow.

He frowns at her, his chest aching as Jeor's tiny hand curls around his finger. "We've not said the words."

"Words," she says, pinching him again. "That is all a kneeler marriage is -- words said before their strange gods." She brushes her hand over his jaw, presses her thumb to the well of his lip. "Our gods are not so stupid. They know what's in your heart. They know what's in mine."

Jon wraps his arm around her shoulder, hides a soft kiss in her hair. "In two years, we will call him Jeor Stark."