Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/7261000.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire_-_George_R._R._Martin
  Relationship:
      Ramsay_Bolton/Reek_|_Heke
  Character:
      Ramsay_Bolton, Reek_|_Heke, The_Miller's_Wife_(ASoIaF)
  Additional Tags:
      Necrophilia, Molestation, Rape, Pedophilia, Murder, Child_Abuse
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-06-21 Words: 3425
****** Pale Eyed Child ******
by kylobolton
Summary
     Alright, if you read the copious trigger warnings you know what
     you're in for. Turn back now or forever hold your peace! Anyway, I
     wrote this to delve into Ramsay's childhood backstory, and illustrate
     how I imagine time spent with Heke and his mother might have changed
     him. This isn't intended to be a sexy shipping story or anything--
     It's very intense and also a way for me and my alter to work through
     our respective abuse. If any of you know him from my blog, he helped
     with this. I may add additional parts about Ramsay's time with
     Domeric, for instance, if people express interest.
“Here.”
The Miller’s Widow held out her hand, calloused and worn. Within it she clasped
something equally rough—a small doll fashioned from scratchy burlap with two
black circles and an expressionless mouth meticulously stitched onto its large
head.
Sitting on the straw covered floor, Ramsay pet their oversized dog who snuffled
occasionally when he pulled her fur a bit too hard. He looked up into his
mother’s dark eyes, so different from his own.
“A doll?” he asked, wrinkling his nose. “I’m not a girl and I’m not a baby.”
“Fine,” she replied. “I’ll give it to Elayne, the farmer’s girl down the way.
Perhaps we’ll get some seeds for it.”
“No!” Ramsay stood up, startling his pet. “Elayne is a little bitch. It’s
mine.”
His mother’s stern expression lifted slightly upon seeing the boy’s desire for
her creation, a small smile on her thin lips. Ramsay’s full ones had come from
her own mother, and she had mixed feelings each time she kissed them. It seemed
so little of Ramsay was hers. His ghostly eyes, black hair, and remarkably pale
skin were all foreign products of the man who’d raped her beneath the swinging
corpse of her husband. She even saw traces of her own father in his chin, his
broad feet, and his blotchy complexion.
“He was never mine,” she’d murmur sometimes, stirring a pot of stew. “A blight,
not a baby. Surely my punishment for one thing or another.”
But now she leaned down, wrapped him in her thin arms and nestled her nose in
his messy hair.
“You deserve it, my wonderful boy.”
Ramsay tightened his grip until his fingers digging into her began to hurt—the
boy had a habit of clutching. Three of their chickens had died that way when he
was younger and used to hold them and stroke their feathers. She screeched at
him each time she caught him clasping one of the dead birds. Chickens were not
the only living thing threatened by Ramsay’s presence—consistently she’d find
dead frogs, sparrows, rats, and more spread about the yard, sometimes skinned.
Usually she simply ignored it, so long as he didn’t drag them inside.
“Alright, that’s enough,” she said, removing herself from her son’s grip.
Visions of the strangled creatures passed through the background of her mind.
“I need to start dinner.” Walking over to the cutting board to fiercely chop a
few turnips, she left Ramsay to take his new gift and head out to the yard.
The ten year old quickly grew attached to the doll over the next few days. Its
neutral expression and genderless form permitted him to project whatever he
wished during their play sessions.
“Elayne,” he spat, envisioning the red-head from down the road. “You smell like
pig shit.”
Whap!
The doll flew from his hand and landed against a tree trunk. He retrieved the
toy and now he pictured Elayne’s older brother. Ramsay watched him from the
yard sometimes as he rode by on his dusty old farm-horse, and each time he felt
something odd jerk in his gut—an urge he couldn’t wholly identify. Ramsay
choked the doll as he stared into those black eyes, imagining them green and
filled with fear. He envisioned what the teenager’s scream would be like and
let out an involuntary laugh. For a moment he reflected that his mother
probably hadn’t made the thing for him to torture, but what else was he
supposed to do with it? He kicked it and retrieved it, then kicked it again.
Boredom. The mill was somewhat removed from most surrounding homes, and even
when he wasn’t occupied with work, it wasn’t as if many other children were
willing to befriend him. Those who had tried went home with black eyes and
bloody noses to warn their peers and parents.
A bark emanated from his house as the large dog trotted out, clearly intrigued
by the toy. Ramsay pulled his hand back, ready to start a game of fetch, but
something held him back. “You’ll just mess it up, Girl.” The boy had named the
puppy when he could barely talk, hence the rather uncreative name. Girl was one
of the few things in the world he was genuinely attached to, and he’d once
brutally bludgeoned a male hound for nipping at her ear.
“I don’t know what to name you either,” he told the thing in his hand.
“Just…Thing. You’re ugly and hardly look like a real person.”
Girl woofed and he reached down to scratch her head. Abruptly, she began to
whine and sniff the air. It took a moment for his human nose to detect the
acrid scent—a mix of strong body odor and the sickly sweet smell of rotting
fruit. He looked up to see his mother, nose wrinkled, walking towards him
beside a large young man with pale blonde hair and a flower crown framing his
features. It was almost comical, such a dainty, feminine detail adorning his
heavyset, stinking form.
“Ramsay,” his mother said, gesturing towards the man. She kept a few feet of
distance from him, visibly cringing. “This is Heke, or Reek, rather. Your
father sent him to help us.”
Ramsay’s eyes widened. This Reek held knowledge of the lordly father his mother
had told him about. He could tell Ramsay all about him and The Dreadfort, a
place Ramsay had tried to imagine hundreds of times. Ramsay had never seen
anything as large as a castle, and he’d struggled to produce a suitable image.
When he failed, he tried imagining the insides of The Dreadfort—surely they had
comfortable chairs, velvet curtains, and soft beds of goose down. Of course
they’d have food better than carrot soup or lean, gristly chicken legs. And
what finery he might wear!
Reek scanned the daydreaming Ramsay from toes to top and held out a thick hand.
Ramsay shook it with enthusiasm.
===============================================================================
 
Heke took up residence in a ramshackle shed on the property, spending little
time inside when the Miller’s wife was present. The smell of him turned her
stomach so much that she’d fainted at least twice, though Ramsay suspected some
of this was theatrics to keep him out. They couldn’t place him in the barn with
the horse since even she was averse to his wretched stink.
“I used to sleep with the pigs before Lord Bolton sent me here,” he mused, an
inscrutable half smile on his lips. “Your pigs seem friendly enough, but if
it’s all the same I’ll take the shed.”
Ramsay quickly grew immune to the stench, perhaps even came to grow fond of it.
He associated the sweat pouring out of Reek with their bouts of sword fighting,
something he’d always wanted to try. Swinging a weapon, blunt as it was,
thrilled him, and sometimes he and Reek would stumble and collapse in a heap.
That strange pull in Ramsay’s gut grew stronger each time he imagined that one
of his novice blows had actually killed his opponent.
“They say even my blood smells,” Heke mused after Ramsay’s blade clipped his
ear. “You tell me.”
Ramsay brushed sweat soaked hair away from his mentor’s ear and leaned in until
his fat lips nearly brushed against it.
“I can’t tell,” he said. “All of you reeks so I can’t distinguish one part from
another.”
“Taste it,” Heke murmured.
Ramsay scoffed and let out a nervous laugh. Wordlessly, he brushed his tongue
against the bleeding ear and pulled back, face screwed up.
“It doesn’t taste like normal blood.”
“What did you expect?” the man asked. “I didn’t think you’d actually do it.”
“I’m not afraid to do much of anything.”
Heke laughed and Ramsay did too, though he wasn’t sure why.
===============================================================================
“That girl Elayne is such a whore,” Ramsay spat, sitting beside Heke within the
cool shade of his shed. “And so is her friend, the dark haired one. I’ll rip
both their little cunts.”
Ramsay’s already poor language had worsened exponentially since Reek’s arrival
a month ago.
“Aye,” the man replied. “And their arses too.”
“They’re half your age,” Ramsay balked, bewildered.
“So?”
“Find someone your own age and leave those two to me.”
“Fine,” Reek said, laughing. “You’re as territorial as that old dog your mother
keeps. But we can find some better bitches than those two little sluts.”
Ramsay fiddled with a loose thread on ‘Thing.’ He wasn’t even sure why he
sometimes kept it with him. In the past he’d hoarded soft, dead voles, scraps
of silk, or any number of other things he found tactilely or aesthetically
pleasing.
“What do you mean?” he asked Heke, looking up.
“If you listen closely, I’ll show you,”
The gleam in Heke’s eyes nearly unnerved him. Nearly.
===============================================================================
 
Ramsay sat at the edge of the woods, tears in his eyes and his doll in his
hands. He hoped his sobs and sniffles sounded genuine, as he didn’t really feel
anything but anticipatory squirming in his chubby gut. He hunched over,
attempting to shrink himself down to seem smaller than his years.
Then, he saw her. The brunette walked two miles to work at the region’s largest
farm each morning and two miles back each evening. Heke paid attention to such
mundane events, and he had promised Ramsay something very exciting in return
for his cooperation.
Ramsay increased the volume of his choking whines as she grew closer.
“Hey!” She walked to the edge of the road and leaned down, peering at Ramsay’s
reddened face and puffy eyes. “It’s going to be dark within the hour. What are
you doing out here?”
“My mother told me to wait here,” he wailed, trying his best to fill his voice
with panic.
“Which way did she go?” she asked, reaching down to stroke a lock of sweat
soaked hair from his face. His already blotchy skin worked to his advantage.
“Down that road,” he answered, pointing. It was more a path than a road,
cutting through a small section of woods. “My grandmother lives in a cottage
further down. She’s sick.”
The woman took a couple steps back, considering. Biting her lip, she glanced at
the dimming horizon for a moment.
“Well I suppose I can’t just leave you here,” she relented, helping the
sniffling child to his feet. “I have a relative living that way too who I can
stay with if need be.” With his face closer to hers, she was slightly unnerved
by his eyes—dirty chips of ice floating in tears. Nonetheless, she took his
hand and started down the path, avoiding weeds, brambles, and the occasional
clod of horse dung. The woman’s hand felt clammy in his—he could tell she was
nervous. “How old are you?” she asked, attempting to fill silence.
“Eight,” he lied.
"You’re tall for your age.”
"Yes.”
Ramsay subtly glanced to their sides, heart pounding.
“What does your mother look like?”
“Tall, thin, blonde. Brown eyes.”
“She sounds pretty. You must look like your fa—"
A meaty hand clamped over her mouth, stifling her scream as she jerked to
escape. But Heke held her small form to his large body. Ramsay wondered how she
hadn’t smelled him coming—he at least was somewhat used to the musk.
“Take the knife off my belt and use it,” Heke ordered, shifting his arms to
provide better access as the woman’s muffled cries increased. The boy dropped
the doll and reached around the flailing woman to retrieve the blade, warm from
sitting against Heke’s fleshy form. It felt large in his hand.
“I’ve killed cats and birds. Dogs and once a squealing pig,” Ramsay rambled,
suddenly feeling as if everything were a bit unreal. “I can hunt. But never
prey this large. I mean…”
“Do it!” Heke urged. “Like you would with any other animal.” The woman cried
and Heke shook her with impatience. “Just stab her in the gut and I can take it
from there—that will certainly keep her from thrashing.”
Ramsay nodded as Heke hoisted her up and turned her towards him. With a deep
breath and a lunge, he drove the dagger into her, just below the ribs. She made
a horrible choking noise as he twisted it, and he was seized by a sense of
calm. He felt detached, almost as if someone else were guiding his movements.
Sometimes he’d felt this way while dissecting a live rat or plucking the
feathers off a squawking bird—focused and methodical, acting almost by rote
with little emotion. The only thing grounding him was that tugging in his lower
gut that turned into a throbbing in his groin. His heart pounded with
excitement, but it seemed distant, as if the organ were separate from him.
Ramsay pulled the knife down, carving a slit as the woman sobbed faintly, body
twitching with shock. The fabric of her blue dress ripped further as Ramsay
dislodged slimy viscera, and Heke dropped her to the ground where she expelled
her last breaths.
Only then did Ramsay realize that he was shaking, blood on his palms mixing
with sweat.
“Nervous there, were you?” Heke asked with a laugh. “Well we’re not done yet.
Let’s get her undressed.”
Ramsay’s eyes widened.
“But she’s…well…”
“Dead?” Heke replied. “Doesn’t matter. Dead women don’t mind the smell.”
He pulled the bloody shift off the corpse, leaving her naked on the dark soil,
slack jawed with vacant eyes.
Ramsay dropped to his knees beside her, cupping her right breast with his small
red hand. She was still warm, but he felt as if he could feel the last bits of
life left in her fading away between his fingers. Twisting the nipple, he
reached his other hand into her torso to caress the organs and bone. Ripping
through tissue with his bare hands, Ramsay gasped. This feeling was new and
beautiful. He’d dreamed of such things before, waking up flushed with his head
pounding. Now it was reality, and he felt a surge of power as it registered
that he’d taken a human life. Living as a peasant at the mercy of his mother’s
erratic mood swings, Ramsay rarely felt powerful. This exhilarated him, and it
had been so simple. Why had it taken this long to act on his fantasies?
Beside him, Heke dropped his britches. Ramsay was surprised to find him
reasonably well endowed. It still didn’t make up for the stench. The smell of
sweat emanating from his crotch was even worse than the rest of him somehow.
Ramsay gagged slightly but watched in fascination as Heke also fell to his
knees and dragged the dead woman towards him, spreading her lifeless legs.
“You’re too young for this yet,” he said with a smirk, “but watch closely.”
So Ramsay did, running his hands over the corpse as Heke thrust into it.
Sometimes the man would reach out and stroke his dry hair or make unblinking
eye contact with him, and Ramsay would recoil. He focused on the dead woman,
brushing his fat lips over hers and touching her clammy tongue with his,
sucking it. He’d never kissed anyone before, and as Heke grunted in the
background he wondered if this practice would ever prove useful.
With a groan Heke finished and hoisted up his pants. Ramsay’s trance ended and
he realized how dark the woods were.
“I’ll dump her a ways off the path,” Heke said casually, throwing the corpse
over his shoulder. “Wait here.” Ramsay stood in silence, still tasting the dead
woman’s saliva on his tongue. If she hadn’t been so concerned with helping a
child get home safely, she’d be alive. It seemed that caring for other people
was a foolish thing, and dangerous. Ramsay wasn’t sure care was a feeling he’d
experienced before. Maybe for Girl, but she wasn’t a person—more like a
possession, mindlessly loyal to him. It didn’t count. Ramsay picked Thing off
the ground, brushing some of the dirt off with his stained hand. He’d nearly
forgotten the doll was there, though during the fucking he’d glanced over and
felt that its blank eyes were watching them—eyes as vacant as the corpse’s.
Ramsay shuddered as Heke emerged from the bushes and they began their walk
home.
===============================================================================
 
For the next few days, Ramsay felt giddy. All through grinding corn and
fetching water he held the knowledge of what he’d done—a secret between himself
and Heke that maintained that feeling of power. They’d smirk as they made eye
contact with each other in passing, and when Ramsay hit Heke in the gut during
one of their bouts of swordplay, the man fell to the ground with a mock
falsetto scream, imitating their victim as Ramsay laughed. In one of her
typical fits Ramsay’s mother screamed at him and threw a pot against the wall,
narrowly missing his head, but he couldn’t help but chuckle. He could kill her
too if he wanted, he thought as she wrapped him in her arms to apologize. He
could kill that twat Elayne and her giggling friend. Heke gifted Ramsay the
dagger he’d used on the woman and he slept with it under his pillow, stroking
it at night after his mother fell asleep in the other room. He played that
evening over again and again in his head until he drifted off to sleep, rested
for another day of work in the morning.
With five days passing since the incident, Ramsay lied in bed doing just that.
“Die whore,” he whispered, closing his eyes. “Die whore, die.” It was almost a
mantra, soothing and familiar. Thing lay beside him, still slightly marred by
flecks of blood and dirt. It smelled like that night, and sometimes Ramsay
placed it over his nose to breathe in the memory. Girl let out a low woof as
the door creaked open, jolting him out of his reverie. The shadow of a large
black figure stood in the frame, but if the silhouette didn’t give away the
intruder’s identity, the smell did.
“Reek?” Ramsay asked in a confused whisper. “What are you doing in here? Mother
will be angry.”
Wordlessly, the man closed the door and walked forward. He sat on the edge of
the bed, ignoring Girl’s whines. The sharp scent of alcohol cut through even
his stench. Heke swayed slightly as he pulled himself onto the bed and leaned
over Ramsay.
“Where’s that dagger?” he asked, breathing heavily. Ramsay kept silent as he
tried to subtly reach behind him, but Heke was too quick. Ripping the pillow
up, he tossed it off the bed and tossed the knife after it. Girl growled but
Heke shushed her. A cold sweat formed on Ramsay’s brow as Heke unlaced his
britches.
“Let’s see those pretty fat lips,” he said with a sneer, grabbing the long hair
on the back of Ramsay’s head to push him forward.
The door creaked, and peering beyond Heke’s frame, Ramsay’s pale eyes made
contact with one of his mother’s brown ones. Heke didn’t seem to notice as
Ramsay kept his gaze locked with his mother’s, waiting for her to scream.
She didn’t. The door closed softly and Ramsay closed his eyes, Heke’s smell
enveloping him. Girl whimpered but she seemed so far away—distant like his
heartbeat that night in the woods.
===============================================================================
 
Heke was gone when Ramsay woke up, tears and snot crusted on his face. He
didn’t remember falling asleep. Perhaps he’d passed out. Clutching Thing, he
stood up in a daze and wandered to the other room. There he found his mother,
silently stoking the fire.
“You’re awake,” she said flatly.
“Yeah,” Ramsay replied. Everything seemed hazy.
“Let me see that doll,” the Miller’s wife ordered, holding her hand out.
Cautiously, Ramsay approached and passed it to her. She lifted it to her face,
wrinkling her nose and twisting her thin lips.
"It smells like him,” she spat. Before Ramsay could react, she tossed it into
the fire, the burlap and straw alighting swiftly.
“No!” Ramsay cried before he could stop himself. He wasn’t sure why he was so
upset, but he was. Tears welled up in his eyes and he started to scream.
“No tantrums,” his mother snapped. “You aren’t five. You’re nearly a man grown
and getting too old for dolls anyway.”
They stared at each other for a moment, just as they had when she peered
through the doorway. Her bottom lip quivered almost imperceptivity, and then
she turned and strode towards the kitchen.
Ramsay stared at the ashes in the fireplace, alone.
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