Chapter Text
When they realize the shit has hit the fan — the team leads have been abducted in a raid and four of their members are already dead — what was supposed to be a one day engagement gets stretched out across five tense days. Dany takes tiny micro naps on the tiny couch in her office for those five days, nearly going catatonic from the stress and sleep deprivation. Tyrion’s breath goes stale, from cold coffee and repetitive sighing. Yara’s clipped voice makes check in on the ground, like clockwork — they all know that she is especially worried. And Missandei’s traitorous mind wonders if this is going to be the first blight on her record, if this is going to be the thing that prevents her from being cleared to go in the field — a shaky foundation in judgement, they might call it.
Missy wonders who would be the ones to contact family members — Yara already knows — but who would be the ones to contact Grey’s next of kin. Would it be Dany?
She pulls up his file because she actually doesn’t know his family situation. She pulls up his school records, his childhood health immunization records — she learns he had perfect attendance and he also got measles when he was ten years old. He moved to King’s Landing for school at age 16. He was recruited his third year of college. He studied literature during undergrad in King’s Landing. And then he earned his master’s in criminal justice. His parents are both still alive, both school teachers in the Summer Isles. He has one sibling, an older brother.
So, these are the next of kin that will be notified if he is dead.
Once Drogo gets the official go-ahead from Dany’s disembodied voice in his earpiece, he signals an affirmative to Daario, Robb, and Sandor, who nod imperceptibly and whose gazes hit the closed door of a dilapidated, abandoned butcher’s shop in the northeast corner of the city of Lys. This is the second site.
Drogo readjusts his hold on his gun. Yara is also on the line, waiting, as they break the lock and push through.
As they enter the shop in formation, securing the front room where sales used to take place years ago — then moving to the back storage room — the smell hits Drogo’s nose first — fresh actually. Bright. Clean blood.
He’s the first to see Grey’s body. Then Theon’s. Then Bolton’s. They are all soaked in blood.
Into his comms, as his team rushes in, Drogo says, “Securing the back. We’ve got them. We need medical care right now. Status unknown.”
Robb is kneeling down on one knee, gently checking Theon’s pulse.
Initially, they are faintly alive. Blood loss and the trauma results in them being hospitalized and kept unconscious for additional long days. In that time Dany argues with the powers that be and urges them to let her notify Grey’s next of kin — his parents. Leadership will not budge though, stating that it is not protocol and they do not want to set a precedence. Dany’s argument that the Greyjoys already know something has happened to their son does not hold much water. The Greyjoys are connected to the work. The Torgos, in contrast, are just normal people with no security clearance.
Drogo personally supervised the transfer of their guys, from Lys to King’s Landing. He darkly mutters that it is racial and it is bullshit.
Dany tells him it’s not racial — trying to nip his shit in the bud. She tells him it’s protocol.
He says, “So it’s protocol to let him die without his family even knowing when or why or how because they are not rich and they are foreigners.”
Theon’s dad never visits him though. However, Yara, sits by his bedside for hours each day. She has taken a leave of absence from work for the time being.
And because there is no one to look after Grey because no one knows this has happened to him, they all take turns in between shifts or on their days off. Drogo reads him Penthouse letters out loud, even though everyone hates it — even though Grey would really, really hate it if Grey were awake. Daario takes inspiration from this and brings a romance novel to read to Grey. He leaves the book behind for Tyrion, Kojja, and the rest. Missandei just sits in silence next to him — because she doesn’t think this is particularly funny at all — and she generally just cries sometimes.
Ramsay Bolton dies in custody on the fifth day, with armed guards at his door. His body gives out. The damage was extensive, stab wounds that hit vital organs. They tried to save him so that he could stand trial. When Bolton dies, Drogo drives his fist through a wall and wonders out loud if it was all for fucking nothing then — if the loss their team members have suffered was just for fucking nothing then.
Protocol dictates that he, Daario, Robb, and Sandor visit and get cleared by the psych evaluator. It’s all a crock of shit. They all say the expected things. They all get approved to go back to work soon after.
Grey is first to stabilize, then also first to wake up. When he does, he’s drugged up and disoriented. He sees Daario’s face. He tries to talk but there’s a tube down his throat. No matter, because when Daario sees Grey’s eyes flutter open, he is shouting loudly to the nurses and ringing the call button.
Missandei apologizes to the both of them separately. She tells them both she knows this is not ideal, but she has to take down their statements now that they are conscious again.
Theon has been hit far harder by what transpired. Theon cannot even focus or talk for very long. He spends most of his days just staring out the far-away window, at patches of light. Missandei patiently says, “Theon?”
And he says nothing in response to her.
Grey, on the other hand, wants her to tell him what the fuck happened since he has been unconscious. She hesitates, unsure of what he can handle.
In her hesitation, he sighs in frustration. And then he starts talking. He says, “We were ambushed, and I shouldn’t have let it happen,” even though it is clear to everyone that what happened was not at all his fault. He tells her that they were drugged and then moved. He tells her about what it was like when he woke up again. He succinctly tells her about actions that amount to basically just torture. He tells her he was pretty sure he and Theon were dead around day four. And then probably before they passed out from blood loss, Bolton mutilated them.
She blurts out, “So you remember.”
In a plain voice, he says, “Yeah.”
She says, “I’m so sorry, Grey.”
He ignores her mean-nothing statement. Instead, he says, “Is everyone else dead?” He means — did anyone else from his team make it out alive?
She shakes her head, finding tears pricking the backs of her eyes again. She means that everyone else died. He and Theon are the only ones left from their team.
He sighs. And then he says, “I dislocated my thumb to get it out of the bindings. I grabbed his knife and drove it into his stomach, on the right side —”
He gets a hefty payout from insurance, for his accident. It’s a weird thing to call what happened to him an accident, because it was really the deliberate actions of a fucking psychopath, but accident is the term that they are using. They are taking his lead on this, because “incident” is a term that just gets in his craw. There’s a part of him that just fucking wishes people would just call a spade a spade. He was paid a sum by his job because his dick was cut off. It is a hazard of his vocation.
He gets offered a lot of therapy and a lot of counseling. He says fuck you no thank you to that. He gets a lot of paid time off — paid leave, actually. When he asks them when he’s supposed to come back, they tell him not to worry about it. Take as much time as he needs.
He asks Dany, “Am I being fucking let go right now? Are you firing me?”
She shakes her head urgently. She says, “No! Of course not!”
She tells him that he should take the time he needs to heal and to recuperate. He doesn’t really think he’ll ever really get over getting his dick cut off — that is like, a life-changing thing. But also, he can’t sit at home and just fucking wallow in it. They cannot take away the one thing that he is good at and was trained by them to fucking do. They can’t create the conditions for him to suffer this kind of “accident” and then suddenly turn their backs on him because he has suddenly become a liability to them.
Legal is tone-deaf. Leadership doesn’t understand that he is pleading for his life back. They are just really worried that he will make things hard for them. They insinuate that he should take his payout, and he should live out the rest of his life comfortably.
He says, “Where? If I don’t work, I don’t have a visa.”
His application to extend his visa due to extraordinary circumstances — another phrase he doesn’t really fucking agree with, but whatever — is denied. He is stunned. Drogo is stunned. Dany is stunned. Everyone is shocked.
Again, he asks if he is being fired.
Leadership tells him that he is not. He is just being put on an extended leave of absence.
He asks, “Indefinitely?”
They say, “No, not indefinitely. We just want you to take the time off that you need.”
So he decides to go home. Before leaving, he gets thrown a farewell party that also doubles as a “sorry you lost your dick” party of sorts. The second thing is never stated. Everyone is hysterically positive and trying not to trigger what they think is an impending mental breakdown. They bring in a really big cake. They don’t know his favorite flavor and he refused to tell them. So they got him a red velvet cake, which is actually a cake that he hates — and he tells them so, right before the big speeches.
Dany tells them all that he is the most wonderful person — the bravest and the most honorable. She recounts the story of them meeting — of his reputation preceding him, and of him actually impressing beyond his reputation. She tears up as she tells them that there is no one else like him.
Selmy tells them all about what Grey was like when Grey was 18 years old and a new recruit. Selmy makes jokes about how Grey was in the middle of reading poetry in the university’s quad — on the grass by himself — when Selmy walked up to him and told him that they have been watching him for years now. It really scared the shit out of him at the time — the idea that these white old men were just . . . watching him . . . for years. He was just a kid at the time.
Drogo tells them all that Grey is his best friend — which is actually completely news to Grey because they never like, hang out or anything outside of work. And actually, before his fucking dick got cut off, Drogo was actually a complete asshole to him because he’s not big like Drogo, he’s not muscular like Drogo is, and he isn’t as experienced in the same way that Drogo is. Drogo went up through the ranks. Was military before he joined. Up until Grey’s dick got cut off, Drogo seemed to resent him for not paying his dues in the traditional ways.
Drogo says, “I’m going to fucking miss you so much, man,” as he holds up a glass of beer in salute.
Grey looks around at his colleagues — at the rest of the personel. Their office is underground. There’s no natural light. Everyone looks bleak under fluorescent light. They are smiling maniacally at him.
He says, “I’ll be back before you know it.”
And they all seem like they are refraining from sighing at him, because he is so pitiful.
His parents do not have the clearance, so he cannot tell them what happened at all. They can only surmise that something terrible happened to their son because the person that they are getting back is not at all the person that left.
His mom cries about it more than he does. He actually can’t cry at all. It seems like his mom spends hours and hours clutching his face, staring tearfully into his eyes, sobbing, and screaming out what they have done to her beautiful baby boy.
He cannot say anything to console his mom — not that he doesn’t try. He does. He keeps saying to her, “Mom, I’m okay,” but every time he says this, she just descends further into pain.
His dad also gets weepy, all the times that he thinks Grey is not looking. Over dinner, over breakfast, over lunch, over the short walks in a nearby greenbelt, his parents keep obsessively revisiting the past and blaming themselves for what has happened to him. They keep crying and telling him that they pushed him too hard with school and with achievement. They didn’t let him be a kid, and they didn’t let him have a life. They were stupid and they thought that he was going to have a bright future. They were stupid and thought that he was a genius whose gifts had to be nurtured and fostered. They only thought this because they are teachers and they thought they knew what gifted looked like. They thought it was the right thing to send him to college overseas. They thought he’d have the best education in Westeros. They were elated when he called them to tell them he was studying literature. They talked amongst themselves and told each other that their son was going to be an artist and he was going to be a writer. They thought he was going to meet someone and fall in love. They thought he’d eventually settle down. They also thought he’d have children and they’d have grandchildren. That was their plan for him.
In the Summer Tongue, his mom keeps asking, what have they done to you?
Because of the payout, he no longer needs to work for money. After four months, he realizes that everyone is a fucking liar and a fucking coward. His messages are not being returned at all. People have forgotten him completely. He needs to move the fuck on and just live a stupid, pointless, ordinary life. He has an advanced degree that is completely fucking useless at home. He doesn’t want to fucking do anything else, other than what he used to do.
So to spite everyone — and to spite himself — he becomes a clerk at a grocery store. He slums it way below his capabilities. He runs a cash register. He gets verbally abused by old women who snap at him when he warns them against writing checks. He gets verbally abused by old men, when he takes too long in grabbing booze and cigarettes for them. He gets crumpled money thrown at him by twerpy teenagers. He rings up boxes of condoms late at night, as he looks into the face of some horny bastard who is about to go get some. Grey repeats to himself that that part of his life is over. His fucking life is just fucking over, actually. He should just fucking kill himself already because it is all pointless.
They both used to be D and G. That was other people’s shorthand for them. It used to be confusing actually, because sometimes they didn’t know if people were referring to Grey and Daario or Grey and Drogo.
But now, Drogo and Daario are called the “Double Ds” and as much as they both love boobs, they both fucking hate this fucking nickname.
But really, they just miss Grey.
“You never know how used to working with someone you get, not until they are gone. I wonder what he’s doing right now,” Daario says, orienting his words into his food tray. It’s food from their shit cafeteria. It’s weepy apple pie, a soggy chicken salad sandwich, and a mealy apple. He doesn’t understand why the food is so wet.
“Probably living his best life,” Tyrion deadpans. “No, just kidding. I stalk his brother’s girlfriend’s social media. And I stalk all of his cousins. There’s been three photos of Grey since he moved back home. One was wearing a nameday hat for a child and he looked miserable. He was smiling in the picture, but I know his eyes and joy was dying. The other pictures were just group photos. Joy was dying in them for him, too. His family is huge.”
“That’s so weird,” Robb says. “I thought he was an orphan for the longest time.”
“Because he never talked about his family,” Drogo supplies.
“Yeah.”
“How is Theon doing?” Sandor asks.
Robb frowns.
His parents set him up on a date with the daughter of one of their many friends. He doesn’t see the point in this because he can’t like, have sex ever again, so what is even the point in getting to know anyone at all? — his mother looks really alarmed when he casually says this — but he still goes along with it, just so his parents don’t start crying hysterically again. He is really tired of that.
Her name is Tiani, and she is really boring and nice. She wears glasses that are hipster. She is nerdy. She is insecure about her body even though she has a nice body. He can see it in the way she dresses, the way she slouches, and also the way she talks. He can also tell that she has totally been primed on his castration. Because she is super fucking awkward from the get.
They have dinner at a seafood restaurant. His dad gave him money for this date, even though he’s like, kind of well-off now. He imagines this was a selling point for Tiani and her parents. No dick, but guess what? Rich and will not rape.
They make excruciating small talk at dinner. He cannot talk about the last ten years of his life whatsoever, because of security reasons. He has only become acutely aware of how much of his life was taken up by work. He has nothing to say about anything outside of work. Tiani asks about his hobbies. He tells her he used to like to work out — because he had to be fit for work. And that is it. That is the extent of his hobbies.
She tells him that she likes to knit. And she also likes to collect beach rocks. He refrains from pointing out to her that that’s not really a hobby. At least, not an active one.
He is so fucking bored. He thinks, for the millionth time, about just killing himself so that he can escape this fucking life.
He is shocked when, at the end of the night, she suggests they go out again.
When Yara finally comes back from extended leave, she looks haggard and tired. There are dark shadows under her eyes. She tells them that they have lost Theon forever. Her brother is gone. He died in that fucking room. And what is left is this depressed shell who is just emotionally scarred forever now.
Because she comes from money, she doesn’t think the payout was worth this at all. Her brother’s life has been ruined, and she doesn’t think people care enough about this at all.
“So, are you going to quit?” Missandei asks softly, wondering if Yara is going to stand on principle.
Yara says, “Oh God, no. I can’t quit.” She shakes her head. She says, “I’m just so fucking pissed.”
The entire conversation about the loss of Theon makes Missy wonder about Grey and how he is doing.