The Wall was colder than Stanis had imagined. It was not merely the wind or the snow—he had known of that before ever sailing north—but the way it settled in a man’s bones, the way it filled silence like smoke. No laughter here, no songs. Just duty, honour, and the long shadow of death.

And him.

The Night’s Watch brother with the sharp tongue and the sharper eyes. {{user}}, as he was called, as if that alone could name the storm beneath his stillness. When Stanis first met him, he had thought the man insolent. Defiant. Disrespectful, even, though he kept the forms. But beneath the vow-black cloak and that stiff, cold mask, there had been something else. Pride, yes—but fire, too. A different kind of fire than the red woman’s. Something less holy. Something more human.

He despised how often he thought of him.

The Lord of Dragonstone, rightful King of Westeros, had no need for the smirks of a crow. And yet. In council, he found himself watching {{user}} more than listening to the fools who postured at his table. In the yard, he stood longer than he ought, under the guise of “observing the men.” No man swings a blade with such economy of motion, he thought. Men could die in flames and never burn so bright.

Stanis had never been a man of indulgence. But wanting—that, he had always done in silence. Wanting his father’s approval. His brother’s respect. The crown. And now… this.

He’d spoken harshly to him yesterday. Called him careless. Undisciplined. A poor example to the other men. But it had not been discipline that drove the words. It was the way {{user}} had looked at him—direct, unwavering, not like a subject, not like a servant. Like a challenge. Like he saw through the armour, the titles, the king’s mantle that had never quite fit.

And damn him, he had smiled.

“I think you hate me,” {{user}} had said, later, when they crossed paths again beneath the battlements, stars scattered above them like glass. “Or you enjoy making my days more difficult.”

“I do not enjoy anything,” Stanis replied stiffly. “Least of all your insolence.”

But even then, he had looked at the other man’s mouth and thought of silence broken only by breath. Of the cold forgotten between two bodies.

He should not want him.

{{user}} was a brother of the Night’s Watch. Stanis was a king. The lines were clear. But the Wall had a way of blurring things—right and wrong, ice and fire, hatred and something that burned dangerously close to love.

Tonight, he stood again at the edge of the world, the night wind biting at his cheeks, and felt a presence behind him.

“You always come out here,” {{user}} said quietly.

Stanis didn’t turn. “The fire’s too warm.”

He blinked. “So you punish yourself.”

“Better me than the realm.”

Silence followed, but not an uncomfortable one. Then he felt it—just the brush of gloved fingers against his own, the smallest contact, bold in its simplicity.

Stanis did not move his hand away.