Chapter Text
All he has to do is not answer.
Ramsay's biting sarcastic smile, penetrating ice blue eyes wait silently on Reek's phone. Waiting to be answered. Waiting to deliver that poisonous voice, the voice that hurts, soothes, thrills Reek, playing him; Ramsay's instrument. It's so unfair. Ramsay shouldn't be in his mind; shouldn't be pulling him from the distance growing between them.
For the last few years he had learned to read Ramsay and respond so well that Ramsay had made a home in his head. He wasn't Theon anymore, and he was never alone. His wants were only seen through the lens of Ramsay's needs and desires.
But this sacrifice came with it's reward. Reek wasn't tip-toeing through broken glass around his Master, like he was back when this all began. He had learned how to deal with Ramsay, even through his abject submission. He knew how and when to make Ramsay laugh, feel victorious, feel needed, feel feared, even how and when to make Ramsay feel loved.
And Reek does love Ramsay in some way. It was better than the constant waking nightmare Reek was born into, but every time he loved Ramsay just a little more, the wall he held fast to as his only remaining protection cracked in fresh places.
This morning Ramsay finally surprised him, after so many years. He had been fighting with his father again. Roose must have said something about Ramsay's ignoble birth because he stopped yelling and pacing the room at once. He looked down at his phone in a silence that rang in Reek's ears like panicked sirens. Slowly putting the phone down on the table beside him with his back to Reek Ramsay camly commanded, "Come here."
Reek had hurried to his side, but before he could even finish asking, "Yes, Ma-" Ramsay swung around and punched with his full force him right in the jaw, knocking Reek to the floor. Reek didn't understand what had happened. He only saw a flash of blind hate on his Master's face then he was on the ground.
It didn't even hurt at first, he was so shocked. Ramsay then half-heartedly over turned a coffee table with dishes from breakfast still on it and in a strangely defeated voice yelled at Reek to "clean this shit up" before he got back from work. Reek watched him walk out the door from where he'd fallen on the floor.
Only when the door slammed shut and he heard the finality of the outside deadbolt clicking into place, did Reek try to understand what happened. He slowly rolled onto his back as stinging tears blurred his vision.
It's not fair.
It isn't fair. He didn't do anything. He didn't do anything wrong.
The one thing, the only thing he ever begged of Ramsay was not to hit him in the jaw. When Theon had been broken and Reek made for Ramsay, Ramsay had hit Theon's face quite a lot. Reek's jaw would sometimes come out of place, even getting stuck. It would click when he ate sometimes, and when he was very anxious it would tense and cause terrible headaches. Reek was still beaten for a game, for punishments, to remember his place, but Ramsay had never punished him for something he didn't do.He never punched Reek in the face anymore, he said he wouldn't.
He promised, one early morning when they were driving home from visiting Ramsay's mother, that he would never punch Reek in the jaw again.
Ramsay was so soft around his wide-eyed, skittish little mother. Reek was so good that day. Made her see what a nice boy Ramsay was, how proud she should be of her loving son. On the drive home the bass and lilting voice of quiet music hummed comfortingly with the roaring road below. Reek stared out the window watching a world closed off to him drift by. Ramsay spoke warmly to his pet. The passing streetlights made his icy eyes flash and he they looked right to the bottom of Reek's being when he made his promise with such devoted sincerity. Reek snuggled against his Master's shoulder and accepted his caresses without flinching.
By the time Ramsay came home that day, the mess was cleared and forgotten, but in Reek's mind the broken promise burrowed and festered.