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Slowly Jon Snow lowers his body down from perching atop his husband. His breath has not yet returned to a normal pace, and ecstasy still runs fast through his veins. He lies down on the floor cover-up with bearskin, his eyes closed. There he lolls and feels everything. The soft fur on his back, the warmth from the hearth right on his left, and the night winds coming through the open window across the room, their brush gentle on Jon's skin, almost as tender as Tormund's moves rubbing his belly with a damp rug. The cloth is warm, his husband knows he hates cleaning up after with cold water, so Tormund always prepared a bowl of boiled water for it. When Tormund is done, he cradles Jon's head up the pillow to lie on his arm instead, his other hand on Jon's waist after he drapes another pelt over their lower half.
Contentment grows with each beating drum of his heart. Lying on his side, Jon opens his gaze and there, there is the face of the dearest creature in his world. He feels dazed in the afterglow, and so in love it hurts.
"How do you do that?" Jon says in bewilderment, staring into those blue eyes. The back of his fingers traces Tormund's features.
"Do what, my wild thing?"
Jon's quiet for a time, searching for the words. "You… you make it look like loving me is so…" He let out an astonished sigh. "Easy."
Tormund smiled at that. There are sparks in his eyes, glistening with the reflection of the fire behind Jon's back. He seems to think for a moment, his hand on Jon's waist has its thumb moving up and down stroking the skin. Then, Jon catches a different kind of glint in the older man's eyes, though not less familiar to him. But before he can ask what's the thing that puts mischievousness in those blues, Tormund opens his mouth and says, "let me tell you a story."
And before Jon can retort with anything, his husband dives into his storytelling.
"That many years ago," he starts, his arm suddenly raised straight, the palm open facing their hut's rooftop as if up there there is an illustration for the story he's about to tell. "A crow, a very pretty one I may say, came stumbling to King-Beyond-The-Wall, Mance Rayder's tent and he mistook me for him, and so he's on the ground, kneeling to me. And I thought," he glances back at Jon, not without a lopsided smile, "I can get used to this view."
Jon does not know where his husband is going with this, but he lets him. It's less than likely he would be able to make Tormund stop, and it's his fault, anyway, for letting his tongue run loose.
"When he was back standing, though, I saw a light in his big eyes, a light I can still see to this day. Determination, though I prefer to call it stubbornness, to fight for what he knows is right. I thought, then, this idiot would fight a God if he thinks it is the way."
Jon let out a huff. Don't know if I can do that, he thinks.
"A year, or was it two after we first met, he had grown much. He had… lost someone," Tormund says, voice soft and reverent, his hand now gently squeezing Jon's that lay on his chest. Jon stares at his husband, but it's Ygritte's face that he now sees. It used to be a painful routine, remembering her. It still is. But this has been such a long time, and these days, perhaps it is because he had been carrying the weight for so long, or mayhaps because time indeed heals all wounds, it's easier to breathe and continue.
Jon interlaced their fingers, squeezing back Tormund's much bigger hand.
Tormund continues, "and yet, he's still fighting. I remember he called me prideful, then a coward, I remember the way his gaze bore into mine as he unchained me. I remember thinking, you boy are the only person to ever call me a coward and able to walk away without broken bones. And then-"
"We're fools together now," Jon quotes. His mind recalls the event in Hardhome, the horror they went through together. He was so scared, Jon remembers, so desperate. But amid all the chaos, Tormund was there beside him. And on the ship on their way back, Jon remembers, something had dawned upon him. It had struck his heart then that he trusts this wildling completely.
"Aye, we are," Tormund reaffirms. His gaze does not stir away from Jon.
"And then he saved my people, risking his life for it. Five thousand of them were able to escape a cruel fate because of him. Yet he thought he had failed, what an idiot. He thought he had done so little, not even near enough. He wanted to save them all. As I stared at him from across the yard, a train of my people between us, I thought," the train of words stops abruptly.
Despite Tormund always boasting about Jon coming back from death to anybody close enough for them to hear, Jon knows that the fact he had died to begin with on some nights keeps the older man awake. Tormund's ghosts perhaps not as much as Jon's, but the thought that he could have lost what they have and not even knowing it is the biggest of them. He brings their intertwined hands to his lips, so he can leave a kiss on Tormund's knuckles, silently telling him, "it's alright, I'm here."
"I thought, 'he has a good heart, it's going to get him killed '. I regret thinking as such. Some God had heard my mind, mayhaps, and he had turned it into reality. Next time I saw him, those brown eyes were closed, I couldn't see it but I knew that the light there was gone."
Jon rises himself up, his right-hand braces his body. "Not for long," he whispers, eyes not leaving Tormund's face. And a little smile comes in return, and it grows by the seconds. And seeing Tormund's smile, Jon has not yet found anything that makes him smile more than it. The corner of his lips lifts even before he realizes it.
"Aye, it shall be the end of the story, if it's anyone else, even me," Tormund says, his voice back to be cheerful, "but no, it's not the end, it's him we are talking about, and of course, of course, he came back from the dead. And–"
"And the first thing you say to him is he's no God, for what God would have a pecker that small," Jon cuts him, and a chuckle escapes his throat. He lies himself down once again, but this time instead of putting the back of his head on Tormund's arm, he places his hand on the chieftain's chest and his chin on top of it. Now free to move, Tormund makes use of his hand to pat Jon's unruly hair.
"Maybe I should have called him one. I never saw any God, so he's the closest thing I have to that experience. It's hard to know what the Gods are planning, anyway, but him, I can always rely on him."
Always. Even if it's I who depended on you so much, you can always rely on me. I swear.
"And then what?"
"And then the first thing he does after being undead is run towards the jaws of death. That fucker," Tormund curses, his chest heaving under Jon's chin as he sighs.
"I hold him in the middle of that battle. My hand was on his shoulder, my other hand was holding a sword, so instead of my palm it was the blade that was touching his waist. His eyes were frantic, the air smelled shit, amidst all the chaos I prayed to the Gods, any that would hear, to let him live. Let him survive."
The specific moment that Tormund just said is engraved deep in Jon's mind. And Jon recalls one detail that his wildling seems to have forgotten to mention; Tormund saved him that day, on the battlefield. He was on his back on the ground, defending himself from insistent attacks from a Bolton soldier. There was a possibility that soon his hand movement was a second too late, and the man's sword stuck between his two eyes. But it did not happen, because Tormund came and saved him. He pulls Jon from the dirt, he grounded him on his feet.
"He did survive. And then I saw him beat that Bolton dog to a pulp, it's the hottest thing I have witnessed." Tormund gives him a wink, which Jon retorts by rolling his eyes.
If under the fur down there his toes are curling, no one has to know but him.
"Then, would you believe it? They made him King. King in the North, they chanted, he was the least of all to believe it.
"He's a King not for long, though. You see, he never wanted a crown. So to sacrifice it for a chance to save his people against the Dead was no sacrifice at all. But it brought him consequences, consequences too brutal, cruel, for a man who had only ever wanted to keep people alive."
Jon gets no idea if Tormund recognizes it, but his voice becomes louder and harsher as it goes. "So many people were saved because of him, so many, in the end, they cared not for that. They turned their ba–"
"Tor," he calls, gentle but firm, and Tormund’s mouth closed in half a second. "It's alright. You know what I did."
"Yes. I know what you did, you saved them all!"
“Tormund,” Jon speaks roughly, once again raising his body. The older man, though, as ever, undaunted under his glare. For a moment that’s all they do, staring into each other’s eyes, before Jon sighs as he looks away. He untangles their intertwined fingers and moves to sit properly. He takes Tormund’s hand again, then cradles it between his smaller ones on his lap.
"Don't be mad, Tor,” Jon asks, because his husband almost never denied any of his wants. “I don't want you to be. He did what he did, and it is just that he bears the weight of it for the rest of his life."
Aye, Tormund has almost never denied him, but it is clear that this record is a few steps behind the one that Tormund never backed down from fighting for the rightness of choices Jon made in the past, for his innocence, as he calls it at times. He still stares at him in silence. And so Jon says in an addendum, “yet, all those bad things that happened, without them, he would not be where he is now. The happiest he's ever been in his life,” the words roll out light from his tongue, the right corner of his lips lifts.
"How do you know that?" Tormund questions him, but Jon catches a hint of playfulness in the tone.
"That crow you have been making a speech about is me, is it not?” Jon cocks an eyebrow. “I recognized bits here and there, felt familiar,” he says as if it’s someone else’s history.
It makes Tormund smile, and a second later Jon is smiling too. "Aye, it's you,” the chieftain answers as he also changes into a sitting position. They are so close, faces just inches apart.
“What’s the point of your story then?”
“Should you ask that? Can’t you get it on your own, little crow?”
“You are quite a shitty storyteller, to be frank, so no, Tor, I can’t. What is there to get?" Their noses are touching now. Jon can feel his husband’s breath graze on his cheek, and the warm sensation it leaves.
"That you are one hell of a great and kind and gorgeous and remarkable and selfless man."
"Have you ever considered that you are biased?" asks Jon, knowing damn well at this point that if he retorts with anything that rejects even a bit of what his husband said, that said husband will only become more stubborn about it.
"No. And even if I have, I still came out right because what I said is the truth." Tormund's bushy beard skims over his lips as he starts peppering every inch of Jon's face with kisses. Nuzzling at him as if he's some dog. Or one particular direwolf.
"Tor," it's all that Jon can say, he sounds the same as when he addresses kids in their village that keep fighting with each other for a chance to ride Ghost at every opportunity.
Without notice, Tormund's lips land on his. His husband presses them hard and then, before Jon can do as much as blink, pulls away with a grin.
"Don't chide me like that, husband, I'm just telling the truth, and trying to answer your question." He has Jon's chin between his thumb and forefinger. "Why is it that I made loving you seem to be such an easy thing, you asked. Because it is, Jon, it is easy, because you made it to be. It's on you, my little crow, not on me."
Not yet a second after Tormund finishes, Jon lunges and kisses him. His husband lets out a laugh as he falls back and his head hits the pillow, but Jon ignores it, and not long after he is once again on top of Tormund, kissing him vigorously. That is until the chieftain decides to take control and flips their position.
Their lips are eventually parts. Tormund's lips then are on his forehead, on the tip of his nose, giving warmth to both sides of Jon's cheeks before the sheer bulk of a man collapses atop his body, hiding his face in a place between Jon's shoulder and neck.
"You need to stop acting like I'm some lady and you're wooing me," Jon mutters under his breath, burying his face in his husband's red mane.
Tormund huffs. "You're a princess, if anything. And you like it when I treat you that way."
Jon gives him a slap in the back for the comment. Though, it is true, in a sense. He does rarely agree with his husband's boasts about him, and always feels embarrassed each time he is being talked about in such a manner. But the reality that Tormund thinks of him is worth boasting about, not just glad for his existence but he feels proud of him, no one ever loves him in that way. He grows up with the feeling of shame attached to his presence, but with Tormund, he's celebrated.
It's late. Jon glances at the window and sees the moon stares down at them, its white light contracting with the orange from their home's hearth. A wolf howling in the distance. Or perhaps it's Ghost, Jon wonders. He needs not to fret, though, the direwolf has always taken good care of himself. And he's always come back. Aye, Jon thinks, as he marvels at his husband's weight grounding him, there's nothing I need to worry about. He's serene, content.
"Husband…" Jon murmurs.
Tormund answers him with a hum.
"You made it so easy for me to love you too."
"I know." Tormund's voice is fond, heavy with sleep. Jon closes his eyelids.
They drift to sleep.