Julia

꒰ ׂ ׅ ׄ  ׅ ׄ  book jon snow x reader.

੭‎summary: the night's watch leaves for the expedition, but you stay behind, and you have one last conversation with jon before he leaves.

੭word count: 2577.

੭‎warnings: |femreader!|mention of reader with short hair|this is specifically book Jon from a clash of kings|many mentions of other characters|there's a previous part to this, but you can read this one without needing to read the other, I think, lol|.

‎Also, here it is

੭‎a/n: Thank you all for your support on the previous fic. It felt really nice to see that some people liked it ෆ.‎‎This is short, nothing special, I did it because I was bored lol, it's almost the same as the previous one.

You feel the cold seeping into your body despite being bundled up in the night's watch gear: the gloves, the furs, everything. The cold was harsh, even worse at night, but you endured it. You had to, if you preferred being outside rather than in the comforts of the mess hall, with all the men, the noise.And sure, inside it was a bit cold too, but not as much as in the yard.But still, you preferred the yard.

When you weren't at your post serving Maester Aemon, to rest or pass the time, you preferred the yard when it was empty, the armory, the library, or any place where there weren't many people.

You walked around trying to warm your hands. Your gaze fell on a bench that stood alone in the yard, the bench they always used for training: while some fought, the others sat there waiting, waiting for their turn to be hit with a wooden sword.

You shivered a little at the memory, but also felt great relief. Thank the gods, you no longer had to go through those trainings. The men who helped the Maester had nothing to do with that.

You walked towards it, watching the snow pile on top of your boots with every step. You stopped for a moment before sitting down, checking to see if the yard was truly empty or not.But in the end, there was no one, so you sat down.

It was just: you, the biting cold, and the snow on your boots.

«Of course, everyone's inside,» you thought.

Most of the Night's Watch men were eating or drinking in the comfort of the hall. Even from there, you could still hear the noise, the laughter, the conversations, the shouts, the crude jokes.

«Everyone's inside, with their friends,» you thought. But you were alone in the yard, away from everyone.

That might have been a little disheartening, but it was for the best: the more people who saw you and paid attention to you, the greater the chance they'd discover your true gender.

It wasn't worth the risk just to socialize.

It's not that you didn't have friends, but you could count them on the fingers of one hand.

Exactly three.

And one of them wasn't even human.

Sam was one of them; spending time together in your duties with the Maester, you'd exchanged some words and stories, and became friends quickly.

You wanted to believe the other was Jon. Although you hadn't spoken in a while due to his duties with Lord Commander Mormont, he never said anything about your secret.

You trusted him.

You felt your cheeks burn a little; you wanted to believe it was from the cold, but you knew it wasn't.

It was because of him.

You remembered how you'd seen him looking at you sometimes, while he thought you were distracted. It wasn't an idle look, but a protective one, as if he was always watching you, watching to make sure you stayed alive.

Even if you didn't speak, his gaze was always on you.

Once, while he was looking at you, you turned to him and gave him a small, kind smile. He just startled a little, realizing you'd caught him staring, lowered his head, and left.

You thought you saw a faint blush on his face before he looked down.

But nothing more. That day was the last time you saw him.

The following days you stayed with Maester Aemon and Sam in the tower. Until today, when Aemon convinced you and Sam to come out of your self-imposed isolation.

You shook your head, trying to snap out of your thoughts, and wondered if anyone had seen you leave, but it was unlikely. Not many noticed your presence, except to mock you.But that was the same for every man on the Wall; everyone had mocking nicknames, and you were no exception.

At least yours wasn't as horrible as Sam's. They called him Piggy, or something like that. Truth be told, you always tried to pay as little attention as possible to the nicknames they came up with.

Footsteps pulled you from your thoughts. They were soft. More than steps, they sounded like footfalls, the footfalls of an animal.

You stood up a little to look, but only saw red eyes in the shadows.You already knew who it was.

This was your third friend.

The wolf.

"Come out of there, Ghost," you said.

The direwolf emerged from the darkness calmly and approached you, placing his snout on your knees, as he always did.You smiled and petted his head a little, running your fingers through his soft white fur.

Most people were afraid of Ghost. You could see it on their faces whenever Jon passed by with the direwolf, but to you, he had become like a giant white dog.

You knew he was still dangerous, but he had never been aggressive with you.

And you had grown used to his presence.

Lately, he just came to your cell as if nothing else, scratched the door with his paws, came in, and lay down beside you, as if your cell and your small bed were his and you were the intruder. At first, you were a little surprised; the wolf seemed to never leave Jon's side, but over time you got used to it. Besides, he only came at night; Jon himself probably didn't know where his wolf was at that hour.

You didn't complain either. Having a bit of company didn't feel so bad. It made you feel less alone at "the end of the world," as everyone called the Wall.

You immediately thought about how much you would miss the tender but intimidating presence of the direwolf when he left.

Maybe you would miss him too.

His owner and his glances.

Lord Commander Mormont planned to leave the next morning on the "Great Ranging",to go out and settle the matter of the wildlings, of Mance Rayder, and perhaps find Benjen Stark. He had chosen over two hundred men for that. Only the old, the weak, and anything useless for going beyond the Wall would stay behind.

The Old Bear planned to take two cages of ravens to send news as they advanced. Maester Aemon was blind and too weak to ride with them, so his steward had to go in his place. You swore they were going to choose you for that, since Sam was too much of a coward, but no.

«You will stay. Someone has to take care of the tower, the old ravens, the books. Besides, you are too young to die in the forest,». the Maester had told you when you asked.

Aemon knew. The old blind Maester knew everything, as always. And he had saved your life without you asking for anything.You wanted to ask him if Sam wasn't just as young to die in the forest, but you didn't, you just nodded.

You didn't envy Samwell at all; the ranging wasn't going to be any fun, and everyone knew it. Maybe you were saving yourself from many weeks of suffering, cold, and hunger.

"You shouldn't be out here. You'll freeze," a low voice spoke, breaking the silence.You startled a little hearing it; you were so lost in thought you didn't hear his steps.

Jon was in front of you, his hair a little tousled by the Wall's wind. His gaze wavered between you and Ghost, who was lying at your feet.

"And shouldn't you be at dinner?" you asked.

"I already ate," he said, his gaze returning to the wolf. "Besides, I was looking for him," he added, pointing at the direwolf. The wolf didn't move his head but perked up his ears as he looked at him.

Jon wasn't really looking for the direwolf. He just wanted an excuse to talk to you, to say goodbye before he left.

Before arriving there, he had "coincidentally" passed by the library and the armory to "coincidentally" run into you. In the end, he found you in the yard.He knew you loved hiding in those places; he had seen you.

He was always watching you, actually. At first, he thought it was out of curiosity, but then his gaze would drift towards you for no reason. Even though there were other people on the Wall to look at out of "curiosity," his gaze always seemed to seek you out.

He had even noticed that your hair was growing. He thought that maybe you would look pretty with long hair, like a girl, and not like a boy who looked like the person who hated him most in the world had cut his hair.

That was what he was thinking when you caught him staring.

He knew it was wrong. He had taken vows. The Night's Watch vows before the old gods: he had promised to take no wife, father no children, hold no lands, wear no crown. But none of those vows could deny that he got a little nervous sometimes when he saw you, or when he was near you.

But he couldn't do anything.

He was a man of the Night's Watch, and he couldn't afford to feel any of that.

Jon was also surprised to see the wolf's presence there."Does he always come here?" he asked you.

You nodded.

"Well, not here... to my cell, he comes at night, sometimes."

"I thought he spent the nights hunting in the forest. But it seems he prefers your company lately," Jon said; his voice was low, almost a whisper.

The cold night air blew between them, lifting a few snowflakes. You shifted uncomfortably on the bench, feeling your cheeks burn a little more, and this time you couldn't blame the Wall's wind.

You were thankful that the night's darkness might hide your blush.

"He's good company. Keeps the cold away. The only bad thing is he doesn't talk," you said.

He nodded, saying nothing. His gaze swept around the yard for a moment, as if he too was checking that no one was there. He was silent for a moment. He took a couple of slow steps toward the bench, his hands resting on the pommel of his sword.

Jon looked at the empty space next to you on the bench, hesitating for a fraction of a second.

"May I?" he asked.

"Of course," you answered, shifting over a little.Jon sat down. The wooden bench creaked slightly under his weight. Being so close, you could smell the scent of leather, iron, and that clean cold he always seemed to carry with him from outside. Ghost didn't even move; he just let out a heavy sigh, content to have the two of you together.

"I heard about tomorrow's expedition," you spoke first, breaking the silence before it became too thick. "Maester Aemon told me I would be staying to take care of the library and the old ravens."

Jon nodded, keeping his eyes forward, watching the distant torches of the yard flicker in the wind. The light reflected on his face, making his grey eyes look more melancholic, deeper.

Stark eyes, as hard as the cold itself.

"It's for the best," he said, his voice sounding firmer, almost commanding, as if trying to convince himself. "Beyond the Wall is no place for..." He stopped just in time, remembering where he was. Even though they were alone, he couldn't risk saying it there. "... for someone who's barely learning to survive here," Jon corrected.

"And Sam?" you asked, feeling a pang of guilt for your friend."He doesn't know how to fight either. He's scared of his own shadow. Why does the Old Bear take him and leave me?"

Jon turned his head to look at you. The torchlight reflected in his eyes, showing you a mix of resolve and a hidden relief he couldn't disguise.

"Because Sam can read maps and take care of the messenger ravens as well as you can, but Maester Aemon only needs one helper here. And I..." Jon swallowed, clenching his gloved fists on his knees. "I asked the Maester to leave you."

"You asked him?" You were a little surprised, but it wasn't really news. You already knew that Jon had asked Maester Aemon to take you into his service before. Why would this time be different?

"Sam is strong in his own way, even if he doesn't know it. He'll endure the ride," Jon explained, hurrying to justify himself, his cheeks slightly tinged with red. "But you... if you went out there, you'd have to share tents with three or four men every night. You'd have to bathe in freezing rivers with the others. Sooner or later, someone would have noticed. Someone other than me. And the men of the Watch... not all of them are honorable."

The honesty of his words hit you in the chest. It wasn't just that he considered you weak; he was protecting you from the brutality of the men you shared the Wall with. He was protecting your secret, your life, and your body.

"Jon..." you murmured, not knowing what to say.

"I didn't want you to go," he confessed finally, abandoning his rigid tone. His voice dropped so low it was barely a whisper the wind could almost carry away; it seemed like he was talking more to himself than to you.

"We leave at dawn. We don't know when we'll be back. Or if we'll come back at all," he said.

You didn't know what to answer. You were afraid to even think about the fact that they probably wouldn't come back, or that most of them wouldn't.

But you prayed it wouldn't be that way.

On an impulse you couldn't stop, you reached out your gloved hand and placed it over his. Jon tensed for a second, just like the day you had tended to his hand in the Maester's chambers, but he didn't pull away. On the contrary, he turned his hand so that your fingers intertwined with his, squeezing them gently. Through the layers of leather and wool, you could barely feel the real warmth of his skin, but the pressure of his grip was all they needed.

"Come back," you told him, looking him straight in the eyes. "You have to come back, Jon, you and Sam. You have to come back alive. I hate the idea of spending my whole life alone on this depressing Wall," you confessed.

A small smile, the first of the night, appeared on Jon's lips. It was a sad smile, but full of a silent promise.

"I'll come back," he promised, squeezing your hand a little tighter. "We'll come back. I swear it by the Old Gods."

You didn't know what to say, but you smiled back at him, a slight, small smile, just like his.

You stayed there, in the dim light of the yard, alone, with the torches casting faint light. With your hands intertwined.

Jon had only come to say goodbye at first, but it was the last thing he actually wanted to do.

a/n:I don't know why I put 'goodbyes' when there isn't one at any point, but lol, I don't know how to title things

if there are any mistakes or anything like that, English isn't my first language, plus I'm new to writing. Any advice is welcome, and I would really appreciate it.

I already have the requests tab open, just in case.You can also write anonymously!

Pairing:Book Jon Snow! x reader.

Summary: You help Jon with an injury, plus you're a girl in the Night's Watch passing yourself off as a boy.

Warnings: femreader!,mention of injuries, burns. This is something along the lines of romantic slow burn,mention of other characters.

Author's note: Like I said before, this is about the book version of Jon Snow. English isn't my first language!

Word count:2.657.

The soft knocks on the door of Maester Aemon's chambers made you startle slightly. You had been focused on reading some books and tidying things up here and there. The knock was gentle, hesitant, slow—the kind you make when you're not sure about doing something.

You approached the door, opening it just enough to poke your head out and see who was knocking.

"Jon?." You said in a low voice, a little surprised to see who was behind the knock. "Maester Aemon isn't here. He's in a meeting with the Old Bear." You said this while opening the door, stepping aside to let him in.

Behind him came Ghost, entering along with his owner. The wolf looked at you for a moment, but then continued on his way.

"I know." Jon said, entering the room with a certain reluctance, but with his same melancholy and reserved demeanor as always. "I just came from there." His voice was soft, almost a whisper.

You realized he was stating the obvious: Jon is the Lord Commander Mormont's right-hand man, his steward in every sense of the word. It was expected that he would always know what the Old Bear was doing or not doing, who he was with or wasn't with. Something you always forgot, for some reason.

"I just thought maybe you could help me… with this," Jon said, raising his right hand, completely bandaged.

Days earlier, Jon had fought one of those things they called "the others." Everyone at Castle Black was talking about it, which is how you found out. They talked about how the corpses they found in the woods while taking their vows rose in the middle of the night; that if it hadn't been for the Snow boy, the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch wouldn't have survived. They told how the boy fought the white walker with his sword, finishing him off by throwing an oil lamp at him, but injuring his hand when the glass broke and burned it.

"Maester Aemon said I had to change the old bandages for new ones," he finished speaking.

You saw him standing there, uncomfortable in the middle of the room, not knowing what to do or where to go.

"Oh… of course," you murmured, moving toward the small shelf where the old maester had shown you he kept things for the injured.

You had trouble finding it. There were many jars, many things. Despite having been in the maester's service for a couple of weeks now, you were still confused by everything. Everything was new, everything was complicated, especially for a simple girl who just wanted to run away to save herself.

You cut your hair, changed your name, bound your chest with whatever you could, and decided to join the Night's Watch. It was dangerous—something a poor girl had tried many years before and died a completely horrible death.

You knew it.

You knew all those stories, but it was that: take a risk without knowing what would happen, or not survive.

And you did it.

It wasn't difficult at all, really. Passing yourself off as a boy was the easiest part, made even easier by the fact that no one at the Wall seemed to realize you were a girl. Everyone thought you were just another weak, small boy from one of those starving villages.

And it became even easier when you were assigned to serve the maester of Castle Black: you'd feed the ravens, look for books, maps, and other normal things. You didn't have to worry about training or ranging with the other brothers of the watch. You didn't have to worry about someone discovering you.

But someone did discover you. You realized it the moment you saw his gray eyes looking at you several times one night while you dined in the great hall. You saw how his eyes examined you, watched you cautiously, how every time you made a move he frowned slightly.

And you confirmed it the moment you went outside, into the freezing cold of the Wall.

"You're a girl… aren't you?" —you heard a voice, soft and low, as if he still didn't believe it.

Jon at first only thought it, suspected it when he saw you in the yard training with the others, how you held the sword with your hands in a very delicate way. He thought it the moment you reminded him of his little sister Arya. He suspected it when he saw your face and noticed your features were too delicate for just another boy. He thought: "Either he's a girl or he just very pretty."

But until that night they were just simple suspicions. Jon tried to convince himself he was just imagining things.

Until that night you confirmed it for him. You told him everything: the how and the why, and that it was the only option you had. You saw him standing beside you, listening. You saw the confusion on his face, but you also saw how, at a certain point, he seemed to understand you.

You didn't speak anymore. You didn't ask him what he was going to do with the new information he knew about you. Resigned to what would happen, you just went to your quarters on the Wall, without saying anything else, thinking that maybe it was all over for you.

But it wasn't.

The next day, everything continued as usual. At breakfast in the great hall, Jon approached you and sat beside you."I'm not going to tell anyone… but be more careful. This is dangerous for you," he said, with his usual reserved and cold demeanor.

As if nothing had happened, he gave you a slight smile, almost imperceptible, and left.

But Jon did do something: he began to worry about you.

He worried every time he saw the horrible treatment of the men training in the yards, how aggressive the training could be for someone who had never touched a sword in their life.

And he worried that someone else might realize you were a girl, the way he had.

He also thought about when they would assign roles. The boys of the Wall were divided into rangers, builders, and stewards, and he acted. Jon spoke with Maester Aemon, asking him to accept you into his service. He told him that the Night's Watch also needs different kinds of mens,different guys, that he had seen you and noticed you knew how to write, read, and do sums. And Maester Aemon, after thinking it over, accepted you the next day.

You shook your head to snap out of your thoughts and focus on the real task at hand: finding the damned bandages.You found them in a small pot. They were long enough to bandage his entire hand.You turned to him with a satisfied look, proud of yourself for finding the bandages.

Jon was still standing in the room doing nothing, just looking at the floor, as if it were the most interesting thing on the entire Wall.

"You can sit there, Jon," you said, pointing to the bench in the room.

You saw the boy sit down, and the direwolf did the same, sitting beside him on the bench, as if the wolf owned the whole room."Get down from there, Ghost," Jon scolded the wolf, gently pushing him on the back. "He's a bit overconfident," Jon said, as you sat on the bench next to him.

You laughed a little, quietly. Seeing that was a bit funny and, to some extent, tender.

You took his hand in yours and slowly, delicately, began to undo the old bandages.

The silence, at first, was uncomfortable.

You could hear your own breathing and the slight rustle of the bandages as they unrolled.

Jon said nothing. He just watched your fingers moving with a gentleness he hadn't expected in someone pretending to be a boy.

Ghost, for his part, had rested his enormous snout on the boy's knees, but his red eyes never left you. He stared at you from where he'd rested his head, his eyes red as embers. He didn't blink. He just watched, as if he knew exactly who you were and was waiting for you to make a mistake.

The last layer of bandage came off and you saw the burn. The skin was reddened, shiny from the ointment Maester Aemon had applied days before, but it looked clean. No infection.

You breathed a sigh of relief without knowing why.

"I've never been burned before," Jon said suddenly, breaking the silence. "It doesn't hurt as much anymore," he murmured.His voice was so low it seemed like he was talking more to himself than to you. "Aemon says I'll regain mobility in a few days."

"Thank goodness," you replied, picking up a jar of new ointment. "You'll need it. For the sword."

"And for many other things," he said.

The ointment was cold. You spread it on the palm of your hand to warm it a little, just as Maester Aemon had taught you, and applied it carefully over the burn, noticing how Jon's fingers tensed slightly. Not just from pain, although a little. But because your touch was… different. Intimate. Something he wasn't used to receiving.

"Does this hurt?" you asked, though you already knew the answer.

"A little," he lied.

You saw it in the way his jaw tightened when you grazed the edge of the wound with your fingertip, almost unintentionally.

Jon Snow wasn't one to complain, or at least not out loud (though you suspected that in his head he did, and a lot). You had learned that in the few weeks you'd been at Castle Black: he endured the cold without shivering, hunger without complaining, blows in the training yard without falling.

But that little gesture, that minimal tension in his face, told you the truth."You're bad at lying," you said softly.

He let out an exhale that could have been a laugh."Never was good at it."

You remained silent as you continued spreading the ointment over his burns.

"You have soft hands," he spoke again suddenly, and his tone was so neutral it almost seemed like an ordinary comment. But it wasn't. Not coming from him. "For a boy, I mean," he added quickly, as if he'd just remembered he had to maintain the fiction.

You smiled to yourself. But you didn't look up.

"Boys' hands can be soft if they don't spend all day swinging a sword," you said.

"Yours don't have calluses."

"Yours do," you replied.

It was true. As you spread the ointment, you could feel the hardness in Jon's palm, the calluses at the base of his fingers, the rough skin of someone who'd spent years wielding steel. Your hands looked different from his, and suddenly you were very aware of how easy it would be for him to notice the difference.

But Jon didn't say anything more about that.

You finished with the ointment and wiped your fingers with a cloth.

Ghost, who had sat up slightly, came to your side, sniffing the air near your free hand, and then, without warning, licked your fingers with his rough, warm tongue.

"Ghost," Jon scolded, but the wolf ignored him and licked you again. "Here. With me," he said, trying to call his wolf back to him so he'd stop bothering you.

You laughed quietly, and that small sound seemed to break the ice completely. The silence was no longer uncomfortable. Now it was a shared silence, almost intimate, the kind where you don't need to talk to feel accompanied.

"Where are you from?" Jon asked, and his voice sounded different. Softer. Less forced. "Really, I mean. Not the story you gave when you joined."

Your fingers stopped on his hand for a second. Then they continued, putting on the new bandage.

"From a small town in the south," you answered, choosing your words carefully. "Near the Riverlands. My father was… he was a man of letters. He wrote letters for those who couldn't. Kept accounts."

"Did he teach you? To read and write?" he asked.

You nodded.

"He said it was the one thing no one could ever take from me. Even if I lost everything else, I could always read," you said.

Jon nodded slowly, as if those words made sense to him.

"My father… Lord Stark," he said, and there was a small pause, a beat of pain in that correction. "He said something similar. That the sword defends you, but your mind keeps you alive. He made all his children learn. Even Arya, who hated sitting still."

"Arya is your sister, isn't she?" you asked.

Jon's jaw tensed slightly. But he didn't look away."Half-sister," he corrected, and though his voice remained steady, you noticed something in his eyes. Something you couldn't name. "But yes. She was… she's the one who looks most like me. In appearance, I mean. And in that neither of us ever quite fit in."

"Do you miss her?" you asked.

Jon took a long time to answer. So long you thought he wouldn't.

"Every day," he said finally, and his voice was so low it almost got lost in the crackle of the distant hearth fire."Sometimes I dream I'm back at Winterfell and everything is the same. That Bran is climbing the walls, that Robb and I are fighting with wooden swords, that Sansa is complaining about something, that Rickon is running after us… and Arya. Arya is always there, being a nuisance." He paused."And then I wake up and I'm here."

You didn't know what to say. There were no words that could comfort something like that. So you did the only thing that came to mind: you finished bandaging his hand with clean strips, tightening just enough. When you let go of his hand, Jon didn't pull it away immediately. It stayed there, on your lap, as if waiting for something more.

And you also left your fingers resting on the white bandage a second longer than necessary.

Jon looked at you.

His gray eyes were like the sky before a storm. He wasn't smiling, but he didn't look sad either. He was just looking at you, as if trying to read something on your face that he couldn't quite figure out.

"And you?" he asked, turning the question back on you. "Do you miss anyone?".

Your fingers finally withdrew."No one," you answered, and it was almost true. "That's why I'm here."

Jon didn't press. He just nodded, as if he understood more than you were willing to say.

Ghost, who had been watching the entire conversation in silence, rested his head on your knee. The weight was warm, comforting. You stroked his head softly.For a moment, in that cold stone room, you felt a little less alone.

Jon stood up, raising his freshly bandaged hand."Thank you," he said, and it was one of those words that seemed small but carried great weight.

He stood looking at you for another moment, as if he wanted to say something more but couldn't find the words. Finally, he just nodded once and headed for the door. Ghost followed him, but before leaving, the wolf turned his head back toward you and looked at you for a long second.

As if he recognized you.

As if he knew.

And then the door closed, and you were left alone with the smell of herbs, the warmth of his hands in yours, and the certainty that Jon Snow was not only keeping your secret.

He was also watching you.

But not as a threat.

As something he didn't want to lose.

Hope you like it!

I've spent a long time looking for book Jon content – I love his book version – but I can't find anything, so I decided to do it myself.

I know book Jon wouldn't talk that much but oh well, it's a fic.

i am new written fics

Pairing:Book Jon Snow! x reader.

Summary: You help Jon with an injury, plus you're a girl in the Night's Watch passing yourself off as a boy.

Warnings: femreader!,mention of injuries, burns. This is something along the lines of romantic slow burn,mention of other characters.

Author's note: Like I said before, this is about the book version of Jon Snow. English isn't my first language!

Word count:2.657.

The soft knocks on the door of Maester Aemon's chambers made you startle slightly. You had been focused on reading some books and tidying things up here and there. The knock was gentle, hesitant, slow—the kind you make when you're not sure about doing something.

You approached the door, opening it just enough to poke your head out and see who was knocking.

"Jon?." You said in a low voice, a little surprised to see who was behind the knock. "Maester Aemon isn't here. He's in a meeting with the Old Bear." You said this while opening the door, stepping aside to let him in.

Behind him came Ghost, entering along with his owner. The wolf looked at you for a moment, but then continued on his way.

"I know." Jon said, entering the room with a certain reluctance, but with his same melancholy and reserved demeanor as always. "I just came from there." His voice was soft, almost a whisper.

You realized he was stating the obvious: Jon is the Lord Commander Mormont's right-hand man, his steward in every sense of the word. It was expected that he would always know what the Old Bear was doing or not doing, who he was with or wasn't with. Something you always forgot, for some reason.

"I just thought maybe you could help me… with this," Jon said, raising his right hand, completely bandaged.

Days earlier, Jon had fought one of those things they called "the others." Everyone at Castle Black was talking about it, which is how you found out. They talked about how the corpses they found in the woods while taking their vows rose in the middle of the night; that if it hadn't been for the Snow boy, the Lord Commander of the Night's Watch wouldn't have survived. They told how the boy fought the white walker with his sword, finishing him off by throwing an oil lamp at him, but injuring his hand when the glass broke and burned it.

"Maester Aemon said I had to change the old bandages for new ones," he finished speaking.

You saw him standing there, uncomfortable in the middle of the room, not knowing what to do or where to go.

"Oh… of course," you murmured, moving toward the small shelf where the old maester had shown you he kept things for the injured.

You had trouble finding it. There were many jars, many things. Despite having been in the maester's service for a couple of weeks now, you were still confused by everything. Everything was new, everything was complicated, especially for a simple girl who just wanted to run away to save herself.

You cut your hair, changed your name, bound your chest with whatever you could, and decided to join the Night's Watch. It was dangerous—something a poor girl had tried many years before and died a completely horrible death.

You knew it.

You knew all those stories, but it was that: take a risk without knowing what would happen, or not survive.

And you did it.

It wasn't difficult at all, really. Passing yourself off as a boy was the easiest part, made even easier by the fact that no one at the Wall seemed to realize you were a girl. Everyone thought you were just another weak, small boy from one of those starving villages.

And it became even easier when you were assigned to serve the maester of Castle Black: you'd feed the ravens, look for books, maps, and other normal things. You didn't have to worry about training or ranging with the other brothers of the watch. You didn't have to worry about someone discovering you.

But someone did discover you. You realized it the moment you saw his gray eyes looking at you several times one night while you dined in the great hall. You saw how his eyes examined you, watched you cautiously, how every time you made a move he frowned slightly.

And you confirmed it the moment you went outside, into the freezing cold of the Wall.

"You're a girl… aren't you?" —you heard a voice, soft and low, as if he still didn't believe it.

Jon at first only thought it, suspected it when he saw you in the yard training with the others, how you held the sword with your hands in a very delicate way. He thought it the moment you reminded him of his little sister Arya. He suspected it when he saw your face and noticed your features were too delicate for just another boy. He thought: "Either he's a girl or he just very pretty."

But until that night they were just simple suspicions. Jon tried to convince himself he was just imagining things.

Until that night you confirmed it for him. You told him everything: the how and the why, and that it was the only option you had. You saw him standing beside you, listening. You saw the confusion on his face, but you also saw how, at a certain point, he seemed to understand you.

You didn't speak anymore. You didn't ask him what he was going to do with the new information he knew about you. Resigned to what would happen, you just went to your quarters on the Wall, without saying anything else, thinking that maybe it was all over for you.

But it wasn't.

The next day, everything continued as usual. At breakfast in the great hall, Jon approached you and sat beside you."I'm not going to tell anyone… but be more careful. This is dangerous for you," he said, with his usual reserved and cold demeanor.

As if nothing had happened, he gave you a slight smile, almost imperceptible, and left.

But Jon did do something: he began to worry about you.

He worried every time he saw the horrible treatment of the men training in the yards, how aggressive the training could be for someone who had never touched a sword in their life.

And he worried that someone else might realize you were a girl, the way he had.

He also thought about when they would assign roles. The boys of the Wall were divided into rangers, builders, and stewards, and he acted. Jon spoke with Maester Aemon, asking him to accept you into his service. He told him that the Night's Watch also needs different kinds of mens,different guys, that he had seen you and noticed you knew how to write, read, and do sums. And Maester Aemon, after thinking it over, accepted you the next day.

You shook your head to snap out of your thoughts and focus on the real task at hand: finding the damned bandages.You found them in a small pot. They were long enough to bandage his entire hand.You turned to him with a satisfied look, proud of yourself for finding the bandages.

Jon was still standing in the room doing nothing, just looking at the floor, as if it were the most interesting thing on the entire Wall.

"You can sit there, Jon," you said, pointing to the bench in the room.

You saw the boy sit down, and the direwolf did the same, sitting beside him on the bench, as if the wolf owned the whole room."Get down from there, Ghost," Jon scolded the wolf, gently pushing him on the back. "He's a bit overconfident," Jon said, as you sat on the bench next to him.

You laughed a little, quietly. Seeing that was a bit funny and, to some extent, tender.

You took his hand in yours and slowly, delicately, began to undo the old bandages.

The silence, at first, was uncomfortable.

You could hear your own breathing and the slight rustle of the bandages as they unrolled.

Jon said nothing. He just watched your fingers moving with a gentleness he hadn't expected in someone pretending to be a boy.

Ghost, for his part, had rested his enormous snout on the boy's knees, but his red eyes never left you. He stared at you from where he'd rested his head, his eyes red as embers. He didn't blink. He just watched, as if he knew exactly who you were and was waiting for you to make a mistake.

The last layer of bandage came off and you saw the burn. The skin was reddened, shiny from the ointment Maester Aemon had applied days before, but it looked clean. No infection.

You breathed a sigh of relief without knowing why.

"I've never been burned before," Jon said suddenly, breaking the silence. "It doesn't hurt as much anymore," he murmured.His voice was so low it seemed like he was talking more to himself than to you. "Aemon says I'll regain mobility in a few days."

"Thank goodness," you replied, picking up a jar of new ointment. "You'll need it. For the sword."

"And for many other things," he said.

The ointment was cold. You spread it on the palm of your hand to warm it a little, just as Maester Aemon had taught you, and applied it carefully over the burn, noticing how Jon's fingers tensed slightly. Not just from pain, although a little. But because your touch was… different. Intimate. Something he wasn't used to receiving.

"Does this hurt?" you asked, though you already knew the answer.

"A little," he lied.

You saw it in the way his jaw tightened when you grazed the edge of the wound with your fingertip, almost unintentionally.

Jon Snow wasn't one to complain, or at least not out loud (though you suspected that in his head he did, and a lot). You had learned that in the few weeks you'd been at Castle Black: he endured the cold without shivering, hunger without complaining, blows in the training yard without falling.

But that little gesture, that minimal tension in his face, told you the truth."You're bad at lying," you said softly.

He let out an exhale that could have been a laugh."Never was good at it."

You remained silent as you continued spreading the ointment over his burns.

"You have soft hands," he spoke again suddenly, and his tone was so neutral it almost seemed like an ordinary comment. But it wasn't. Not coming from him. "For a boy, I mean," he added quickly, as if he'd just remembered he had to maintain the fiction.

You smiled to yourself. But you didn't look up.

"Boys' hands can be soft if they don't spend all day swinging a sword," you said.

"Yours don't have calluses."

"Yours do," you replied.

It was true. As you spread the ointment, you could feel the hardness in Jon's palm, the calluses at the base of his fingers, the rough skin of someone who'd spent years wielding steel. Your hands looked different from his, and suddenly you were very aware of how easy it would be for him to notice the difference.

But Jon didn't say anything more about that.

You finished with the ointment and wiped your fingers with a cloth.

Ghost, who had sat up slightly, came to your side, sniffing the air near your free hand, and then, without warning, licked your fingers with his rough, warm tongue.

"Ghost," Jon scolded, but the wolf ignored him and licked you again. "Here. With me," he said, trying to call his wolf back to him so he'd stop bothering you.

You laughed quietly, and that small sound seemed to break the ice completely. The silence was no longer uncomfortable. Now it was a shared silence, almost intimate, the kind where you don't need to talk to feel accompanied.

"Where are you from?" Jon asked, and his voice sounded different. Softer. Less forced. "Really, I mean. Not the story you gave when you joined."

Your fingers stopped on his hand for a second. Then they continued, putting on the new bandage.

"From a small town in the south," you answered, choosing your words carefully. "Near the Riverlands. My father was… he was a man of letters. He wrote letters for those who couldn't. Kept accounts."

"Did he teach you? To read and write?" he asked.

You nodded.

"He said it was the one thing no one could ever take from me. Even if I lost everything else, I could always read," you said.

Jon nodded slowly, as if those words made sense to him.

"My father… Lord Stark," he said, and there was a small pause, a beat of pain in that correction. "He said something similar. That the sword defends you, but your mind keeps you alive. He made all his children learn. Even Arya, who hated sitting still."

"Arya is your sister, isn't she?" you asked.

Jon's jaw tensed slightly. But he didn't look away."Half-sister," he corrected, and though his voice remained steady, you noticed something in his eyes. Something you couldn't name. "But yes. She was… she's the one who looks most like me. In appearance, I mean. And in that neither of us ever quite fit in."

"Do you miss her?" you asked.

Jon took a long time to answer. So long you thought he wouldn't.

"Every day," he said finally, and his voice was so low it almost got lost in the crackle of the distant hearth fire."Sometimes I dream I'm back at Winterfell and everything is the same. That Bran is climbing the walls, that Robb and I are fighting with wooden swords, that Sansa is complaining about something, that Rickon is running after us… and Arya. Arya is always there, being a nuisance." He paused."And then I wake up and I'm here."

You didn't know what to say. There were no words that could comfort something like that. So you did the only thing that came to mind: you finished bandaging his hand with clean strips, tightening just enough. When you let go of his hand, Jon didn't pull it away immediately. It stayed there, on your lap, as if waiting for something more.

And you also left your fingers resting on the white bandage a second longer than necessary.

Jon looked at you.

His gray eyes were like the sky before a storm. He wasn't smiling, but he didn't look sad either. He was just looking at you, as if trying to read something on your face that he couldn't quite figure out.

"And you?" he asked, turning the question back on you. "Do you miss anyone?".

Your fingers finally withdrew."No one," you answered, and it was almost true. "That's why I'm here."

Jon didn't press. He just nodded, as if he understood more than you were willing to say.

Ghost, who had been watching the entire conversation in silence, rested his head on your knee. The weight was warm, comforting. You stroked his head softly.For a moment, in that cold stone room, you felt a little less alone.

Jon stood up, raising his freshly bandaged hand."Thank you," he said, and it was one of those words that seemed small but carried great weight.

He stood looking at you for another moment, as if he wanted to say something more but couldn't find the words. Finally, he just nodded once and headed for the door. Ghost followed him, but before leaving, the wolf turned his head back toward you and looked at you for a long second.

As if he recognized you.

As if he knew.

And then the door closed, and you were left alone with the smell of herbs, the warmth of his hands in yours, and the certainty that Jon Snow was not only keeping your secret.

He was also watching you.

But not as a threat.

As something he didn't want to lose.

Hope you like it!

I've spent a long time looking for book Jon content – I love his book version – but I can't find anything, so I decided to do it myself.

I know book Jon wouldn't talk that much but oh well, it's a fic.

i am new written fics