Their eyes meet, the spark of recognition, and it’s Grey Worm who swings his sword down to cleave Jon’s head in two.

Jon watches his death descend upon the crown of his skull, a whistle through the air, and then—the solid thunk of an arrow piercing flesh. Grey Worm stumbles, his blade sinking into the snow by Jon’s head, blood dripping slowly from the arrowhead in his side. Jon rolls from under him as Grey Worm goes to his knee, his face twisted in a snarl.

“Bastard,” Grey Worm growls. He reaches behind himself, yanking the arrow from his back. There’s blood on his lips when he stands. “Queenslayer. Kinslayer,” he spits.

Jon gets shakily to his feet, head still spinning from the blow to the back of his skull. Dazed, his eyes slide from the ghost—her hair is molten silver in the dawn—to the shade of the man in front of him, to Mirma crouching amongst the trees, the string of her bow pulled taut.

“Jon!” the ghost screams again.

He manages to wrap his fingers clumsily around Longclaw’s hilt, drawing the sword just in time to meet the curved blade in Grey Worm’s hand. Distantly, he remembers seeing Grey Worm fight, but he can only barely dodge each expert swing.

There’s the whistle of another arrow, but Grey Worm twists with his blade, letting it pass harmlessly by his ear, his eyes never leaving Jon.

“I’d cut your head from your shoulders,” he says, each word dripping with malice. “But that’s a kinder death than you deserve.”

And Jon knows he should be watching the Unsullied man circling him, but his eyes jump dizzily back to the woman—was she always so small? He can only remember how tall she seemed sitting atop Drogon—where she stands, her long hair loose about her shoulders, eyes wide and frightened. As he stares, blood drips from her lip, and she coughs. The blood that hits the snow is his own.

“Jon!” Dany cries.

Grey Worm’s blade shines red. He doesn’t smile. “This is justice.”

Behind him, Dany is crying. She’s the Dany he barely remembers, the one that had a hidden warmth in her eyes, and not the cold insanity that burned a city to its foundations. Jon had taught himself to love her on that fleeting glimpse of warmth.

“There’s no such thing as justice,” Jon says, watching as the tears slip down Dany’s face.

Her cheeks are full and bright with life. Like this, she looks like the girl she was, and not the queen she pretended to be.

Jon rolls his shoulders and meets Grey Worms glare. He’s not in love with that girl anymore. “If you miss her so much, I’ll send you to her.”

Enraged, Grey Worm roars and swings, and Jon parries each blow. Their feet slip in the churned up snow, their swords dancing clumsy. It’s no great battle. Jon’s arms feel weak after a winter starving, and he can feel the scars keeping his chest stitched together pull painfully each time he heaves Longclaw in the air. Like this, a seasoned warrior like Grey Worm should cut him down with ease.

But Grey Worm is fighting on Jon’s land and, though the sun has risen, this is still the North. This is Jon’s kingless kingdom.

And more than a king, than a crow, than a wolf or a bastard, Jon is a survivor.

His joints warm and his lungs expand, and Jon’s hands become sure on the hilt of his sword as he moves in a familiar circle. The clang of metal on steel is an old song Jon’s never forgotten the words to. The ground is red and muddy at their feet, enough blood spilt to melt snow, when Grey Worm finally makes his mistake. He flinches back from Mirma’s third arrow and Jon takes his chance, and lops Grey Worm's head clean off.

It lands heavily in the snow, eyes full of hate, even in death.

Swaying, Jon drops his sword. In an instant, Mirma is limping to his side, tears in her eyes.

“Damn you,” she screeches, throwing her arms around his middle. Jon cringes as she presses against a deep cut at his hip, but he hugs her back. “Damn you, damn you. Will you not stop trying to die?”

Coughing wetly, Jon pats her back. “If only it were that easy,” he says lightly, before a sudden shock of awareness sobers him. There’s ice under his paws. He can smell smoke. Blood.

“Tormund,” he breathes. They release each other, Mirma’s eyes wide and frightened. Jon squeezes her shoulders, patting her cheek, before he bolts towards the lake shore.

-

He runs, crashing through heavy snowbanks, the dim light of the endless dawn setting the forest ablaze. Distantly he can hear the clang and chime of steel against steel, raised voices that bounce and scatter through the trees. Ghost meets him, bounding ahead and Jon feels himself split in half, on four legs and two, the scent of forest and salt and Tormund’s blood filling his nose.

Ghost breaks the treeline first, and the dark silhouettes of a dozen bodies are stark against the white ice of the lake, far out in the middle where Tormund hadn’t let them wander, even in the dead of winter.

“Tormund,” Jon howls, Ghost accompanying it with his own piercing bay. A war cry.

Drawing his sword, Jon swings himself up on Ghost’s shoulders just as the direwolf kneels. They are a silver streak across the ice, and Jon heaves a gasping breath as Ghost’s eyes narrow in on Tormund, his hair like fire in the weak light, wielding his axe alone in the middle of a dozen men. Tormund swings heavily, and a body falls against the ice, and the axehead splits through the ground.

There’s a horrible crack, a crescendo that follows, the shattering of ice. Jon feels it give beneath Ghost’s paws. The fighters freeze, all of them looking at their boots.

Ghost skids to a bare stop, and Jon watches in horror at the lines of ice that grow and spread out, stretching out like lightning from beneath Tormund’s feet. “Tormund!” he shouts.

Tormund looks up, his hand still on the axe handle, the blade buried deep in the ice.

“Tormund!” Jon shouts again, and tumbles down from Ghosts back. He takes three quick strides forward, the ice cracking dangerously below each step.

Tormund yanks the axe from the ice. Jon can just barely make out the expression on his face. He’s almost sure Tormund is smiling as he slams the axehead down again, the lake surface collapsing, taking him and the warriors down into the freezing waters below.

-

Jon remembers the feeling of being under the ice. He remembers the bone shattering weight of the cold water, the way it stole his breath, his heat. Sinking, slowly, frozen fingers pulling him down, down into the darkness. There are many things Jon would rather not relive.

“Breathe, pup.”

Jon watches as Tormund falls, the lake swallowing him up.

“That’s it, Jon, just breathe.”

The waters aren’t as cold as Jon remembers as he dives beneath the ice.

-

Blood pounds heavily in his ears, teeth clenched tight, desperately swallowing back the breath threatening to escape him. From the water, the sky is churned up ice and blood, a red sunrise cutting shafts of bare light through the black. Without his cloak and boots, each movement is hot metal on his skin until the pain becomes nothing but numbness, freezing his limbs. Jon swims, only the pounding of his heart, the fear in his chest keeping him afloat. He reaches out, fingers near blackened by the cold, and touches warmth.

-

With a mighty gasp, Jon’s head breaches the surface of the lake, coughing ice from his lungs, as he struggles to tread water, Tormund heavy weight in his arms. There’s shouting and a ferocious snarl, and then Ghost is there, his great paws sinking through the ice until he dips smoothly into the lake.

Jon clutches at his fur with frozen hands, pinning Tormund between him and the direwolf as Ghost turns, paddling steadily through great chucks of ice. Holding tightly as he can, Jon shivers.

Tormund is a cold, limp body against him. Jon’s not sure if he’s breathing.

A hand descends on Jon’s shoulder, yanking him back, and Tormund sinks once more into the water.

“No!” Jon screams.

Ghost turns his vast head, jaws open in a snarl, and sinks his teeth into Tormund’s shoulder, keeping him afloat until more hands reach from the edge of the ice, pulling him to solid ground.

“A fire,” someone is shouting. “Get ‘em warm!”

Jon struggles out of the hold around his arms, crawling until someone else picks him up to drag him closer. He falls from their grasp as he reaches forward, paying no mind to the hands cutting Tormund’s layers from him, fur coat tossed away along with his boots. There’s incessant fingers doing the same to the few clothes Jon still has on, the rest tossed to the side before he jumped into the ice.

He’s too cold to even shiver anymore, and when he touches Tormund’s face, he feels nothing.

“C’mon,” says a voice at Jon’s ear. When he looks up, Whitebone’s face is paler than the snow, his dark eyes wide and panicked as he starts taking off his own coat. “C’mon, to the fire, if you want to save your fingers.”

“But Tormund,” Jon croaks.

“He’s coming too,” Whitebones says, wrapping the coat around Jon’s shoulders. “C’mon, c’mon,” he urges, dragging Jon with him.

Behind, the Free Folk are wrapping Tormund in furs, lifting him to their shoulders.

“Is he breathing,” Jon asks. If he weren’t half frozen, he might cry. “Is he alive.”

“He’s alive, he’s alive,” Whitebone stutters. “Fuck, godsdamned, I don’t know how, but he’s alive.”

Stumbling, Jon goes to his knees, Whitebone coming with him, and chokes on a dry sob. He doesn’t resist when Whitebone scoops him up against his side, half-carrying, half-dragging Jon towards the steadily growing fire at the shoreline. Jon’s asleep before they make it there.

-

Jon wakes slowly, squeezing his eyes closed against the light streaming through the window. He wrinkles his nose when Tormund’s deep laugh shakes him where he lays curled against him, the bed creaking beneath their weight when Jon starts to roll away.

“Get back here, little crow,” Tormund says, voice rough with sleep. Jon can hear the smile behind the words. He drags Jon back against his chest, his hands large against Jon’s hip, palming across his ass.

Humming, Jon leans into the touch, reveling in the warmth, the soft bed beneath them, and the safety of the heated stone walls around them. Outside the window, a spring breeze is carrying the smell of flowers. Jon breathes it in for a long moment, remembering the smell of Winterfell, of his childhood room, the oils for his bow and sword, of Ghost’s puppy scent in the blankets.

There are tears on his face when he finally rolls over. Tormund’s face is blue, as if he’d just come out of the water.

“Jon,” Tormund breathes. “Why are you crying?”

Jon swallows, reaching out a hand to touch Tormund’s cold cheek. “I’m dreaming.”

Brows furrowing, Tormund pulls Jon closer until their legs are tangled. “It’s a good dream then, isn’t it?” he says. When he kisses Jon, his lips are a kiss of ice. “Laying here in bed with a handsome wildling?”

Kissing him again, Jon tries to smile. “I only dream of ghosts,” he rasps, his lip twisting as he tries not to cry. “I only ever dream of ghosts.”

Tormund’s eyes are blue fire and filled with worry, even as he grinds his half-hard cock against Jon’s hip. “Doesn’t feel very dead to me,” Tormund teases, but there’s a waver in his voice, an uncertainty.

And Jon can’t help the laugh that tears it’s way out of his throat, half joy, half grief, until it dissolves into a sob, and he gasps. “Please, please don’t leave me.” He can’t stop himself from curling into Tormund’s arms, crying loud, louder than he’s ever cried before.

If this really were Winterfell, someone would come running, maybe his father, or Robb. He imagines Catelyn, bloated and rotten, standing in the doorway to take Tormund away, and clings to him tighter.

“Please, Tor, please don’t go.”

“I won’t,” Tormund promises, holding Jon just as tightly. There’s an imprint of teeth marks on Tormund’s naked shoulder by Jon’s cheek, steadily dripping blood onto the blankets.

“Don’t go, don’t go. Please don’t leave me.”

“I won’t,” Tormund promises. “I will never leave you behind.”

“Don’t leave me. I love you. Please, Tormund.”

“I love you too, Jon. I love you so much.”

Jon tucks his head under Tormund’s chin, committing to memory the weight of Tormund’s arms around him, the scratchy kiss placed on the top of his head, the rough rumble of his voice as he whispers.

“I’ll always be here,” Tormund promises. “Don’t be scared. I’m right here.”

Closing his eyes, Jon breaks on his next breath, a maimed beast against Tormund’s side. The part of him that is more Ghost than man wants to tilt his head back and howl, scream all his sorrow and pain into the night air. But Jon is nothing more than the weak monster under Tormund’s hands, waiting for the waking world’s newest nightmare.

He wishes vehemently that he’d never open his eyes again.