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It’s that time of year again. Front yards are draped with gaudy blinking lights and singing animatronic reindeer. People in ugly knitted jumpers are out in the snow, cutting down trees to string with tinsel and watch slowly die in their living rooms. Every single store in the mall is playing the same fucking Michael Bublé holiday CD on a neverending loop. Christmas is just around the corner, and everyone seems caught up in the festive spirit.
Everyone, that is, except Theon. Because the holidays are a time to spend with family, and Christmas with the Greyjoys is truly a nightmare.
For as long as Theon can remember it's been the same.
Every year Balon takes his hunk of ham (made exactly the way he likes it – with too many cloves for anyone else to possibly enjoy) and goes to sit in a corner, glaring at his guests like their presence is just something he has to endure before he can take his bottle of whisky and lock himself in his study for his own private celebration. Every year Theon’s born-again uncle Aeron harps on about how people have forgotten the true meaning of the season. And every single fucking year Theon’s uncles Euron and Victarion get into a fight. And no matter how petty it seems when it starts, things always snowball, and Theon can still recall one year when they’d actually come to blows. Euron had received a nasty black eye and Victarion was sporting a cut lip and a bloody nose by the time Asha “accidentally” set fire to the Christmas tree to calm things down.
So as far as he’s concerned, the only bright spot in the whole day is the possibility of gifts – but he has definitely learned not to expect them. Presents from his uncles have always been sporadic. One Christmas Theon received an exotic carved bow and a matching quiver of arrows from Euron, picked up from some faraway land on one of his travels, but then nothing for three years. Victarion’s gifts followed a similar pattern – they were never quite so lavish, but he occasionally threw Theon a book or a DVD – and even Aeron was known to bring him cards with heavy-handed religious themes.
Those were always thrown out by the end of the day, but they were still better than his own father’s efforts. On the rare occasions Theon received something from Balon it was plain no thought had gone into it. More than once he’d unwrapped his gift and instantly recognised it as something that was collecting dust in his dad’s bedroom only a few days before.
When he was very young, he’d assumed that this was the way it was for everyone; that Christmas was just a day you had to suffer through before you got to go to the Boxing Day sales with your mum and pick out any toy you wanted from the bargain bin. But as he’d got older he’d realised that no, once again it was just his shitty family.
This had become exceedingly obvious the first time he stayed at Winterfell over Christmas. Rodrik had broken his arm jumping off the house, and the rest of the family had been forced to spend the day in the emergency room. They’d dumped Theon with the Starks in their mad rush to get to the hospital, and Theon had been stunned to find that, in this house, Christmas Day was filled with laughter. There was a huge tree and lots of food and everyone wore those dumb paper hats from the Christmas crackers, and in the afternoon Ned dressed up as Santa and delivered presents everyone actually liked. There’d even been one for him, although he’d turned up virtually unannounced.
He’s attended a few other Stark Christmases since then – one time when his mum was sick and Balon couldn’t be bothered organising the celebrations without her, and a couple of other occasions besides – and his best memories of the holiday come from the years he spent it with Robb’s relatives instead of his own. And this is why, when Robb shyly asks Theon if he’d like to spend Christmas Day with him and his family, it takes Theon about zero-point-three seconds to accept.
When he tells his parents, his mum smiles in her kind, vague way, and tells him to have a good time. His father rants about how he shows more loyalty to the Stark pack than to his own family – as if he has the right to expect any different – but as usual he can't be bothered caring too much about where Theon goes and what he does. So it’s decided. And at the crack of dawn on Christmas Day Theon’s standing in the Starks’ driveway, watching blearily as everyone else runs around in a last-minute panic.
They’re going to Riverrun, Robb’s grandfather’s place, to spend a few days with his mum’s side of the family. It’s a fair way south, many long, boring hours on the road, so they have to leave early to beat the traffic. And though it takes a bit of manoeuvring to fit all the gifts, and all the luggage, and all the components of Ned’s Santa costume into the van, eventually they set off.
For a while they play I Spy, trying to keep the younger kids entertained. But after they get stuck for half an hour on Rickon’s something-that-starts-with-R (“tree”) they give up and lapse into silence. And sometime after Sansa pulls out her battered copy of Florian & Jonquil: Fools in Love, and Arya starts playing games on her phone, Theon falls asleep against Robb's shoulder.
He wakes to giggling. Robb’s just stirring too, looking around the car in mild confusion. Leaning forward and poking his head over Arya’s shoulder, Theon can see that she’s taken a photo of him and Robb slumped together, soft and loose and tangled in sleep. He’s just threatening her with death by expulsion from a moving car if she doesn’t delete it (Robb, for his part, wants her to send it to him so he can make it his phone background, the traitor) when Cat calls out from the front passenger seat, “We’re here!”
The second Ned’s parked, Rickon’s unclasping his seatbelt and tumbling out of the car. Theon is the first to follow him, stretching his legs and rubbing at the crick in his neck, and Rickon immediately grabs him by the wrist and drags him up the path to the front door, Cat following a short way behind.
Before they can even knock, the door is wrenched open, and Theon has to do a double-take. It’s like he’s stumbled upon a gateway through time, and standing on the threshold to the Riverrun mansion is Robb, ten years in the future. Same bright blue eyes, except with a few more laugh lines. Same auburn curls, just grown a little wilder.
Rickon slips easily past this lookalike’s legs and into the house, calling, “Robin! Robin! Let’s play, Robin!” But Theon is too stunned to move. His mind is in a whirl, cataloguing all the uncanny similarities and trying to figure out who this man is.
“Eddie!” Cat cries as she reaches the doorstep, and finally the pieces fall into place. He’s Cat’s younger brother, Robb’s uncle Edmure. “I didn't know you were going to be here,” Cat continues, leaning in to kiss him hello. “I thought you were still in… where was it again? Somewhere in South America?”
“Argentina,” he replies, grinning. “It was gorgeous. But, you know, gotta come home sometime. Dad wants me to finish my degree.”
“Well, it would be about time,” Cat replies wryly. “Seven years at uni is a bit ridiculous, even for you."
“Yes Mum.” Edmure rolls his eyes in a kind of fond irritation. “Speaking of, has your brood expanded since I saw you last? Who’s this? Surely he’s not one of yours. Or are you just taking in strays now?”
Theon is surprised to feel a hand clamped on his shoulder, and he looks up sharply to meet Edmure’s gaze. Edmure winks at him, and Theon blinks back in bemusement.
“This is Theon,” Cat replies, and Theon’s surprised to hear a slight flourish in her voice, as if he’s someone Edmure should know, or might have heard of but never formally met. “I’m sure you remember him, he’s come to a few Christmases in the past.”
“Ah, of course!” Edmure says, his tone now warm with recognition. “He’s the little urchin who was always at your place.”
“He’s still always at our place," Arya puts in, having just stomped up the path and caught the end of the conversation. The rest of the Starks are coming up behind her, and all of them are weighed down with armfuls of items from the van. Robb has Theon’s bag slung over one shoulder and his own over the other, and he bumps Theon companionably with his elbow as he joins him on the stoop.
“Is that so?” Edmure asks. His gaze rakes down Theon’s body, and then his eyes flick up to meet Theon’s. He raises one eyebrow, just a little, and the corners of his mouth twitch into a grin. “But he’s not so little anymore, I think.”
Theon just stares (surely not), and Edmure shrugs. “Anyway,” he says, “you’re just in time for lunch. Come inside, all of you, and get warm!”
He puts his hand on the small of Theon’s back to guide him in, and if it’s a bit too low, lingers a little too long, Theon is determined not to read into it. He glances back at Robb as he is manoeuvred through the doorway, and Robb just shakes his head, looking every bit as bewildered as Theon feels.
-
Once they’ve all made their way inside, deposited the gifts by the tree and stowed their bags to take up to their rooms later, they enter the dining room. Hoster Tully, Robb’s grandfather, sits at one end of the long table, and Rickon and Robin are at the other. Robin looks unwell – his eyes are red and he keeps swiping at his running nose – and he just watches dolefully as Rickon sticks his fingers into the dishes in front of him.
Making a mental note not to get too close, and not really paying attention to where he’s going otherwise, Theon drops into the first empty seat he comes across. And when he looks around him for the first time, he finds himself across the table from Robb, and right next to Edmure.
Rising halfway out of his chair, he sees it’s too late to do anything about it. Everyone’s already sitting down, and the spots next to Robb have been claimed by Jon and Sansa. So falling back into his seat, he shrugs helplessly at Robb, and Edmure beams at him as he unfolds his holly-patterned serviette.
“Help yourselves, everyone,” Hoster smiles, and they do.
For a few minutes there are just the slight, muted sounds of cutlery scraping against plates, but then spots of conversation pop up out of the quiet. Theon’s shovelling slices of roast turkey into his mouth when Edmure turns to him.
“So, Theon, tell me about yourself. Are you on all those teams Robbie captains?”
Theon swallows thickly, awkwardly, as he shakes his head. “Um, no,” he replies, when he’s managed to wash down his mouthful with a large gulp of water. “They’re not really my thing. I used to be on the swim team, but, uh, not anymore…”
He looks down at his plate, swirls his cranberry sauce around with his fork. He’d been swimming for years, and he’d even been good at it. But it was so much work – getting himself to practices, ploughing through the water until his muscles ached and the chlorine stung his eyes and dried out his skin. And then, when he’d started getting better than Rodrik and Maron had been, Balon had actually seemed like he was thinking about getting involved. So Theon had quit, Balon had said he was disappointed – but not surprised – and they hadn’t spoken for two weeks.
The topic of conversation is not one of Theon’s favourites, and he wishes he hadn’t said anything at all. But now he can feel Edmure staring at him, and he knows he has to give some kind of explanation to fill the silence he’s left hanging between them. So he looks up and grins, a little bit too brightly.
“Just got sick of running around all day in my speedos, you know? Nobody wants to see that.”
Edmure laughs warmly, expansively. “Oh, I don’t know what you mean. Swimmers have the best bodies. So fit.” A slow smile spreads across his face and he holds Theon’s gaze just a beat too long before continuing, his voice low like he’s sharing a secret, “I bet you looked great in your speedos.”
He runs his tongue along the well of his lower lip, and Theon ducks his head to hide his amusement. He can’t believe it – Edmure is seriously flirting with him. He’s just about to tell him that he’s barking up the wrong tree, when he hears a hard ceramic chink from the other side of the table. Looking up, he sees that Robb’s stabbing his roast potatoes with far more force than necessary, glaring down at his plate and determinedly not looking at either Theon or Edmure.
Theon grins as an idea strikes him. Something a little wicked, but way more fun than thinking about his failed career as a swimmer or his shitty relationship with his father – who he’d come here to get away from in the first place.
So instead of letting Edmure down easy, he leans a little closer, under the pretence of reaching for the bowl of roasted chestnuts. Spooning them onto his plate, he asks casually, “So, Edmure, what about you? You play any sport?”
Cat snorts, and Theon glances over to see her watching them out of the corner of her eye. Quickly turning away from her amused gaze, he focuses on Edmure – who seems to be ignoring his sister completely.
“Oh, I did plenty of playing,” he replies, smooth as silk. “Just not any sports.”
He laughs, winks at Theon, then spears a honey-roasted carrot with his fork and brings it to his lips. Theon waits for him to swallow it (basically whole, for fuck’s sake) then wash it down with a long pull of beer.
“Trust me, Theon,” he says, setting the bottle back on the table, his finger lightly running around the rim. “When you get to uni… wait, have you thought about where you’ll go yet?”
“Oh.” To be honest, Theon has been trying to avoid thinking about it as much as possible. Going to uni means going away from Robb, who is without contest the best thing in Theon’s life. He’s not ready to contemplate that. “Not really.”
“You should come south!” Edmure declares immediately. “I’ll take good care of you.”
Across the table, Robb slams down his glass. Water sloshes everywhere, and Theon’s lips twitch upward as Robb hastily tries to mop it up. Then Cat cuts in.
“Surely you’re planning to have graduated by the time Theon starts uni, right Edmure?” she says, just the slightest note of warning threaded into her voice.
But Edmure isn’t put off for a second. “Maybe, yeah. But I can still look out for him. After all, we don’t want him falling in with a bad crowd.”
Cat doesn’t say a word – she just levels a look at him. Theon thinks he must be spending too much time in her presence, because he can read the weight of her gaze and the sharp angle of her eyebrow like a book: what, worse than you?
He thinks Edmure must get it too, because he doesn’t say anything else, and they spend the rest of the meal in relative silence. And if their elbows touch as they eat, or their fingers brush when they both reach for the custard for the pudding, well. It’s purely accidental. And as much as Robb might try to ignore it, turned away in deep conversation with Jon, Theon can see the tension in his shoulders, the pulsing muscle in his jaw, the way he clenches his cutlery in white-knuckled fists.
And he has to smile to himself.
-
After lunch it’s tradition for them all to head into the living room and exchange presents. They find seats – Theon smirks when Edmure insinuates himself close by the couch where he and Robb sit side by side – and then Ned appears in full Santa regalia, lugging a heavy sack behind him. He makes his way around the room, distributing gifts to the kids with the kind of convincing “ho ho ho” only borne of years of practice, while everybody else collects their presents from under the tall, glittering Christmas tree. Rickon tears into one of his gifts first, shredding the gift wrap and revealing a new train set, and then there is a flurry of ripped paper as everyone gets stuck in.
Robb goes to open Theon’s present first, and Theon looks on in trepidation. It’s an extremely rare collector’s box-set edition of The Dire Wolves’ debut album, and Theon spent hours in an online bidding war just to get it. He knows Robb will like it, but he’s still not sure he’s done the right thing. After all, they haven't been dating that long – maybe it’s too much? Maybe it’s weird. Maybe it’ll look like he’s trying too hard. Maybe he’ll scare Robb away.
That’s the thought that terrifies him most, and he chews on the inside of his cheek as he watches Robb slide his fingers under the messy patchwork of tape and ribbon. He can feel Edmure staring at him, so he looks over, pulls his mouth up into a bright, confident smirk, then lets it drop from his face as he turns back to Robb. He jiggles his foot restlessly, half wanting to grab the present out of Robb’s hands (he doesn't know presents, he has no experience with normal Christmas traditions, fuck his stupid fucking family) and he’s pretty much in a full-blown panic by the time Robb gets through the sticky tape.
But really, he needn’t have worried.
Robb’s face lights up as the wrapping paper comes away. “Dude, this is amazing! Thank you! You can’t get this anywhere!” He throws an arm around Theon’s shoulders and squeezes, a kind of side-hug in the too-small space between them, then reaches down into his pocket. He comes up with a small, slightly squashed envelope, with a red ribbon tied in a loose bow around it. “Here’s yours.”
Theon takes it, weighs it in his hands. It’s pretty light, and he wonders if it’s a book of vouchers for free blowjobs or something. As brilliant as that would be, he thinks maybe he should wait until they’re in private to unwrap it.
Robb knocks his shoulder against Theon’s and laughs. “You can open it,” he says, smiling as though he’s just read Theon’s mind.
So Theon unties the ribbon and flips open the envelope. And then he just stares.
Inside is a ticket to the aquarium, and in the corner is a starburst with the words ALL ACCESS PASS! in bold capital letters.
Flipping the ticket over, he reads the fine print in a state of ever-increasing wonder. The pass lets him see all the usual exhibits, of course – but on top of that he’ll also get a private behind-the-scenes tour of the working areas usually closed to the public. He’ll explore all the tanks and enclosures, and even feed some of the fish. And that’s not the best part. After the tour, he’ll suit up with the staff and go for a dive in the main tank, with the sharks and the stingrays and the shoals of slippery fish.
He runs his thumb over the words, not trusting them to be real; not totally sure he believes what he’s reading.
One summer’s day when they were kids, Ned and Cat had got tired of them complaining about the heat, thrown them in the car and taken them to the aquarium. Heading down into its dark, cool depths, it had been like entering another world – one that was quiet and calm and safe. And for a kid like Theon, whose childhood had not been any of those things, it was almost like escaping reality. He’d been transfixed by the raw power of the sharks, the bright colours of the tropical fish, the gentle calm of the sea turtles. He’d loved the smooth way they swept through the water, how they’d all seemed so peaceful and content. He could tell, smudgy fingers pressed against the tank, that these creatures of the sea didn’t know what it was to be sad, or angry, or lonely.
He’d wanted to touch them. He’d wanted to get in there, behind the glass, and be one of them. He'd even received a stern telling-off from a staff member when he’d tried to climb into one of the shallow open tanks.
He can't believe Robb remembered.
“Do you like it?” Robb asks, and god, he actually sounds nervous.
“Yes. Fuck, Robb.” Aunt Lysa gives him a dirty look for his language, but Theon doesn’t notice. A hot lump has risen up to stick in his throat. “It’s the best Christmas present I’ve ever got,” he says, absolutely honestly.
He’s about to do something undignified and inappropriate, like grab Robb’s face in his hands and kiss him with a whole lot of tongue right in front of his family, when Edmure smiles over at him.
“Robbie gives good gift, hey?” he says. “If I’d known you were coming I’d have got you something too. ‘Course, I’m not so great with presents. I’m better known for giving good – well, something else…”
He lets his sentence trail off suggestively, catches his lower lip with his teeth, and Theon hears Robb exhale loudly and irritably next to him. Theon’s gaze flashes up to meet Edmure’s, then down to the envelope in his hands. He opens his mouth to reply, but nothing comes out. The moment stretches out between them until Sansa pipes up from where she’s sitting on the ground, tactfully playing mediator between Rickon and Robin.
“Oh, Theon, look! You’re right under the mistletoe. Better give him a kiss, Robb.”
Theon, Robb and Edmure all look up at the same time and, sure enough, there’s a clump of white berries dangling innocently over Theon’s head. Theon looks at Robb, who’s staring back at him, and kind of shrugs. Robb mirrors the movement with just the barest quirk of his eyebrow, but before anything more can happen, Edmure cuts in.
“Hang on, Robb. I think the mistletoe is actually more on my side.” He smiles, scooting a bit closer. “Lay some sugar on me, Theon.”
And that’s when Robb finally cracks.
“Fuck, Edmure, just stop,” he explodes, jerking out of his seat. He’s glaring down at Edmure, face flushed and eyes bright with anger, and Theon really shouldn’t find that as attractive as he does.
Edmure freezes, his lips comically puckered, then looks up. “Stop what?” he asks, bewildered.
“Stop hitting on my boyfriend! He’s too young for you and you are acting exactly like a creepy old uncle and he is my boyfriend.”
Edmure draws back as if he’s been slapped. “Your boyfriend? But you’re not…” he glances helplessly over at Cat, trying to make sense of things, but she is just looking at him like I tried to tell you.
“I wrote you plenty of emails, Eddie,” she says, perfectly matter-of-fact, “as I always do. I told you about Robb, just like I told you about Bran and Rickon getting chickenpox and Arya taking up fencing and Ned getting a promotion at work. Did you not read them?”
He flounders for a minute. “I haven’t… Argentina – just back…” He looks at Robb and sort of shrugs, sort of shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Robbie. I didn’t know.”
Robb glowers at him for a moment longer before relenting. “Fine. But now you do. And another thing – the mistletoe is on my side.”
He grabs Theon by the shoulders and pulls him off the couch. They meet halfway, lips smashing hard and teeth clacking together as Robb winds his arms around Theon’s neck and kisses him, long and deep. Aunt Lysa clucks in disapproval, but Robb ignores her, drawing Theon closer and kissing him harder.
When he finally pulls back, he kisses a quick line up Theon’s jaw before growling low in his ear, “Mine.”
And Theon can only breathe back, “Yours.”
-
The next morning Theon comes down to breakfast with a bright red mark on his neck. It’s too high to hide, even if he wanted to, and it matches similarly vivid blemishes on his chest, belly, hip.
Jon is the only other person in the kitchen, leaning against a bench eating a slice of toast, and his eyes follow Theon as he saunters over to the fridge and pulls out a bottle of orange juice. When he sees what’s revealed by the low, stretched v-neck of Theon’s T-shirt, he raises an eyebrow.
“Looks like Robb gave you another Christmas present last night,” he says dryly.
“Sure did,” Theon replies with a grin, reaching up to grab a glass from the top shelf. His shirt rides up, exposing a strip of pale skin just above his low-slung jeans, and Theon hopes Jon will see the blossoming bruises, each one a perfect fingerprint where Robb grabbed his hips and held them down. Turning back to face Jon, he continues, “Of course, a gentleman never kisses and tells, so let’s just say he, uh, blew me away.”
He waggles his eyebrows suggestively, but Jon just scowls at him. “You did it all on purpose, didn’t you? All that shit with Edmure yesterday? Just to make Robb jealous. God, you are such a dick.”
Theon pulls a wounded face, lays a hand against his heart. “Would I do that?”
Jon makes a disgusted noise and leaves. Theon just smirks, and reaches up to touch the mark on his neck.
Maybe he doesn’t hate Christmas so much after all.