a radiant darkness upon us (Tyrion/Sansa; Part 2)
I would like to thank season four for crushing all my dreams and thus motivating me to write more.
a radiant darkness upon us - Game of Thrones ; Tyrion/Sansa, Sansa + Shae, Tyrion/Shae ; Part 2 - 1,800 words. In the days before Joffrey's wedding to Margaery, Sansa and Tyrion's marriage grows more complicated.
Part 1
You know he betrays you
As much as he saves you
(Phildel, "The Disappearance of the Girl")
As soon as she gets back to her room, Sansa bursts into angry sobs. The effort of keeping a sweet smile on her face while conversing with Joffrey and Margaery, even for the few moments she stayed, was unbearable. Her whole body shakes. She knows she’s just a weak girl, but she thinks she could kill Joffrey if he stood before her right now.
“I hate him, I hate him, I hate him,” she fumes, gasping for breath.
“Sansa,” Shae orders, alarmed. “Quiet!”
“He’s going to make me-he keeps talking about-”
“What?” Shae says firmly, taking both of Sansa’s hands.
“Joffrey keeps saying he’ll make me-He wants to be the one who takes my maidenhead. I lied to him, I told him that I’ve already been with Tyrion; I thought maybe he wouldn’t want to as much that way. But he still said he’d do it.”
Shae’s face turns hard, so suddenly that it makes Sansa afraid of her.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Sansa begs, her voice thick with sobs. “Shae, please.”
The door swings open.
“Hello,” Tyrion says rather awkwardly, taking in the sight of Sansa all blotchy from sobbing, clutching Shae’s hands.
Shae storms over to Tyrion. “You fucking fool. What are you thinking, ever letting her alone with him?”
Sansa’s heart all but stops. “Shae! You can’t speak to him like-”
“She is yours; you protect her. If that little shit of a king comes anywhere near her-”
“Shae! My lord, I’m sorry-”
“What’s going on?” Tyrion demands.
“The king is making threats to rape her. Talk to your father, have him make the boy stop, take her away somewhere else. Do whatever it takes to keep her safe.”
“You can’t just tell him what to do,” Sansa says, her head spinning. “My lord, I’m so sorry for her insolence, please don’t dismiss her, she means well-”
Sansa falls silent as she looks at them. Shae is standing very close to Tyrion, her arms folded as she glares down at him. Tyrion doesn’t look very shocked as he stares up at her. It’s not the way you would stand with a stranger.
“Do you know each other?” Sansa asks slowly.
Her husband and Shae look at her in unison, alarmed. It would be funny under other circumstances.
“Um,” Tyrion says.
Shae gets that look on her face, hard and determined.
Then she says, “I was his whore.”
“What?” It’s all Sansa can think to say.
“Not anymore,” Shae adds sharply. “He’s a married man now.”
“You weren’t just my-” Tyrion sighs, exasperated, then says to Sansa, “We were lovers.”
“Lovers!” Shae laughs darkly.
“You’re in love?” Sansa says stupidly.
Tyrion mutters, “That’s up for debate recently.”
“Why would you fall in love with my handmaiden?” Sansa struggles through the words. “Why would my handmaiden be a-a-?”
“Shae wanted to remain close to me,” Tyrion says, his voice all strained patience. “The easiest way was to give her a position within the castle. Sansa, I-”
“You lied to me,” she realizes aloud. “Both of you.”
“Sansa-” Shae begins.
But Sansa doesn’t stay to listen. Suddenly, she can barely breathe.
+
When Tyrion finds her, Sansa is kneeling in the godswood.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he says. She turns to look at him briefly, but doesn’t favor him with her gaze for long.
“I needed to be alone.”
“Shae informs me that you’re not allowed to go anywhere alone.”
Sansa ignores him.
“Sansa, please-”
Briskly, she interrupts, “Shit.”
It’s unexpected, to say the least. “What?”
“The word is ‘shit,’ not ‘shift.’”
“Ah yes.” Tyrion winces. “One of Shae’s favorites, in fact.”
“Why didn’t you tell me I had it wrong?”
“Your naïveté can be very charming. We don’t have a lot of that around here.”
As soon as he says it, he knows he’s made a mistake.
Sansa’s face goes cold and angry. “You told me I was smart.”
“What?”
“You did. You said I wasn’t just some stupid girl, and yet you were lying to me the whole time. I don’t know what I should have expected. You’re a Lannister. I am stupid. I shouldn’t have let myself forget. I should have never started to trust you, but you were kind and no one is ever kind and everyone I’ve ever loved is dead, and that should have been a lesson but I was such an idiot-”
“Sansa.” He tries to reach for her hand.
She shakes him off, rough. “Don’t touch me.”
“Lady Stark.”
“Don’t!” She nearly shouts it. He’s never heard her voice so sharp. It sends a chill through him. She quickly recovers herself, and the next words are a slight whisper. “Don’t just-say things like that and think it’s enough.”
“Put yourself in my shoes,” he says, frustrated despite himself. “They are a little small for you, I admit, but try. How would you have told your sweet young wife about your mistress?”
“At our wedding feast, you told me about vomiting on one of your mistresses while you bedded her. You’re very good at honesty. It wouldn’t have been hard.”
“I know it’s not romantic, but married men often keep whores. I am unique in that I have abstained from mine since we wed.”
“Don’t talk about her like that!”
“Like what?”
“Like she’s a thing. She’s not a thing. She’s Shae. She’s a person. She was my friend - I thought,” she corrects herself sharply, “she was my friend. And she was a Lannister spy all along.”
“Not just any Lannister.” The look on her face is unbearable. “I swear it, my lady, she has only ever wanted to keep you safe.”
Sansa says nothing.
“And,” Tyrion says after a moment, “That’s all I want, too.” It must be a lie - he has always wanted so much, and she’s just a young lady he still barely knows. And yet looking at her now, it feels true. “I will not let Joffrey near you.”
“And you’ll never hurt me,” Sansa recites, scathing.
Tyrion looks at her sadly.
“I lied to Joffrey and said that you’d bedded me,” she tells him after a moment. “I thought it might put him off. He couldn’t make quite such a joke of you if you’d been there first.”
Tyrion cannot quite find the words to answer that; what words are there in the world that could make a thing like that better? It feels impossible that it was only yesterday when they’d strolled through the sunset together, speaking of old loves and the dirtier nuances of The Bear and the Maiden Fair. He wishes the gods had seen fit to give her joy in love, instead of the cruel trick that was Joffrey.
Instead of the trick of this marriage, which seems almost as cruel.
All he can offer her is a weak, “Thank you.”
“But it didn’t put him off.” Dully, she recites, “He says he’ll show me what it’s like with a real man.”
Suddenly, he wants nothing more than to find Joffrey and kill him on the spot. But Sansa deserves more than useless rage from her husband. Tyrion strives to sound calm and wise, tries to sound like he knows everything. Not usually a challenge, that. “Well, he won’t touch you.”
She isn’t so easily convinced. “How do you know that?”
“The wedding is foremost on everyone’s minds right now. I’m sure Margaery will keep him properly distracted for a week at least. That will give us time to ...”
“To what?” She is mostly wary, but her eyes brighten with something that might be hope.
Shae’s words echo in his head. Talk to your father, have him make the boy stop, take her away somewhere else. Do whatever it takes to keep her safe.
But it isn’t-it can never be-that easy.
“Sansa, Joffrey says awful things,” Tyrion says, trying to sound consoling and loathing himself thoroughly for it. “But often, they are to mask the fact that he’s just a boy with no idea what he’s doing. Maybe this is just talk.”
“What he did to that woman. The one who worked with Lord Baelish-Ros. That wasn’t talk.”
“How do you know about that?” Tyrion asks sharply.
“Shae told me.”
“Why would she ...” He swears under his breath. Then, louder: “You shouldn’t have had to hear about that.”
“Yes, I should have,” Sansa says. She seems suddenly to catch fire. Urgent, she turns to face him; still on her knees, she matches his height. There are mere inches between them. He feels oddly dazed by the fierce blue of her eyes. She clutches his hands in hers. Her grip is stronger than expected. “You and Shae aren’t the only ones trying to survive, and I’m the one Joffrey likes to hurt best. And there are no knights, or - or heroes. No one else is going to take care of me. I have to learn how to do this alone.”
“But you aren’t alone,” Tyrion protests.
Sansa looks at him, a look of such deep betrayal and disgust that he can’t stand to hold the gaze. She lets go of his hands as quickly as she’d taken them.
“Sansa,” he says to his feet like the coward he is, flustered by her closeness and her goodness. “I swear I won’t let Joffrey near you.”
Her face frosts over. She stands, towering above him with a queen’s dignity. He looks up at her, and she does not avoid his eyes. I don’t believe you, she doesn’t say. She doesn’t need to.
“His Grace is my king,” she says instead, her voice steady and cool. “I’m glad to serve him however he wishes.”
When she walks away, Tyrion doesn’t attempt to stop her. Instead, he follows on behind her-not a knight or a hero, but her husband all the same. She doesn’t slow her pace or look back.
+
“You did always tell me not to trust you,” Sansa tells Shae that night when Shae comes back to help her undress. Sansa has already put on her nightgown and taken down her hair. All it takes is one look to know what she is telling Shae: I don’t need you. Shae wishes Tyrion could be half as efficient at breaking her heart. “You were honest, at least.”
“Would you like me to go?” Shae asks dutifully.
Sansa looks almost frightening in the candlelight, tall and queenly and cold. “Yes. You’re dismissed.”
“I’ll come back in the morning,” Shae promises.
Sansa shows no sign that she heard.
Once she is outside, Shae rests against the door for a moment. She feels old and heavy, sick of everything. She misses her old self, who knew that love was not worth the cost and swore never to be so stupid and weak.
Inside, she hears Sansa begin to cry.
Shae closes her eyes.
a radiant darkness upon us - Game of Thrones ; Tyrion/Sansa, Sansa + Shae, Tyrion/Shae ; Part 2 - 1,800 words. In the days before Joffrey's wedding to Margaery, Sansa and Tyrion's marriage grows more complicated.
Part 1
You know he betrays you
As much as he saves you
(Phildel, "The Disappearance of the Girl")
As soon as she gets back to her room, Sansa bursts into angry sobs. The effort of keeping a sweet smile on her face while conversing with Joffrey and Margaery, even for the few moments she stayed, was unbearable. Her whole body shakes. She knows she’s just a weak girl, but she thinks she could kill Joffrey if he stood before her right now.
“I hate him, I hate him, I hate him,” she fumes, gasping for breath.
“Sansa,” Shae orders, alarmed. “Quiet!”
“He’s going to make me-he keeps talking about-”
“What?” Shae says firmly, taking both of Sansa’s hands.
“Joffrey keeps saying he’ll make me-He wants to be the one who takes my maidenhead. I lied to him, I told him that I’ve already been with Tyrion; I thought maybe he wouldn’t want to as much that way. But he still said he’d do it.”
Shae’s face turns hard, so suddenly that it makes Sansa afraid of her.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Sansa begs, her voice thick with sobs. “Shae, please.”
The door swings open.
“Hello,” Tyrion says rather awkwardly, taking in the sight of Sansa all blotchy from sobbing, clutching Shae’s hands.
Shae storms over to Tyrion. “You fucking fool. What are you thinking, ever letting her alone with him?”
Sansa’s heart all but stops. “Shae! You can’t speak to him like-”
“She is yours; you protect her. If that little shit of a king comes anywhere near her-”
“Shae! My lord, I’m sorry-”
“What’s going on?” Tyrion demands.
“The king is making threats to rape her. Talk to your father, have him make the boy stop, take her away somewhere else. Do whatever it takes to keep her safe.”
“You can’t just tell him what to do,” Sansa says, her head spinning. “My lord, I’m so sorry for her insolence, please don’t dismiss her, she means well-”
Sansa falls silent as she looks at them. Shae is standing very close to Tyrion, her arms folded as she glares down at him. Tyrion doesn’t look very shocked as he stares up at her. It’s not the way you would stand with a stranger.
“Do you know each other?” Sansa asks slowly.
Her husband and Shae look at her in unison, alarmed. It would be funny under other circumstances.
“Um,” Tyrion says.
Shae gets that look on her face, hard and determined.
Then she says, “I was his whore.”
“What?” It’s all Sansa can think to say.
“Not anymore,” Shae adds sharply. “He’s a married man now.”
“You weren’t just my-” Tyrion sighs, exasperated, then says to Sansa, “We were lovers.”
“Lovers!” Shae laughs darkly.
“You’re in love?” Sansa says stupidly.
Tyrion mutters, “That’s up for debate recently.”
“Why would you fall in love with my handmaiden?” Sansa struggles through the words. “Why would my handmaiden be a-a-?”
“Shae wanted to remain close to me,” Tyrion says, his voice all strained patience. “The easiest way was to give her a position within the castle. Sansa, I-”
“You lied to me,” she realizes aloud. “Both of you.”
“Sansa-” Shae begins.
But Sansa doesn’t stay to listen. Suddenly, she can barely breathe.
+
When Tyrion finds her, Sansa is kneeling in the godswood.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he says. She turns to look at him briefly, but doesn’t favor him with her gaze for long.
“I needed to be alone.”
“Shae informs me that you’re not allowed to go anywhere alone.”
Sansa ignores him.
“Sansa, please-”
Briskly, she interrupts, “Shit.”
It’s unexpected, to say the least. “What?”
“The word is ‘shit,’ not ‘shift.’”
“Ah yes.” Tyrion winces. “One of Shae’s favorites, in fact.”
“Why didn’t you tell me I had it wrong?”
“Your naïveté can be very charming. We don’t have a lot of that around here.”
As soon as he says it, he knows he’s made a mistake.
Sansa’s face goes cold and angry. “You told me I was smart.”
“What?”
“You did. You said I wasn’t just some stupid girl, and yet you were lying to me the whole time. I don’t know what I should have expected. You’re a Lannister. I am stupid. I shouldn’t have let myself forget. I should have never started to trust you, but you were kind and no one is ever kind and everyone I’ve ever loved is dead, and that should have been a lesson but I was such an idiot-”
“Sansa.” He tries to reach for her hand.
She shakes him off, rough. “Don’t touch me.”
“Lady Stark.”
“Don’t!” She nearly shouts it. He’s never heard her voice so sharp. It sends a chill through him. She quickly recovers herself, and the next words are a slight whisper. “Don’t just-say things like that and think it’s enough.”
“Put yourself in my shoes,” he says, frustrated despite himself. “They are a little small for you, I admit, but try. How would you have told your sweet young wife about your mistress?”
“At our wedding feast, you told me about vomiting on one of your mistresses while you bedded her. You’re very good at honesty. It wouldn’t have been hard.”
“I know it’s not romantic, but married men often keep whores. I am unique in that I have abstained from mine since we wed.”
“Don’t talk about her like that!”
“Like what?”
“Like she’s a thing. She’s not a thing. She’s Shae. She’s a person. She was my friend - I thought,” she corrects herself sharply, “she was my friend. And she was a Lannister spy all along.”
“Not just any Lannister.” The look on her face is unbearable. “I swear it, my lady, she has only ever wanted to keep you safe.”
Sansa says nothing.
“And,” Tyrion says after a moment, “That’s all I want, too.” It must be a lie - he has always wanted so much, and she’s just a young lady he still barely knows. And yet looking at her now, it feels true. “I will not let Joffrey near you.”
“And you’ll never hurt me,” Sansa recites, scathing.
Tyrion looks at her sadly.
“I lied to Joffrey and said that you’d bedded me,” she tells him after a moment. “I thought it might put him off. He couldn’t make quite such a joke of you if you’d been there first.”
Tyrion cannot quite find the words to answer that; what words are there in the world that could make a thing like that better? It feels impossible that it was only yesterday when they’d strolled through the sunset together, speaking of old loves and the dirtier nuances of The Bear and the Maiden Fair. He wishes the gods had seen fit to give her joy in love, instead of the cruel trick that was Joffrey.
Instead of the trick of this marriage, which seems almost as cruel.
All he can offer her is a weak, “Thank you.”
“But it didn’t put him off.” Dully, she recites, “He says he’ll show me what it’s like with a real man.”
Suddenly, he wants nothing more than to find Joffrey and kill him on the spot. But Sansa deserves more than useless rage from her husband. Tyrion strives to sound calm and wise, tries to sound like he knows everything. Not usually a challenge, that. “Well, he won’t touch you.”
She isn’t so easily convinced. “How do you know that?”
“The wedding is foremost on everyone’s minds right now. I’m sure Margaery will keep him properly distracted for a week at least. That will give us time to ...”
“To what?” She is mostly wary, but her eyes brighten with something that might be hope.
Shae’s words echo in his head. Talk to your father, have him make the boy stop, take her away somewhere else. Do whatever it takes to keep her safe.
But it isn’t-it can never be-that easy.
“Sansa, Joffrey says awful things,” Tyrion says, trying to sound consoling and loathing himself thoroughly for it. “But often, they are to mask the fact that he’s just a boy with no idea what he’s doing. Maybe this is just talk.”
“What he did to that woman. The one who worked with Lord Baelish-Ros. That wasn’t talk.”
“How do you know about that?” Tyrion asks sharply.
“Shae told me.”
“Why would she ...” He swears under his breath. Then, louder: “You shouldn’t have had to hear about that.”
“Yes, I should have,” Sansa says. She seems suddenly to catch fire. Urgent, she turns to face him; still on her knees, she matches his height. There are mere inches between them. He feels oddly dazed by the fierce blue of her eyes. She clutches his hands in hers. Her grip is stronger than expected. “You and Shae aren’t the only ones trying to survive, and I’m the one Joffrey likes to hurt best. And there are no knights, or - or heroes. No one else is going to take care of me. I have to learn how to do this alone.”
“But you aren’t alone,” Tyrion protests.
Sansa looks at him, a look of such deep betrayal and disgust that he can’t stand to hold the gaze. She lets go of his hands as quickly as she’d taken them.
“Sansa,” he says to his feet like the coward he is, flustered by her closeness and her goodness. “I swear I won’t let Joffrey near you.”
Her face frosts over. She stands, towering above him with a queen’s dignity. He looks up at her, and she does not avoid his eyes. I don’t believe you, she doesn’t say. She doesn’t need to.
“His Grace is my king,” she says instead, her voice steady and cool. “I’m glad to serve him however he wishes.”
When she walks away, Tyrion doesn’t attempt to stop her. Instead, he follows on behind her-not a knight or a hero, but her husband all the same. She doesn’t slow her pace or look back.
+
“You did always tell me not to trust you,” Sansa tells Shae that night when Shae comes back to help her undress. Sansa has already put on her nightgown and taken down her hair. All it takes is one look to know what she is telling Shae: I don’t need you. Shae wishes Tyrion could be half as efficient at breaking her heart. “You were honest, at least.”
“Would you like me to go?” Shae asks dutifully.
Sansa looks almost frightening in the candlelight, tall and queenly and cold. “Yes. You’re dismissed.”
“I’ll come back in the morning,” Shae promises.
Sansa shows no sign that she heard.
Once she is outside, Shae rests against the door for a moment. She feels old and heavy, sick of everything. She misses her old self, who knew that love was not worth the cost and swore never to be so stupid and weak.
Inside, she hears Sansa begin to cry.
Shae closes her eyes.