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Jon is five when it starts to appear, not a distinct shape yet, just a blurry spot on his wrist. Everyone knows about the marks and Jon is excited that he's got one too now. He always thought maybe there wouldn’t be one for him, that maybe he’s not good enough.
Not everyone has them, mostly people from noble houses. And he’s not a Stark. Jon runs straight to Maester Luwin, unable to contain a happy flutter in his chest. The maester examines the mark and smiles at Jon.
"Give it another year and you will know the house your soulmate comes from. But Jon..."
His smile fades and he looks down at Jon, his eyes sympathetic. His voice is tinged with sadness when he continues.
"Don't get your hopes up too high, my boy. It is possible - probable, even - that you won't be allowed to marry into a noble house. Do you understand why?"
Jon bites down on his lip. His eyes start stinging but he’s too big to cry over stupid things like this. And if he did, Robb would see and ask what’s wrong, and Robb never cries anymore. He wins the fight, for now, and shrugs.
"Because I'm a bastard," he says.
The maester watches him try to get his footing back. It can't be easy, learning you have a soulmate but little to no hope of ever being with them. The maester sighs. He'll learn to live with it.
He can sense it in Jon, the same character trait he’s seen in many Starks so far. A will of iron. And even if the boy is just five years old it’s already visible, what he’ll grow up to be. A strong man. With hopefully enough moderation to keep him safe.
"I think you should hide it, Jon. Maybe... maybe your soulmate will be a bastard too. But I wouldn't count on it."
For a moment the maester hesitates, wants to tell the child he’s sorry about not being able to give him more hope. He doesn’t. The world will never let a bastard forget his place. The sooner Jon learns this, the better for him.
Jon nods and drags his sleeve down.
"All the houses - there are so many people in each one. How will I know who it is?"
"You will feel it. When they’re around you, you’ll feel some kind of pull towards them. Sometimes people know the moment they lay eyes on their soulmate. Others don’t feel much at all, particularly those not interested in soulmates.”
Jon’s head is spinning. All of this sounds immensely complicated.
***
A year later the mark has taken the shape of a creature Jon has never seen before. He secretly looks it up in the library. It's a kraken, the sigil of house Greyjoy. It has eight arms and looks weird. There are pictures of them in one book and Jon studies them wide-eyed.
They are big and fierce and dangerous. They can grab a ship and tear it apart in a second, and drag it to the ground of the ocean. Jon shivers pleasantly. It reminds him of the creatures of Old Nan’s scary stories.
Jon reads a lot about the Iron Islands, where house Greyjoy has its seat. About the fearsome men living there, attacking and reaving the shores, hard men, merciless and fierce.
There’s not much to be found about Ironborn women, apart from some very complicated paragraphs about something called rock and salt wives that Jon doesn’t understand at all.
The Greyjoys have a castle named Pyke, which is also the name given to Ironborn bastards. Jon’s prayers are always the same now.
Please let my soulmate's name be Pyke.
Jon isn’t sure if he likes the thought of living on an island. He’s never been to one, has never even seen the sea. He thinks it would be scary, to be surrounded by water all the time, with no way out.
Only by boat. Apparently Greyjoys sail a lot. Jon has never been on a boat. What if he doesn’t like that either? They wouldn’t have anything in common, he and his soulmate. But then, Jon doesn’t think he’ll leave Winterfell anytime soon.
What if his soulmate were to come here? For a visit, on their way through… would they stay? Would they be able to live so far away from the sea? And for someone they don’t even know.
He hides the mark, starts to always wear thick leather cuffs around his wrists. No one knows besides the maester, not even Robb. Jon could tell him, of course. It’d be nice, to share this with his brother, his closest friend.
It would be good to have someone to talk to about it, but then they’re not girls. Do boys talk about things like that? Maybe Robb would laugh at him. Or worse, pity Jon. He’s just a bastard after all.
Robb, being heir to Winterfell, will get his mark some day and knowing Robb and his luck it’s going to be a perfect lady from a perfectly noble house. And Jon is stuck with a house full of pirates and reapers.
***
Father has to go to war when Jon is eight. Balon Greyjoy has rebelled against King Robert, has broken his oath of fealty and declared himself King of the Iron Islands, and Father has to help his friend King Robert.
Jon is torn. His soulmate is there somewhere. He nearly asks his father to take him, but he knows it would be no use. He's too young to go to war. Besides, he’s just a bastard. Father wouldn’t even take Robb.
Father wins, of course he does. The raven preceding him tells them he's bringing a hostage. Jon feels his hopes flare up, no matter how hard he tries to keep them down. A hostage, that wouldn’t be someone of too much importance. Maybe a bastard child of Lord Greyjoy. Maybe his soulmate.
Father comes home. With him is a boy. He's got huge, frightened eyes. He scans the faces of those greeting them and his gaze sweeps over Jon - and Jon knows. It's you, it’s really you. He wants to run over, hold out his hand and tell him not to be afraid. They're together now.
"This is Theon. He's Balon Greyjoy's youngest son and heir."
Father's voice shatters Jon's thoughts. He stops himself before he has taken the first step. Highborn. A future lord. His brothers are dead, Jon has heard they fell.
"Robb?" Father looks at Jon's half-brother, the trueborn son. "I trust you will do what you can to make Theon feel at home."
Robb nods eagerly and grins, and Theon smiles timidly, for the first time. Jon feels his chest tighten. He listens to Robb introducing himself.
"I'll show you to your chambers. We have everything ready for you!"
Jon knows he should go, should avoid him as much as he possibly can. Instead he totters behind Robb and Theon like he’s being pulled on a string. He listens to Robb chatting away, not aware of Jon's presence.
"I wouldn't have thought your father would send you. You're too important."
Theon shrugs. His voice doesn’t sound afraid at all when he answers casually, he seems to hold himself very different now, compared to what he had looked like out in the courtyard.
"I don't know about that. Maybe. But I do have this thing here," he stops and rucks up his tunic. Robb examines the skin on his hip with interest.
"A soulmate mark! And it's our sigil. That means..?"
"Yeah. One of you lot is my soulmate .” He says it with disdain. “So it makes sense, I guess. Not that I ever wanted one, but... well. What about you, what house is yours from?"
Robb laughs.
"I don't have one yet. I'm taking after my mother's family and the Tullys tend to get them very late. My uncle Edmure still hasn't his, and my mother's appeared only weeks before she married my father." He looks at Theon curiously. "Have you felt anything?"
"All the time since I've come here. Now, too. Maybe it's you?"
He says it with a grin and Robb blushes before swatting his arm. Jon must have made a small noise because they both turn to him, Robb questioningly, Theon with a frown.
"Who's that?"
"My half-brother." Robb looks at Jon disapprovingly. "Jon, why are you sneaking behind us? Just come here and stop being silly. Theon is our new friend."
Jon doesn't dare to look up. Everytime Theon speaks his voice does something to Jon. It’s strange and Jon isn’t able to pinpoint it. It makes him think of that bard that visited Winterfell once. His song had put a spell on everyone who listened. Jon feels spellbound now.
"Half-brother? You mean-"
Jon's cheeks feel hot. "My name is Jon Snow." He finally braves a look.
There's something like surprise ghosting over Theon's face before he snorts.
"A bastard."
"My brother," Robb says in his lordling voice.
Theon shrugs and turns his back on Jon.
He doesn't like me, Jon thinks, his eyes stinging. Because I'm just a bastard. He knows he should leave now. He can't.
***
He can never stay away. Robb and Theon have become fast friends and do everything together. And Jon tags along, feeling miserable all the time. Theon really doesn't like him, he calls him bastard, or Snow if he feels especially gracious. He takes every opportunity to make fun of Jon.
But being miserable around Theon is better than not being around Theon at all, so Jon stays. He doesn't talk much, afraid that his voice might betray him, might reveal the longing he feels.
***
The older they get the more Jon falls. And feels more awkward every day. He grows more quiet than ever because his voice is all over the place. Black stubble has started to appear on parts of his face - it looks like a small animal has died on it. In the morning he wakes to damp sheets and vague memories of confusing dreams that make him blush whenever Theon is around.
Theon doesn’t seem to have any problems. Being two years older than Jon he’s already a man grown at fifteen, full of edges and hard lines. Jon can see the girls ogling him and Theon is busy ogling back with that smug grin of his. Jon can’t recall ever hearing his voice crack, or him looking like an idiot with too long limbs and no idea what to do with them.
Robb, being Robb, seems to have experienced a similar, effortless growing-up process. One day he’d been a curly-haired boy with freckles and a gap-toothed smile, the next he had shoulders like a man, a deep voice and manly stubble over his suddenly chiseled chin.
Jon can only watch in envy. Watch and sigh and try not to kick something everytime he sees Theon riding off to Wintertown, or disappearing with one of the serving girls. Jon doesn’t understand how he can be so careless, so… it’s not honourable.
Father has raised them all the same, or tried to at least. Jon would never betray Father’s trust, and neither would Robb. Theon shrugs and smirks and does what he wants. Jon hates him for it. Can’t hate him as much as he tries.
Theon is beautiful. Every day more to Jon’s eyes. When he draws an arrow, his greatest skill, Jon's breath catches. When he gestures around wildly while telling Robb of something funny he’s seen, Jon wants Theon to look at him like that. When Theon smiles...
Theon smiles a lot, but it's his real smile that's the most beautiful. And he only ever gives it to Robb. And his gaze lingers on him, and then Robb smiles back, oblivious to the desire burning in Theon’s eyes. Jon can see it. He knows it’s only a matter of time.
***
At fifteen Jon goes to see the maester again, the questions eating him up.
Is it possible that you don’t feel a connection with your soulmate?
Is it possible not to like your soulmate?
Is it possible to be in love with someone else than your soulmate?
The maester patiently explains everything.
“A bond has to grow, it’s seldom that one falls in love with their soulmate right away. Not feeling drawn to your soulmate is rare, though. Dislike can happen, but normally it dissolves after a while, when the partners get to know each other. After all they’re meant to be together. But - yes. You can fall in love with anyone. Some people fall for someone else and ignore their marks.”
Jon sighs. This makes sense, after all that’s how commoners have lived and loved and bred for centuries, never needing soulmates or anything of the kind. It’s only the noble houses stuck with all this nonsense and heartbreak and complications.
Maester Luwin studies Jon’s thoughtful face.
“Just because you have a mark doesn’t mean you or your soulmate are obliged to be together.”
He gives Jon a sympathetic look. He’s seen Jon looking at Theon, he knows Jon isn’t asking for himself. Still, there's no need to torment the boy further.
“The Greyjoy boy? You don’t like him?”
Jon sighs. “No, I mean, I don’t know. I think I… nevermind.”
The maester watches him go with concern. Theon and Robb are joined at the hip, and if the ward’s mark is a direwolf… It’s better that way, for Jon. The maester prays that Robb’s mark will take a long time yet to show.
Jon wanders through the castle, lost in thoughts. Does he like Theon? The moment he saw him he knew he’d wanted to be with him - but does he like him? He rounds a corner and stops dead in his tracks.
Robb, lost in a passionate kiss. Theon. Neither noticing him. How long has this been going on? It can’t be long, Jon would’ve known. He knows everything Theon does. Had known this would happen some day, but now that it does…
Jon flees, thoughts and feelings in turmoil. He avoids them both for days, hiding his red eyes and helpless sobs in his chamber. It gets to the point where Father thinks he’s sick and Jon tries to get himself together.
It’s wrong of him, to cause Father worry. And it’s not like anything has changed. Theon has never wanted him and will never want him, no matter if he and Robb are - whatever they are. Lovers, Jon thinks, the word burning in his throat.
And it’s not Robb’s fault, Robb doesn’t know. Jon would never say a word, would never take anything from him. That’s something he has internalized, with a great deal of Lady Catelyn’s help. Never lay eyes on what is Robb’s.
***
“Pssst! Jon!”
Jon wakes up to Robb sitting on his bed, wrapped in a fur. He looks like an overgrown puppy with it. It’s been his sixteenth name day feast that evening and he’s obviously drunk. Jon blinks, sitting up with a yawn.
“What is it? Can’t sleep?”
“Missed you is all. Why didn’t you come drinking with Theon and me after the feast?”
“Didn’t want to intrude,” Jon mumbles.
“You’re stupid. Only because we’re… it doesn’t mean you can’t be there too. Oooh. I’m terribly thirsty. Do you have some water?”
Jon reaches for the cup on his bedside table and holds it out to Robb. Robb reaches for it, but it slips through his suddenly stiff fingers and lands on Jon’s bed, spilling onto his furs. He gasps and grips Jon’s arm in an iron hold.
“Jon… what is this?”
Jon wants to die, wants to fall through the furs into the deepest of the seven hells. He should’ve worn the cuffs when sleeping, he should’ve been more careful. Robb brushes one finger over the tiny kraken. He seems to be fighting back tears, swallowing again and again. But when he looks up, his eyes are dry.
“Why didn’t you say something? Oh Jon…”
Jon snatches his arm back.
“It doesn’t matter, really. I know you love him and I would never - I’m just a bastard. And it doesn’t have to be me. Maybe you’ll have a kraken too and all will be well and I - I’ll go and join the Night’s Watch.”
Robb listens in silence until Jon is finished. Then he clears his throat.
“I love Theon. But he’s not my soulmate.” He smiles. “I don’t feel it and he doesn’t. Theon knows I’m not his soulmate. He always says he can feel something around here, but I figured that’s just talk to get me into bed. Or maybe that it could be Sansa, only she’s too young to know. I never would’ve thought it’d be you. How long have you known?”
Jon sniffs. “Since I was six.”
Before Jon can protest or dodge him, Robb has pulled him into a hug.
“Why haven’t you said something? Don’t you think you deserve a chance? Don’t you think Theon does? I know you don’t like him, but couldn’t you try?”
Now Jon can’t hold back anymore. “I loved him from the first moment I’ve known I have a soulmate. No matter who it was, I loved them. And he came here and he’s going to be a lord and he doesn’t like me and he loves you and I’m a bastard and we would never be allowed -” He stops himself. “He doesn’t like me.”
Robb sighs.
“Okay, first. Even if we would be soulmates we’d have to marry and get heirs anyway. So that’s not a good excuse, if you ask me. Remember the Tyrells?”
Jon shakes his head and Robb takes a deep breath.
“One of the boys is soulmates with King Robert’s brother and he will marry a Tyrell girl when the time comes. She will bear his children and Lord Renly can still be together with his soulmate.”
Jon listens in silence. He’s never really thought about that before, no one will expect him to produce heirs. The thought of Theon being married to someone else - he doesn’t like it. And when Theon believes Robb is his soulmate he’s probably thinking of marrying Sansa. Jon feels sick.
Even if Theon would be interested in him, one day he’d go back to Pyke to sit on that damn seastone chair and rule over those cursed islands. And he would marry some Ironborn girl, a rock wife. Jon - the image has his stomach churn - would be nothing more than some guy hanging around Lord Greyjoy. He shudders.
Robb isn’t done yet with his lecture.
“And then - you’ve never really given him a chance to like you, you know? I think you have never even smiled at him once.”
“What good would that do? I’m still a bastard. He didn’t like me from the start, when he heard who I am. And it’s all nonsense anyway. You are… you two are… I would never stand in your way, Robb.” Jon looks at his brother, pleading. “Please don’t tell him, Robb. Please!”
“I won’t,” Robb finally says. “But maybe you should. Forget about that whole bastard thing. He’s not a lord yet, and when he is - well, it’d be up to him. Whom he’d choose.”
“You,” Jon whispers. “Always you.”
***
It’s three nights later when there’s a knock on Jon’s door in the middle of the night. Jon goes to open it, already knowing who it is. Has Robb told him?
“Greyjoy,” he says as curtly as he can muster.
Theon is drunk out of his mind, he’s leaning against the doorframe to steady himself.
“Snow. Let me in.”
Jon knows it’s probably the stupidest thing he’ll ever do, but he steps aside. Theon comes in and slumps face-first onto Jon’s bed. Jon watches from the door, fighting the urge to go over, sit by his side, stroke his hair. Finally Theon looks up.
“Don’t stand there like an idiot. Come here. I need to talk to you.”
Jon wanders to the table and takes the chair to the bedside. Theon rolls his eyes.
“Not gonna bite you, am I? Forget it. Snow. You have to talk to Robb.”
Jon frowns, not expecting that. “Why?”
Theon sniffs. “He said we shouldn’t - anymore - because we’re not - fuck this!”
Jon is baffled. Why would Robb do such a thing? He’s told him he would never stand in their way. He can’t help the sudden rush of anger surging through him. Of course, Robb means well. Means to spare Jon’s feelings. Theon rolls onto his back.
“It has to be him, it can’t be anyone else. I can feel it, even now. And he’s bloody perfect, we’re both the heir of our house… it HAS to be him. Snow.”
He raises his head and looks at Jon with bloodshot eyes. Jon winces at the pain he can see in them. Fuck his feelings. What about Theon’s? Jon is torn, a part of him full of love and gratefulness for his brother, another part resenting Robb for hurting Theon like this. And Theon is hurting, that much is clear.
“Could you talk to him? I know he listens to you.”
Jon feels as if there’s a fist slamming into his chest, again and again. He feels nauseous. But he nods. There’s probably nothing he would refuse Theon. Nothing at all. He’s rewarded with a smile, a real smile, and he gets up before he can do something unforgivable.
“I’ll talk to him. You have my word. You should go now.”
Theon gets up and staggers past Jon to the door. Before leaving he turns back, his face serious. “Thank you, Snow.”
For a moment Jon wants to scream at him, wants to grab his shoulders and shake him silly. How can he not feel it, here, now, the two of them alone for once, a kind of truce hanging between them. How can he not notice what Jon can feel burning through his body, like flames, consuming every fiber of his being?
He closes the door in Theon’s face, leans his back against it and slowly slides down along the wood until he’s sitting on the hard, cold stone. Behind the thick wood he can still feel him, his confusion. Jon buries his face in his hands as he senses Theon finally leaving.
***
Jon talks to Robb. A promise is a promise. But Robb is surprisingly stubborn. And Theon is miserable. Jon can’t bear it, he’s more sullen than ever to avoid just reaching out to him.
Theon has started to talk to him more, if only whining about Robb, how he misses him, how they’re meant to be together... Jon listens, his face a dour mask, his mind reeling. Every word is like a blade to his flesh, as if he’s bleeding on the inside from a thousand tiny cuts.
Like a bloody raven he carries Theon’s messages to Robb, only to have Robb sigh and shake his head, about Jon as much as about Theon. “Tell him,” he says, over and over, until Jon is ready to scream.
He nearly does tell him, one of those evenings where Theon has cornered him somewhere to sit and have Jon watching him drink and listen to his whinging and raving. More than once Jon opens his mouth, only to close it again.
It stops soon enough. Theon gives up. He starts riding to the brothel in Wintertown again, nearly every evening. He avoids them both, is more cruel to Jon than ever before, snaps at Robb at every opportunity.
He even is impudent to him in front of Lord Stark, telling Robb he doesn’t have to listen to him. It seems to be all Theon has left, cruelty and arrogance - and whores. Jon hates him. Loves him. Hates himself for loving him. He can’t bear it anymore.
***
The time has finally come to say farewell. Jon is leaving his home, his family, Theon, everything behind, is going to join the Night’s Watch, like he told Robb he would all those months ago. He pretends it’s his greatest, his only wish, and Father consents.
Jon has already said goodbye to Bran, to Robb. Theon is nowhere to be seen. Maybe it’s better like this. Jon still looks for him, doesn’t want to leave without a last sneer, a last disdainful “Snow”. He doesn’t find him.
But when Jon wants to mount his horse he’s held back by a hand tugging on his cloak. He knows before he turns around, of course he knows. Several layers of fabric and it burns, like being too close to a fire. Jon turns around to face him, carefully keeping his face blank.
“Greyjoy.”
Theon extends a hand, a lopsided grin on his face.
“Take care, Snow.”
For a moment Jon hesitates, then he inhales deeply and bites the fingers of his glove to get it off. He takes Theon’s hand, the first and last time he’ll touch him, the only contact, the only heat he’ll allow himself before a lifetime of winter.
It’s like a jolt through his whole body, like touching an open flame without the pain. Maybe there is pain, but it doesn’t burn his skin. Pain, love, hate, loss, all the same in the second of this one heartbeat.
Jon can’t prevent a gasp from escaping his throat, can’t prevent himself from looking at Theon. He’s staring at Jon, eyes wide in shock, his grip tightening. Jon knows he finally sees. He knows Theon finally realised who it is that makes him feel.
“Snow-”
It’s too late. Too late for them, too late for anything but a last, or maybe a first smile. Jon draws his hand back, the sudden cold making him shiver. He pulls the glove back on and turns his back on him, climbs onto his horse.
“Goodbye, Theon.”