Archive of Our Own

Fuck.

Jon's been saying that in his head for the last hour. Might've muttered it once or twice under his breath, too, though it's hard to tell since the inside of his skull feels like a yard of wet wool (heavy, tangled, and about as useful as tits on a breastplate).

Don't ask him how he got here. Don't ask if he's lost his wits.

He has. Must've.

Any man who stands in a smoke-stinking hut north of the Wall, arguing with his own shadow about asking another man for a favor like this, has already ridden past mad. The rest is just details.

But it’s not easy. To ask this.

He’s paced the perimeter of the hut three times now.

Four, if you count the bit where he nearly tripped over his own feet and pretended it was on purpose.

He’s fetched more wood, too, though they didn’t need more fucking wood. The pile’s stacked higher than his waist; they could burn for a week straight and still have enough left to build a second hut and burn that down for the fun of it.

The latch on the door’s been checked twice. Three times.

He’s one chore short of sweeping the floor like some bent old farmwife, and if Tormund catches him doing that, he’ll either laugh himself sick or put Jon down like a lame horse out of sheer mercy.

Tormund hasn’t said a word about it. Yet. Jon knows he won’t let him stew much longer. It’s not his way.

For now, Tormund’s planted near the fire, legs sprawled, boots off, big bare feet toasting in the heat, and fingers working the bone needle through the torn fishing net. The hole's maybe the size of a fist and caught fish anyway just this morning, but Tormund's methodical about it, looping the cord through, pulling it taut, and testing the tension as if he's got nothing better to do after a hard day's work than fix shit that's barely broken.

Jon stands by the door and tries not to claw his own skin off.

He should just ask. It's nothing.

A favor.

The type people do for each other up here when the nights still stretch too long but things are a bit too peaceful. He's seen it before. Walked in on it more than once—this very hut, this very floor, two men under furs, backs bowing, breath punched out of them in rough little grunts. For all the pussy Tormund never shuts up about, for all the fucking bears and giants’ tits and whatever other lies he drinks up and pisses back out, there aren’t many women left who haven’t already been claimed. Not unless you count children and old crones with three teeth between them.

Jon's not counting those. And neither does Tormund.

The Free Folk don't make it complicated either way. A helpful hand when you’re lonely, a mouth if you’re lucky, and a muttered thanks after, and only if one’s bothered. Jon's the one making it complicated, he's been told by Tormund himself, but as Jon tries to push the words up his throat, they seem to reach his tongue, look around, and die there like they’ve been gut-stabbed.

Ghost's been gone nearly a month this time, slipping off and away after scents only he can smell, and without the direwolf's weight pressed warm against his side at night Jon sleeps like absolute dogshit, thinks too much, and can't block out the quiet, unmistakable sound of Tormund rubbing one out across the hut with, credit where it's due, a surprising amount of tact not to make it awkward. While Jon can’t even get his own hand to cooperate without his mind snarling itself to pieces.

"Thought you'd already checked that latch," Tormund says mildly, when Jon checks it again.

"It sticks sometimes."

"Does it now."

Jon stays quiet.

If he opens his mouth again, something truly fucking stupid might fall out, and unlike most men in these parts, he can’t blame it on booze. He does, however, drift over and crouch by the fire, watching Tormund's hands work.

Big hands. Scarred knuckles. Friend's hands.

Which is exactly why this is such a shit idea.

It’s Tormund. Tormund, who’s hauled him out of more trouble than Jon’s bothered counting. Tormund, who dragged him north after the south spat him out like something rotten and decided, all on his own, that Jon wasn’t going back. As if Jon were a mule he’d stolen. Tormund, who laughs at his own piss-poor jokes and drinks too much and comes back to their hut reeking of wildling spirits and boasting about fucking giants and suckling bears till Jon half expects him to belch fire.

If Jon asks—

No. Tormund won’t say no. He’ll probably bark a laugh, say something about crows being needy little shits, and get on with it like he’s fixing this net. Might even mock him for not asking sooner while he does it—took you long enough, crow—because to Tormund, based on everything Jon had seen, it truly is nothing.

The problem's not Tormund.

The problem is that Jon's not entirely sure it is nothing for Jon.

"You're thinkin' loud tonight, little crow," Tormund says, not looking up from the net.

"I'm not thinking."

"Liar."

“You want help with that?” Jon asks, nodding at the net. He means the net. Mostly.

"Nah. Rest. Be warm." Tormund huffs a laugh and shakes his shaggy head, meaning he wouldn't trust Jon with this unless the alternative was starvation. Which, fair enough. Jon's many things, but he’s not a fisherman. Doesn’t quite know who he is anymore, truth be told, but yes, not that.

Jon smiles, possibly faintly, sits back on his heels and stares into the fire instead. The flames jump and twist, throwing shadows up the walls that look like claws.

The hut's small—one room, two sleeping furs on opposite sides, and a single table someone built fifty years ago that's more splinter than wood now. They've been sharing it since autumn when the roof in Jon's own hut caved in under wet snow and was deemed fucked beyond all mortal repair, postponing rebuilding until the next summer.

Most nights it's fine.

Some nights, Jon lies awake staring at the smoke hole while Tormund snores like distant thunder, and Jon’s sick mind drifts to places it never had room to go when all he wanted was to put Longclaw through the Night King. Things he had no names for then. Things he still has no proper names for now, but his body seems to want them regardless.

"Tormund."

"Mm."

Jon opens his mouth, closes it, while Tormund ties off a knot, inspects it with a critical squint, then sets the net aside and looks at him fully, and Jon’s heart kicks against his ribs like it wants to break the fuck out. Smart little coward of an organ.

"You need somethin’?"

"It's nothing." Jon swallows.

"Doesn't look like nothin'."

"I just—" He stops, regroups, and retreats to safer ground. "How long's it been since Ghost left?"

"Three weeks?" Tormund frowns. "Month, maybe. He'll come back. Ain't a dog to be keepin' you warm just 'cause you want it."

"I know."

"Then what's eatin' at you?"

Jon looks down at his own hands. They're shaking, just slightly. He curls them into fists and rests them on his knees. When they don't want to stay still, he rubs them together and blows on them, not quite feeling the cold biting at his fingertips right this moment, though he does feel the humiliating heat crawling up the back of his neck for being such a mess about it.

"I need—" His voice nearly cracks. Seven hells. He clears his throat, forces it steady, and gives a fair shot at sounding like some version of the man he used to be and not some desperate, wound-up wreck who can't handle his own problems. "I need to ask you something."

Tormund leans back and rests his weight on his palms. The fire pops and spits a spark.

"So ask."

Jon's been trying. Not just now, but for days. Weeks. Longer.

"Whatever it is, just spit it out." Tormund's voice is lower now, stripped of its usual bluster. "You're makin' me nervous, and I don't like bein' nervous. Makes me want to hit somethin'."

Jon's jaw tightens. He looks back at the fire.

"Forget it."

"No."

"It's nothing."

"You've said that twice now." Tormund shifts forward, readjusting, and ends up cross-legged with elbows on his knees.

"Talk to me, boy." He doesn't ask so much as order.

Jon shakes his head. Gets to his feet too fast. Blood rushes. The hut tilts.

"I gotta piss," he lies.

Jon picks someone else.

A hunter.

Broad-shouldered, bit taller than Jon, and with red hair tied back in a messy knot at his nape. Though that's a coincidence, Jon tells himself, nothing more, since the favor he couldn't bring himself to ask of Tormund wasn't like that. It wasn't. He's sure of it, the same way he's sure of most things these days, which is to say: not very.

The hunter's name is Styr (not the Magnar, thank every god still listening, Jon doesn't want it that much), and he talks to Jon in the main hall where the Free Folk gather in the evenings.

Jon himself is drunk enough to think it might be working.

Whatever questionable, half-arsed charm he possesses has this man lean closer and closer as their conversation about the most efficient way to skin a deer, of all the things to flirt over, turns borderline conspiratorial in nature.

"You start at the hocks," Styr says, gesturing with his cup, one hand on it, squeezing it tight, and the other one inching to Jon. Jon's heard these hands know their way around a blade, and now he wonders, with the kind of single-mindedness that only four cups can produce, if the same applies to cock. "Work your way up. Most cunts try to rush it, end up tearin' the whole thing."

"I've seen it," Jon says, and takes another drink, nodding. The drink is strong, though it always tastes like pine needles. "Waste of good leather."

"Exactly." Styr grins, teeth white in the firelight, and shifts closer on the bench so their shoulders nearly touch. Heat bleeds through the layers between them, or Jon imagines it does. Wouldn’t be the worst thing he’s imagined too clearly of late. "You hunt much before you came north?"

"Some." Jon doesn't mention the wolfswood, or Robb, or how his father used to take them out and teach them to track and kill and dress a carcass clean, the way lords teach their sons. "Not like this."

"Like what?"

"For survival." Jon looks into his cup and swirls the last mouthful, watching the foam cling to the sides. "Down there it was sport. Up here it's the difference between eating and not, and starving's a shit way to die."

"Most ways are," Styr agrees, thoughtful, and his knee bumps Jon's under the table. Bumps and stays. Jon makes an effort not to pull away, which takes a fair amount of willpower.

"Drink up," Styr says, same as he's been saying all night. "Or I'll have to tell everyone you've gone soft on us."

"I'm not soft." Jon shakes his head, smiling.

"No?" Styr's grin widens, and there's something knowing in his eyes that Jon reads as a sign that his wish to move the fuck on already might actually be within reach tonight. "Prove it."

Jon never really flirted on purpose. Not with Ygritte (she'd grabbed him by the furs and kissed him hard enough to damn near split his lip; Jon's contribution to the seduction had been to stand there and let it happen), and not with Dany. Queens and wildling girls both seemed to make the decisions for him. Right here and now, though, he's about to say something, actually make his own move for once in his cursed life, and pray to whatever gods haven't given up on him that he doesn't get punched or laughed out of the hall for it, when—

"I'll get more." Jon loses his nerve like a sword losing its edge: all at once, right when it matters. He stands abruptly, but Styr doesn't seem put off. Just leans back and winks at him with that easy confidence Jon himself possesses in exactly two areas of his life (swordplay and brooding) and neither of those is useful right now. Styr's parting words chase him with amusement:

"Don't take too long."

He won't. Seven hells, he doesn't want to. He's impatient for it, just needs more liquid courage (a phrase that sounds noble until you realize it means too craven to do it sober) and makes his way to the barrels at the far end of the hall, weaving through bodies, laughter, the smell of roasted meat, smoke, and stale sweat.

He fills his cup to the brim. Drinks half of it standing there, just to steady himself and quiet the part of his brain that's screaming at him to walk away before he ruins this the way he ruins everything else. Then he fills it again.

His head's buzzing, warm and loose. It could work. Just a hand that isn't his own, a dark corner, and, most importantly, a new memory to shove like a wall between himself and the shit he’s been thinking about.

When he comes back to the table, Styr's nowhere to be found.

Jon stops dead, cup in hand, scanning the empty bench with a grimace. He looks around the hall, at the fire, the clusters of people drinking and shouting, but there's no sign of the hunter.

So… gone. Wandered off, found better company, or simply decided Jon Snow wasn't worth the effort. Can't blame him. Jon's not sure he'd wait for himself either. So much for that, he thinks, just as a too-familiar hand slaps him between the shoulder blades, making him stumble forward a step and slosh drink over himself.

“Watch it.”

"Oi! Whatcha lookin' for? Lose somethin'?" Tormund's voice booms in his ear, and Jon turns to find him grinning at him.

Tormund's got his arm slung over some woman. It’s one of the spearwives, grey-haired and gap-toothed and looking entirely unbothered by the enormous redheaded man hanging off her like a landslide.

"Looking for someone?" Tormund presses with too much mischief.

Jon shakes his head.

"No."

"You sure? Alright then. What’s with the look?"

"What look?"

"The one you get when you're broodin' about somethin'." Tormund squeezes the spearwife's waist and leans toward her like he's sharing a secret, even though his voice carries so well half the hall could probably hear him over a blizzard. "He does that. Broods like a fuckin' storm cloud, this one. I keep tellin' him it'll give him wrinkles on his pretty face, but does he listen?"

The woman lets out a big, full-bellied laugh that shakes her whole body and half of Tormund's with it, and Jon forces a smile that feels like it's been carved into his face with a dull knife.

"And I keep telling him I ain't that pretty," he jokes, just to keep it going.

"Liar."

Jon shrugs it off. He's relieved, he realizes, that Styr's gone. And also furious, frustrated, pissed off at himself and at the fact that he seems to be the only one at Hardhome who can't just let himself have something without turning it into a battle.

There are very few joys out here, and Jon's made his peace with most of what he'll never have. He won't take a wife. Won't father children. Won't build anything that lasts longer than a season. And in the grand scheme of all the shit he's lost, this is a small thing—a nagging, stubborn, embarrassing small thing. That both his hands work fine, his cock's in agreement, but it's his head that's broken. And the nagging's loud.

The nagging's also been getting louder ever since he woke up to the hole in the roof of his old hut, moved in with Tormund, and discovered that sharing warmth and sleeping space with him was what feels like the worst decision he'd made. Possibly ever. Which, given Jon’s record, is really saying something.

"Come on," Tormund says, pulling him toward the fire with the arm that isn't wrapped around the spearwife. His grip is sure and solid. "Drink with us."

Jon lets himself be pulled. He drinks. He listens to Tormund tell a story about a bear he definitely didn't fuck. He laughs when he's supposed to laugh.

They stumble back into the hut together, and Jon couldn’t say for certain who’s holding who upright at this point, but Tormund’s arm is slung heavy across his shoulders, Jon’s hand fisted in Tormund’s belt to keep him from toppling sideways like a felled tree, and both of them are laughing at something that stopped being funny three cups ago and probably wasn’t funny to begin with.

Jon’s fairly sure it was about a goat. He’s less sure there was a goat involved, but he doesn’t dismiss it.

The door latch sticks, like it always does, and Jon fumbles with it one-handed while Tormund leans against the doorframe and offers no help whatsoever.

“Told you it sticks.”

“I know it sticks. I live here.”

The latch gives with a sharp click, and they're in motion again, and then they're not so much walking as falling forward with ambition. Jon steps on Tormund’s foot hard enough he might have broken a toe. Tormund definitely drives an elbow into Jon’s ribs hard enough to crack something. They veer sideways like a ship that’s decided the sea can go fuck itself, overcorrect, and then they’re going straight down onto the pile of furs nearest the door.

Tormund’s furs.

Jon's are on the other side, closer to the fire, which wasn't Jon's call when they divided up the hut, but Tormund had insisted on taking the colder spot so firmly that arguing seemed pointless. Regardless of whose is whose, they hit the furs with too much weight in all the wrong places, and Tormund’s elbow slams into Jon’s chest with force and drives the last sober breath out of him in a sharp, wheezing oof.

“Fuck,” Jon groans, coughing. “Careful.”

"Got you pinned, crow," Tormund states the obvious with so much satisfaction, as if he’s been waiting his whole life for this moment. "Beaten the King in the North. Should make a song about it. Tormund Giantsbane, slayer of—"

Jon tries to shove him off. Gets one hand flat on Tormund's chest and pushes, but the drunk mountain doesn't budge, and he might as well be trying to shift a boulder with a stern look. Instead, the shit that he is, Tormund plants his hands on either side of Jon’s head and grins down at him, wide and wolfish. Not unlike that hunter from earlier. Except worse. Because it’s Tormund. And Tormund’s grin has always been too earnest when it’s pointed at him for Jon's comfort.

"Get off me, you oversized—"

“Oversized what? Say it. Go on.” Tormund leans closer, breath hot but somehow not foul from whatever they’ve been drinking. “I’m waitin’.”

It’s not—

Jon’s drunk, but not so far gone he can’t tell when something feels good.

And this does.

Which is why he shoves again, but weaker this time. It’s all muscle and bulk and wildling warmth pressing him down into the furs like an overenthusiastic bearskin. Jon's head is spinning, the ceiling doing a slow, disagreeable rotation even though he's flat on his back, and it’s very likely the liquid courage got a bit out of hand. There was a line between brave enough to flirt and too drunk to stand, and, yeah, alright, he blew right past it.

"You're crushing me," Jon says, stating the obvious himself now, but his hands aren't really trying anymore. They might be resting on Tormund's chest instead of pushing, feeling the rise and fall of it through the layers, and warming themselves against this hearthstone.

“Am I?” Tormund doesn’t move off him. If anything, he settles his weight more.

Jon would tell him to fuck off, roll aside, crawl back to his own bloody furs and die of embarrassment in peace, but his head's gone to sludge and there’s that thing Tormund does—has always done—where just by existing, he makes Jon feel like nothing out here or anywhere else, for that matter, can touch him. It’s an odd feeling, if he’s honest.

Tormund's still grinning down at him, pleased and entirely too smug, and then, because one humiliation at a time has never been enough, he goes for one of his favorite insults. His hand slides down between them without a whisper of subtlety, not for the first time either, though for the first time in this position, and he grabs Jon's cock through his breeches with the casual authority of someone reaching for a pull handle.

"I forget," Tormund says, drawing the words out and savoring them like fine wine even though he wouldn't know fine wine if it introduced itself. "No king would have a pecker this small. More like a—"

“It’s not—” Jon starts, out of habit more than hope, because it isn’t and Tormund fucking knows it. They’ve pissed off the same cliffs and bathed in the same freezing streams often enough for the man to have taken a full inventory. It’s not Jon’s fault not everyone’s walking around with a gods-damned battering ram in their smallclothes; some men have reasonable and proportional equipment and manage just fine and—

“It’s been too long,” Jon hears himself say, the words coming out just as sudden as the first intrusive thought that won't let go, and Tormund goes still over Jon.

His grin fades from his face faster than a snuffed out candle, his eyes narrow in suspicion, all that drunken cheer dropping away, and Jon sees the moment understanding starts to dawn behind them.

“What’re you sayin’?” Tormund’s voice goes cautious, and Jon’s face burns hotter than any fire he’s ever sat beside. He puts his hand over Tormund’s on his cock.

Presses it down.

Shows him.

“It’s been too long,” Jon repeats. “And I—I need—”

“Fuck,” Tormund breathes, and his expression, every line of that wild, familiar face, darkens. “What?”

Jon can’t. Not going to happen. Can't carve what he wants into sound.

“What is it that you need, exactly, boy?” Tormund asks, perhaps too seriously for all the laughing they’ve been doing.

Jon can't breathe at all now, every inhale too shallow, this is a shit idea, but Tormund's already leaning in.

Just—in. His booze-soaked breath fans warm over Jon's lips, and Jon can see the intent written plain across that weathered face. Can see what's about to happen. Can almost feel it, not that he could recall the feel of someone else’s beard this close. And drunk as he is, wrecked as he is, wanting as he is—it's not about that.

Can't be. He knows that much.

And kissing Tormund Giantsbane on the mouth is not—

Jon doesn't—

That's not what—

Jon turns his head at the last possible second, and Tormund's lips catch his cheek instead of lips, that beard of his, softer than he thought it would be, tickling Jon's skin.

"Just once," he mumbles, and hates himself for every word even as his hips jerk up into Tormund's palm. "Just this once."

He nearly says thank you in advance, but doesn’t. Thank you for doing it for him, so Jon can just move on from going mad with it, but even drunk Jon Snow has some limits.

Tormund goes still when he hears that.

Again. Still as ice on the Shivering Sea.

Then Tormund pulls back. Not fast or angry, but his hand lifts off Jon's cock, the rest of his weight peels away, and Jon's left lying on someone else’s furs alone.

"I don't think so." Tormund shakes his head. He stands, too sober. Impossibly sober for a man who'd been swaying and laughing and falling through doorways not five minutes ago.

"Find someone else for that," Tormund tells him. "Just not Styr. He prefers men. You'd only insult him with it, usin' him like that."

Jon scrambles up onto his elbows, the furs bunching beneath him, but Tormund's turning away. Not just getting off him (which was wise, what the hells was Jon thinking, it should’ve never been him), but leaving. Heading for the door and then fucking with the sticking latch until it gives.

"Sleep it off, Jon," Tormund doesn’t look back at him. "I'll do the same elsewhere, and after that we won't talk about it."

Fair enough.

Jon did say just once.

But it’s not like he could’ve said with you.

Just once with him, and maybe Jon could—

Suppose it doesn’t matter.

True to his word, they don't talk about it.

They don't talk about much of anything first thing or after, since that would require Tormund to be in the same room as Jon for longer than it takes to grab his boots and leave. Tormund Giantsbane, who has never in his life retreated from a single thing, including actual armies of the dead, is now treating Jon like a patch of ground he'd rather walk three miles around than set foot on.

Impressive, really. Jon’s finally found the one thing that scares him: Jon being pathetic at arm’s length.

Jon wakes the morning after with a headache that feels like someone's driven a spike through his left eye and a mouth that tastes like something crawled inside, shat, and died. The hut is empty. Tormund’s furs are cold. Not cooling, but cold, which means he either came back late and left before dawn, or never came back at all.

Both options don’t feel great. After checking, he goes back to lying on his own sleeping spot for too long, staring at the ceiling and trying to piece together exactly how badly he fucked things up last night.

He remembers.

All of it. Every miserable, crawling word.

Just the once. He’d said. And he'd nearly said thank you, like some desperate asshole at a brothel who forgot to bring coin and thought gratitude might count as payment.

Jon rolls onto his side, presses his face into the furs, and gives serious consideration to never getting up again. Just lying here until the snow buries the hut and him with it and someone finds his corpse in the summer when it starts stinking. At least it'd be a fitting end. Here lies Jon Snow: died as he lived—making a fucking mess of it.

He does get up eventually. It’s about the only thing he's reliably good at. That and ruining things that were perfectly fine before he touched them.

Tormund's not at the fire pit where they cook in the mornings. He's not at the stream where they wash. He's not mending nets or hauling wood or doing any of the hundred small, ordinary things that make up a day at Hardhome. Jon eats alone—cold fish from yesterday and a heel of hard bread that could double as a rock—and tells himself it's fine. The man's busy. Has things to do. Doesn’t owe Jon his company every waking moment just because they share a hut.

Except Tormund’s never not been around.

In all the years Jon's known him, through wars and marches and frozen nights that should’ve killed them both, Tormund Giantsbane has never once made himself hard to find when it came to Jon. He's always there.

Was always there.

He spots Tormund once that first day, midmorning, crossing the yard between the storage huts with an axe over one shoulder. Jon opens his mouth—to say what, he has no idea, maybe just a greeting so they can both pretend everything's normal—but then Tormund sees him.

Their eyes meet across thirty feet of mud and slush, and Jon feels something that reeks of devastation twist across his face before he can stop it. It’s matched by Tormund's guarded frown. Guarded. A word Jon never thought he'd use for a wildling who once shouted about the size of his own cock across the great hall of Winterfell.

Tormund gives him a nod. There’s that, at least. It’s short and civil, the type of nod you'd give someone you've met twice and whose name you've already forgotten. Then he turns and walks the other way, and Jon stands there like a prick with his own semi-permanent frown, watching the broad back of the only friend he has left disappear around a corner.

Jon spends the rest of the day doing things that need doing and some things that don’t. He repairs a section of the outer wall that's been sagging since the last storm. Sharpens Longclaw until the edge could split a snowflake, then sharpens it some more, because why not ruin the steel while he’s at it. He hauls water. Stacks wood. Moves things from one place to another.

Keeps his hands busy and his head empty, or tries to. It works about as well as it ever does, which is to say not at fucking all, because every time his mind bobs it goes straight back to the same wretched place: Tormund’s weight lifting off him, that hand leaving him, and those words Jon can’t call cruel but still feel like a boot to the ribs.

Find someone else for that.

Jon did try that, as a matter of fact. Wasn’t all that successful at it. Seems he’s not just a failure at friendship, but also shit at casual handjobs.

When Jon himself is back to the hut in the evening, he half expects it to be empty.

It’s not. Tormund’s there, sitting in his spot with a plate of food.

Jon steps inside. The latch catches behind him. The fire's already going, Tormund must've lit it, but the air between them has that brittle, held-breath feel of standing on a frozen lake and hearing the first crack run through the ice.

"Caught two rabbits today," Tormund says, not looking up. "Left yours by the fire."

"Thanks."

"Mm."

That’s it. Jon's about to have a more meaningful exchange with that rabbit. The one that's been skinned, spitted, and is resting on the flat hot stone waiting for him. His stomach's been twisted in knots all day and the thought of more food makes it clench tighter, but he picks it up and tears off a piece, not wanting to be ungrateful.

They eat on opposite sides of the hut, which has never felt this wide before. Could fit a whole bloody army between them now, Jon thinks, and still have room for the army’s horses. He chews without tasting. Tormund chews like a man completing a chore.

Anger, Jon could handle. He knows anger. You can meet it head-on, crack your skull against it, and, once it burns out, stagger away from the wreckage and call it even.

This isn’t anger.

Doesn’t seem it, as Tormund finishes eating quickly, wipes his hands and mouth with a rag, and lies down with his back to Jon.

"Night," he says to the wall.

"Night," Jon says to the fire.

The next day is the same miserable shit. And the one after that.

Tormund’s up before Jon wakes and gone before Jon can catch so much as a glimpse of that beard. Comes back after dark, sometimes smelling of drink, sometimes just of cold and woodsmoke and sweat, and offers a handful of words (‘ate already, weather's turnin’’) before rolling into his furs with his back presented to Jon like a shut gate.

He’s… polite about it.

Which is so catastrophically unlike Tormund that Jon wants to grab him by the front of his furs and shake him until the real one falls out. The one that’s loud and filthy and who once told Jon, cheerfully and in public, that he’d make babies with him if he had a cunt. That Tormund. The one Jon apparently scared off by being a broken-headed coward who should’ve just owned up to it and let Tormund laugh it off.

The worst part isn’t the silence.

The worst part is that Tormund is bad at it. Has never possessed a single subtle bone in his enormous body, and the absence of subtlety doesn’t become him any less now that he’s trying to avoid someone. He’s dodging Jon the way a bear dodges a bee. By crashing sideways through everything in its path without thinking.

He’ll change course in the middle of the yard when he sees Jon coming, so fast he nearly brains himself on a post. Or he’ll be mid-sentence with someone and catch sight of Jon over their shoulder, and suddenly remember urgent, very important, completely imaginary business elsewhere, and already ten strides away while the poor bastard he was talking to is still finishing their sentence to empty air.

Jon would laugh if any part of this were funny.

It’s not.

On the fifth night, Jon lies on his furs listening to Tormund fake it. They’re both awake. Jon can tell by the rhythm of it, the careful, measured way Tormund’s forcing each breath, nothing like the deep, hitching rumble of his actual sleep, which Jon has heard enough times to match in his own chest now.

He thinks about saying something. It’s all he’s been thinking about for days, really. The words circle his head in endless, useless loops, like crows over a carcass that’s already picked clean.

He’s sorry. He was drunk. He didn’t mean it the way it sounded. Doesn’t even know what he meant. He just wants Tormund to talk to him again. Properly. To shout at him, insult him, call him little crow and pretty crow and tell him disgusting stories about bears until Jon wants to shove him into a snowbank.

He doesn’t say any of it.

Because he wasn’t drunk when he first decided to ask. That’s the part he can’t get past. Can’t hide behind. Jon Snow can lie about plenty of things, turns out—honorable Ned Stark’s apparent bastard is a better liar than anyone expected—but he can’t lie about that.

He’d decided sober.

He wanted it sober and afraid and thinking clearly, and the drink just gave him the idiot courage to reach for it badly.

So what, exactly, would he be apologizing for?

Asking wrong? Or asking at all?

On the sixth night, Tormund is the one to break this death by attrition.

Jon doesn't see it coming. He's lying on his back doing what he's been doing every night since, counting the knots in the ceiling, listening to the fire crackle, and trying to convince some part of himself that this is sustainable. It's not. He knows it isn't. This is a slow bleed, vein nicked and left to drip, and it's going to drain them both dry if he doesn't do something about it.

He means to say it tonight. Had spent a solid hour arranging the words in his head, and is about thirty seconds from opening his mouth when Tormund rolls over.

The furs shift. Then: "I'm sorry."

Two words, dropped into the dark like stones into deep water.

Jon doesn't fake being asleep and turns his head toward him. Can't make out much in the low fire, just the broad shape of Tormund sitting up, and elbows dug into his knees.

"You don't have to—"

"Shut up, I'm talkin'," Tormund interrupts him. "Five days, Jon. I've been actin' like a sulkin' child over somethin' that wasn't yours to carry. Miss you, little crow. Want to go back to how it was before I turned into—how do you say that again—a dic-k."

Jon's quiet.

"You came to me," Tormund continues. "And I left without explainin'. That was wrong of me."

Jon sits up into a similar position, hands hanging between his knees, looking at the floor instead of straight ahead because it's easier than looking at Tormund.

"You didn't do anything wrong." He shakes his head, and means it. "I did. That's on me."

Tormund makes a sound that isn't quite agreement.

"I just—" Jon stops. Suppose he will always be terrible at this. "I've been lonely." He picks the word with some care and then hates how not-quite-true it is. "I don't mean alone. Not that." He gestures at the space between them. "I got—shit, this is hard, sorry. But I saw you with… with others, and I thought—"

What did he think?

That he could just. Take something. Borrow it. Just once. And put it back, undamaged. Seemed not worse than losing his wits over it. Madness. He knows it is madness. It's not like him. Was never like him, really.

"I thought I could ask and it'd be nothing," he adds. "That's what I told myself. And then I asked, and it wasn't nothing, and I made it—" He frowns. "I'm sorry. For asking that of you."

Tormund's silent. Until he’s not, but there’s nothing new about it.

"Jon."

"I mean it." Jon can't seem to stop now that he's started. And that’s another new and shit development for him. "I don't see you that way."

He winces when he says it.

He's lying, and he's not lying, and he can hold both things in his head at once because they're both true in their own wretched way, which is the sort of thing that would've made some old Maester at the Citadel write a very long, boring paper about the nature of human contradiction. He'd thought he could do it once, that it'd sand the edge off whatever this is and he could just go back to being himself. Misunderstood, of course, the way he tends to, that Tormund would want to risk their friendship just because Jon's—

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” he finishes. At least that part is honest.

"I know," Tormund says. "And I don't see you that way neither." He pauses. "I… I love you, lad, you must see that. And if you don’t, you should know it. In case that wasn't—in case that got buried somewhere under all this."

Jon feels something loosen in his chest. Something that had been clenched so hard all these days it'd stopped feeling like tension and started feeling like bone. He nods once at the floor, smiling. Some things never change. Of course Tormund loves him. Jon never doubted that. Not many men would do what Tormund’s done for him, again and again, and still be here feeding him rabbit and tolerating his sour face.

Either way, it's working. Between them. And Jon probably needs a good hit on the head, and whatever's been stewing inside it will pass. Has to. No one's that tragic.

"We're alright?" he checks, just in case.

"We're alright," Tormund confirms, and, to Jon's immense relief, there's no hesitation in it.

So much so that Jon stands, Tormund stands too, and within a breath he’s yanking Jon into a hug with the same general energy he brings to most physical endeavors: total commitment and utter lack of regard for structural damage. Jon's nose immediately mashes into his shoulder. It's good. Better than good, until Tormund claps Jon once on the back, twice, and almost fucking dislodges something. Gods. Like a hammer, that clap.

"You're a lot of work," Tormund informs the top of his head. "Make it too hard where there's no need to."

"I know," Jon laughs, and when he reluctantly pulls back, Tormund's grinning at him with that slightly unhinged grin that Jon has never once successfully stayed miserable in the face of, despite considerable effort over many years.

"Good. Just so you know you know." Tormund turns serious for a moment, but then he shakes himself like Ghost out of water, rubs his beard, and announces: “Right. I’ll have a word with Styr tomorrow.”

"Come again?" Jon looks for the shit-eating smirk on Tormund's face that normally indicates he's joking.

There's none.

"Styr," Tormund repeats, sighing, settling back onto his furs and motioning for Jon to beat it to his own side. He's already burrowing in, rearranging the bundle he uses as a pillow into something marginally less flat. "Thought I was lookin' out for you, runnin' him off like that. Wasn't my place. ‘Sides, man's grown. Can decide for himself what does and doesn't insult him, 'less you're not straight about it, which I reckon you should be. If you care for your well-bein’. He's got a mean right hook and even meaner sisters who'll string you up by your lordly balls if you don’t set… boundaries, y’know."

"Tormund, I don't—"

But the snoring's already started.

Ghost came back twice since that night. The first time he stayed a fortnight, pressed warm against Jon's side through the coldest hours, and Jon slept like the dead he'd once been, only with less stabbing involved. Then the direwolf fucked off again, only to return for another handful of days before vanishing into the white like he'd never been there at all.

Hard not to take it personally.

Still. That's how long it's been since. Long enough for the whole situation to calcify into something he can step around instead of tripping over every gods-damned day.

Nothing came of it. Not with Tormund or, gods forbid, with Styr. And not with Jon’s pride, which remains dead on those furs, where he left it.

Jon has moved on. Sort of.

If not fully moved-on-on, then at least from treating it like a problem that doesn’t live only in his own skull.

It’s there, of course.

Might always be there. Which—shit, he guesses.

It’s like a splinter: leave it alone and half the time you forget it’s there; poke it and suddenly it’s the only thing that’s ever hurt in the history of pain, which can’t be true, so not that bad, unless he stirs it.

And he doesn't stir it, letting it settle somewhere on the bottom and only occasionally bother him with that incessant nagging. Some days it kicks him in the teeth for no reason at all, usually around the third cup, but fuck it. He'll live, he lives, and he’s survived worse than wanting someone he shouldn’t. Hells, he has survived brooding himself into premature wrinkles.

The hunt today was good. Three deer between eight of them, which means full bellies for a week if they're careful, longer if they freeze or smoke what they can't eat fresh. Jon's arms ache from hauling his share back, and there's a knot in his left shoulder that's been grinding since he took a bad fall on the ice two days ago from being fucking tackled, technically, by a young hunter who didn't know the difference between a deer one ought to not tackle and a former Lord Commander. It's not serious. Just another small hurt to add to the collection. (Jon cannot stress enough how unnecessary that was. He is not a deer. He is also not that big. What the fuck was that boy thinking?)

Styr walks beside him after they drop the meat off, matching Jon’s pace without making a thing of it. They talk about the deer, the size of the largest buck, the way it dropped clean with one arrow (a lucky shot Styr’s been insufferably pleased about since it happened and will probably still be bragging about when they’re old and trading stories by the fire.)

Jon listens more than he speaks, offers a grunt here and there, and a half-smile when Styr makes a joke about Jon's own aim. The kind of nothing-talk that fills the spaces between real things, and Jon doesn't think about what it means or doesn't mean. Doesn't think about much of anything, really, except the ache in his shoulder and the fire waiting for him back at the hut.

Least of all, he thinks about what transpired a while ago (that mortifying disaster of a night he's successfully buried under enough mental rubble to build a second Castle Black), which is now all but forgotten.

Jon never approached Styr about it, they’ve never spoken of it, and with the way things are—easy, not tense, not awkward—they part at Jon’s door without anything looming over them. Styr nods, keeps walking (his own hut, probably, or the hall), and Jon ducks inside, already pulling at the ties of his outer furs.

The hut's freezing. Of course the fire’s out. Everything north of the Wall exists solely to test how much misery a man can endure before he calls it quits and walks into the sea.

Jon dumps an armload of logs in and crouches low, blowing embers to life until his head spins and a flame finally, reluctantly catches. Stubborn bastard fire. Everything up here's stubborn. Then he straightens, rolls his shoulder, and winces at the grinding protest of it. Should've had someone look at it. But it'll heal or it won't, and either way he's tired of being fussed over the way he has been by Tormund ever since he came back to the Wall and then came here with him.

(In all honesty, Tormund's been difficult about it ever since they've reunited after King's Landing—hovering, checking, asking if he's eaten enough, slept enough, shit enough for all Jon knows—and while some petty, starved part of Jon doesn't entirely hate the attention, the rest of him wants to bark at Tormund to stop being his mother.)

Jon's stripped down to tunic and breeches, working at the knot in his shoulder with the heel of his hand and making a solid attempt at tenderizing the meat there, when the door swings open.

The latch clicks shut behind Tormund (smooth now, no sticking, they fixed that particular irritation a month back with a new pin and enough seal grease to waterproof a boat) and Jon intends to ask how his day was.

He doesn’t. Not once he sees Tormund’s face.

Tormund looks angry. That's a word for it. Quietly angry, and it doesn't come with chest-thumping and threats to skullfuck someone's ancestors. His normally warm and laughing eyes are hard, mouth pressed into a too-flat line, and it's all, for sure, wishful thinking, maybe, no other reason for it, but Jon's first thought—and he couldn't tell you why, except that it's there, and it happens—is—

"What's—"

Tormund crosses the room in three long strides, grabs Jon by the front of his tunic, and shoves. Before he can wheeze out a protest, Tormund is on him—hands, body—close, and Jon's tailbone cracks against the edge of the table with a sharp flare of pain.

“Tormund, what in the Seven Hells are you—”

“Shut up.”

Jon shuts up very promptly. He has many flaws. Failing to recognize danger used to be one, but not anymore. He's got questions, plenty of them, most starting with what and ending with the fuck, but it's said too firm and too somber, just as Tormund… reaches between them and his deft fingers quickly find the laces of Jon's breeches. Find them and start pulling in jerky motions. Jon's own hands come up to push, at first, but land on Tormund's upper arms and stay there.

“What are you doing?” Jon asks, dimly. Very dimly. His heart won’t, but his wits have all decided to flee south for the winter.

"What's it look like?" Tormund doesn't stop. The laces loosen, give, fall open. "You wanted this. Months ago. Remember?"

Jon remembers. Unfortunately, vividly. Nightmares remember less clearly. He also remembers the rest.

“You said no.”

“I changed my mind.”

The laces come undone. Tormund's hand slides inside, and Jon's hips jerk forward before he can tell them not to. His fingers curl into fabric, and he can feel the rounded hardness of the muscles under.

"Why—" It comes out strangled because at the same time as he tries to clear some confusion, Tormund's large hand is not just wrapping itself fully around Jon's cock, but starting to coax it hard, stroking, and Jon has to bite down on his own tongue to keep from making a noise that would follow him to his grave and haunt him there. Gods. Jon could die right now and come back just to feel that again.

“Doesn’t matter.” Tormund still looks angry. It’s unnerving. “You want this or not?”

A smart man would reject the offer. A man with dignity would walk away.

Jon doesn’t feel that smart or dignified at the moment. Jon’s just—

Jon doesn't answer, but does slowly nod, trying to catch Tormund's eyes to see what's going on in there, but gets his forehead instead as Tormund looks down at what he's doing. What he's doing to Jon, gods, and it's—

It's better than he thought it would be.

That's the first coherent thing Jon's mind manages to produce, and even that comes fragmented, broken up by the slow drag of Tormund's palm. He'd imagined this. Hadn't wanted to, had fought it for months, but had conjured it anyway in the dark hours when sleep wouldn't come—a hand that isn't just his own, but this one. This one, the one he can always rely on, these scarred knuckles, this rough grip, this callus catching on the underside of his cock and scratching it a bit, even.

So, aye, Jon did. Thought about it. He'd thought about it and hated himself for thinking about it, called it madness, called it weakness, called it every ugly name he could dredge up from the bottomless well of his self-loathing.

Now Tormund's actually touching him, and there's no room left for any of that horseshit.

The shame Jon braced for doesn't arrive. Or if it does, it gets drowned out by something bigger. Better. Something that floods through him like meltwater through a cracked ice, washing away every wall Jon had built to keep this exact thing from riding him crazy.

Tormund's hand is so warm, grip just shy of too tight, and every stroke sends a jolt through Jon that should be contained to his cock and still murders whatever's left of his higher thinking. His head dips forward, landing on Tormund's shoulder, his breath comes ragged, too loud in the quiet of the hut, and he can't seem to make it settle no matter how hard he tries.

"Fuck," rips out of him, eloquent as ever, as he can't know for sure, but reckons Tormund's eyes stay fixed on his own hand, on Jon's cock sliding through his fist, though there's something too clinical about it. Detached. That part is awful.

Jon should mind. He does, possibly. Distantly. But the rest of him is too occupied with the feel of it to spare much concern. Tormund's thumb drags over the head on an upstroke, smearing the slick that's gathered there embarrassingly fast, and Jon's hips buck forward so hard he nearly launches himself off the table.

"Easy." Tormund's free hand comes up to pin Jon's hip, pressing him back against it. "Stay."

Jon stays. Not because he's told to, he's never been worth a damn at following orders, ask anyone who's ever had the misfortune of trying to command him, but because Tormund's hand is wrapped around his cock and working it with clear intent, and Jon's not about to do a single fucking thing that might make him change his mind again. He'd sooner cut his own arm off.

The grip on his hip might be too harsh, Jon can feel each finger digging in, five points of pressure that'll leave marks by morning. Good. Let them. He… fuck, he wants them, if only to prove it happened.

Tormund's pace is steady as he keeps going. Not fast, not slow, but proper strokes that work Jon over with efficiency. There's no teasing in it, no drawing it out, but there is a lot of purpose.

His fingers are still twisted in Tormund’s sleeves, and Jon presses harder, wanting to feel the muscle flex and shift under the fabric as that arm moves. He’s never wanted to feel that before, with anyone else. Never until—

There’s a lot of strength in that ridiculous, crude body that Jon’s learned to associate with safety.

Don't ask him why. Don't ask him when it started or what it means. He doesn't have the answers. Wouldn't be in so much trouble if he did. Couldn't think of them right now anyway, even if they existed, because his body's gone full traitor on him, his hips trying to fuck up into that grip despite the hand pinning him down, thighs trembling with the effort of staying upright when his knees feel about as sturdy as wet parchment. There's heat all over, though the room's still heating up, and pressure is building with every stroke.

Jon knows with grim certainty that he's not going to last, though he'd want to prolong it. Can't. It has been too fucking long, and Tormund's hand is too fucking good, and—

Jon can't tear his eyes away from the sight of it. The flushed head of his cock appearing and disappearing in Tormund's fist, it looks so slick, it sounds so slick, and is somehow the most erotic thing he's ever witnessed in his miserable life. A hand is just a hand. Except it's not.

"Tormund, gods—"

Tormund's rhythm falters for half a heartbeat before steadying again, and Jon's chest aches with something that isn't just arousal. He must be too greedy, can't just take what's on the table, and he pulls back, reaches up, gripping Tormund's chin and dragging it up until those hard eyes finally meet his.

There’s still anger there. It cuts him open.

“Why?” It falls out of him, too helpless, even though Jon was told it doesn’t matter.

"Saw you with him," Tormund says, because he's always been the straightforward one between them, and always been willing to spit out whatever's in his head while Jon chokes on his own tongue trying to say anything at all.

It takes Jon too long to piece that together. In his defense, there’s a hand on his cock and what little blood he has left is very busy.

When the meaning finally lands—

“Nothing happened,” he rushes to rasp.

“I know.” Tormund’s frown deepens, something wounded flickering behind the anger. “Don’t you think I fuckin’ know, boy?”

He twists his wrist, does something wicked with his grip Jon doesn’t have the words for, and Jon’s eyes roll back. A broken sound punches out of him, half moan, half gasp, and the pressure spikes, close to unbearable. He’s nearly there when Tormund’s voice rumbles:

“And I still wanted to put my axe through his head.”

Fuck. Gods. Jon shivers. At any other time, he’d try to do something with that information. Turn it over, examine it, fit it into some neat little corner of his understanding. But Tormund’s thumb is rubbing at the slit, and Jon’s thoughts keep scattering like frightened birds.

“That’s—” Jon shoves his face into Tormund’s neck, breathing his wildling in like an idiot. “Fuck, I’m gonna—faster, please, I—”

His hand travels from Tormund’s jaw to the back of his head, fingers tangling in that wild mane of red hair, and he knows he shouldn’t. Knows this is supposed to be simple. Clean. A favor between friends. But the heat’s roaring through him now, and he can’t—he needs—

“Tormund—”

“I know.” Tormund’s voice drops to something almost gentle, his breath panting against Jon’s temple. “I’ve got you. C’mon, little crow. Go on, then.”

It hits Jon like a warhammer.

There shouldn't be anything special about it. A hand’s still a hand. Flesh and callus and friction. Jon can remind himself of that as often as he wants, but he still comes so hard his vision swims, and he would have gone down if Tormund wasn’t holding him up. His body bows, spine arching, ass grinding against the table edge, hips jerking and jerking into Tormund’s grip, and he can’t hold back the humiliating “Ah-ah-ahh.”

The palm against him keeps at it through the aftershocks, stroking up and down, Jon's come making the glide smoother, but eventually Jon's too oversensitive for it, everything below his waist starts shrieking, and he has to clamp a hand around Tormund’s wrist with a hiss. Tormund stops then, and for too long a moment, neither of them moves, though Tormund's thick fingers remain curled loosely around Jon's softening cock.

"So?" Tormund clears his throat when Jon lets go and so does he, turning away. His elbow moves—wiping his hand on something, presumably, as Jon fumbles with numb fingers that feel like they belong to someone else to tuck himself back into his breeches. "Think that did the trick? Worked?"

"What worked?" Jon's brain is still soup. Thick, warm, thoroughly fucked soup. If feeling like his bones have been replaced with slippery rope is any measure, then yes, whatever this was supposed to accomplish, it bloody well worked.

"Think you won't see her again next time you do it yourself?"

Jon’s spine snaps straight. His scattered thoughts slam back together with a nasty jolt.

What? No.

It’s been years, he wants to say, gods help him.

But Tormund's all but running from him already, heading for the door with that stiff-shouldered walk of a man who's decided the conversation is over. His hand, that same one, finds the latch, pulls it open, lets in a gust of freezing air, and he throws the rest over his shoulder as the door closes:

“We’ll try again if it didn’t. Help you forget her proper.”

It happens again.

The very next morning, Jon wakes to grey light filtering through the smoke hole and the sounds of Tormund moving around the hut. Normal sounds. Wood on the fire, the scrape of a kettle, and that grunt Tormund makes when he stretches his back after sleeping. Jon keeps his eyes closed and feigns sleep a little longer, not ready to face whatever awkwardness awaits, and he’s working up the nerve to stop pretending when the furs shift.

Jon's eyes snap open at the sensation of Tormund kneeling beside him, and before Jon can ask what the fuck he's doing, a heavy hand plants itself on his chest and puts him flat onto his back.

"Uh—"

"Shut up." Same words as last night. Same tone, too, firm and no-nonsense. "Didn't work, did it?"

“It—”

Suppose it depends on the definition.

"You were tossin’ all night. Heard you." Tormund's hand slides down Jon’s chest, over his stomach, and Jon’s breathing nosedives straight into shit as those fingers find the laces of his sleep-loosened breeches. "Still thinkin' about her."

Jon wasn’t thinking about her. Jon hasn’t thought about her in that way for a long time. Jon hasn’t thought about anyone except this redheaded thick-skulled oblivious man since before his damned hut collapsed.

He doesn't say any of that.

Doesn't say anything at all, because Tormund's hand is busy again, wrapping around his half-hard cock with that same sure grip, and Jon lies through his teeth:

“Aye,” he eagerly nods, stopping himself only from pawing at him.

"So, we try again then," Tormund says, matter-of-fact, as if they're discussing a hunting strategy that didn't pan out. "Often as it takes. A man needs to have a decent handle on these things, or survival’s pointless."

Jon nearly laughs. Thinks he has gone crazy as he lies there and lets Tormund jerk him off under the mistaken belief that he's performing some kind of service for a grieving man. This is wrong. This is a lie by omission, which is still a lie, not to mention being disrespectful to the dead, and Jon knows better. But Tormund leans over him this time, breathing hard against his ear, and his grip is perfect, and Jon's hips are already rolling up to meet each stroke in shameless greeting, and—

"Gods," Jon gasps, one hand fisting in the furs beneath him while the other grabs the back of Tormund's neck just to have something to hold onto. "Fuck, that's—"

"Feels good?"

"Aye." It is, really. "It's—"

He doesn’t know how long it goes on. Could be minutes, hours, years. Jon’s biting the inside of his bottom lip to keep from begging like he’s never begged for anything in his life, though, granted, he did grovel for things more important. Still, he’s mad with it, everything in his body buzzing like a kicked hornet nest, and when Tormund adjusts his angle, Jon… feels it.

The hard press of Tormund’s cock against his thigh.

Tormund’s hips twitch at the contact, just once, but while pulling away he still drags that heat along Jon’s leg. He's hard. Tormund's hard. That’s all Jon’s thinking now, twisting himself under him. Not just doing this out of duty or friendship or whatever fucked-up justification he's built in his head. His body is responding to Jon’s, or responding to the act, fuck the difference.

"Tormund," Jon moans, loudly, his cock jerking in Tormund's hand, leaking over his fingers, and the rest dissolves into sensation.

He does remember going limp and boneless, confused as much as he’s ever been, and not better for it, when Tormund is already getting his hand free to wipe it on the furs.

"We'll keep at it," Tormund says briskly as he stands up.

“Uh-huh,” that’s all Jon has in him.

Three days later after that first time, Tormund ambushes him behind the storage hut, pissing against the back wall because the proper latrine's occupied and Jon's bladder doesn't give a crap about propriety.

Jon barely has time to shake himself off and tuck back in before Tormund's crowding him against the wood, and already working at his laces.

"Here?" Jon hisses, glancing around. "Someone could—"

"Then be quick about it," Tormund says, and drops to his knees in the snow.

Jon stops working entirely. As a human.

This is. Well. This is different, this isn't a hand, this is Tormund's mouth and Jon wasn't prepared for this possibility, but then Tormund's pulling his cock free and licking a stripe up the underside, seemingly unbothered about what Jon’s been up to just before it, and the only sound that comes out of Jon is not an objection, but something strangled and wanting and might be a word or might be his soul leaving his body.

"Shit—shit—" Jon's head thunks back against the wall. His hands scrabble at the wood, splinters be damned, or he’ll be grabbing his hair.

Tormund's mouth is as hot as the outside is cold, scorching and utterly merciless, taking him deep and with wet suction and the drag of that beard against whatever’s skin is uncovered.

It's over faster than before. Minute, at most, if Jon’s kind to himself, though when is he ever.

Jon tries to warn him, gets out half a syllable before his hips jerk forward and he's coming down Tormund's mouth, one hand somehow still having found its way into that hair and pulling on it. Tormund swallows—swallows, gods have mercy—and Jon assumes he might be actually dead already, and not half-frozen, his cock chilly too quick.

When Tormund wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, he’s looking up at Jon with an expression that's almost his usual self.

"That was quick," he drawls, getting up. "Good boy."

Jon can't form words. Wherever they normally come from, is now completely vacant. He nods.

A week passes. The snow keeps its slow, grudging melt toward something that might eventually be called summer.

Jon's in the main hall, eating his evening meal and trying very hard not to look at Tormund. Trying even harder not to think about the morning, when Tormund had pinned him face-down into the furs without a word and rutted against Jon’s ass like a beast while jerking him off and wouldn’t let Jon touch him after.

Jon's terrified of what he’s doing. Of where this is going. Of all the lying. The fact that he might, possibly, want Tormund to rut against him more, harder, slower, inside him, seems like the least of his problems.

He's chewing his food without tasting it, lost in thought, when a body drops onto the bench beside him.

"You look miserable," says a voice that isn't Tormund's.

Jon turns. Styr's there, red hair tied back, and an easy smile in place. The same Styr who Jon had failed to seduce months ago, if that could’ve been called a fair attempt at seduction.

"It’s cold," Jon says.

"Liar." Styr's smile widens. "You've got that look. The one that says you're thinkin' too hard about somethin' that's probably simpler than you're makin' it."

Confused about half his life or not, Jon's getting very fucking tired of other people deciding what his face means.

"I don't have a look," he insists.

"You've got several. That's one of 'em." Styr takes a drink from his cup. "Giantsbane has been watchin' us since I sat down, by the way. Not gonna lie, that makes a man worried."

"Ah, leave it," Jon mutters, shrugging, trying to brush it off before his stomach finishes tying itself into a reef knot. What’s he supposed to say? It’s not what you think? When he has no fucking idea what Styr thinks, or what Tormund thinks, or what the truth even is anymore, or how to explain any of this.

Styr laughs at him, but not unkindly.

"I know. Relax, Snow. I'm not tryin' to poach what's clearly not available for poachin’." He stands, claps Jon on the shoulder in a gesture that feels deliberately public, and adds, far too loudly: "Good talk. I’ll be seein’ you, crow."

Asshole. That's what Jon thinks about him.

Jon might be at the stage where he doesn’t have a fucking clue where he stands with Tormund these days. (Somewhere between friend, charity, and inconvenient sad erection with legs, probably.) But he knows Tormund well enough to know he won’t like that.

Tormund doesn't wait until they're back at the hut.

He intercepts Jon halfway there, in the narrow alley between two buildings where the shadows are deep and the foot traffic is sparse. One moment Jon's walking, the next he's face-first against a wooden wall with Tormund's bulk pressed along his back, like Jon’s a stray rabbit that looked at him funny to be yanked around like that.

"Havin' a nice chat, were you?" Tormund's voice is a near-growl against his ear, low and hot, and no, it does not tell Jon’s stupid cock to calm the fuck down. If anything, it perks up like a dog hearing the supper bucket. He wants. Jon just wants. Didn’t want for much except what he had to want when he was fighting all that time, and now he can’t seem to stop wanting this one, very specific, very—

Damn him.

"We were just—"

"I know what you were just." Tormund's hand snakes around, finds Jon's laces, and starts pulling at them roughly. "Sittin' there. Talkin’. You want his hands on you instead?"

"He—"

“Don’t care," The laces give the way they always do, and Tormund's palm wraps around Jon's cock, already perking up because Jon's body’s an asshole too and has decided that being manhandled in almost public is exactly what it wants now. "You're mine to fix, Jon. Not his."

Jon's forehead drops against the wood. His hips push back into Tormund's groin without conscious input, and he can feel it—Tormund's cock, harder than his own, even. Shit. Fuck. How is Jon meant to let this go now?

"You're—" Jon gasps.

"Shut up."

Jon does, and Tormund's hand moves fast, brutal strokes that border on too violent, which still doesn’t prevent Jon from falling apart in minutes. The possessiveness in Tormund's voice shouldn't make it better and shouldn’t make his cock throb in Tormund's grip from barely anything at all. Shouldn’t make his ass clench for no reason when Tormund grinds himself against it. But.

"Don’t want him," Jon moans while fucking into Tormund’s fist.

"Don't care." Tormund's teeth graze Jon's ear. He bites it. He licks it, making Jon squirm. "Don't care who you want. Don’t care who wants you. They can't have you."

Jon comes with a choked cry, knees folding. Tormund catches him, holds him up with one arm while the other keeps stroking and wringing every last shudder out of Jon's trembling body.

When it's over, when Jon's still slumped against the wall in the same position and trying to remember how breathing works, Tormund presses his cock against Jon's ass one more time, seems to quickly swear under his breath, but then steps back like he’s just pulled his hand out of a fire.

Jon’d let him. He’d let Tormund fuck him like a woman.

"Get cleaned up," Tormund doesn’t seem to want it just as bad. "I'll be at the hut."

Jon stays braced against the wall a moment longer, putting himself together, and thinks, not for the first time, that if there is a hell, he’s already well on his way—and it probably looks a lot like this.

Two weeks in, and they've fallen into a rhythm. A filthy, stupid, doomed rhythm.

Mornings, usually, before the day starts.

Tormund will wake him while Jon’s still warm and sleep-soft in the furs, press him down, and work him over until Jon's nearly crying with it.

Sometimes it's quick—a perfunctory handjob, but sometimes, more and more often, it's slower, more thorough, while Jon bites his own fist to keep from making sounds that would carry through the thin walls and that’ll have half the camp wondering who’s murdering who in their hut.

Evenings, too.

Tormund will catch his eye across the hall, jerk his chin toward the exit with that narrowed, possessive glare, and Jon will follow like the pathetic, wanting thing he’s turned into.

Sometimes they actually make it as far as the hut.

Sometimes Tormund decides they’ve walked far enough and that’s that. They duck into some dark corner, some empty stretch of camp between huts, and Tormund gets him off with his hands or his mouth—he looks almost crazed himself when he’s sucking Jon off—while Jon clings to whatever’s available and tries very hard not to dwell on how good it feels to pretend he’s wanted like this.

The guilt doesn't fade. If anything, it grows.

Tormund's still talking about her. It would be easy to forget if it weren’t for those little comments.

Tormund also still won’t let Jon touch him. Won’t take more than a stray brush of fingers, and won’t let Jon return it. As selfish as it makes him, that’s what gnaws at Jon the most.

Jon's in the hut, working seal grease into a pair of Tormund’s gloves that’s gotten too brittle, having lent him his own, when the man himself comes back from a hunt too early. There's something different about his face, yet again. A new tightness around the eyes that means someone's about to have a bad day.

"It's slim pickin's out there. Styr's leavin'," Tormund says by way of greeting. "Takin' a group east. Might be gone a month or more."

"Alright," Jon shrugs, because what else is there to say? It's not as if no one's ever fucked off into the snow before. People do it all the time. Some even come back. He's not sure why he's being told this like it's personal news, but he sets the jar and the gloves on the table anyway as Tormund crosses the room in a few long strides and doesn't stop until he's looming directly over.

Jon has to crane his neck to look up at him.

"You gonna miss ‘im? That it?"

"What?" Jon frowns. "No. Why would I? He’s a good hunter, but we barely talk. You know that."

"Do I?"

"Tormund." He stands, bringing them face to face, or as close as he'll get with the height difference. Still and always looking up. Brilliant. "I don't want him. I told you."

Tormund's eyes search his face like he's looking for a lie. Whatever he finds—or doesn't—makes some of the tension bleed out of his shoulders.

"Then who do you want?" Tormund asks, tilting his head. "Because it's been weeks, little crow, and I keep tryin' to fuck her out of your mind, and you keep comin' back for more, and I'm startin' to think—"

Jon's heart is pounding so loud he's sure Tormund can hear it, but he doesn't correct him. Jon's not the one coming to him. Jon's just letting it happen. And Jon reckons if Tormund did actually fuck him the way Jon's been thinking about—

"Think what?" Jon barely recognizes his own voice.

He waits. Gods, he waits and is almost reaching for Tormund when Tormund steps back and casually asks:

“What’s for dinner?”

How the fuck should Jon know? It's not his turn to cook. And even if it were, he'd probably burn whatever sorry bastard of a meal he attempted.

Doesn't matter who's cooking, as it turns out.

Jon hasn't even wiped the seal grease off his hands, only turned around to finish the job he was doing, and is still trying to parse what just happened or didn't, when he's twisted around, and Tormund's mouth is on his.

Jon makes a startled sound against his lips, hands coming up on instinct, and gets seal grease all over Tormund's face for his trouble. Tormund doesn't seem to give a rat's ass. Doesn't seem to care about much except backing Jon up toward the fire and toward Jon's own sleeping furs.

Then Tormund's tongue pushes into his mouth, and Jon's—

He doesn't know who he is anymore. Maybe not even Jon Snow.

They've done a lot over these past weeks. Tormund has done a lot to him in his efforts.

They haven’t kissed. They haven’t done anything at all. Jon had turned away from it that first drunken night, and Tormund had respected that ever since, kept it to hands and mouth on Jon's cock and nothing that could be confused for something softer.

Now he's kissing Jon like he's trying to ruin Jon completely.

Jon kisses back, and Tormund groans into his mouth like Jon's finally doing something right, and walks him back another step until Jon's feet hit the edge of his spot.

They go down together.

Not falling this time, not like that drunk disaster. Tormund lowers them both with surprising care for a man who usually moves through life like a charging horse, one hand braced beside Jon's head while the other works at the laces—not on Jon's breeches but on Jon's tunic.

"Off," Tormund commands him. "Get it off. Now."

Jon does. Tunic first, then his undershirt, and the cold air hits his bare chest like a slap. The fire's close enough to warm one side of him.

Tormund doesn't let the other stay cold long. Covers Jon with himself. Covers him, warms him, even as his mouth moves from Jon's lips to his jaw, down his throat, across his collarbone, and his beard scrapes against Jon's skin, marking a path south, over his scars.

"What are you—" Jon starts, but Tormund's already at his chest, the tip of his wide tongue flicking over a nipple, and Jon’s words die in a gasp that makes him sound like a virgin who's never been touched.

"Shut up," Tormund says, almost absently, like it's become his regular response to Jon speaking. Which, fair enough, but Jon wasn’t. Or was he? He can’t tell, as Tormund's hands are working Jon's breeches open now, and not pulling but ripping at the laces. "Just—please, little crow, shut up for once in your life and let me already."

Let him what?

Jon doesn't get an answer. Doesn't need one. Tormund drags his breeches down, takes his smallclothes with them, and for the first time since this whole mess began, Jon's bare all over, including from the waist down.

He’s staring at Jon.

"Tormund—"

"I said shut up."

Jon's face burns. He’s not fucking shy, but he wants to cover himself. Nearly does, but redirects his hand mid-motion at the shake of Tormund’s head. His cock's fully hard now, lying heavy against his stomach.

Tormund makes a noise low in his throat. Could be approval. Could be frustration. If he'd just tell Jon what the fuck he wants, Jon would do it. Gladly. Tormund doesn't, but kneels and starts stripping his own tunic off and tossing it aside, and Jon gets a moment to appreciate the breadth of him, the solid muscle and thick chest and the carpet of ginger hair Jon's thought about getting his hands in more times than he'll admit even under torture.

He's not stupid, Tormund. Crude and vulgar as a syphilitic sailor, but not stupid. Jon can't comprehend why he doesn't see it.

Tormund leaves his breeches on, which seems unfair as shit, but Jon doesn't get time to complain before that large body is covering him again, but skin on skin.

"I love how large you are," Jon mutters, not thinking—stupid, so he’s fucking stupid, he shouldn’t have said it—and… it earns him another kiss.

Palm cups Jon's jaw, and Tormund kisses him again. And kisses him again, nothing else, just kissing and kissing, tongue against tongue, some light biting from Tormund until Jon's just about ready to whine.

"You're so—" Tormund starts, then stops. His thumb drags across Jon's cheekbone, and Jon leans into the touch like the needy creature he's become. "Never mind."

"So what?" Jon asks, because he can't leave well enough alone.

"Nothin'. Doesn't matter." Tormund's mouth moves to Jon's throat, kissing and biting a path down, and Jon's question dissolves into a moan as teeth scrape over his pulse point. Tormund explores Jon's chest with his mouth, over and over, traces old scars with his tongue, and Jon squirms beneath him, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of sensation.

"Please," it slips out.

"Please what?" Tormund's breath is tickling Jon's rib.

"Just—" Jon doesn't know. Touch him. Don't stop. More. "Please."

Tormund's mouth closes around Jon's nipple again. His hand slides down Jon's flank, over his hip, between his legs but not touching his cock.

"You want more, boy?"

"Yes. Yes, fuck, yes—"

Tormund's hand moves. Not to Jon's cock like he expects, since nothing ever goes the way Jon expects, but lower, fingers dragging through the crease of his ass.

"Relax," Tormund says, like it's simple. Like Jon's body isn't wound tighter than a crossbow string, but not because he doesn't want it. Because he wants it too much. Wants it so badly he's shaking with it, how the hell can’t Tormund see it?

"I’m not—" Jon needs to tell him, but Tormund's mouth is moving down again, across his stomach, along the sharp jut of his hipbone, and Jon loses the thread of whatever he was trying to say.

When Tormund's lips close around the head of his cock, Jon makes a sound that's not human. Can't be. Might be some animal dying. He misses when Tormund grabs his hand with his own and rubs the grease off it—thoughtful bastard—but doesn't miss when now slicker fingers press more firmly, still just on the outside, but circling and rubbing, and Jon's hips jerk up so high Tormund has to hold him down with one forearm across his stomach.

"Stay still," Tormund orders, as if Jon has any control over his own body at this point. Jon tries. Gods, he tries. But Tormund's sucking him down, toying with him. One finger tries to breach him, pushes in just barely, and Jon chokes on a whine that would embarrass not just a man but whore. Fuck. What's wrong with him?

Tormund pulls off his cock with an obscene sound, strings of spit connecting his mouth to Jon's flushed skin, which is the filthiest thing. Jon wants to lick it off him.

"Too much?"

"No." Jon shakes his head frantically, probably looks like a madman. "No, it's—don't stop, please don't—"

"Good boy."

Fuck. Those two words shouldn't make Jon's cock jerk like that. What is it with them and the way Tormund says it?

Tormund swallows him down again, pushes that finger in deeper, and it's strange. Not bad, just—new. Unfamiliar. Not painful. There's pressure and a slight burn when it reaches the knuckle and Tormund's finger is thick as a sausage but it's sliding inside him in a way that makes Jon's thighs shake like he's got the tremors. And all the while, Tormund's mouth is working his cock, he's sucking and sucking, while humming like he's enjoying himself, and Jon can't—he can't think, can't breathe, can't do anything except lie there and take it.

"Gods," Jon might be fisting Tormund's hair and pushing his head down when Tormund is already adding a second finger, stretching him wider. "Fuck, that's—"

The fingers move deeper, crook slightly inside him, and Jon nearly comes off the furs.

"Tormund!" His hips buck despite the arm holding him down like he's a wild horse being broken. There's something there, something Tormund's fingers just brushed against that feels better than—

Just better.

Tormund pulls off his cock again, looking up at Jon with dark, hungry eyes that make Jon want to do something stupid. More stupid than he's already doing.

"Like it, do ye?" Jon’s asked as Tormund presses the same spot again with a smirk, more purposely this time, and Jon makes a sound he'll be ashamed of later.

"You're so tight," Tormund rumbles while his fingers keep moving inside him and reducing Jon to someone who wants to be mewing. "Gonna feel so good when—"

He stops.

Jon's eyes open. He hadn't realized he'd closed them.

Tormund pulls his fingers out, and Jon makes a humiliating sound of protest as Tormund sits back on his heels, breathing hard, and there's something almost stricken in his expression.

"Got carried away, sorry," Tormund's voice is rough and he won't meet Jon's eyes. "We'll try again tomorrow. When I've got my head on straight."

No. Fuck no. Not this again.

Jon’s never been good at telling, regardless of how many have told him he’s decent with words. But he sits up, reaches out, and catches Tormund's wrist before he can leave.

Jon can show him, maybe.

He keeps hold of Tormund's wrist and brings that hand back to where it was. Guides it between his legs again, back to where he's still aching, and presses them against himself with a needy roll of his hips that should leave no room for misinterpretation.

“Please don’t make me say it,” he pleads.

"Jon, what are you—"

Jon looks up at him. Meets those blue eyes. He is ashamed it took so long.

"You're the most obnoxious man I've ever known," Jon’s chest's moving up and down too fast, and he can't seem to catch his breath. "Most stupid. Loudest. Most— you’re a man."

"Right," Tormund's frown deepens, pulling his eyebrows together. He looks hurt, the idiot.

"It's you I want."

"No, you don't," Tormund tells him immediately, like Jon's just claimed he wants to marry a bloody ice dragon.

Uff. So. That happens.

"I do," Jon says back, and his grip on Tormund's wrist tightens, splitting him evenly between this being necessary and so humiliating it might actually not be worth it.

"You told me you didn't see me that way." Tormund reminds him. "You said—"

"I know what I said." Jon's frown deepens until his whole face aches. His chest feels too tight, as if someone’s wrapped iron bands around it and is slowly twisting. "I didn't mean—"

"Then what did you mean?" Tormund demands. "Because it seems pretty fuckin’ clear to me, Jon. You said it. You looked me in the eye, or somethin’ close to it, and told me you don't see me that way, and now—" He gestures between them, at Jon still on his back, too exposed. "Now you're doin' this? What's changed? What—"

"Nothing's changed," Jon snaps, too sharp, too fast, and that comes out wrong too. Everything he says comes out wrong. "I mean—fuck. I didn't see you that way. I don't."

Tormund's expression shutters. Goes carefully blank in that way Jon hates more than shouting. He pulls his hand free, and this time Jon lets him go. Lets him, because his courage is on the way out of his hut just as Tormund is about to be, but he can’t stand having this argument naked.

"You said the same fucking thing to me," Jon pushes himself up onto his elbows, and then into sitting position, and drags some furs over his middle.

"What?"

"That night, when we made up," Jon says, looking away. "You told me you don't see me that way. You said you love me, but—"

"But what?" Tormund carefully touches his forearm with the tips of his fingers, which is… gods, what’s wrong with them both? “There was no but.”

"But not—" now it’s Jon who gestures helplessly between them. Not like this. Not the way Jon wanted.

I love you, lad. Tormund had said that. Had looked Jon right in the eye and said it, clear as day. And Jon had nodded and smiled like a fucking idiot and thought—

"You meant—" Jon's voice comes out strangled.

"What the fuck did you think I meant?" Tormund asks, not yelling, but damn close. "Did you think I've been touchin' you like this because I'm bored? Because I felt sorry for you?"

Aye. Exactly.

“A favor,” Jon mutters, stealing a quick, miserable glance at him. “For a friend.”

Now that he's said it out loud, it perhaps doesn’t sound right.

"A favor," Tormund repeats. He’s not laughing. He’s looking at Jon like Jon’s the stupidest man in these parts, and that’s saying something in a place where men have claimed to fuck bears. "You thought I was suckin' your cock as a favor."

Fuck. Well, when you put it like that.

"Why are we still arguing about this?" Jon rubs a hand over his mouth, resisting the urge to just bite straight through it. "If we both—if you want—" He gestures between them, yet again, sighing, and maybe a bit too frustrated to let himself be hopeful. "Assuming you—why the fuck are we talking?"

There's decidedly too much silence for too many breaths. Jon stares at the furs over his lap. Tormund presumably stares at him, though Jon can't bring himself to look up and confirm it.

There was a time when Jon was a competent man commanding thousands. A time when he could make decisions without second-guessing himself into paralysis, when his voice didn’t crack like some green little shit seeing his first pair of tits, and when he didn’t need someone else to interpret his own heart for him.

What the fuck happened to him? Truly? Somewhere between dying, coming back, and getting exiled, he apparently misplaced his entire sense of self.

He stops thinking about it when Tormund's hands reach for the furs covering Jon's lap. The pull is slow, as if Tormund’s giving him every chance to stop this. Jon doesn’t and only watches the furs slide down his thighs, numb and weirdly detached, like he’s watching someone else's bare arse being unwrapped.

"Tormund," it comes out pitiful. Jon hates himself for it.

“Aye,” Tormund says, and then he kisses the bit of skin he’s just uncovered. “That’s my name, boy. And now that we’re on the same ground, I’m goin’ to make you scream it.”

That’s… bold. Gods, he’s cocky. Jon’s about to point that out—maybe with words, maybe with a fist—when he yelps. Yelps, like a startled pup, because Tormund flips him onto his stomach without so much as a by-your-leave. His chin hits the furs, now that’s painful, and then Tormund yanks his hips up and hauls his ass into the air. Jon barely has time to understand the position, let alone object to it, before—

"Oh fuck," Jon groans when he feels Tormund's tongue between his ass cheeks. He’s licking a broad stripe over his hole like—like Jon’s something to be tasted. This is—he didn’t know—do people do this? Is this a thing people do? Tormund’s doing this? To him?

"Tormund, what are you—" Jon tries to twist around, to see, to at least confirm that Tormund hasn’t been replaced by some depraved demon, but Tormund’s strong, and there’s no twisting. Jon’s mouth ends up on the furs.

“Be quiet," Tormund says against his skin, voice rumbling there, and then his tongue is back, circling and pressing and doing things Jon doesn't have words for.

Jon makes a sound he's never made before. High and helpless and too mortifying, except Tormund groans in response like Jon's just given him a gift, and licks him again, firmer this time, tongue pressing against the rim.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck—" Jon's fingers claw at the furs, bunching them up. His cock is getting no friction at all, which is its own brand of torture, but, still, it shouldn’t feel this good. It really, really shouldn’t.

“Let me do something for you,” Jon hears himself beg, and well, there it is. Pride’s dead. Buried. Might not even have a marker.

"You’re about to," Tormund tells him, pulling back just long enough to speak. "Stop fightin' it."

"I'm not," Jon lies. He knows he is. His thighs are shaking with the effort of holding himself up, his muscles trying to lock, and he can't seem to unclench, body and brain arguing about whether this is allowed.

Tormund's hand slides up his spine, big and warm, almost soothing in its roughness, and Jon shudders. Then Tormund’s tongue returns—slower this time, gentler, coaxing instead of demanding.

Jon stops fighting.

Lets himself sink into it. Lets his forehead properly settle on the furs, his knees spread wider, and his ass presses back into Tormund's mouth like he’s been doing this all his life instead of rediscovering he has a body that might want things now that Jon’s not needed to be leading.

"There you go," Tormund murmurs, approving. "That’s my little crow. Just like that."

The tongue presses deeper against him—not inside, not yet, but gods, please—just circling, licking, working him open in a way that reduces Jon Snow, once Lord Commander, once King in the sodding North, to a shaking, panting want that can't remember where he is, what day it is, or why he ever thought this was a shit idea.

Damnation, maybe. Who cares about that?

“Fuck,” he moans into the furs, fingers knotted in them. “Tormund, I—”

He doesn’t know how to finish that. I what? I want? I’m yours? I’ve gone completely mad? All of the above?

Tormund pulls back, just a little.

“Breathe,” he rumbles, giving Jon’s ass a patronizing little pat. “You’re shakin’.”

“I’m fine,” Jon lies, because that’s one of his better skills apparently. “Keep going.”

“Bossy now, are you?” Tormund snorts.

“Tormund.”

“Aye, aye.” He sounds amused now. Smug, even. And then—Jon feels him shift away. The heat’s gone and the cold rushes in where Tormund was, and Jon’s stomach drops like a stone.

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere far,” Tormund says. “Don’t move.”

That’s easy for him to say. Jon feels exposed and ridiculous, still on his knees, arse in the air like he’s waiting to be branded. He hears Tormund moving around the hut. Heavy footsteps by the table, something clinking against the wood.

The jar of seal grease, he guesses.

Shit. Now he is thinking that this might not have been his best idea.

Tormund comes back into his line of touch but not his line of sight, big hands settling on his hips again, steadying him like Jon’s about to bolt.

“You still with me?” Tormund asks.

“Aye.”

“You sure?” There’s a note in Tormund’s voice Jon doesn’t hear often. “’Cause once we start with this, it’s not the same as what we’ve been doin’.”

“You’ve been—” Jon swallows. “You were usin’ your mouth on my arse, Tormund. I think we passed ‘not the same’ a while back.”

Tormund huffs something that might be a laugh. His grip tightens. He pets Jon’s ass again, and his thumb brushes over his hole and presses.

“Sure seems like you want it,” Tormund murmurs, far too thoughtful for a man with his hand there. “Might need to hear you say it after all, Jon.”

Jon squeezes his eyes shut. There it is again, that demand for honesty he’s been ducking around for weeks. Months.

“Really?” he grunts. “You need more confirmation? Do you maybe not want this, or—”

“Not nice, Jon.” Tormund’s hands leave him just long enough for Jon to hear the lid of the jar being worked loose. “Nothin’s wrong with wantin’ to know if someone you love feels the same way about you.”

There. This is where Tormund's gotten him. Being shamed in the true North, where the savages allegedly roam, about his own dishonorable ways.

“You’re thinkin’ loud again,” Tormund mutters.

Jon jumps when something cold touches him.

“Cold first,” Tormund says calmly. “Then warm.”

Jon wants to turn around and smack him. He doesn’t. He holds still, fists twisting tighter in the furs as Tormund works the grease between his fingers. The sounds alone are indecent. Wet and slick.

“Last chance,” Tormund says, and there’s no tease in it at all. Just that heavy, careful tone Jon has only ever heard in battle, funerals, and goodbyes. “You tell me no, I stop. And we don’t go back to me glarin’ at you across the hall like you stole my horse, I swear it.”

Jon thinks of every lie. Every half-truth. Every time he let Tormund believe this was about someone else because he was too much of a coward to admit it wasn’t. Thinks of all the times he’s chosen duty over what he wanted, only for it to blow up in his face anyway. And then he thinks of waking up alone in this hut, Tormund gone east, or gone south, or gone dead like so many others, and never having crossed this line when he could have.

“No,” he says, but before the man can even take his hands off him, Jon chokes out, “I mean—no, I don’t want you to stop. I want—fuck, I want you to… gods, don’t make me say it.”

“You’re terrible at this, you know that?” Jon can imagine Tormund shaking his head at him, and with too much fondness in his voice. “Talkin’, I mean. About this. The rest, we’ll see.”

“Just—shut up and—” Jon grits out. “Do you want to fuck me or not?”

“Aye, aye. As my king commands.”

Jon wants to argue that he’s not a king. He doesn’t, of course.

What happens after that blurs for a while.

Not in a bad way. In the way that time stops feeling real when too many things happen at once, with Tormund’s hand never leaving his hip, his shoulder, his hair, and with rumbling words Jon couldn’t repeat if you held a knife to his throat. There’s swearing, and there’s laughter, mostly from Tormund, he’s like a child who got a new toy, and there’s Jon saying Tormund’s name so many times it stops sounding like a name and starts sounding like it’s all he’s ever wanted to be saying, which can’t be true, just is now.

At some point, the jar of seal grease tips over and rolls off away from them, thunking against the floorboards. Jon arches his back, wishing he could fuck himself on those fingers if only Tormund’d let him, and thinks… that’s fitting. Everything that should be tidy is a mess, and everything that used to be simple is ruined beyond repair.

Then again, there’s also something entirely too simple about the act itself.

Tormund's fingers pull out, and Jon feels… empty. Hollowed. Like someone took out a piece he didn’t know he was using.

"Easy," Tormund says, when Jon mutters for him to hurry. "Need to—give me a moment."

Jon hears it then. Rustling behind him. The sound of laces dragged loose, fabric shoved down in, yes, a hurry. He wants to look, wants to see what exactly he’s signed up for, not that he hadn’t before, just not in this context, but his arms are so weak he can barely hold himself up, much less twist around. So he stays where he is, breathing hard into the furs until they’re damp, and waits like a condemned man listening to the headsman sharpen the axe.

Then one of Tormund's hands is back on his hip. Gripping tight. Blunt pressure nudges at his hole, slick and hot and so much bigger than fingers it’s almost funny, if anything about this were funny.

"Breathe for me?"

Jon tries. Honest, he does. The pressure grows, slow and steady. Tormund pushes in slowly, so fucking slowly Jon wants to shout at him to stop being gentle and just get it over with—but then the head breaches him and—

"Fuck," Jon rasps, every muscle in his body going rigid. It burns. Gods, it burns, sharp and deep, too much, and his body’s first instinct is to clench up and spit it back out.

"Relax," Tormund tries to soothe him. "Jon, you need to—breathe, just breathe—"

Jon keeps trying. Forces himself to suck in a breath, then another, jaw locked, sweat beading at his temples. Tormund pushes in another inch. Then another. Jon can feel every miserable bit of it, the drag and stretch, until he's sure there's no way he can take more and Tormund still, somehow, keeps going.

When Tormund finally gets there—hips flush against Jon's ass, buried deep and unmoving—they both go absolutely still.

The laughter stopped somewhere along the way. The mocking died even before that, when Jon had suggested they switch places. Everything just… stops.

Jon can hear Tormund behind him and can feel him inside him.

"Jon." Tormund doesn’t sound like himself at all. "Jon, I—"

Tormund doesn’t explain. Can't, maybe. Jon feels him shake. Actually shake. This enormous man who's faced down wights and white walkers and half the fucking Night’s Watch, trembling like he’s a boy with his first willing body.

"Are you alright?" Jon asks, because his head is broken and still thinks about other people first, even while he’s the one split open on Tormund's cock, his legs wobbling like loose sticks.

"Am I—" Tormund whispers. Tormund. Whispering. "We were enemies, Jon Snow. We were enemies, and friends, and now—Jon, I'm inside you. I'm—fuck, I'm inside you, and you're—you feel—I can't—"

Jon's never heard him like this. Tormund Giantsbane, who never shuts the fuck up, who has a story or a filthy boast for every occasion.

"Move," Jon asks. Croaks. "Tormund, you can move now."

"Not yet." Tormund's grip shifts, one hand sliding up Jon's side before returning. "Just—give me a moment. Please."

Please. Tormund said please.

Jon stays still. Lets him have it. The burn’s already easing into something else, and he might even want to rock back, now that he’s already on his knees and there’s no going back.

"I love you," Tormund says suddenly. "I love you, and I—I wanted this. For so long, I wanted—" He stops. Tries again. "Thought I'd never—that you'd never—"

"I know. I know now. I'm sorry."

"Don't." Tormund's thumb rubs slow circles against Jon's ribs. "Don't apologize. Not while I'm—" He moves, just slightly, pulling back an inch that feels like a mile. "—while I'm here. Apologize later."

Jon doesn’t know about that. Seems like mistakes were made on both sides. But then Tormund starts to move for real. Careful at first, testing what Jon can take, drawing back just enough, then easing in again.

It’s not bad. Not with the worst of the burn gone. Jon feels all of it—the drag, the pressure, the way he’s full in a way he’s never been. It isn’t as sharp-good as when Tormund had his fingers finding that spot inside him. But it’s better in some other way Jon doesn’t have words for, especially when Tormund’s beard scratches between his shoulder blades as he leans in, kicking Jon’s knees farther apart and sliding a big hand under his belly to brace him.

The next time Tormund pulls back, he fucks in with less patience.

"Gods," Jon chokes, fists twisting in the furs. "Tormund, that's—"

"Good?" Tormund doesn’t sound smug now. He sounds hopeful. Fragile, even. "Tell me it's good."

"It's—fuck—" Jon’s thoughts are coming apart like rotten rope. "It's good. More."

The pace picks up, still controlled but with more weight behind it, and Jon’s pushed forward with every thrust, his cock slapping uselessly against his thigh. He doesn’t think he could come from just this, not with how new it is, but some traitorous part of him files away the thought: maybe, with practice…

He starts meeting Tormund halfway, pushing back with quiet, breathless “fuck”s each time his ass slams into a hairy groin, and rutting back against him.

"That's it," Tormund praises him. "That's my little crow. Taking it so well. Knew you'd—fuck, Jon."

The words don’t stop now. They pour out of him—more praise, filth, half-sworn vows that Jon knows he’ll remember later whether he wants to or not, burned into his mind the way Tormund’s touch is burned into his skin.

Tormund fucks him long enough that Jon’s cock starts weeping, heavy and aching, demanding its own share.

"Touch yourself," Tormund orders when Jon’s about to anyway. "Want to feel you come like this."

Jon doesn’t need telling twice. He shoves one hand under himself, wraps it around his cock, and the first stroke nearly snaps him in half. He’s so hard, so close, and Tormund is still moving behind him—adjusting his angle just in time, hitting that—

Oh, shit. Jon’s toes curl with it.

"Tormund," Jon gasps. "I'm going to—"

"Do it." Tormund leans over him, his chest a hot, crushing weight along Jon’s back, then pulls back, spreading Jon’s ass with his fingers like he’s trying to see the ruin he’s made. "Want to feel it."

Jon doesn’t so much choose as obey. His body listens to that voice like it’s law. He comes with a shout he’ll definitely regret later when some nosy bastard of a neighbor enquires, but in the moment it feels unreal, ripping through him in hot pulses that don’t seem to stop.

He barely catches the way Tormund follows, groaning loud enough to shake dust from the rafters, driving in deep and holding there while he spends himself. Jon doesn’t feel much of that specifically, just the way Tormund goes rigid and then collapses forward, flattening Jon like a man-sized fur cloak.

Jon nearly falls asleep. Just like that.

But then Tormund pulls out, and Jon almost groans not at the loss of that battering ram, but at the loss of the warmth. He doesn’t get long to complain—Tormund drags them both down onto the furs and wraps himself around Jon from behind like he’s afraid Jon might bolt if given half a chance.

"Don't even think about leavin' me," Tormund mutters into his neck, pressing a kiss there. “I’ll find ye and I’ll bring you back.”

"Wasn't planning on it," Jon says, and for once he isn’t being dishonest. "Can't feel my legs."

He can feel something tacky and disgusting on his thigh, and the distant awareness that it’s Tormund’s come leaking out is something Future Jon can deal with. Maybe.

For now, Tormund’s hand spreads over the scar above his heart, and it looks remarkably big and too protective.

"Mine," Tormund says firmly. "You're mine now."

Jon could point out that he’s not property, that he doesn’t belong to anyone, that he’s done being claimed by kings and queens and banners.

He’s too tired and too satisfied to be lying.

“Mm.” He rests his head against Tormund’s shoulder.

“Tell me once, Jon Snow,” Tormund tightens his hug. “Just once, is all I’m askin’. You tell me once, and I’ll believe ye.”

“I’ll think on it,” Jon grumbles, but he’s smiling.

“I see,” Tormund sighs, with all the drama of a man accepting his execution. He then, very predictably, bemoans, “Will die before I hear it.”

It’s busy tonight.

Jon's at his usual bench, not that there are assigned spots, nursing a cup of something that tastes like pine needles left to rot in a goat’s armpit and trying very hard to look like he's not listening to Tormund hold court by the fire.

Trying, and failing.

"—fucked the dragon queen right out of ‘im," Tormund booms.

Jon sighs. Takes a long drink. Considers walking into the sea. Now it appears to be a better option. Away. Away from the ginger cunt in question.

A few of the Free Folk are laughing. Others look skeptical.

"But Tormund Giantsbane," Tormund continues, slapping his chest for emphasis, "Tormund Giantsbane has a cock so mighty, so powerful, that it brought warmth back to—"

"Gods, help me," Jon mutters into his cup.

No one hears him. They're too busy listening to Tormund spin his tale, and Jon's fairly certain this version also involves a giant, a bear, and somehow the Night King watching from the corner.

Tormund catches his eye across the hall and winks.

He’s enjoying this while Jon’s face heats, turning the color of a boiled lobster.

It’s a stupid story. Everyone knows Tormund’s tales are one-third lie, one-third wishful thinking, and one-third whatever the hell fermented rot he drank before opening his mouth. That’s three thirds too many. The math is fucked. So is Tormund.

"—melted the ice right off ‘im—"

For fuck’s sake.

Jon drains his cup. Refills it from the jug someone left on the table. Drains it again.

It's fine. Everything's fine. No one believes him anyway. Tormund's placed this particular conquest somewhere between fucking a bear and suckling a giant's tit, which isn't exactly a place of honor in the grand chronicle of his bullshit. If anything, it's one of his less elaborate lies. Last week he claimed he'd wrestled a kraken. With his cock, of course. The kraken lost.

Still. Jon shifts again. His ass is sore. Not terribly, but enough that sitting on a hard wooden bench for extended periods is a pointed reminder of what happened once, then happened again, and then happened once more, all in the same night, while Jon was drooling for it like a depraved fucking animal.

Jon frowns. Doesn’t want to be thinking about that. Not here. Not while Tormund's three sentences away from describing the exact shape and girth of his "mighty northern weapon" and how well it fits inside him while Jon rides him.

Jon stares at the fire and tries to think about literally anything else. The Wall. Corpses. The taste of fermented pine-rot. Being stabbed. Dying again. All preferable.

Doesn't work.

Because what he’s actually thinking about is the morning.

The way Tormund had looked so obscenely pleased with himself while dragging their furs together, stacking them thick instead of wide like some territorial bear building a nest. Jon hadn’t known what to say to that. Couldn’t even mock him properly. So he’d kissed him instead.

Started it first.

And Tormund’s face afterward—Jon’s never in his life made anyone this happy, he knows that—had led to Jon on his knees, not getting fucked, but choking and clumsy, while Tormund talked him through it in that low, rough voice that made Jon’s cock twitch even while his jaw ached like he’d tried to swallow a sword.

He's a changed man, Jon thinks dimly. A thoroughly corrupted man who apparently can't sit through dinner without thinking about sucking cock. He’d suck some right now, which is still being described in great detail to a hall full of people about how it curves slightly left.

"You're red as a beetroot."

Jon's head snaps up.

A knowing look on Styr’s face makes Jon want to stab something. He drops onto the bench beside Jon without waiting for an invitation, which is typical Free Folk behavior and also incredibly inconvenient right now.

“I’m not,” Jon lies, poorly.

"You are." Styr seems to be enjoying this. "Red as a fresh-fucked maiden."

“I’m warm. The fire’s—”

“The fire’s across the hall,” Styr says dryly. “And you look like you’ve been caught with your hand in the honey pot. Curious.”

“There’s nothing curious about it.”

“No?” Styr’s grin widens. “So you just naturally blush unrelated to him describin’ fuckin’? That it? What’s the big deal?”

Jon's face burns hotter. Which is—fuck. That's not helping his case.

"I don't—" He stops. Regroups. "It's a stupid story. He's told stupider ones."

"Aye, he has." Styr agrees easily. Pauses. "But you don't usually look like you want to crawl under the table when he tells 'em."

Jon doesn't have a response to that. Mostly because Styr's right, and Jon's never been good at lying when someone's already worked out the truth.

Jon scowls into his cup.

“For what it’s worth,” Styr adds, and now there’s something almost kind under the sarcasm, “I’m glad you two sorted your shit out. Was painful watchin’ you circle each other like two half-brained elk.”

“We didn’t—”

“Snow.” Styr cuts him off. “He’s up there inventing the worst lie I’ve ever heard, might even believe it, and you look like you want to murder him and fuck him in the same breath. So aye. You worked it out.”

Jon opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.

"I don't—"

"You do," Styr says flatly. "And before you try lyin' again, which you're shit at, I'll save us both the trouble: everyone knows. Knew before you did, I reckon." Styr stands, seems to be about to clap him on the shoulder, but then backs away. Smart man. "Congratulations, crow. Try not to break him. He's a good one under all that stupid."

Suppose Jon’s been a bit stupid, too.

He picks up his cup. Raises it slightly at Tormund, whose expression changes from narrowed eyes that followed Styr out of the Hall, to warming as soon as he catches Jon looking at him. Tormund's grin widens. He raises his own cup in return, then goes right back to his story, which has apparently, and thankfully, moved on to a kraken. Again.

Jon shakes his head and drinks. Stands.

Tormund's watching him now, story forgotten. Jon has no clue how they got here, but who is to judge him? Not these people, sitting by the only man they’ve got here that could be called a king.

"Jon?" Tormund’s eyes turn a bit shifty, his voice sheepish. “I embarrass ye?”

He does. A little. What of it?

“Stand up,” Jon motions at him with his cup.

Tormund does. Everyone else watches.

It’s not a long kiss. Not deep. Just a press of lips, and when Jon pulls back, letting go of Tormund’s furs, the hall's gone dead silent.

Tormund stares like Jon just sprouted antlers.

“You’re mine,” Jon says, not loud, but as clear as he can make it. “And I’m yours. But if you tell one more story about the dragon queen, I’ll shove you off a cliff.”

A few stunned chuckles ripple through the hall.

Jon sets his cup down and turns to leave. He walks, struggling not to ask Tormund to follow him, but only makes it three steps outside the hall when Tormund tackles him straight into the pre-summer slush.

“I’ll fuck ye right here, boy,” Tormund hotly breathes into Jon’s mouth. “For claimin’ me in front of others. Good little crow.”

“No you won’t,” Jon pushes him off, shaking that sludge off his hands. His clothes are wet on his back, but he doesn’t intend to keep them on much longer.

“Aye, but only ‘cause it’s cold, and you southerners prefer workin’ up a sweat when you’re already sweaty,” Tormund agrees, on his feet first and pulling Jon up with him. His voice changes when he puts his hand on Jon’s cheek. “Why didn’t you say you wanted to leave? I would’ve wrapped it up sooner.”

Jon doesn’t answer. Might never get good at that. But he leans into him when Tormund swings his large arm around him.