"Despite it All"
Title: Despite It AllPairing/Characters: Stannis/Davos, mentioned: Shireen, Cressen, Robert, Aurane Waters, Selyse, Marya
Rating: PG
Words: 3,955
Warnings: None
Summary: The whole castle was hushed tonight. It had been so for days. In the first months it had been as it had always been, but every once in a while there would be a concerned voice in the regular chorus of sound. Then, weeks ago, the voices had dropped to whispers, and now, in these last days, not even whispers were heard, just silent prayers and held breaths that clustered in their silence and felt more deafening then anything else.
It had been years now, walking steps: thousands of stairs climbed, maybe even millions, and long ago Davos Seaworth thought his legs had felt their last hesitation at their numbers, but tonight it was as hard as it had ever been to walk up and up towards the solar where his Lord was waiting.
Why was it so much harder this night? He wanted to be there, to be sure, more than he felt he knew, maybe that's why his legs tired- in his eagerness to push the door back and see the relief on his Lord's face. But that wasn't it, was it? It wasn't relief he thought he'd find, nor even the stony stoicism that was never banished, but the empty gulf of despair so desperately shielded by frozen anger and unflinching features.
He had only seen him thus thrice before- first when his prize was taken, then when the one he was given revealed itself to be as hollow and empty as the words they'd repeated before the Septon that horrible day, and finally, the worst of all of it- when those tiny fluttering dreams he'd finally let grow crashed to the earth and shattered to irrecoverable pieces.
It was still so clear in his mind: the red of his eyes, the desperate way he tried to hide it when others entered but never flinched from his knight's gaze even when he was so very broken and so very lost. He didn't seem afraid of him seeing that. He didn't have to be. He'd looked at him, dead in the face with eyes so blue and deep and dark that always remind Davos of the sea, and his voice had sounded so close to breaking that a sharp pang of hurt thrummed deep down somewhere between his spine and stomach.
"I have no son."
He heard the words now as clearly as if stone dragons that wrapped the corners of the stairway whispered them in his Lord's voice- stony, cold, dead.
"I will have no son."
The whole castle was hushed tonight. It had been so for days. In the first months it had been as it had always been, but every once in a while there would be a concerned voice in the regular chorus of sound. Then, weeks ago, the voices had dropped to whispers, and now, in these last days, not even whispers were heard, just silent prayers and held breaths that clustered in their silence and felt more deafening then anything else.
Only a short time ago the halls had echoed with congratulations and praise for the child, the child that everyone now held their breath for.
Davos could still hear Robert's booming voice thundering through his memories.
"A girl? I'm sure she'll be as pretty as your Selyse, Stannis- and all the men in the realm will go love sick at her feet. It's for the best it's not a boy- you never were any good at those things, you'd have to foster him at King's Landing so he might know how to grow up properly, with a taste for women and wine and a jaw that isn't clamped as tight as a virgin's cunt!"
Davos has felt his fingers itch that night, wishing for once he was still in Flea Bottom and Robert was some swaggering drunken dock hand instead of Lord Protector of the Seven Kingdoms. He may have shattered the dragon prince with that war hammer of his, but Davos had learned the advantage of quick hard upper cut early on in life- preferably sweetened with several rings and a knee to the groin. He'd watched Stannis sit there, teeth grinding away to nothing, while Robert laughed in his face and Davos could almost feel his bones shattering under his knuckles. His right hand was still whole enough to take that smile off his face.
But he didn't. He never did anything without his Lord's permission, no matter how much he might wish it.
He almost laughed at that, even now, in the eery silence of Dragonstone with only the dead stone monsters for company.
When had be stopped being that brash idiot who picked too many fights on land and avoided them at all costs at sea? The boy who laughed openly at fools and stared them down when they turned to face him- who stayed up later than he should drinking cheap ale and not protesting when ample women plopped down into his lap.
But of course he knew when. It was all so clear still- how he'd kneeled immediately, his breath still heavy and hands almost shaking from the adrenaline of all the moments the day had held and he couldn't get that damned arrogant smile off his face for all the world. He'd seen steely boots and then, when he looked up, the boy- but he wasn't a boy, not truly.
He was young, so very young, and so very pale, and so very thin- the shock of pitch black hair and near scalding blue eyes making his face seem even more white and gaunt. But old as well. His eyes were so deep and so hard but there was something else, something underneath that stone stare that Davos had seen before.
There had been a boy- two doors down from the hovel where he had grown up (or at least where his mother birthed him). He couldn't remember the boys name. He couldn't remember where his parent were or what they did or what he did… but he remembered his face. He'd hear the other boys, calling out to him, and when he finally came out they were always kind at first… at first.
He'd come back- broken, with red eyes and a purple cheek or worse. Davos didn't know why each time they called he went. He didn't understand. He never would. But he went all the same. Some children, he supposed, want too badly to be loved- despite it all.
There was a piece of that boy in Stannis Baratheon. A boy who had wanted hope but hated the knowledge that it would betray him, who gods ignored and men did not understand, who without understanding it had wanted love- despite it all. He saw that boy inside a man who stared down at him through hollow but bright eyes and, despite the pallor, despite the deep lines in his face, and the canyons starvation had made of his cheeks, looked as if no force on this earth would be capable of knocking him from his feet. He was as a part of that castle, forced out of the stone to keep it safe. And he had.
That was the day Davos has stopped being that boy he had been. In that moment, before that man, he had known he had no other path to follow but the one set by the tall thin boy with the jaw of iron and eyes of stone.
He was here.
Had be climbed this high already? The heavy oak door to the solar sat just ten or so steps above where he now stood. The door was just barely ajar- just enough for the warm yellow of the fire inside to drip down the stairs and across his cloaked shoulder. His fingers drummed silently on the leather pouch around his neck. The finger bones clinked softly against each other under his hand.
His feet were moving again, faster than they had before and suddenly he felt a fool for thinking the steps were high and the way long. He was needed. That was what mattered.
He stopped, just to knock his hand lightly against the wood of the door.
"Come." Came the voice.
The voice was hard. It was always hard. There was nothing in that, he told himself.
Davos pushed the door open, stepped inside and pressed it shut again, this time letting the latch catch with a dull "clink" before turning towards his Lord.
Stannis' back was to him- his tall thin shape stark against the light of the fire as he stood straight and stiff.
There was a glass on the table, and a decanter of wine beside it.
An ill sign. His Lord never drank.
"How…" Davos began, but the words that had started every conversation that had held for months stuck in his throat. He swallowed, and tried again
"How is your daughter my Lord?"
Stannis turned to face him and Davos thought for an impossible moment that a smile twinkled in his eye as he lifted his chalice.
"She will live."
Davos let out a heavy breath and the prayer slipped unheeded from his lips, "We thank The Mother for her mercy."
Stannis almost flinched at that. Davos saw his mouth go hard at the corners as he let himself take a single sip of the wine in his hand.
He motioned curtly at the wine and Davos stepped forward readily to help himself.
"Maester Cressen has served you well." Davos said as the wine filled the glass as steadily as relief poured into him.
"He has served me well since childhood, I would expect no less." Stannis said with a hard tone.
Davos stood in silence as he sipped the wine in his hand.
"But, you are right." Stannis yielded, "He has served well. I only wish…" But there he stopped.
Wishing was not something his Lord did and such empty, helpless statements did not come easily to him. But Davos understood.
"The scars…" Davos said, "They are nothing compared to what could have been."
"I am fully aware of what they are and what they could have been." Stannis snapped back.
The silence fell again.
Outside the ever present echo of the waves slapping against the jagged stones drifted up around them. It had been a warm spring day and promised to be a warm spring night. The doors were open to the air and the thick ocean breeze drifted in, slightly ruffling papers left on tables and making everything feel somehow crisper in the scent of salt.
Stannis turned from the fire and sat in the chair before the hearth, staring idly into the wine as he rolled the chalice in his hand.
"Sit, Davos." He commanded, but gently. And his knight obeyed, pulling a chair from the able up beside him.
That sat there, with the sound of the ocean and the smell of salt, every once in a while lifting a glass for a sip of wine. The silence didn't bother him. It had never bothered him, and he couldn't imagine a day when it would. There had been many a night like this. He'd summon him, seat him, and say hardly a word, either of them, late into the night until the fire was almost burnt down. Davos' mind was usually silence, letting the moment slip in peace and simple enjoying the particular company that his Lord only shared with him and he with his Lord, but he knew, or at least he felt Stannis' mind spinning madly inside his still features and flashing eyes.
"Davos," Stannis said suddenly. His voice was low, lower even than it usually was.
"Yes, My Lord?" Davos said, his own voice emerging just a quietly.
"Do you remember what I said that day?" He said, eyes nailed to the empty air in front of him, "Do you remember what I said when she was born?"
"No, My Lord," He lied without hesitation.
"Don't," Stannis said and he turned in the same moment, letting that blue stare of his bore into him and not for the first time Davos felt as if that stare might drown him.
"Not you," Stannis said through his gritted teeth, "You will be honest with me. Look at my face, and tell me- do you remember what I said when my daughter was born?"
Davos felt a little sick. He couldn't have drunken so much wine already? No that was foolish, he'd hardly had one glass. He knew what made him feel ill.
He wouldn't answer, but nodded once.
"And what was it?" Stannis said, an icy steel slipping into his tone, "What was it I said that day, Onion Knight?"
The bile tasted sour against the back of his throat, "My Lord, I--"
"No," Stannis interrupted with a crazed looked lurking under his engulfing stare, "What did I say?"
"You said…" Davos swallowed, but his throat was still dry and his mouth still tasted of sick.
Stannis' eyes drilled into his face harder than nails.
"You said, if you'd known it would have been a girl, you would have told The Seven not to bother saving her."
The blue stare remained stuck to his for a moment and then just as quickly tore away as he leaned back in his seat.
"That's right." He said simply. His long fingers lifted the wine to his lips and kept it there longer than before.
"My Lord," Davos said, "You should not dwell on it. Words given in times of grief and confusion mean little and less."
"What is a man if not his words and his actions?" Stannis answered quick and sharp as a whip, "Answer me that, Davos."
Davos could not.
Papers shuffled against the salty winds behind them. The night felt colder somehow.
"Do you think…" Stannis began. His voice trailed. But Davos waited. He would always wait.
"Do you think," His Lord continued, "Do you think they laugh at me?"
Davos sat there, the cool wind of the season snaking around his neck.
"The Gods?" Davos asked.
Stannis nodded silently. His chalice hung loosely in his fingers and Davos saw that it was empty. He wondered if it was the first or far from it.
"Robert always laughed at me… I thought him a God once… Long ago."
Davos should have said no, he should have said that if the gods would save what you love most they must hold you in higher regard that you think, he should have said older brothers always seem like gods to younger ones.
"You've never given a damn about gods," He said instead, "Why start now?"
He should have gotten a stern look, a shout, a dismissal for such familiar and curt words. But Stannis was his Lord as much as he was his Knight, and his Lord simply smiled a small almost shy smile into the tiny flames of the fire. He looked so much younger when he smiled.
"I wonder who lost interest first…" Stannis said quietly, "Me or them."
The fire cracked and with that his Lord's face shifted. His jaw hardened and his eyes closed, not truly, but in a deeper darker way that sealed what was inside from the rest of the world.
He set the chalice down on the floor by his feet and leaned forward with his thin forearms on his knees.
"Lord Monford Velaryon," Stannis said, "Has complained that his bastards hasn't received enough favor in the fleet. He tells me very cordially that he thinks the boy deserves more 'opportunity'."
"If the lad could keep his hands out of every girl's dress and look at the ocean for a purpose other than trying to find his reflection in it I might agree with Lord Monford."
"Too many bastards…" Stannis muttered, "But some boys will have to be brought up the ranks."
Davos nodded and began going down his list.
Stannis bobbed his head at this name or that, asked sharp questions now and again, reminding Davos of families and houses the knight knew he'd never ever get straight in his head no matter how long he worked at remembering them.
The night slipped in around them, through talk on the cost of repairing the most needy ships of the fleet, past Stannis' inquires into what Davos' opinions were of the Florents that had come a month or so ago before the girl's condition had taken a turn for the worse, amongst the inquires into how his boys were fairing at their ages on the sea.
"They seem strong lads." Stannis said and Davos felt a pang at the lack of resentment in his voice.
"They are, strong and they listen- well, at least as much as you'd expect boys their age to."
He took a sip of his wine, watching as the fire slowly crumbled- bits of blackened log tumbling down in a snowy spray of ash. Stannis stared into it, his face that impassable mask he had learned to wear so well that Davos sometimes found himself wondering if he even knew how to take it off or could if he wanted to.
"Do you miss your wife?" Stannis asked. As he always did.
"Of course." Davos answered. As he always did.
And then there was nothing left to say, and that was just as well.
Davos felt his eyes starting to slip in the quiet of the solar with the ocean breeze and the whispering of waves all around. It was no matter. It would not be the first time he'd let his mind drift off and woken in the grey of dawn, just where they had sat the night before- Stannis already gone, perhaps just then, perhaps a while hence.
The chairs were close together, there beside the fire. And as his lids dropped heavily over his tired eyes he could hear the steady sound of Stannis' quiet breathing beside him, for once unpolluted by the grinding of his teeth. It was so steady and constant, strong and unceasing against all things. Davos felt so warm there in that chair. Was he looking at him? He felt as if he might be- as he did sometimes, when he thought he didn't see. Davos hadn't even noticed that his eyes had shut at all and by then the feeling of Stannis' oddly gentle stare against him, the steady hum of his breath, and the smell of salt had all drifted into dreams.
He had never been a heavy sleeper. Somewhere in the heavy warmth of darkness he felt hard, long fingers clumsily come to rest over his own.
His senses slunk back in around him, the smell of the dying fire, the feel of the chair underneath him. His eyes tried to flutter open but he had just enough pretense of mind to keep them shut.
Lightly, Stannis' fingers touched the back of his hand and Davos felt his breathing shift unbidden and at that the touch flinched.
Davos rolled his shoulder slightly and made his breathing return to what it had been despite the fact that his heart was for some reason beating hard in his chest.
Just take his hand. That's all he needed to do. Just reach out and hold it, and let him feel that he did not have to be afraid. He would not even have to open his eyes, he could just drift back to sleep, the both of them, fingers ever so slightly twined together- a promise to be there, to simply be there no matter what was needed.
He'd pull away, the treacherous voice in his mind echoed. Davos could almost see the desperately hidden shame and fear in his blue eyes- like the sea fighting the stony shores of his stoic face.
Calloused and hard as stone, Stannis' hesitant hand pressed down on his own, as if sure now that he was truly sleeping. It felt like a child testing water, timid at first and then confident enough at least to let it past their ankles.
Tenderly those long fingers slipped under his left hand and lifted it, turning it back and forth carefully as if looking closely at the stumps where his joints had once been.
His work. Davos thought until a tentative finger ran delicately over the severed end of his index finger and a strange tingling sensation wafted down his arm, shocking all thoughts from him.
The lean, clumsy hand rolled his own slowly until they lay palm to palm.
His hands were bigger than his. Rough hands. Why did that surprise him? Stannis had handled ropes as well, and far more swords than Stannis had ever even lifted.
Carefully the thin but strong fingers stretched out under his and gingerly laid their tips to where each of his should have been.
Davos felt himself shiver as the strange sensation snaked up his arm and down his back but somehow Stannis didn't seem to notice it.
Stannis' thumb ran across the back of his own. Thick and present and warmer than he would have thought possible.
Davos's lips parted on their own.
It's a dream. He told himslef, just a dream. I could still wake up…
And with that thought Davos felt his own fingers twitch to tighten ever so slightly against his. And the other hand tightened back, just so much that if it had been anyone else, any other moment that did not have every nerve of his body so very alive he might not have noticed it.
Stannis' breathing still sounded, as steady as ever, but somehow louder than they had been against the gentle hum of the sea.
Davos felt his hand lowered carefully back down the the arm of his chair.
No, stay. Please.
But it was too late. He was already gone.
Davos heard the chair beside him creak and underneath that a smaller sound that might have been mistaken for a strangled sigh. And then it was quiet, and all too still, not even the sound of breathing to disturb the air. Could he have left so quietly?
He felt his breath catch in his throat as warm fingers slipped over his hair. So, hesitant, barely brushing the brown strands stiffened by salt, and then with a sharp intake of air sounding in his ears those strong fingers sunk deep and almost grasped.
Davos felt a small sound swell in the back of his throat but swallowed it hard.
The fingers slid and turned, brushing knuckles across his lightly bearded cheek. He could have sworn he felt them shaking.
Stannis' hand rested on his shoulder, his thumb lying flush across the taunt muscle of his neck, his Lord's palm rising and falling with the breathing he couldn't possibly hope to keep even any longer.
The hand on his chest pressed tight and then he felt a forehead lean against his own.
"Davos," He heard him whisper. Ever so quietly, ever so weakly.
And there they stayed, breathes jumbled together clumsily as the sea sang outside.
All he wanted was to open his eyes- to see that blue stare so close and know for certain what it held. But he didn't and after what felt like hardly a moment and yet an eternity the hand lifted from his chest and he pulled away.
Davos felt the waft of air as his Lord turned his back. Heard the steps that carried him all too quickly and almost stumbling over the stone floor the the door whose handle jiggled once, twice, and then was tugged harshly open before the steps continued, fast and constant down and away until the door slammed shut in the breeze and he heard them no longer.
It was colder now, and the breeze that had been so light seemed to still hold winter's bones.
Davos sat where he had been left: eyes still shut, breath catching back up with him. Sleep - he knew he must sleep. He missed Marya's warmth- it was always easier to sleep when he was beside her. Or maybe just easier when he was far from someone else. He wouldn't open his eyes. He would sleep, and perhaps, he would dream again.
END
[Sequel]