Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Gods...” Satin muttered, shaking his head and glancing up at Jon to fix him with a narrow-eyed look. “I cannot believe you let me let it get this bad again. I have been offering for weeks, and you said it was fine. ‘Oh, I’m just a little achy, Satin.’ Just a little? You’re a liar, Jon Snow. A filthy liar.” At his words, Jon’s mouth opened to object, but Satin silenced him with a glare. “And don’t lie to me again and say it isn’t so bad because I can feel it with my own two hands.”  

Jon had the decency to look abashed, glancing to the side and sighing. “Well...” he grumbled. “Your wrist.” 

“My wrist is fine. Gods above, Jon, you infuriate me sometimes.” 

Satin was on his knees at Jon’s feet as he had been countless, countless times before as Jon leaned back propped up against a pile of throw pillows on the bed. Even through the thick layer of wool between his hands and Jon’s thigh, Satin could feel the tension and the tightness in the muscle under his fingers. Pressing his thumb into the point of connection between his knee and his thigh, it was as though the muscle was trying to repel him, the knots and contusions shifting and shirking. It was the worst it had been in a very, very long time. 

It had been nearly three months since Satin had last been allowed to massage him, with the last one having been the very night before his wrist had been snapped and his hand had been cast and bandaged until just recently, and it was beginning to take a toll on him. Satin could see it. He was not blind. Or, rather, he knew Jon well enough to see what others did not. He was slower to rise from chairs, slower to mount the castle’s steps, even if only by a split-second. It was not enough that his men could see – Jon would never have allowed that – but that breath of readying himself that Jon took each time told Satin all he needed to know. He never complained, never groaned or grit his teeth visibly and he certainly never asked for Satin’s aid. He simply bore it and continued.  

Satin had offered to take his place at Jon’s knee more than a few times in recent months, even when the cast was still on but Jon had always shaken his head.  

“Not with your wrist.” He’d say.  

“Then with my left hand alone.” Satin would argue. He could help. He could always help. One hand was better than nothing, but still Jon would refuse.  

“It’s fine.” He’d promise each time. “I can take care of my own aches, if I need it. But I don’t. Focus on your own wounds for now, Satin. Mine are old. Yours are fresh.” 

And so it had been. Even once the hard plaster cast had been removed by Maester Dallin and replaced with the soft linen one, Jon had shrugged him off. But, now, finally a fortnight cast free, with a clean bill of health, and a working, strong wrist once more, Satin had managed to convince Jon to let him work his leg again after catching him leaning his own elbow into the meat of his thigh as he read a book in his armchair. To apply pressure to the scar and relieve what pain could be relieved, Satin knew. Enough of this, he’d thought. 

“Let me.” He’d said, taking Jon’s book from his hands and placing it blindly aside. 

Jon didn’t pretend he didn’t know what Satin meant, simply looking at him and shaking his head. “You don’t have to.” 

“Yes, Jon, I know.” Satin had sighed, crossing over to their bed and piling the pillows up to ready them so Jon could have a comfortable spot to lean against while his leg hung off the side. “We’ve been over this. Now get on the bed before I put you on the bed.” 

A moment’s pause and a blink were all Jon had given him before rising and crossing to the bed in silent obedience. And so finally, finally, Satin found himself in the very familiar position of kneeling as Jon leaned back against the headboard. Satin had missed it, if he were honest. The intimacy of it, of Jon’s body under his hands and the relief he could bring him, of not just seeing him relax but feeling him relax and knowing it was he that brought it to him. It made him feel a deep rolling satisfaction in his belly like a cat with a bowl of cream, like he’d won something.  

It had only taken mere seconds of massaging Jon’s thigh for him to realize just how bad it had gotten in his three-month furlough. The muscle was tense, hard, and wiry in a way it shouldn’t have been. Muscles were meant to move with the body, with touch, not against it. And when he passed his thumb over the worst of the scar tissue, risen and bumpy, Jon could not quite manage to fully mask the tensing wince that passed over him, his breath coming in and out through his nose slowly as he grit his teeth. Satin did not flinch away from it and neither did Jon. It would hurt before it got better, both knew. And so Satin kept at it and Jon endured it, as he always did.  

Jon sat back and breathed through the pain as Satin set to work, hands pulling the skin as best he could through the thick wool of his breeches, face scolded and sheepish at Satin’s earlier reprimand.  

“The maester told you to go easy on it.” Jon grumbled. “Not to strain it. Surely this is straining it. Your wound is still—” 

Fresh. It was not that fresh. The presence of Whoresbane Umber’s attack in his mind had faded much with time. Most days, he did not even spare it a thought other than in frustration when his wrist ached on cold mornings. Even so, loathe as he was to admit it, there was a section of Winterfell’s walls not far from the Maester’s Tower that Satin still did not like passing, and glancing over the sides of the parapets down into the snowy ground below made his heart race in a way it hadn’t before Whoresbane had bent him over its edge and promised to throw him off. Doublets with too tight a collar gave him pause when he felt the fabric crowding his neck. The smell of sour leaf turned his stomach when he passed by someone chewing the rancid stuff, the pink foam it left on their lips evoking a visceral revulsion in Satin’s chest. He’d woken more than once, gasping and wide eyed, with the echo of a hand on his throat and the coppery taste of blood in his mouth, his wrist aching despite having healed. Jon always startled awake with him, grey eyes taking him in and recognizing the fear. He’d pull him close, hands settling heavily on his back and face pressing into the curls atop his head. It’s me, Jon would whisper because he somehow knew him so well, not him. He’s gone. And Satin would breathe a shaky sigh of relief, slump into Jon’s chest, and slowly feel his heartrate return to normal.  

Wounds were odd things like that, Satin knew, and the one Whoresbane Umber had left him ran deeper than the once-snapped bone in his wrist. And yet, most days it was nothing to him but an ambient awareness, an ache just in his periphery that sometimes made itself known. He had no doubt that Jon’s wounds, old as they were, were much the same. He also had no doubt that the one in his thigh had been more than making itself known these days. 

“I could do this in my sleep.” Satin told him matter-of-factly. “And my wrist is fine, has been fine. This leg, however, is not.” The muscle under his hands was as stiff as bone, unyielding, tight, tense. “Gods, how are you even walking?” 

“...Painfully.” Jon admitted.  

“And tell me then how you intend to sit a horse and ride for hours upon hours down the kingsroad in less than a week?” 

Almost everything was in place for their march down to the Riverlands as Jon had been promising for so long. It had been almost a year since he’d arrived in Winterfell and became its lord and then became its king. The Freys and the Riverlands had always been next on the unending list of things Jon needed to do, but other things had consistently pushed it back. And so finally, nearly eleven moons after Jon first said they’d be marching south, they were ready to march south. Banners were here and present. Supply lines were readied. Men were gathered, armed, and armored.  

Ser Justin Massey had arrived not long ago with his nearly 20,000 sellswords in tow, and it had taken nearly a week of discussions and negotiations before he had bent the knee to Jon and sworn his men to his cause as the uncle to Shireen and as his Azor Ahai. With Jon’s army now grown and giving him more than enough men to march south with while still leaving a sizable garrison to hold Winterfell and the North, all that was left to do were the final preparations, the few final minuscule details, and then it would be time. They would leave in five days down the kingsroad with the Twins as Jon’s destination. To avenge the deeds done during the Red wedding, to reclaim captives, to stop the killing he’d heard tale was still happening in the Riverlands. And then, once the Freys were done and relative peace returned to Jon's kingdom, they could return home and finally hunker down in Winterfell’s warm walls until spring came.   

“I will do what needs do—” Jon’s words faltered into a hiss before they could fully leave his mouth as Satin pressed his thumbs into the meat of his thigh. The inner and outer sides of his leg near the knee were often tight due to it attempting to compensate for the weakness around the scar itself, and that was the place that always seemed to need the most help. “Gods...” Jon muttered as Satin pressed and rolled his knuckles in rhythmic circles against the spot. 

“That’s what I thought.” Satin huffed, and continued. He worked the muscle for a long time, swaying in place as he rubbed up and down the length of the thigh and kneaded him like bread dough as he went. He pulled at the muscles as best as he could over the thick wool, stretching the skin through it. It would be better, he thought not for the first time, if I were doing this skin to skin. Properly, with warmed oil, so he could see what he was working with and actually glide across the skin rather than cause the fabric to scratch and chafe at Jon’s thigh. It would be far nicer, softer, and, more importantly, far more effective.  

“Jon...” He began hesitantly after they had passed a long time in silence. At the quiet hum of acknowledgement in return, Satin continued. “There’s a better way to do this, if you’ll allow it.”  

“Oh?” 

Satin drew in a breath and looked up at him with as much of a casual air as he could manage. “Your breeches. You could take them off.”  

There was a blink and a furrowing of Jon’s brow. “Apologies.” He chuckled after a moment. “I think I misheard you.”  

“You didn’t.” Satin said simply. “It’s more effective on bare skin, Jon. You know that from when I work your back.” 

Jon shifted slightly, the muscles in his thigh tensing and untensing as he did. “Well, aye, but then I’d be sitting here naked from the waist down. And that would be... awkward.” 

That made a bubble of unexpected laughter spill from Satin’s lips. The image of Jon, walking the halls of Winterfell dressed elegantly in a fine, kingly doublet but ass naked on the bottom entered his mind for half a second and he couldn’t help but snicker. He shook his head and gave Jon a bemused look. “I’m not asking you to be naked, silly. I rather expected you’d keep your small clothes on. I’m only massaging your leg. You don’t have to be naked for that, you know.” 

“Well, obviously.” Jon grumbled, glancing away with a heavy, unsure breath. “That just seems a little... far. Doesn’t it?” 

After all that has happened between us? Please. “Jon.” He chided lightly, giving him an almost exasperated look. “It's nothing I've not seen. I see you in your small clothes every single day. I undress you down to your small clothes every single day. And how many times have I seen you fully naked? Half a dozen? More?”  

An expression almost like concession or admittance passed his face. Such things would have been the reality of any steward and squire’s service. He dressed Jon, called for his baths, shared his tent on march, and did anything and everything the king required. There would have been an intimacy in that even as a normal steward. And with whatever else laid between them, it was far more so. There was nothing that hadn’t been seen of the other. He doubted there were more than a few inches of each other’s bodies they could claim to be mysteries to one another at this point. Small clothes were just small clothes, Jon knew that as well as he did. He just resisted because he believed he must. Offer and resist, Satin thought, and it made him want to laugh. As usual. You are simply being your stubborn, honorable, silly self, aren’t you? 

“I suppose.” Jon agreed slowly.  

“Do you think I shall be scandalized by a hint of leg?” He reached down and pulled the hem of Jon’s trouser leg up just an inch, revealing the edge of his woolen sock and the barest glimpse of skin. “Gods above, it’s an ankle.” Satin gasped. “Mother always warned me about men’s ankles!” 

Jon scrunched his nose. “Okay—” 

“And what comes after that? A shin?” Satin tugged the offending fabric up another inch. Taking Jon’s leg into his hands by the ankle, he pulled it up into his lap and leaned in as if to inspect it closely. “Gods... there’s hair there. And muscle! And... Old Gods save me! Is that a knee higher still?” 

“Satin—” 

“My innocent eyes can’t take it.” Satin lamented with all the drama he could muster and he could muster more than his fair share. “Cover it, Jon, cover it! Lest my embarrassment melt me away to a puddle on the floooooor!” As he extended his last word, he fell back, letting his head come to lay on the granite floors beneath him and one of his arms rest dramatically over his eyes as though he’d fainted. After a moment of silence, he snickered and peeked open his eyes to find Jon glaring down at him with a barely disguised amusement pulling at his lips and a smile in his eyes he seemingly refused to let cross his lips.  

“You’re... insufferable.” 

“And you’re... still wearing your trousers.”  

Jon sighed slowly, the faint smile fading to a look of deep thought. “It’s... the same as with my back.” He said eventually, but it seemed more a question than a sentence.  

“Of course.” Satin agreed, rolling himself back up off the floor to kneel once more at the edge of the bed. “It’s no different.” 

“Of course.” He echoed back, an odd timbre to his voice. “So, it would be no issue.” 

“No issue at all.” 

Jon sat still for a moment in silence, lips pursed and brow furrowing, and Satin watched him think, watched him consider and doubt and hesitate as though he was simultaneously talking himself into it and out of it all at once. Before he could come to a conclusion either way, Satin sighed and gave Jon’s leg a gentle pat.  

“If it is truly against your will, Jon, then we can keep it over the trousers.” He promised, letting the last hint of playfulness fall away to something far softer, something far more genuine and earnest. “But you’re hurting. I hate seeing you in pain when I can make it better. And skin to skin? That can make it better all the faster, all the easier. Will you let me?”  

Jon was silent again with what looked like a dozen or more thoughts rapidly passing his eyes before he, without word, stood. Satin shifted to let him pass and did him the decency of pointedly looking away when Jon reached for his belt. As though I have not seen it. As though I have not stripped you bare myself and washed blood and dirt from your skin with my own hands. As if I did not cradle your naked corpse against my chest and sew your wounds closed. But no matter. Satin could play pretend, could play at modesty, if it made Jon’s breath come a little easier. From his place gazing at the floor, he heard the clink of metal, the creaking of leather, and finally the shuffling of fabric as it fell to the floor.  

When Jon finally returned to his spot upon the bed, propped up by countless wolf and weirwood-motif laden pillows, a little awkwardly and more than a little stiffly, he was only in his sleeping shirt and his small clothes. Jon favored front-laced braies as his undergarment of choice, Satin knew from being the one responsible for his laundry for so long at the Wall, and shorter ones ever since his resurrection. The ankle-length small clothes often preferred by northerners of tight knit wool that kept the heat in were far too hot for Jon now that his body burned persistently with fever-like warmth. Instead, he wore his braies cropped short to mid-thigh, more like Southron and Dornish men did in the summer when it was far too hot for anything more. Jon leaned back against the pillows and allowed his leg to fall back into its usual position. Covered in a thin layer of wiry brown hair, his leg was toned and strong with defined calves and firm quadriceps. Jon was strong but lean, and his legs showed it.  

At the meat of his thigh was the scar. It was a nasty little thing, pink, raised, and jagged. An arrow puncture, Satin knew. From his wildling girl, he remembered, and wondered what Jon had done to earn the parting gift. He must feel her in every step, Satin thought, like a constant reminder. She knit herself into his flesh. The idea left a queasy feeling in his chest as he pulled his eyes from the scar. 

He found the unscented yarrow oil in their bedside cupboard, long unused these past three moons, and coated his hands until they were slick. There was no need to delay and no need to hesitate – that would only give Jon time to doubt and for his mind to turn – so Satin set to it at once. His hands glided across the expanse of his skin like warm butter over bread. It was easy, soft, and Satin could feel the sturdy muscle beneath, each knot and contusion and tightness. He stretched and rubbed the skin, working it as deeply as he could to loosen the muscle surrounding the scar with his thumbs. Still, it did not seem to want to give. Jon was just too tense, it was clear to him, to let it release.  

“Sooo...” Satin said lightly. “The weather, right?” 

Jon made a sound of vague confusion that melted into a bemused chuckle when he realized what Satin was doing. “Cold, aye.” He agreed with a sheepish smile. 

“Mhmm.” Satin hummed. “And it’ll be cold on the march too without Winterfell’s lovely heated walls to keep away the worst of the chill. A tent flap just doesn’t do the same job. Oh yes, I’m ready to shiver in my furs.” 

“I suppose.” Jon said. “But you needn’t worry. I won’t let you shiver too much.” 

A smile pulled at Satin’s face as he kneaded his fingers deeper into the thigh. “How sweet. You did promise to keep me warm after all.” 

Jon’s lips quirked up and he huffed in amusement, a faint pinkness coming to the tips of his ears. “Aye, I suppose I did. Well, you’ll have to hold me to it then.” 

“Oh, I will.” 

Jon relaxed with time, slumping back against his pile of pillows and allowing his muscles to let go. Satin felt them loosen under his ministrations, going lax as he pulled and stretched them. He gentled his fingers over the scar itself, rubbing along the jagged length of it to bring it just a little bit of relief. There were still the occasional hisses of gritted teeth against the pain and deep focused breaths to help him bear it, but they were fewer and far between. 

“Much better...” Satin muttered, more to himself than to Jon but it earned him a quiet sound of approval. “It’s a wonder what a little oil can do, huh?”  

When he pressed his thumbs into the juncture where thigh met knee, Jon groaned. “That’s the spot. Gods, that feels like bone.” 

Satin chuckled and focused his attentions on it, working it with rhythmic leisurely strokes until he felt the flesh beneath his hands relax. He continued along the rest of the thigh, moving a little further up from the knee. Jon drew in slow repeated breaths through his nose and sighed them through his mouth as Satin swayed in his place using long, slow, dragging movements. It was nice. And warm, too, from the fire beneath Jon’s skin and the hearth burning strong behind him. He heard Jon sigh again and glanced up to meet his eyes. They were already on him, but that wasn’t a surprise. He’d felt them lingering since he’d begun, as they always did. Grey and surprisingly warm tonight, Satin offered him a soft smile and felt an echoing warmth of his own when he saw it returned. 

It was all so different now, he could not help but think. He remembered the first time he did this, in Jon’s armory turned solar at the Wall and how Jon’s grey eyes had been so shut-off to him, how he’d gazed into the fire as if looking at Satin was almost painful, how they moved so cautiously and hesitantly around one another like a dance to which neither knew the steps. Now, it was easy to touch Jon like this, and easy for Jon to be touched. Now, Jon watched him openly and did not avert his eyes – warmer and softer and far more known to him than they had once been – when Satin met his gaze. Gods, he thought, how long has it been since then? A year and a half? It must have been. Had it really been so long? Sometimes it felt like only days ago they were still at the Wall, still so close and yet so far from one another. And yet sometimes it felt like a lifetime since they’d come to Winterfell, that he’d spent a thousand-thousand nights in Jon’s arms in Winterfell’s spring-heated walls. Time had changed them so much in so many countless indescribable ways. He had only been Jon’s steward then. Now he was simply Jon’s in his entirety. I wonder when it all changed. Was it one moment? Or a thousand half-moments? Both, he decided. Both, but stemming from one.  

His mind brought him an image he always tried so desperately not to remember; Jon dead in his arms. The days after his resurrection were blurry with exhaustion and heavy with sorrow but Satin remembered the change. He’d held Jon so close from that day forward, and Jon had let him. Piece by piece and moment by moment, Jon had let him closer. Each touch lingered longer, and each one was more welcome than the last. In the ice cells, he had once thought death had stolen Jon from him, stopped them and whatever strange thing they were in its tracks, but it wasn’t so. Jon’s death had propelled them closer together. Closer and closer and closer still, with each day that passed even now. 

Gods, he thought suddenly, it’s been just shy of a year. The anniversary of the mutiny, of Jon bleeding out in his arms, eyes empty and skin cold, was days away. They’d been so busy, so manically preparing to march, that Satin had not even noticed. A year. A year since he’d stitched his wounds closed and kissed Jon’s frozen lips. A year since he’d come back again surrounded by the Red Woman’s smoke. A year since Satin had fallen to his knees and kissed Jon’s hands like a litany and a prayer. A year. One year.  

Satin gave Jon’s thigh another squeeze and wished vaguely to lean his head down to rest his cheek upon his knee. He remembered doing it once before in those fuzzy days after Jon had woken gasping in the smoke, the morning he’d begged Jon not to send him away. It had been an impulse he’d been too weak to resist. He felt it again now. An impulse, from somewhere deep seated inside him. An impulse, but not one to be obeyed. An impulse, but just an impulse, like a thought from the animal part of his brain that sought things without the conscious mind’s input. And so Satin pushed it aside and continued. Jon was not freshly dead and half lost to the flames and Satin not begging to remain at this side. He was already there, long beside him, and massaging his leg. It was unneeded, unnecessary, and thus discarded no matter how much that traitorous part of his body longed for it. The impulse went quietly, contentedly tucking itself back away to where it had come from in his heart. It would make itself known again, the urge to be closer, to touch more, to be touched more, but for now it slumbered peacefully inside him. 

He could not think any longer on the mutiny. He could not remember it more and so he drew in a slow, deep, steadying breath, and brushed the image of Jon’s dead body and his empty eyes away to somewhere within him he wouldn’t look. Now was not the time to reopen old wounds and remember things he needn’t remember. Now was the time to care for Jon, to prepare him to ride south. It was not the time for the past, but for making sure he and Jon walked into the future with as much strength and readiness as was possible. And so, he continued his work. It would help him, and in helping him, help Satin forget.  

Satin finished with Jon’s leg not long later, having massaged the yarrow oil as deeply into the muscle as he could and slowly having felt it release. When he felt he could accomplish no more tonight, he took his hand from the scarred leg and laid it delicately on Jon’s other one.  

“May I?” He asked softly.  

Jon gave him an almost odd look at that. “There’s no scar there.”  

“For balance.” Satin urged. I don’t want it to be over just yet, he thought but didn’t say. “You compensate for your wounded leg by leaning more into this one. And we cannot work one so thoroughly and then ignore the other. That’s not fair. May I?” 

There was a moment of consideration before Jon nodded, and Satin began at once. The impulse to keep touching him, to go on just a little longer, was a strong one he just couldn’t quite resist. The leg below his fingers, one as yet unknown to him, was far less tight than his right leg, though Satin could still feel the tension in it. He rolled the muscles between his hands, dragged his thumbs into any knots he found, and stretched the skin until he felt it all begin to relax. He worked it for a long time until Jon was sighing and his leg was lax and limp under his hands like clay. He wondered if he could go on and on until Jon fell asleep in his hands, peaceful and tranquil from his ministrations, but Satin pushed the thought away. His knees were already aching from their place on the granite floor. When he felt he could do little more for him, he reluctantly rose just enough to sit on the edge of the bed beside Jon. 

“There.” He said softly. “Better?” 

“Much.” Jon nodded, laying back peacefully and sleepy-eyed against his pile of pillows. “I feel human again.”  

That brought a satisfied smile to his lips. He felt the urged to take Jon’s hand in his and so he did, leaning over to rest a hand on Jon’s where it lay on the bed between them and letting his fingers give them a light squeeze. Jon allowed it, not tensing or pulling away, but simply allowing Satin’s fingers to intertwine with his. He is unguarded tonight, he thought, soft and sweet and open. It was a rare enough gift, and one he didn’t want to waste. Satin aimlessly dragged his thumb along his knuckles, gently touching each bump and line of his fingers down to the hard curve of his fingernails when the impulse stuck him. It was pleasant, nice, and Jon didn’t stop him so Satin didn’t stop. He continued his little exploration and felt the edge of the burn scar that wrapped around his palm and licked up his fingers. Satin turned the hand over in his and dragged his thumb along the old wound. It was a grisly scar, risen and pink, thickened and rubbery as it stretched uncomfortably across his palm and up each digit like reaching spider webs. The skin there looked too tight, as if there wasn’t enough of it to pass over the bones beneath. It was no wonder, he thought, that Jon was always flexing and unflexing it.  

“Here.” Satin said quietly, pulling Jon’s hand closer. “Lay your wrist on my knee, and I’ll work your palm next. It might make that feel better, too.”  

When no refusal came, Satin laid the hand to rest on his knee for balance and massaged the meat of it with circular motions of his thumbs. Jon groaned long and low in his throat as Satin rolled a knuckle into the worst of the scar tissue where the thumb met the palm.  

“Nice?” Satin asked with a smile. He knew the difference between a groan of relief and a groan of pain. This was not one of pain.  

“Aye.” Jon sighed. “Good. Very good.” 

That pleased Satin more than it should. “I cannot believe it did not occur to me to do this sooner.” He said. “It should get some blood flow back into your palm.” 

“It feels better already.” Jon told him softly and Satin almost preened under the praise.  

With the meat of this palm thoroughly massaged, each finger stretched and stroked, Satin did his other hand for good measure. For balance, he told him with a smile and did the same to the unscarred hand, too. And your back, he coaxed, I should get your back too. For the tension. So you sit a horse easier. Some part of him thought Jon would resist as he so often did, but he simply shrugged his tunic over his shoulders and laid on his belly to allow Satin access. He was glad for it, and focused, focused, focused on Jon.  

There were no scars here. None visible, anyway. But Jon carried all his tension, all the weight of things that had happened to him, in his back leaving it tight and stiff and tense. Invisible scars then, Satin concluded, and worthy of a little love and care all the same. It was a familiar thing, massaging his hands along Jon’s shoulders and down his spine, his warmth bleeding pleasantly into Satin’s ever-cold fingertips. He set to work, leaning his weight heavily into the broad muscles and feeling for each knot between his shoulder blades, each point of tension along the back of his ribs, and down towards his hips. The tightness told him Jon would need more than a little help tonight. With a rolling up his sleeves, Satin poured another few drops of oil and spread it up his arms so he could make use of more than just his hands. From his vantage point leaning over him, Satin slowly worked his back with long, deep strokes of his elbow and forearm until Jon was lax and sighing into the pillow. He didn’t want it to end. 

“May I touch here?” Satin whispered after much time had passed, gently pressing just the barest hint of his pinky finger to the back of Jon’s thigh at his hamstring. He could not help but smile when Jon nodded without word. He worked those next until they loosened. “And here?” He asked, touching the tendon at the back of the knee. “And here?” He asked again when that was done, fingers caressing over his calves. He tapped the hem of Jon’s woolen socks next, and pulled them away at his nod to take his foot in his oiled hand and press his thumbs into the flesh there. He did the same to the other leg too, for balance, and massaged his way up the length of it until he found himself once more at Jon’s back. He returned his attentions to Jon’s shoulders and followed the line of them down his biceps, pulling Jon’s arm into his and running his fingers up and down the full length of each one.  

Jon basked in quiet comfort, his every limb limp and relaxed as Satin moved from piece to piece of him. He sighed from time to time – sounds of enjoyment, Satin knew well – but otherwise made no sound apart from the occasional vague wordless noise of approval when Satin asked to touch a new place. Jon didn’t bother to hide his contentment. He simply let Satin do as he pleased with each stroke of his fingers and press of his hands. His explorations found him a multitude of new scars. Nothing big, just a few little nicks here and there. A small line on his right arm, a little crescent moon shaped scar on his left calf, among a dozen others. The scars of a life well lived, of his time growing up training in Winterfell, his time at and beyond the Wall. Marks of life and things that had made him his Jon. Satin made quiet note them, filing them away in his mind, and let his fingers gently caress over each one. He worked almost absentmindedly, following each impulse that led him across the expense of Jon’s body. Shoulder, neck, leg, arm, it didn’t matter. Scarred or not, it didn’t matter. Satin massaged each one. 

He guided Jon to lie onto his back after a while and he went without resistance or hesitance, laying almost bonelessly on their plush feather bed. Shift down a little, Satin whispered softly, rest your head on the pillows. Yes, just like that. Maneuvering himself to be leaning over Jon, Satin brought his hands to the top of Jon’s head and to a familiar position to allow himself to scrape his fingernails along Jon’s scalp just the way he liked. He wandered his fingers through the strands, some brown, some grey, and some brilliant white and smiled when he saw Jon’s eyes almost roll back into his head at the sensation, falling closed in relaxation as Satin worked.  

He moved his hands a little further down to rub gentle circles at Jon’s temples, and further down still along his jaw to feel the faint bit of stubble that ghosted his chin. Satin gazed down at him softly as he caressed his fingers along the long lines of Jon’s face, his sharp cheekbones, his soft yet sturdy jaw, his lovely hooked nose. His grey eyes were closed but Satin didn’t mind. His lashes dusted his cheekbones and his nearly perpetually furrowed brow was open and lax in a way that made him smile.  

Cut across Jon’s eyes and brows were a few thin scars a dead warg’s eagle had once left him. These were not near as gruesome as his others. In fact, Satin thought they were rather handsome. Perhaps it is only that I have only ever known him with them? He thought, because he found he could not imagine him without them. A Jon without his facial scars would hardly look like his Jon at all. He felt the impulse to touch them, an impulse he’d had countless times before, and did not deny himself this time, letting his finger drag delicately along the line of the longest one. Jon did not flinch or pull away, he only sighed again and so Satin touched them slowly until he had caressed each and every one of them.  

He let his hands wander a little further down, to the sides of Jon’s neck and underside of his jaw, rolling his knuckles along the ligaments there until they loosened, and he could continue further down still. May I? He asked as he laid a finger on Jon’s upper chest, and rested them fully on him at the slow nod he got in return. Jon let him work, breathing slowly through his nose as Satin massaged his pecs and his shoulders. Jon was toned, his torso muscled from a lifetime spent drilling in the yard but lean rather than broad and lightly dusted with a thin coating of chest hair. Dagger scars littered the expanse of skin there, wounds left from the mutiny, and Satin gentled his hands as he passed over them. He tried to ignore the impulse to stare at them, to drag his fingers along each one, and feel the proof that Jon had come back from the dead, alive, alive, alive, almost one year ago today but it was hard to look away. 

With so much of Jon bare, he could not help but realize just how many scars he bore. The scratches across both of his eyes, the arrow wound buried deep in his thigh, the burn that encompassed most of his right hand, and the half-dozen stabs from the blades that stole his life. So many scars, Satin thought, so many aches and pains for a man so young. Eyes so old and a body so beaten. So many wounds, old and aching and never quite fading away. Satin’s fingers lingered on the mutiny scars, the ones he stitched closed. Most were at his chest, right at the heart, but one sat low on the base of his neck where one of them had tried to slit it. The scars were thin risen white and pink lines that sliced across him, visceral things, the type of scars men weren’t supposed to have. Wounds like that weren’t meant to scar over because wounds like that weren’t meant to be survived at all. Satin felt a familiar lump building in his throat. 

His hands found their way to the scars despite himself, the very tip of his index finger trailing across the worst one right above his heart. He felt the thick knotted tissue and the dozens of tiny spotted scars that followed the line of it, the remains of the stitches Satin had sewn so carefully into his skin down in the ice cells. Each one was lined in them, the small bumps that proved his wounds had been tended, proved beyond proof that someone had cared for him even after he was dead and gone and unable to receive it. Proof, he thought, that I love him. His mind thought of the arrow scar on Jon’s leg, the puncture given him by his Wildling girl who left a part of herself in him with the wound. I suppose I did the same, though it was a far different kind of parting gift. One to tear him open; another to mend him shut. But both, he supposed, done out of love. 

Satin’s hands quivered as he felt the scars under his fingers. Less than a day Jon had been dead, not even one full night’s rest had passed before the Red Woman had brought him back with fire in his veins. And yet still, nearly a full year later, still Satin’s throat tightened and his chest ached when he thought too hard on it. It was another old wound, he realized, an ambient background awareness that made itself known from time to time and it nearly broke him each time it did. He drew in a shaky breath. One night, he reminded himself, one night versus the hundreds since where Jon had been in his arms this past year, warm and breathing and alive, and yet still he felt unmoored and unsteady just at the sight of them. They should be old dull aches by now, he knew, they should not hurt him so as though they were fresh. But reason did not seem to matter. His heart only knew how to feel; it didn’t know how to think. And all it felt was that old wound opening up again.  

Leaning forward, without pausing for thought or fight against the impulse, Satin brushed his lips against the raised flesh of the scar closest to him. The one that sat right above his heart. He vaguely heard a sharp intake of breath above him, but it didn’t register in his mind. Alive, he thought and kissed it again, an inch to the right along its jagged edge. Alive, he thought as he kissed the next one just below his collarbone. Bowen Marsh had given him that one, and Satin had slit his throat for it. Alive. His lips found the one at the base of his neck. Alive. And the next and the next. Alive, alive, alive. Satin kissed them like he had Jon’s hands in the ice cells, when his skin had burned so hot it had singed Satin’s lips but he hadn’t cared. He’d only kissed him further because he was alive. He felt that familiar heat under his skin again but it didn’t burn him anymore. It healed him, reknit his own old wounds back together because it was proof he was alive and Satin’s heart felt tender and open tonight from the touch and the warmth and the closeness Jon had allowed them.  

“Satin...” A voice whispered and it took it him far longer than it should have to recognize it as Jon’s.  

He felt his fever-hot hands find his arm and travel up to cup his neck and tilt Satin’s head back. He let Jon pull him away softly, his lips leaving one last lingering kiss on the scar at his chest. Jon looked down at him, grey eyes searching his face for a long moment. Satin could not quite place the expression he saw on Jon’s own face but it was something raw and open and fresh like a new wound. Satin didn’t understand it. After what felt like forever paused there with him, simply looking back at one another, Jon moved to take his face in his hands. His thumbs stroked his cheek delicately a few times until Satin realized he wasn’t just touching but wiping away tears. He had not even realized he’d been crying.  

“Jon, I...” 

“It’s okay.” Jon said, and pulled him into an embrace. At once, it was like a balm and the pain of open wound after open wound seemed to fall away. “I’m here.” He assured him as though he somehow knew exactly what had caused those tears in Satin’s eyes. Jon knew him well, too well, and despite Jon being the one dressed only his small clothes, Satin felt as naked as his name day under Jon’s keen grey eyes. “I’m alive.” 

Satin gasped. Alive, alive, alive. “Oh, Jon...” He whispered, leaning into the crook of his neck and feeling the rolling waves of warmth pouring off of him. “I don’t know why I’m...” crying, torn apart by a wound that isn’t mine from a full year ago, the one between us so affected by a death that wasn’t even my own. 

“It’s alright.” Jon promised him, his voice delicate and soft. “I have you.” 

You do, Satin wanted to say. You have all of me. But his breath was too shaky and his tongue too heavy in his mouth. “A year...” Satin mumbled.  

“I know.” 

“A year, Jon.” 

“Aye.”  

“Gods, how?” 

“I don’t know.” Jon answered. “But we’re here. You and me.” 

“You and me.” He echoed. As it should be.  

“Always.” Jon said, as if he had agreed with the words Satin hadn’t even managed to say aloud. 

He sniffled and buried his head closer, resting it onto Jon’s shoulder. One of the scars was only an inch or so from his face so he laid a hand upon it to cover it. He breathed a few shaky breaths and rested there until he calmed, Jon’s hands gently stroking his back. He didn’t know how long he spent like that but he knew it was a long while. When he finally felt human again, himself again, he glanced back up at Jon.  

“Sorry...” He muttered sheepishly. “Not a very nice ending to your massage.” 

Jon made a sound that was almost a chuckle and shook his head. “I enjoyed the massage, even so. I was thinking to... offer to return the favor. Would you like that?” 

A watery smile pulled at Satin’s lips. Jon had not massaged him since the first and only time he had offered, back before he had even been king. He had asked so many questions and touched him so gently and sweetly and it had been good. Very good. Beyond good. Warm and intimate and cherished. Jon had never had the nerve, Satin figured, to offer again. Satin considered accepting this new one. Would he like that? Yes. Could he handle it tonight without sobbing? He did not think so, and he had cried enough. The thought of Jon’s hands on him, massaging his every muscle until he was lax and limp in his arms, weak and open, made his chest ache. He’d cry, he knew. It would be too much for how tender he felt tonight no matter how much longed to be touched. Satin shook his head softly.  

“Another night.” He whispered with a smile. “When I am more myself.” 

Jon nodded, thumb absentmindedly stroking along his back in a way that felt like an anchor, that felt like stitches against an open wound. “Another night.” 

Satin sighed and laid his head against Jon’s bare chest, using him as a pillow as his eyes fell closed. Like that, he could hear Jon’s heartbeat through his skin. Ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum. Strong, steady, consistent. Alive. It made his breath come easier. 

“I think...” Satin mumbled. “I just want to lay here and listen tonight.” 

“To what?” 

“To your heartbeat...” 

Jon was quiet, but Satin heard the way his heart skipped in his chest and felt the way his hands held him just that little bit tighter. Drawing in a slow breath, he felt Jon lean his head down to press his nose to the hair at the crown of Satin’s head, lingering there for a long time.  

“May I?” Jon asked, voice barely more than a whisper.  

Satin wasn’t sure exactly what he was asking, for what he sought permission, but he nodded because he knew his answer would’ve have been yes all the same. Jon pressed a light kiss to the curls atop his head, closed mouth and sweet just like the only other one he’d given him, before pulling away and letting his head fall back against the pillows.  

Smiling softly against his chest, Satin sighed contentedly and listened more to Jon’s steady heartbeat. Proof he was alive. Proof a year had passed. Proof their old wounds were only that – old and healed over as best they could.  

Satin reached a blind hand out and found Jon’s. When he entangled their fingers together, Jon did not stop him. He felt his pulse through that connection point, and it beat in time with the rhythm of his heart. Satin could not help but feel his own was doing much the same.