Fic: No Time For Wolves (A Song of Ice and Fire) [06/08]
Title: No Time For Wolves
Author: girlupnorth
Rating: strong PG-13
Pairings: Jon/Sansa; Petyr/Sansa; Jon/Daenerys
Disclaimer: A song of ice and fire belongs to George RR Martin, and I am not making any profit off this story.
Length: 2,230 words (~19,000 total)
Spoilers: Including A Feast for Crows
Summary: In which there is angst, and a conversation about honour.
Warnings: incest, adultery, angst, dubious morality, Littlefinger
Notes: This is for miss_magrat, who wanted me to write Jon/Sansa. Many thanks to novin_ha for beta reading.
Previous :: Table of Contents :: Next
06. Jon
At daybreak Jon allows himself to forget about all his doubts and qualms. He watches sleeping Sansa in the weak light of the dawn, marvelling over her beauty: the soft curls of her hair upon the pillow, the half-smile on her lips, the shadows cast onto her cheeks by her lashes. He wants to kiss her mouth, her neck, her collarbones, her breasts, her belly; wishes she was awake, so that he could make love to her again.
Sansa moves in her sleep, causing a lock of hair to fall over her cheek, and murmurs something softly.
“Soft” and “gentle” are the words he uses most often when thinking about Sansa. She is so much more delicate than Daenerys is, than Ygritte once was, and in a way, it still fills him with wonder.
Lying back on his pillow, Jon thinks of his great-grandfather, Aemon the Conqueror, who at the same time took two wives; and of his own father, Rhaegar, who, smitten with Lyanna Stark, married her in secret. At daybreak, when Jon allows himself to escape the reality, his biggest wish is that Sansa was free, and that he could take her for a wife. Daenerys would have been furious, of course; but perhaps, with time, they would have learned to get on with one another. With Daenerys, he could have quarrelled and talked over the realm’s matters; Sansa would have brought him calm comfort after Daenerys’ storms.
However, Sansa is not free, and all they have is but a few days, a fortnight possibly, a month if they are lucky, before she will have to leave for her lord husband’s castle. Even with that little time, they cannot spend every night together without raising suspicions; already Jon feels certain that their servants know all about their affair.
Sansa has told him that his guilt offends her, and probably she is right; it is odd to see her trying to live in a moment, like Daenerys does, trying not to talk with him about the future, pretending not to consider the inevitability of breaking up.
“But it is wrong, Sansa,” he tells her sometimes, usually kissing her time after another, or already anxiously unlacing her dress.
Sansa puts a finger to his mouth and tells him not to think about it now; so he kisses her again and again, until he forgets to think.
He wakes her not long after the sunrise, and they make love. She is, as ever after their first night, a little shy and uncertain in returning his caresses; watching her dress, Jon asks himself whether Sansa even enjoys their love-making at all. However, when she turns to look at him and leans to kiss him lightly on the lips, and whispers something into his ear, he believes that she does; otherwise why would she come back to him? Smiling to him one more time, Sansa leaves for her chambers, and her many domestic duties.
Jon’s days are filled with letters and penitents, and the work only keeps piling up on him. The smallfolk bring him their quarrels and crimes to judge and solve; the great lords send in ravens with meticulous descriptions of their demands from the crown; some, also, with not so veiled threats. Both his Master of the Coin and Master of the Laws write, requesting permission to lengthen their stay at their respective castles, and after some consideration, Jon replies with the affirmative.
Ravens from Sam at the Castle Black arrive regularly, and it is always difficult for Jon to read through these letters. The watchtowers along the Wall are being rebuilt and filled with new men. The new Lord Commander does not seem as competent as Jon could wish him to be, and he has to stop himself from writing the man letters of advice. But it would not do; the king should not get into the Night Watch’s affairs. The only letters he can write to Sam are about his duties at the court, which his friend never really comments on; Jon feels that Sam still has not forgiven him for taking the crown.
A short note from the East informs him that Daenerys will be away at least for a month more. He reads it with a mixture of irritation (ungrounded, since Daenerys too is taking care of the realm’s matters) and relief that he will be granted some more time with Sansa.
He wonders how his son would find himself as a king, having spent his youth watching Jon, stagger helplessly between his duties. He wishes that the boy would be able to learn from his lord father’s mistakes.
After one particularly long day, filled with ravens and demands, he finds himself at the end of his tether.
“This land deserves a better king than me,” he tells Sansa bitterly during the supper. “One that can understand all the nuances of relations with the Tyrrells, the Lannisters, the houses of the Vale - one that has more experience, patience, and honour.” The last word escapes him before he considers it, and, for a split moment, the look that he gets from Sansa is almost sharp. After another moment, the impression is gone, and she offers him her usual gentle reassurances.
“I don’t think you a bad king, Jon,” she says. “I know that you are doing your very best, and given that you have not been raised at a court, I believe that the effects are very good.”
Jon wishes that she could be right; but, after all, what does Sansa know about reigning a kingdom? She would probably have told him the same thing if he had been failing in all fields.
“Still,” he says, deep in self-contempt, “wouldn’t you say that the realm deserves better than a king who is an oath-breaker, a turn-cloak?”
At this point of the conversation, Daenerys would have been up in arms already. Sansa, however, only watches him calmly.
“I don’t know what the realm deserves, my lord,” she says. “But I know that you brought peace to it. As for honour-” she pauses, and glances down.
“Yes, my lady?” asks Jon, looking out to find consolation in her words.
“I have found that sometimes it is better to breach the line of honour, to lie, for instance, than to be killed,” she says, not looking up. She was pretending not to be Sansa Stark for quite some time during the war, Jon recalls.
“Your lord father would not have been pleased with this,” he says; thoughts of Lord Eddard have been haunting him a lot lately. He would have cursed us both out of the family a long time ago, had he been alive.
Sansa plays with a piece of an apple on her plate; he has not seen her that thoughtful yet.
“My lord father was a very good man. My lord father was a very honourable man. And my lord father died, while we both have survived,” she says, and looks up at Jon. “Sometimes honour is not the thing most worth following, I think,” she adds slowly.
“What is, then?” asks Jon. He expects her to reply “survival”, and, even though he cannot agree with her dismissal of honour, he thinks that she cannot be blamed for fearing death.
“Love, perhaps,” says Sansa, a little distantly, and then her expression changes; she looks as a child caught on acting naughty. “But forgive me, my lord, I am rambling,” she says, and hastily changes the subject.
Jon is, for a moment, at a loss for words. Sansa has never spoken about love before; indeed, she has not spoken about her feelings at all, leaving them to be guessed by him. A warm feeling creeps over Jon’s heart, and he smiles: to think that she loves him makes it all worthwhile.
Still, over the course of the following days his conscience begins to trouble him again. Since the evening after their first night together, he has not tried to talk with Sansa about putting an end to their affair; he put it off, thinking only that it would be better to break up the matter before they grew too close together. Now, Jon realizes, this has already happened, and Sansa will be hurt much more than he could wish her to. Thus, he begins to consider ways of bringing up the subject in a way that she could accept, a way that would not make her feel offended again.
He imagines himself telling Sansa that it is better to part before people learn about them, and start to talk. In fact, though, there are no people in King’s Landing to learn, or to talk, except for his servants, and those of her household, who, as Jon understands from Sansa’s tales, are absolutely loyal. Aside from them, there are no people in the castle: the lords and ladies have not returned yet, his queen wife is away, as is Sansa’s lord husband.
The thought of Sansa’s lord husband gives Jon an unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach. For one, he is not quite sure how he will be able to talk to Lord Baelish when he returns to the court. True, Sansa’s marriage must be absolutely horrible, if she has given to him, Jon, so easily; but even that does not free him from being guilty in front of her lord husband.
He wonders what Lord Baelish’s reaction could be, had he ever found out about his lady wife’s affair with Jon. Recalling some of what he knows about the man’s past, he fears for Sansa. No, he will have to somehow keep her at the court, and watch over her happiness, as bestows a good cousin and a king.
Daenerys would not have been very happy either, he realizes. She would have probably clawed out his eyes, if not outright killed him; and then she would have gone after Sansa. She would have never forgiven them, that much is certain, muses Jon, thinking back to their never ending quarrels over Jaime Lannister.
One evening Sansa does not appear at their supper. Instead of her, a servant arrives, bringing apologies, and informing Jon that one of Sansa’s children has fallen sick, and she has to stay in her chambers.
Jon asks whether there is a need to send for a maester, but the servant replies that the child has already been taken care of, and should be alright by the morning.
Despite himself, Jon finds that he misses Sansa’s company, and his evening drags on frightfully. In the end, he heads for his son’s chambers.
Aemon, not yet asleep, greets him eagerly, and before Jon has time to find himself a seat, his son has already managed to ask him a dozen questions. Why is Jon always so busy? Will Aemon be that busy too, when he is the king? Why is Rhaegal so irritable these days? When will Aemon’s lady mother come back?
“We should have her here within a month,” Jon tells him. Aemon’s smile surprises him; he has not realized how much his son misses Daenerys.
“Lord father,” begins Aemon, a little timidly, and looks at Jon with Daenerys’ purple eyes. “Could you tell me a story?”
“Whoever taught you to be so courteous?” laughs Jon, ruffling Aemon’s dark hair. His son does not usually remember about his courtesies, in this respect taking a little too much after Daenerys than Jon would have liked.
“Sanny says we ought to always be polite,” replies Aemon, to Jon’s amusement. “But she threw some earth at me today, and never apologized.” Aemon frowns for a moment, but then he smiles again. “Could you tell me about how you fought the Others, lord father?”
Jon begins his story, for his son’s sake stripped of the more horrifying details. Aemon listens intently at first, stroking Ghost’s fur; then, however, he begins to doze off. Eventually he falls asleep, making Jon finish the tale in a whisper. Then he raises Aemon from his seat, and, for the first time in their lives, tucks his son in his bed. Aemon half-wakes when Jon covers him, and he smiles before drifting off again.
He looks so much like Daenerys.
Jon sits by his son’s bed and watches him asleep, thinking of his queen wife. Daenerys will be still in the East, taking care of Meereen and her other cities. Jon wonders whether she has time to miss him and their son, and, for the first time for almost a month, finds himself longing after Daenerys’ presence, her easy laughter, her temper, their quarrels even. Then, however, he recalls Sansa, in her gentle way of behaving; and, after a while of thinking of them against one another, Jon is no longer able to say for whom he now longs more, Daenerys, or Sansa.
The next day he takes a moment to look for Sansa in the gardens, having learned that his son is playing there again with the Baelish twins. He finds her watching over the children, and is surprised to see how joyous and animated she looks.
When Sansa notices him, her expression changes. Within a moment, she is her usual calm self, a little more serious mayhaps than Jon is used to.
“My lord,” she begins, giving him a concerned look. “I am leaving for Grassy Vale early on the morrow.”
Author: girlupnorth
Rating: strong PG-13
Pairings: Jon/Sansa; Petyr/Sansa; Jon/Daenerys
Disclaimer: A song of ice and fire belongs to George RR Martin, and I am not making any profit off this story.
Length: 2,230 words (~19,000 total)
Spoilers: Including A Feast for Crows
Summary: In which there is angst, and a conversation about honour.
Warnings: incest, adultery, angst, dubious morality, Littlefinger
Notes: This is for miss_magrat, who wanted me to write Jon/Sansa. Many thanks to novin_ha for beta reading.
Previous :: Table of Contents :: Next
06. Jon
At daybreak Jon allows himself to forget about all his doubts and qualms. He watches sleeping Sansa in the weak light of the dawn, marvelling over her beauty: the soft curls of her hair upon the pillow, the half-smile on her lips, the shadows cast onto her cheeks by her lashes. He wants to kiss her mouth, her neck, her collarbones, her breasts, her belly; wishes she was awake, so that he could make love to her again.
Sansa moves in her sleep, causing a lock of hair to fall over her cheek, and murmurs something softly.
“Soft” and “gentle” are the words he uses most often when thinking about Sansa. She is so much more delicate than Daenerys is, than Ygritte once was, and in a way, it still fills him with wonder.
Lying back on his pillow, Jon thinks of his great-grandfather, Aemon the Conqueror, who at the same time took two wives; and of his own father, Rhaegar, who, smitten with Lyanna Stark, married her in secret. At daybreak, when Jon allows himself to escape the reality, his biggest wish is that Sansa was free, and that he could take her for a wife. Daenerys would have been furious, of course; but perhaps, with time, they would have learned to get on with one another. With Daenerys, he could have quarrelled and talked over the realm’s matters; Sansa would have brought him calm comfort after Daenerys’ storms.
However, Sansa is not free, and all they have is but a few days, a fortnight possibly, a month if they are lucky, before she will have to leave for her lord husband’s castle. Even with that little time, they cannot spend every night together without raising suspicions; already Jon feels certain that their servants know all about their affair.
Sansa has told him that his guilt offends her, and probably she is right; it is odd to see her trying to live in a moment, like Daenerys does, trying not to talk with him about the future, pretending not to consider the inevitability of breaking up.
“But it is wrong, Sansa,” he tells her sometimes, usually kissing her time after another, or already anxiously unlacing her dress.
Sansa puts a finger to his mouth and tells him not to think about it now; so he kisses her again and again, until he forgets to think.
He wakes her not long after the sunrise, and they make love. She is, as ever after their first night, a little shy and uncertain in returning his caresses; watching her dress, Jon asks himself whether Sansa even enjoys their love-making at all. However, when she turns to look at him and leans to kiss him lightly on the lips, and whispers something into his ear, he believes that she does; otherwise why would she come back to him? Smiling to him one more time, Sansa leaves for her chambers, and her many domestic duties.
Jon’s days are filled with letters and penitents, and the work only keeps piling up on him. The smallfolk bring him their quarrels and crimes to judge and solve; the great lords send in ravens with meticulous descriptions of their demands from the crown; some, also, with not so veiled threats. Both his Master of the Coin and Master of the Laws write, requesting permission to lengthen their stay at their respective castles, and after some consideration, Jon replies with the affirmative.
Ravens from Sam at the Castle Black arrive regularly, and it is always difficult for Jon to read through these letters. The watchtowers along the Wall are being rebuilt and filled with new men. The new Lord Commander does not seem as competent as Jon could wish him to be, and he has to stop himself from writing the man letters of advice. But it would not do; the king should not get into the Night Watch’s affairs. The only letters he can write to Sam are about his duties at the court, which his friend never really comments on; Jon feels that Sam still has not forgiven him for taking the crown.
A short note from the East informs him that Daenerys will be away at least for a month more. He reads it with a mixture of irritation (ungrounded, since Daenerys too is taking care of the realm’s matters) and relief that he will be granted some more time with Sansa.
He wonders how his son would find himself as a king, having spent his youth watching Jon, stagger helplessly between his duties. He wishes that the boy would be able to learn from his lord father’s mistakes.
After one particularly long day, filled with ravens and demands, he finds himself at the end of his tether.
“This land deserves a better king than me,” he tells Sansa bitterly during the supper. “One that can understand all the nuances of relations with the Tyrrells, the Lannisters, the houses of the Vale - one that has more experience, patience, and honour.” The last word escapes him before he considers it, and, for a split moment, the look that he gets from Sansa is almost sharp. After another moment, the impression is gone, and she offers him her usual gentle reassurances.
“I don’t think you a bad king, Jon,” she says. “I know that you are doing your very best, and given that you have not been raised at a court, I believe that the effects are very good.”
Jon wishes that she could be right; but, after all, what does Sansa know about reigning a kingdom? She would probably have told him the same thing if he had been failing in all fields.
“Still,” he says, deep in self-contempt, “wouldn’t you say that the realm deserves better than a king who is an oath-breaker, a turn-cloak?”
At this point of the conversation, Daenerys would have been up in arms already. Sansa, however, only watches him calmly.
“I don’t know what the realm deserves, my lord,” she says. “But I know that you brought peace to it. As for honour-” she pauses, and glances down.
“Yes, my lady?” asks Jon, looking out to find consolation in her words.
“I have found that sometimes it is better to breach the line of honour, to lie, for instance, than to be killed,” she says, not looking up. She was pretending not to be Sansa Stark for quite some time during the war, Jon recalls.
“Your lord father would not have been pleased with this,” he says; thoughts of Lord Eddard have been haunting him a lot lately. He would have cursed us both out of the family a long time ago, had he been alive.
Sansa plays with a piece of an apple on her plate; he has not seen her that thoughtful yet.
“My lord father was a very good man. My lord father was a very honourable man. And my lord father died, while we both have survived,” she says, and looks up at Jon. “Sometimes honour is not the thing most worth following, I think,” she adds slowly.
“What is, then?” asks Jon. He expects her to reply “survival”, and, even though he cannot agree with her dismissal of honour, he thinks that she cannot be blamed for fearing death.
“Love, perhaps,” says Sansa, a little distantly, and then her expression changes; she looks as a child caught on acting naughty. “But forgive me, my lord, I am rambling,” she says, and hastily changes the subject.
Jon is, for a moment, at a loss for words. Sansa has never spoken about love before; indeed, she has not spoken about her feelings at all, leaving them to be guessed by him. A warm feeling creeps over Jon’s heart, and he smiles: to think that she loves him makes it all worthwhile.
Still, over the course of the following days his conscience begins to trouble him again. Since the evening after their first night together, he has not tried to talk with Sansa about putting an end to their affair; he put it off, thinking only that it would be better to break up the matter before they grew too close together. Now, Jon realizes, this has already happened, and Sansa will be hurt much more than he could wish her to. Thus, he begins to consider ways of bringing up the subject in a way that she could accept, a way that would not make her feel offended again.
He imagines himself telling Sansa that it is better to part before people learn about them, and start to talk. In fact, though, there are no people in King’s Landing to learn, or to talk, except for his servants, and those of her household, who, as Jon understands from Sansa’s tales, are absolutely loyal. Aside from them, there are no people in the castle: the lords and ladies have not returned yet, his queen wife is away, as is Sansa’s lord husband.
The thought of Sansa’s lord husband gives Jon an unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach. For one, he is not quite sure how he will be able to talk to Lord Baelish when he returns to the court. True, Sansa’s marriage must be absolutely horrible, if she has given to him, Jon, so easily; but even that does not free him from being guilty in front of her lord husband.
He wonders what Lord Baelish’s reaction could be, had he ever found out about his lady wife’s affair with Jon. Recalling some of what he knows about the man’s past, he fears for Sansa. No, he will have to somehow keep her at the court, and watch over her happiness, as bestows a good cousin and a king.
Daenerys would not have been very happy either, he realizes. She would have probably clawed out his eyes, if not outright killed him; and then she would have gone after Sansa. She would have never forgiven them, that much is certain, muses Jon, thinking back to their never ending quarrels over Jaime Lannister.
One evening Sansa does not appear at their supper. Instead of her, a servant arrives, bringing apologies, and informing Jon that one of Sansa’s children has fallen sick, and she has to stay in her chambers.
Jon asks whether there is a need to send for a maester, but the servant replies that the child has already been taken care of, and should be alright by the morning.
Despite himself, Jon finds that he misses Sansa’s company, and his evening drags on frightfully. In the end, he heads for his son’s chambers.
Aemon, not yet asleep, greets him eagerly, and before Jon has time to find himself a seat, his son has already managed to ask him a dozen questions. Why is Jon always so busy? Will Aemon be that busy too, when he is the king? Why is Rhaegal so irritable these days? When will Aemon’s lady mother come back?
“We should have her here within a month,” Jon tells him. Aemon’s smile surprises him; he has not realized how much his son misses Daenerys.
“Lord father,” begins Aemon, a little timidly, and looks at Jon with Daenerys’ purple eyes. “Could you tell me a story?”
“Whoever taught you to be so courteous?” laughs Jon, ruffling Aemon’s dark hair. His son does not usually remember about his courtesies, in this respect taking a little too much after Daenerys than Jon would have liked.
“Sanny says we ought to always be polite,” replies Aemon, to Jon’s amusement. “But she threw some earth at me today, and never apologized.” Aemon frowns for a moment, but then he smiles again. “Could you tell me about how you fought the Others, lord father?”
Jon begins his story, for his son’s sake stripped of the more horrifying details. Aemon listens intently at first, stroking Ghost’s fur; then, however, he begins to doze off. Eventually he falls asleep, making Jon finish the tale in a whisper. Then he raises Aemon from his seat, and, for the first time in their lives, tucks his son in his bed. Aemon half-wakes when Jon covers him, and he smiles before drifting off again.
He looks so much like Daenerys.
Jon sits by his son’s bed and watches him asleep, thinking of his queen wife. Daenerys will be still in the East, taking care of Meereen and her other cities. Jon wonders whether she has time to miss him and their son, and, for the first time for almost a month, finds himself longing after Daenerys’ presence, her easy laughter, her temper, their quarrels even. Then, however, he recalls Sansa, in her gentle way of behaving; and, after a while of thinking of them against one another, Jon is no longer able to say for whom he now longs more, Daenerys, or Sansa.
The next day he takes a moment to look for Sansa in the gardens, having learned that his son is playing there again with the Baelish twins. He finds her watching over the children, and is surprised to see how joyous and animated she looks.
When Sansa notices him, her expression changes. Within a moment, she is her usual calm self, a little more serious mayhaps than Jon is used to.
“My lord,” she begins, giving him a concerned look. “I am leaving for Grassy Vale early on the morrow.”