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She has grown up with an absent mother and an even more absent father. So when Rickon Stark shows up in her life she doesn’t know quite what to do with him.
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Shireen is eighteen when she first meets Rickon Stark.
She is at some party that Devan dragged her to- truthfully she’s rather be at home in her apartment, watching reruns of Doctor Who. But now she’s at some random party, with Devan long gone, sipping beer from a red plastic cup and standing against the wall trying not to be seen.
The music is loud, only surpassed by the people that seem to take up every crevice of the small house, and she takes a deep breath- her nose wrinkling at the smell of BO and weed, before she makes her way out of the house.
The cold hair hits her and she wishes more than anything at that moment that she had at least brought gloves. Instead she rubs her hands together as snow falls onto the less than pristine streets of the city. It’s almost magical.
Shireen is so engrossed in her thoughts that she doesn’t see him until she bumps into him none to gracefully.
The first thing she notices about him is his hair; red and vibrant even in the low lights of the street lamps, and so unkempt that she is sure that he didn’t even bother to brush it that morning. It suits him.
‘’ Hey.’’ She says quietly. Shireen tugs her cap tighter over ears in an attempt to appear pretty, but knows it’s quite useless; she knows what she is and what she isn’t.
He tilts his head a little, an unlit cigarette still in his mouth, and gives her an almost-smile, ‘’ Hey.’’ He echoes.
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Being with Rickon Stark is sometimes like being on a rollercoaster; there are the highs and lows, and sometimes she just holds her breathe and waits for the preverbal drop to come.
Then sometimes it’s so calm, like floating in a canoe, lying on the bottom and not caring about where the day is going- where you’re going. There is tranquility in those moments when they are laying on her couch watching reruns with a package of Twizzlers between them, that she just lays her head on his shoulder and wishes for it to never end.
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Of course her parents don’t approve.
Rickon is younger than her; wild and untamable.
Her mother says he’s headed straight for jail, and her father doesn’t say anything, but the disapproving looks say it all.
She doesn’t blame them, not really. But the thing they won’t ever understand is that this isn’t one of those movies where good girl meets bad boy- teen rebellion and drama, with some crappy- cliché happy ending.
They don’t see the man who wakes from the nightmares and brushes them off as if they are nothing; the one who brushes back her hair and kisses her ears- as if that’s normal.
They don’t seen the man that’s lost it all- who’s hit rock bottom, yet still has the courage to brush himself off and pick himself up and move on with his life.
Shireen is partly with Rickon Stark because it pisses her parents off, but mostly it’s because she’s in love with him.
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The first time he kisses her, he does so against a brick wall in some back alleyway. She remembers the heavy smell of cigarettes that always seemed to cling to him, and the taste off cheap alcohol on his tongue. Shireen had wrapped her arms around him then and had run her hands through his messy hair- like she had been dying to do since the night she met him.
It wasn’t her first kiss- no that belonged to Devan; back when they were fourteen and too young to know the difference between a crush and love, and it was all sweaty palm and nervous twitches.
No, it may not have been her first kiss, but it certainly was the best.
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‘’He’s good for you.’’ Devan says one day, and she smiles.
She’s been doing that more and more lately.
‘’ Yes,’’ she says, ‘’ he is.’’
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The best thing about Rickon is that he doesn’t waste his words. She has learned that he would much rather show her rather than tell her.
So it’s quite surprising when he whispers, ‘’ I love you.’’ To her one night; when she is between dreaming and waking. Shireen turned to look at him in surprise before kissing him.
She supposes she hasn’t been much for words either.
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Shireen is there to wrap her arms her around him when he visits his parents and brother’s graves.
His sisters are still missing, he tells her.
And she is there when they arrest the Lannister’s- all of them; for murder.
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The first time he makes love to her she is nervous because he is so sure and confidant, but she isn’t, but he makes her laugh and moan and whimper; that by the end of it all she forgets everything else.
All she can think of is that it’s him and her, and it feels right.
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She doesn’t even see the truck coming.
But then she wakes to beeping; feeling weightless and happy. It makes her giggle.
Then she looks around the room- at the pristine white room, and then feels the gauze that covers half her face; it’s as if the world is crashing down around her.
Her mother and father visit her offering her empty words, but all she can think of is the words, ‘irreparable damage,’ that the doctor had whispered to her parents when he thought she couldn’t hear; as if she were broken goods.
Rickon comes to her hospital room when she’s finally able to sit up,
He walks into the room in worn jeans and an ACDC shirt that has seen better days- she has never been happier to see than right at that moment.
Rickon sits on the edge of her bed and without hesitation kisses her nose and then the corner of her lips on the undamaged side of her face, while tears and snot run down her face.
‘’ Hey.’’ He says softly in greeting as he cups her cheek.
‘’ Hey.’’ She echoes brokenly.