ICE AND THE SWAN
pairing: Jon Snow x male!bottom!reader (powerful) summary: Y/N Swansgate returns to Winterfell for war. Instead, he finds Jon Snow alive, resurrected — and standing too close to a Dragon Queen. Ten years of silence, one stolen kiss, and a jealousy that burns like wildfire. On the eve of the Long Night, the truth finally breaks loose. wc: ~4.8k
details: ↳ warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Emotional Hurt/Comfort ↳ tags: Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Jealousy, Emotional Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Sexual Tension, Arguments, Fighting, Angry Kissing, Love Confessions, Misunderstandings, Miscommunication, Years of Separation, Curses, No Smut (but intense tension) ↳ rating: R (because of the swearing)
from author: My English isn't perfect, so there might be some mistakes.
Winterfell did not smell as it once had.
Snow lay upon the battlements in a grey, compacted mass, and the wind howled through the arrow slits, dragging with it the stench of soot, horse dung, and heated metal — the forges worked without pause. Y/N Swansgate rode through the eastern gate on a lathered stallion, feeling the cold bite at the scars beneath his chainmail. Water and wild berries — that was what clung to his cloak, soaked through with the damp of the last encampment by the river. That scent had burrowed into his skin, into the fur, into his very soul. Jon had once said he would recognize it with his eyes closed. "You smell like the lake," he had said then. Before everything. Before the kiss. Before the flight. Before Ramsay Bolton slaughtered half of House Swansgate for refusing to bend the knee.
Now Y/N looked upon the courtyard turned into a war camp. Dothraki riders darted between the fires, Free Folk sharpened their axes, and Northmen eyed the strangers with their customary grim wariness. In the center of this anthill, by the blacksmith's forge, stood Jon Snow.
Something in Y/N's chest tightened into a hard, sick knot.
Jon had changed. Not the way time alone changes a man. Death had left its mark upon him: in the sunken eyes, in the way he held his shoulders — as though he carried a weight that could not be shared. But the jaw was the same, and the way he tilted his head when listening to someone — that was the same. Y/N remembered that manner too well. He remembered how, fifteen years ago, Jon had listened the same way to Robb, and Sansa, and to him — a stubborn boy with the sigil of a swan upon his chest.
Sansa.
She appeared on the gallery leading to the Great Keep — tall, auburn-haired, in a grey gown lined with wolf fur. The Lady of Winterfell. Y/N dismounted and tossed the reins to his squire. Snow crunched beneath his boots. Sansa noticed him and stopped. For a moment her face — that mask of calm authority — cracked, revealing the girl who had once laughed at his attempts to pronounce "valar morghulis." She stepped forward, and Y/N, forgetting protocol, forgetting the long years and all that had fallen between them, pulled her into an embrace.
"You're late," Sansa whispered into his shoulder. Her voice trembled.
"I know," he answered, feeling her arms tighten against his back. "I tried. I gathered men. When I reached Winterfell, your wolves were already hanging above the gates."
She drew back, studying his face. A faint smile touched her lips.
"You're alive. That's more than most can say."
They had no time to say more. From the side came a voice that turned Y/N's throat to dust:
"Your scouts reported a column near Grey Hill. Was that you?"
Jon approached soundlessly — a habit left over from the Night's Watch. Y/N turned, and the knot in his chest pulled tighter. Black curls dusted with snow, a new scar above the brow, and on his lips — that half-smile he wore when greeting a friend. Jon did not look away. He stared directly, and in those dark eyes, in their very depths, something burned — not embers, but flame.
"Yes," Y/N breathed. "A hundred and twenty swords. All that remains of Swansgate."
"Good. We need you."
Jon stepped forward and gripped his forearm — a warrior's greeting, tight enough to grind bone. Jon's fingers lingered for a moment, squeezed a fraction harder than they should have, before releasing. Y/N noticed it. He noticed how Jon inhaled a little deeper, catching the scent of lake water and berries.
And then she appeared.
Daenerys Targaryen moved through the crowd of Northmen as though it was not her dragons that had cast terror across all of Westeros. Small, silver-haired, with a smile that seemed almost human. She stopped beside Jon — too close. Her shoulder brushed his elbow. A gesture that spoke louder than words.
Y/N noticed how Jon turned his head slightly — almost imperceptibly — toward that touch. He did not pull away. He did not tense. He accepted it as though it were his due.
"Is this the friend you told me about?" she asked, and her voice sounded soft, but with that faint authority granted only by right of birth.
"Y/N Swansgate," Jon introduced. Was that pride in his tone? "His house stood with my father. He survived the Boltons."
"Stood with your father," Daenerys repeated, and something flickered in her intonation — was it sympathy? Condescension? Y/N could not tell. "A loyal house, then. A rarity these days."
She shifted her gaze to Y/N. Studying, calm. Not hostile — appraising. The way one looks at a tapestry, deciding whether it will suit the wall of a throne room. She extended her hand. Y/N, hesitating for a split second, bowed over it. The Queen's skin smelled of ash and something spicy, foreign.
"Jon said you are one of the few he trusts," she said. "Enter Winterfell as a friend. We will need all who can hold a sword."
We. The word sounded so natural, as though she and Jon were a single entity. As though she was the one receiving him here, and Jon merely stood by, affirming her will.
Y/N straightened. One of the few he trusts. The words should have warmed him. Instead, they cut with a dull blade. Trusts. Like a brother. Like a comrade. And what had happened before his flight — the brush of lips in the dim stable, the taste of salt and despair — had become, it seemed, a youthful mistake to Jon, forgotten and buried beneath the weight of years.
"Thank you, Your Grace. I will not fail you."
He stepped back. A polite smile froze upon his face like a crust of ice.
The days flowed like thick honey mixed with iron.
Preparations for the siege devoured time without mercy. Y/N shuttled between garrisons, checked posts, argued with blacksmiths about steel for arrowheads. He did everything to avoid crossing paths with Jon. But Winterfell was too small, and Jon was too omnipresent.
The first splinter drove into his heart on the third day.
Y/N was crossing the lower courtyard when he heard her laugh. High, clear, unexpectedly warm for one they called the Mother of Dragons. He stopped by the arch of the smithy, not knowing why. Inside, amid the glowing forges and the clang of hammers, stood Jon and Daenerys. She was handing him a dragonglass dagger — black as a starless night, with a hilt wrapped in dragon hide. Jon took it, weighed it in his palm, and she, leaning forward, adjusted his grip. Her fingers slid over his wrist, lingering longer than the lesson required.
"Cut upward," she said, and her voice sounded almost intimate, as though they were alone in all the world. "Dragonglass does not forgive mistakes. Neither do I."
Jon raised his eyes to her. In that gaze, Y/N saw something that made his jaw clench: admiration. Quiet, deep, undeniable. The way one looks at a flame, knowing it will burn, yet reaching for it anyway.
"A fine blade," Jon said. "Thank you."
"You deserve better."
She smiled. Jon smiled back.
Y/N retreated into the shadow of the arch. His chainmail suddenly felt unbearably heavy. He passed a palm over his face, wiping away sweat. Fool. You are a fool, Swansgate. But his feet had rooted to the ground. He watched as Daenerys touched Jon's shoulder, as she said something about dragons and kings, as Jon listened to her with the same expression he had once worn when listening to him — in childhood, by the lake, when Y/N told him the legend of the swan lake.
The second splinter — the next day, in the training yard.
Y/N arrived early to loosen up with a sword before the general muster. But steel was already ringing on the practice ground. Jon and Ser Jorah Mormont circled each other in a sparring match, and Daenerys stood by the fence. She did not take her eyes off Jon. When he evaded a thrust, she leaned slightly forward; when he counterattacked, her lips pressed into a thin line. She was rooting for him. It was so obvious, so utterly human, that Y/N felt sick.
After the bout — Jon won, knocking the sword from Mormont's hand — she approached him. She offered a cup of water. A cloth. She touched his cheek, where a mark from a flat strike remained.
"You do not take care of yourself," she said.
"I'm fine."
"No." She shook her head. "I need you whole. And not only as an ally."
The last phrase was spoken more quietly, but the wind carried it to Y/N with lethal clarity. Jon took the cup. Their fingers met. Daenerys did not hurry to pull her hand away.
Y/N turned and walked away. The sword he carried felt like a white-hot iron rod.
In the evening — the third splinter, and it sank deepest of all.
Supper in the Great Hall. Y/N sat at a lower table, among his own men. Jon and Daenerys sat on the dais, beside Sansa. They spoke of war strategy, but Y/N did not hear the words. He saw only how Daenerys leaned toward Jon, whispered something in his ear, and Jon... Jon smiled. Not that tight, strained smile he wore like armor. Another one — soft, relaxed, almost boyish. The smile Y/N had once drawn from him himself, slipping him stolen lemon cakes from Lord Stark's table.
"My lord?" His squire's voice pulled him from his stupor. "You've barely touched your meat."
"Not hungry."
He rose, feeling his stomach clench. Passing the dais, he accidentally caught Jon's gaze. Jon looked at him with a silent question: Is everything all right? Y/N gave a short nod and walked out into the night, into the snowfall.
All right? No. Nothing was all right. Everything was damnably wrong.
The days crawled on, and jealousy smoldered like a peat fire — invisible, but inexorable.
Jon, to his credit, did not forget his childhood friend. More than that, he sought his presence with a persistence that bordered on torture.
"Come." His hand landed on Y/N's shoulder during supper. His fingers squeezed noticeably, leaving no choice. "Sit with us. You haven't seen Tormund."
And Y/N went. He sat down beside him. He listened to Tormund spin tales of giants, drank bitter ale, and felt Jon's presence at his side — shoulder to shoulder. Daenerys sat on the other side. Sometimes she laid her hand over Jon's when he grew somber. Sometimes she passed him bread, as though they already shared a table as man and wife. Jon accepted it with the same silent gratitude with which he accepted everything she gave.
"You're not eating," Jon observed one such evening, leaning toward Y/N. Their shoulders touched. Warmth passed through layers of wool and leather. "What's wrong with you?"
"Nothing. I'm fine."
"You're lying." Jon stared into his eyes, and that look made Y/N want to fall through the stone floor. "I know when you're lying. Right here..." He touched the corner of Y/N's lips, where the skin pulled tightest. "A shadow appears."
Y/N turned his head away, breaking the contact. Too intimate. Too painful.
"I'm just tired, Jon. The long road. The preparations. All of it..."
Jon nodded, but something distrustful, searching, remained in his dark eyes.
Or at night, in the library. Y/N was searching for old maps of the Shivering Sea. Jon followed, ostensibly to check the posts. They remained alone among the dusty scrolls. The silence stretched, became tangible as fog. Jon stood by the shelf, rolling an extinguished candle between his fingers. Y/N felt his gaze on the back of his neck.
"Why did you leave back then?" Jon asked quietly. "Without even saying goodbye."
There it was. The moment when everything could be said. Or severed once and for all.
"Duties of an heir," Y/N answered without turning. His voice came out steady, almost cold. "My father sent a raven. An urgent summons."
A lie. They both knew it was a lie. Jon remembered that evening. He remembered the taste of those lips — the taste of those very lake berries. He remembered freezing, stunned, and when he finally opened his eyes, Y/N had already bolted away, snapping branches in the night forest.
"I thought..." Jon began and broke off.
"Don't," Y/N interrupted, sharper than he intended. He turned at last. Met those dark eyes. "It was a long time ago. We were children. There are more important matters now."
"Matters," Jon repeated flatly. "Yes. Matters. The Queen, the dead, the North."
He said "the Queen" strangely — with bitterness, with weariness. And Y/N could not find the strength to ask what it meant.
They did not touch each other. But the air between them crackled.
And then came that conversation in the armory.
Y/N came to inspect a shipment of arrows for his archers. Inside, by the far wall, stood Jon and Daenerys. They did not hear his footsteps — the steel on the tables rang out, drowning the sounds. Daenerys held a wolf pelt in her hands, old and worn.
"This was on your father," she was saying. "Sansa kept it. You should wear it. The North should see the Stark in you."
"I am not a Stark," Jon replied. His voice was hollow. "I'm a bastard. You know that."
"You are the King in the North." She stepped toward him. The pelt remained between them, but Daenerys pressed it to Jon's chest, as though crowning him, granting him the right. "And to me... to me you are far more than that."
Y/N froze. An avalanche of ice collapsed inside him, burying the last remnants of hope. He watched as Jon raised his hand — not pushing her away, but covering her hand upon his chest. That gesture was more eloquent than any vow.
"Daenerys..." he began.
"Do not answer now," she interrupted. "Just know. Just think."
She left through the rear door. Jon remained standing, staring at the floor. The wolf pelt hung from his hand.
Y/N stepped out of the shadows. Not because he wanted to. His legs had gone numb, and he stumbled, knocking a rack of arrowheads. The clatter.
Jon turned.
"You heard."
It was not a question.
"Yes."
"Y/N, I—"
"Don't." He raised a hand, stopping him. "You owe me nothing. She is right. She is the Queen. You are the one people follow. You are a pair."
The words came out like sawdust from his throat: dry, prickly, tasteless. Jon stepped toward him.
"You don't understand. What you saw — it's not what it seems."
"It's not my business, Jon. Truly."
He turned and left. But his back burned — all the way to the turn in the corridor.
Everything exploded on the eve of the Army of the Dead's advance.
Y/N stood in his chambers — a small, cold room given to him as commander of a contingent. He was pulling off his chainmail when the door burst open with such force that the hinges shrieked and the latch flew from its socket, clattering across the stone floor.
Jon. No cloak. In an unlaced shirt, with the wild-eyed look of a man who had not slept for three days and had finally found someone to unleash upon.
"What are you doing?" he breathed, stepping inside as though he meant to kill.
"Going to sleep. And you?"
"I mean your men." Jon slammed the door shut with his foot. The sound echoed through the room, making the candle flame shudder. "You placed your people on the Honey Wall. That's the eastern flank. The heaviest assault will fall there. Are you trying to die?"
Y/N straightened. The chainmail fell to his feet with a clatter. He stood in only his undershirt, soaked with sweat, clinging to his body. The cold of the room bit at his skin, but heat was already rising inside.
"I placed my archers where they will be of most use. Or have you forgotten that my house has always been known for its bowmen? With grace we strike, remember?"
"Don't you dare play the hero!" Jon stepped closer. His voice dropped, turned low and ragged. "You weren't here! You didn't see what those creatures bring! This isn't a battle for a castle, it's a slaughter! Your men will be crushed in the first charge!"
"They are my men!" Y/N snarled. "And I did not ask your permission, Lord Commander! Or what should I call you now? The Queen's Protector?"
The word lashed like a slap. Jon froze. Something twitched in his face — not hurt, no. A snarl. Feral, baring teeth.
"What does she have to do with this?" he said, low and dangerous. Every syllable like a drop of molten lead.
"You don't understand?" Y/N stepped forward himself. The distance between them shrank to a single blow. The air grew thick, viscous, as before a storm. "You follow her like a leashed dog. You look at her as though she pulled you from the grave and now owns you. I saw you. In the forge. In the yard. In the bloody armory. Her fingers on your wrist. Her lips at your ear. You let her touch you the way..."
He choked off. His throat seized. Jon stared at him, unblinking, and in that gaze churned something Y/N could not at once name. Anger? Yes. But deeper — something else. Hunger, mingled with desperation.
"The way — you?" Jon stepped even closer. Now only two fists separated them. "Finish it, Swansgate. You always knew how to cut with words. Go on."
"The way I dreamed you would touch me!" Y/N shouted. His voice cracked into a rasp. "I have loved you since childhood, Jon. Since the time you taught me to hold a sword. Since that night by the lake, when you fell asleep by the fire, and I sat watching the snow melt on your lashes. I left because I thought you had pushed me away! I left because after that kiss, you looked at me as if I were a leper!"
"I looked at you as the one thing worth holding onto!" Jon grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him so hard Y/N's head snapped. "I froze because I was afraid! Afraid you were joking! That it was a game! That I wasn't worthy of you — the heir of Swansgate, with your white swans and ancient blood! I'm a bastard, Y/N. All my life, I've been just a bastard. And you... you were everything I couldn't allow myself to have."
"You allowed her!" Y/N tore free, shoved Jon back — roughly, a palm to the chest. Jon retreated a step, but only to surge forward again. "Daenerys! The Dragon Queen who looks at you like a future husband! You stand beside her as though it's how it should be! She touches you, and you don't pull your hand away! You smile at her! And me... you ask me questions about war and look at me like a ghost who returned at the wrong time!"
"Because I don't know how to look at you!" Jon slammed into him, grabbed the collar of his shirt, yanked upward. The fabric tore at the seam. Y/N felt cold air touch his bared shoulder. "Because every time I see you, I'm fifteen again, and I can't breathe! You came back, and I don't know what to do with my hands! I don't know what to do with this!"
He seized Y/N's face — roughly, with both palms, squeezing until his cheekbones ached. Their foreheads collided. Their breath mingled: hot, ragged, tasting of ale and salt.
"Do you have any idea what I felt when you left?" Jon's voice broke. Not into hysteria — into that quiet, terrible desperation worse than a scream. "I stood in that stable, fingers pressed to my lips, and couldn't move. And in the morning, you were gone. No letter. No word. Only the smell of water and berries on my coat. I hated you. I prayed to the gods for you to come back. I..." He swallowed, his Adam's apple jerking. "I thought of you every night. Every damn night. Even when I died. Even when I came back."
Y/N went still. His chest heaved as after a long run. His hands rose of their own accord, gripped the fabric of Jon's shirt at his sides, squeezed as though trying to hold onto a slipping world.
"I saw her kiss you. In the gallery before the Great Keep."
"She didn't kiss me."
"She ran her palm over your cheek! You closed your eyes! I saw it!"
"I closed my eyes because I remembered you!" Jon nearly shouted it into his lips. The voice echoed off the stone walls. "Because her touch smelled of ash, and I wanted it to smell of the lake! I was thinking of you, Y/N! Of your hands! Of your mouth! I stood before the Queen, and I wanted to be standing before you!"
The world stopped.
And then Y/N slammed into him like a wave into a cliff.
He drove Jon into the wall with such force that the tapestry behind him slid sideways. Their ragged breathing mingled. Y/N pressed his whole body against him, feeling the heat of the other's skin through damp fabric, feeling the frantic pounding of a heart — not his own, his. Jon groaned — low, guttural, from somewhere deep in his chest — and the sound rolled down Y/N's spine like a wave of fire.
"I won't give you up to her," Y/N whispered, and his voice was hoarse, like a dying man's. "I won't. Curse the war. Curse the dragons. You're mine. You've been mine since the day you smiled at me over the map of the Starks. You just didn't know."
"I knew." Jon grabbed him by the hip, squeezed hard enough to hurt, pulled him closer. Their hips met. Both froze for a second, feeling everything: the heat, the tremor, the impossible closeness. "I always knew. I was just afraid."
"Of what?"
"That you wouldn't let me."
Y/N exhaled raggedly, as before a plunge into icy water. Then he crushed his mouth against Jon's — not gently, no. Roughly, demandingly, with the fury accumulated over ten years of separation. Jon answered with no less hunger. His hands slid under Y/N's shirt — palms traveled over ribs, over scars, over the spine, leaving trails of fire. Y/N tore the fabric on Jon's chest harder, baring old scars and a newer one, still pink, from a healed wound. He pressed his lips to the spot where a vein pulsed beneath the skin. Jon jerked, groaned through clenched teeth, buried his fingers in Y/N's hair and pulled — roughly, possessively.
"You drive me mad," Jon breathed. "Ten years. Ten years I lived with this."
"I won't leave again." Y/N raised his head and looked into his eyes — those dark, tormented, beloved eyes. "Do you hear me? Even if the dead devour us tomorrow. Even if the whole world crumbles. I will stay."
Jon caught his face in his palms — gently this time, but his fingers trembled. He stared as though trying to memorize every line.
"Swear it."
"I swear by ice and fire. I swear by the bones of my father. I swear by the Swan, Jon. I will stay."
They were drawn to each other again — with the same inevitability with which waves crash upon the shore. The kiss deepened, hardened, grew more desperate. Hands roamed over bodies, squeezing, scratching, demanding more. Y/N pinned Jon against the wall, slid a knee between his thighs, and Jon sobbed — not from pain, no. From relief.
They pulled apart only when the air ran out entirely. Foreheads pressed together. Breathing steadied slowly, in uneven bursts.
"Tomorrow," Jon whispered. "Tomorrow you'll be on the eastern flank. I'll be at the gates. We survive. Both of us. Understood?"
"Understood."
"And don't you dare die. I only just finally..." He did not finish. The words were unnecessary.
Outside, the wind howled, a harbinger of the storm. The Army of the Dead was closing in on the walls. But here, in the cramped room, two men stood clutching each other, and the whole world had shrunk to that embrace — rough, desperate, healing old wounds.
Y/N kissed the scar above Jon's brow, the corner of his mouth, the salty trail he had not noticed he had laid with his tears.
"We'll survive," he repeated, pouring all the steel he had left into the words. "And when it's over, I'll take you to the lake. Show you the swans. Teach you to swim the way only my house knows how."
Jon laughed quietly — for the first time in long, long years. And that laugh, hoarse and broken, was the finest sound Y/N had ever heard.
"First survive," Jon said. "Then show me."
They did not loosen their embrace until dawn. Not even when the bell tolled the alarm.
p.s: I just realized that the swan and the wolf are one of the most faithful partners in nature…How symbolic…
(devider by @saradika-graphics)
