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It was a particularly warm day -at least, warm for winter- when Johnna and Willa came up to the castle.
Jon hadn’t even known they were there until one of them nearly knocked him to his ass on the stone floors. He kept his ground, but let out a loud ‘oof’ as the air was forced from his body when a second one collided with the first. He looked up when he hear Tormund let out a sharp laugh and found the giant looking at both the girls clinging to him with pure musement.
“Can I help you two?”
Jon’s slightly sour look at nearly being bested by little girls, melted away at the sweet smiles they turned on him, -so damn impish like Arya had been as a child, and suddenly the ache in his chest was too much and not enough all at once- and he couldn’t help but smile back at them. “We wanted to see the castle. The leaders who have come up say that it’s so warm you don’t need clothes, but I think they’re lying.”
That was the littler one, Willa. Johnna seemed to be the quieter of the two. “Have you two told anyone you would come here? They’ll all be worried when they cannot find you both.”
Johnna answered that. “We told Cassa and Weih. They’re going to be the new leaders of the Spearwives, and Tormund put them in charge of us.”
Jon looked over to Tormund for a better idea of what they were going on about. The man smiled thinly. “My daughters have taken control of the Spearwives…” He gave the girls a pointed look, and Jon nodded once, deciding not to mention the girl’s lost mother, lest it end in tears. He knew how much lost family hurt.
He turned back to the girls instead this time, Johnna already having let go of him and her sister in place of investigating a door of all things.
Of course, above the wall there was no place like this. None of the older leaders wanted to enter the castle, for fear of man made structures, but the children could be found, as these two, with a childish curiosity for the stone walls and wooden doors. Most wood above the wall was used for burning.
“I suppose, to someone born of cold, the castle would seem warm enough to forgo clothing.”
Tormund gave him a wolfish grin. “I’ve sure tried to convince him to go without a time or two.”
Jon avoided his gaze, cheeks tinting a little pink at the reminder, and didn’t protest when the little one attached to his front started inspecting Jon’s layers of clothing - nothing like the thick animal hide she was used to, this was thin, and good for the heat of the castle. But, when winter sets in, even animal hide in the castle will feel better than the clothes he wore now.
“Your clothes are thin, they won’t protect you.”
Jon thought about how to explain to a child that indoor clothes are not to protect, but to make you comfortable. He doubted the little girl had ever heard of such a thing. Tormund came to his rescue with an amused look on his face. “The southerners are insane, love, and so is their king. He does the most ridiculous things.”
Jon gave the man a long suffering look, letting out a little sigh. The explanation would do though. “Yes, the southerners are funny and do funny things.”
Tormund shook his head, eyes a little blown. “Not funny, exotic.”
Jon raised an eyebrow. “Exotic?”
Tormund nodded decisively. “Your sister said southerners are exotic .”
Jon thought that she was probably more referring to those in King’s Landing than those in Winterfell, but he couldn’t deny that it still fit. “Is that it? I’m your exotic plaything now?”
“Why are you both standing there with children?”
Jon startled at the new voice, turning to see Sansa walking down the long corridor towards them. The little one who had previously been holding onto his cloak, let go of him in favor of the much more interesting looking woman in a long dressing gown and cloak. Sansa took the little curious girl in stride, letting her come to investigate her own clothes with the same stoic facade that Jon had. “Hello, sweet one. Who might you be?”
The little girl turned a bright smile on her. “Willa. That’s my sister, Johnna.”
Sansa knelt down to see her better, a bright smile of her own in place when the other girl came to join them. “Did you both come from the free folk camp?”
They nodded, and Johnna answered, “We wanted to see the castle. It’s so warm. Like the caves above the Wall.”
Sansa looked over to Jon and he smiled. “The caves above the wall had hot springs in them, heating them.”
Sansa nodded. “Ahh, we have those to keep us warm as well. Would you both like me to show you around?”
The girls nodded eagerly, and Sansa stood back up to talk with Tormund and Jon again. “I can keep them occupied for the day, have them fed and sent back to their camp by dinner if they want it.”
Tormund -who was still looking at Jon like he was a piece of meat, which was less worrying than when they first met- grinned at the woman. “They’ll probably want to stay here a few days. They’ve never been in a manmade structure before. Other than the Wall.”
Sansa nodded consideringly. “They can bed with me tonight if they stay. I wouldn’t mind the company.”
Tormund nodded his consent to her, and him and Jon watched the three of them leave. “Your sister is quite nice.”
“Hard not to be nice to children. She was once a child that people were not so nice to, she could have turned out differently. I’m glad she did not.”
Tormund pulled the other man into his side, arm over his shoulders, and let Jon nuzzle into him before leading them back towards Jon’s -no, their- bedchambers, fully intent on making use of the soft bed and warm walls of the room, till his king -not a crow anymore- was too exhausted to think about amusing himself in any other way.
“I should thank her, for giving us the time to… what did you say? ‘Use my exotic plaything?’”
Jon tried not to fluster, but he ended up with his head pushed into the man’s shoulder anyways, a light flush upon his cheeks. “Your king would very much like that, Tormund.”
“He better.”
***
“It is amazing that you have that gentle giant tamed.”
Jon gave Ser Davos a look of surprise, blinking once. “Tormund? Tamed? I think not. When he calls me king , I’m sure he means it entirely in jest, Ser.”
Davos looked amused, coming to stand by him as Jon went back to watching out the window to see the town being rebuilt. The Boltons had done good work at repairing the castle but they didn’t seem to care much about building around it, and outside the castle walls, Winter Town was underway as well.
“When speaking to you, he might mean this as a joke, but when he speaks of you when you’re not around, he is… proud of you.”
Jon frowned. “What a man says when I am not around, is obviously not for me to hear.”
Davos stayed hard on him, though. “I only mean to tell you, that I believe him to be your biggest supporter, and would make a good guard for you. He’s obviously around enough to do it.”
“Are you implying that I cannot defend myself?”
“No. I’ve seen you, you’re stronger than anyone you might consider an enemy, but I was born in King’s Landing, and I know what people do to kings and queens that make decisions they don’t agree with.”
“This is not King’s Landing, and I have the support of the free folk. Anyone would be foolish to try to get rid of me, and anyone who gets close enough to try, will deal with me themselves. You’ve already seen what I do to people who hurt me, and I would do the same for anyone who hurt them as well. The North is much more harsh to anyone who does not like it here. They can go south if they hate it so much.”
“You will still need someone to be on guard for you, when you cannot be.”
Jon turned to look at the man for a long moment, unblinking, before turning back to the window. He wished he could be out there with the rest of them, building and training, but he’s been told times before, it’s unbecoming of a king to work as a peasant. He wanted to yell that he was nothing like any other king they’ve had, but even Tormund had told him it would be best to sit this argument out. There would be time for arguing when they were all safe and well. After the coming war, as if Tormund either truly believed they’d win, or he was trying to convince Jon they would. “As you’ve said, he is around often enough. I wouldn’t worry about my safety, he gets quite possessive of others touching me.”
Davos let out a little huff, almost amused. “So it is true, then.”
“True? True that we share a bed? Yes. I thought about hiding that, about denying it to anyone who would ask, but over the past half a decade - more now, I’ve realized, that it’s those who don’t flinch at that sort of thing, those are the ones I call my people, and they’re standing right outside the gates now.”
“You would take the wild- the free folk , as your people to forsake the north?”
“No, I take all the north as one, because if I am to call myself king, I can love noone more. The free folk are a part of my north, and anyone who denies them, is not. The free folk will stay, and the rest will get used to it.”
Davos nodded once, and turned to leave again, though Jon stopped him. “Ser, a moment.”
“Yes, Jon Snow.” He still did not call him king , and that was perfectly fine with Jon himself.
“Sansa has taken two young girls into her charge. Daughters of a Spearwife who… well, she did not make it back from Hardhome. They’ve been here a week, coming back and forth from the camp as they please, though it seems as though these halls are going to see them much longer than we had all thought. Sansa loves them both dearly, I can tell already, but I dare say, she knows nothing about taking care of children, though they brighten her day so. If you cannot, it’s alright, but I would be remiss if I did not ask a man who is as experienced with taking care, not to guide her if you could.”
Davos did not speak for a long minute, and when he did, it sounded a little raw, somewhat painful. “I would be honored to help Lady Sansa with whatever she needs. Do you know where I might find them at the moment?”
“Sansa took them out to the Godswood. The free folk worship the old gods and the children have never seen a Godswood in person before. Many free folk have come, despite their nervousness of being in a manmade building, to see the Godswood and pray. The girls seem to find it a beautiful place, though.”
Davos nodded. “I will see if I can find them there. If that be all, my Lord?”
Jon held back a flinch, not at his tone -Davos was perfectly respectable- but at how Davos’s face nearly crumbled at the honorific coming out of his own mouth; too many things, too painful for that not to tear a scar or two.
“Yes, thank you, Ser.”
The knight bowed, short, once, and left the room again.
Jon turned back to the window, looking out at the courtyard once more.
He could see Tormund standing in the yard where Jon himself had been trained in the sword as a boy, and instructing three young children in proper form with blunted training swords they had pulled out for them to use. He couldn’t keep the smile off his face when he looked at them all.
They were a much better thing to focus on, than the coming war.
Life goes on, even in a battlefield, and he hoped it would go on for longer after.
***
It’s not that Jon did not know that Tormund respected him, but he really never wanted to have a man kneel at his feet.
The reason they worked out so perfectly for each other, is because Tormund understood that he would rather be the one kneeling , than to be knelt to.
He had joined the night’s watch, he never expected to be in command, and he never went for glory or honor. He went because even as a boy, he had known it was the right thing to do. He went, because he had dreamt of a battle there, even if as a child, he had thought the dream to be a childish fancy of too many tales of war.
He went, because even when he believed the free folk to be his enemy, he had dreams of them all living below the wall, happy and peaceful with their own land. Away from the enemy beyond.
“What thoughts are in your head right now?”
Jon sighed a little, curled up in too many blankets, naked and sated against his big wildling lover in the night, playing with one of Tormund’s hands, honestly amazed by how much bigger he was. “Whatever thoughts I have do not matter. My thoughts never matter, it’s only my dreams.”
Tormund raised an eyebrow at the quiet melancholy in Jon’s voice, so resigned and believing his own words. “What’s brought that on? I’ve always found your thoughts interesting.”
Jon shook his head. “My thoughts are never right, though. Ever since I was a babe, thoughts didn’t drive me, my own opinions of things so often wrong, my dreams were the only time I could see the truth. The only time I could see ahead.”
Tormund looked shocked. “You can see the future in your dreams? Then why are you so afraid of them?”
Jon was quiet a bit longer, “I am not afraid of my dreams, Tormund, I fear my nightmares. Since I was little, I followed my dreams, leading me to the Wall… showing me battles that I’ve since fought. There was even a time I dreamt of you, though now I know why. I fear my nightmares, because all I know, is that my dreams come true, and while being buried under a mound of dead bodies has come and passed, and so has being stabbed to death, what if the rest of them, are not nightmares, but my future?”
Tormund gently pulled the man in closer, pressing the softest, unurgent kiss to his lips, not pulling back until Jon was sighing softly between them, body relaxing in between Tormund and the blankets. “Your future is your own. You say you’ve always followed your dreams, so keep following them, and avoid the ones that make you upset. You know what can happen, so don’t let it.”
“And would you protect me from them?”
Tormund snorted. “As if you need protecting. I’ll protect you till you can protect yourself, and then I’ll keep protecting you, because the thought of losing you makes me sick.”
“Then I think I’ll do the same for you.”
“I couldn’t keep you from it if I tried.”
“No, you could not.”
Tormund let Jon tangle their fingers up together again, using Tormund’s shoulder as a pillow like he did most nights, once more ready to face his dreams, good or bad, he was ready to face them again.
***
Meanwhile, Sansa is slightly regretting her original statement of letting Johnna and Willa bed down with her, when for the ninth night in a row, she finds herself squeezed between two small bodies that have wormed their way into her arms and her heart.
No… she doesn’t regret it. She does think about getting them their own room though.