Fic: An Inappropriate Friendship 1/1
Title: An Inappropriate Friendship
Author: corrielle
Rating: PG-13
Paring: Sansa/Theon
Word Count: 2,107
Author's Notes: I wrote this a prompt over at the asoiafkinkmeme, which should really be called the "ASoIaF Really Awesome and Interesting Prompts That Might or Might Not be Sexy" Meme. The prompt called for Sansa to be older or Robb's twin (I went with the latter), and for Sansa and Theon to have developed a close friendship over the years because she's the only person who was kind to him.
Summary: Selected moments in the friendship between Sansa Stark and her father's ward. Or, lots of times Theon cared about Sansa and one time he admitted it.
Some said that Ned Stark's twins had a gentling affect on Theon. Two years his junior, Robb and Sansa had their mother's auburn Tully hair and their father's bone-deep Northern honor. For Robb, Theon tried to be honorable, though he often failed. For Sansa, he tried to be polite, though half the jokes he whispered to her when they sat at table weren't fit for a lady's ears.
When Theon was twelve, Sansa gifted him with one of her bits of embroidery practice. Theon tucked the piece of cloth into his sleeve and called it his lady's favor until he saw the sharp look that Lady Stark gave him. That night, he folded it gently and laid it in the bottom of the chest where he kept his clothes.
When Theon was fourteen, he snuck out of Winterfell and found a brothel. This, he did alone. Robb would not come with him, no matter how much he teased and pleaded.
"Suit yourself," Theon said, and when he returned he boasted about his exploits to Robb and Jon, though he kept quiet when he thought Sansa might be listening.
When Theon was fifteen and the twins thirteen, Sansa's mare threw a shoe as she rode with Theon and her brother in the woods near the castle.
Robb's stallion required a firm hand and was too skittish to take another rider, and so Theon lifted her up in front of him so that her legs dangled to one side, and they rode back to Winterfell with one of his arms around her waist.
When they rode through the gates, he saw Lord Stark watching him closely, and he made sure to give Sansa every courtesy as he helped her down.
That night, he dreamed of racing down the beach at Pyke, Sansa's hair blowing in his face and her body pressed against his.
When he was sixteen, he groaned Sansa's name into the ear of a red-haired whore, and he gave the girl an extra coin to buy her silence.
That was when Theon realized he was in love with Sansa Stark. He called himself an idiot, a fool, a hopeless sot, and he held his secret close. He knew Robb loved him like a brother, but Sansa was Robb's blood, and she would marry a lord that Ned Stark chose, not the ward he'd been burdened with.
The knowledge that he could not have her made Theon cruel, and the next time he and Robb sat with her while she practiced for her music lesson, he made sharp jests about the songs of knights and ladies that Sansa loved.
"If you do not like the music I choose to sing, you may leave," Sansa said icily.
"Maybe I will, then," Theon said. "I've got better things to do than listen to stupid songs about knights and flowers, anyway."
"I suppose you prefer blood and beheading?" Sansa asked.
"If I thought you knew any song that interesting, I might," Theon said as he backed toward the door. "But you don't. So I'll be going."
He slammed the door behind him and stalked away quickly. He hadn't meant to call her stupid songs stupid. Truth be told, a good song was a good song, knights or no, and Sansa had a pretty voice, and he'd never minded her courtly music before…
He stopped in the middle of the corridor when he heard footsteps coming up behind him.
"What did you do that for?" Robb demanded. His expression was a mixture of anger, hurt, and honest confusion that only Starks seemed to be able to manage. "You made her cry, Theon."
"Well, I didn't mean to, so whose fault is that?" Theon shot back, even as he tried to hide a flush of embarrassment. He'd never made her cry before. The three of them bickered all the time, but never like this. Never to the point of tears.
Robb grabbed Theon by the forearm and glared at him.
"Your fault, of course," Robb said. "What is wrong with you? This is Sansa we're talking about. My sister. Your friend."
"I know who she is," Theon said. The painful twisting in his gut wouldn't let him forget. "You don't have to remind me."
He pulled away from Robb and walked back towards his rooms without so much as a glance behind him.
Sansa avoided him at dinner, and he stayed away from her the next day, and the day after that. Once, he chanced to hear her talking in the hall with Robb, and he thought he heard Robb say something about "…make him apologize," and Sansa respond with an emphatic shake of her head and "…do it on his own."
The next day, he leaned against the open doorway of the room where she sat with her needlework on her lap and said, "I'll have you know I'm doing this on my own."
"And… what exactly is it that you're doing?" Sansa asked, not looking up from her hands.
"Apologizing… for… what I said. I was cruel for no reason, and you didn't deserve it."
"You are rarely cruel for no reason," Sansa said. "What's bothering you, Theon?"
"Same as always, I suppose. I'm miles from home with few friends and no future," he said. He hadn't meant to say it, but it was true, and it made her smile sadly and beckon him to come sit next to her.
"I'd sing you a song from home if you could teach me one," she offered. "I… thought you might like that."
"I don't remember any songs from home," Theon told her.
That, too, seemed to make her sad.
*
On the night before she left for King's Landing with the royal party and her new betrothed, Sansa went to pray by the weirwood tree. Theon was waiting for her when she came out of the godswood. She was a slender shadow with pale skin and copper hair.
"What were you praying for?" he asked.
"For Bran," she said. "And for a safe journey."
Theon looked up at the castle. The torches were still lit in the great hall, and every once in a while, the sounds of laughter or music filtered down to them.
"Do you want to marry him?" he asked.
"It means I'll be queen someday," Sansa said.
"Do you want that so badly?"
"I never wanted it at all," Sansa said, "but now that I am betrothed… There are worse things to be than queen."
"And what about Joffrey? Your prince?" Theon asked.
"He's… a boy still. He seems gracious enough, though."
"He's a prick," Theon said, and even though Sansa pressed her lips together primly at his language, the words kept tumbling out of him. "He's an ass to his little brother, and to everyone else in the practice yard, he boasts where he has no right to, and he throws a fit when someone gives the lie to his boasting, and…"
"There are some who would have said the same of you when you were his age," Sansa reminded him.
"No. It's different. I wasn't like him. I know I can be nasty…" Sansa nodded in agreement. "But I don't mean it. He does."
Sansa's face went very still all of a sudden. She knows. She's seen it too, what this precious prince of hers is made of.
"Why are you telling me this?" she asked him. "Is it to warn me? To frighten me?"
"No… I didn't mean…"
"Because if you meant to frighten me, you've done it."
"I wanted you to see him for what he is," Theon said.
"And what good does that do me?" Sansa asked.
Theon didn't have an answer for that.
"The king wants me to wed his son. My father has agreed. What am I to say? 'I think that Prince Joffrey is cruel, and I will not have him?' The king would be angry, and my father would be ashamed."
"Your father loves you. He would not want you to be unhappy…"
"He agreed to the betrothal before he had even met the prince, and I do not fault him for it. Father knew he could not refuse the king in this, any more than he could refuse to be his Hand."
"Maybe I don't want you to be unhappy," Theon said, leaning against one of the trees at the entrance to the godswood.
Sansa reached out and took his hand, like she had so often when they were children, before they got too old for such things to be proper between a Lord's daughter and his ward.
"You would keep me from sadness if you could?" she said. "I like knowing that."
With her hand still warm in his, she stood up on the tips of her toes to kiss him on the cheek, and when she went to back away, he put one around her waist and pulled her close to him.
"Theon…" she started to say, but she didn't get any more words out before he kissed her.
She was warm and small and hesitant in his arms, but she didn't try to push him away. She let him kiss her, and when he let go of her hand, she wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed him back, shyly at first, but when he flicked his tongue between her lips she giggled into his mouth for a moment before doing the same to him.
Starks, he had noticed, were quick learners.
If she'd been a kitchen girl or a whore, he would have hiked up her skirts and taken her against the tree right then, but this was Sansa, and so he ran his hands through her long, loose hair and kissed her temple, her neck, her shoulders. He ran one hand down her back, around her waist, and up to where her breasts curved beneath her dress, and Sansa jumped and put her hand on his chest.
"Theon, stop," she said. They were both breathing heavily, and he could feel heat rising from her skin.
"Are you sure that's what you want?" he said, nipping at her shoulder and gently squeezing at her breast.
She extended her arm, pushing him away from her.
"I'm sure your life would be in danger if someone saw us, as would my honor."
"My life? Just for kissing the prince's betrothed?" Theon laughed. "The Wall, maybe, unless you think your prince would call for my head."
"He's not my prince," Sansa said angrily. "And I don't want you sent to the Wall, either."
"What do you want for me?" he asked. It was a cruel question, and he knew it.
Sansa sighed. "The same thing you want for me, I suppose… happiness…"
"You'll take my chance for that with you when you leave with the king," Theon said.
Sansa stepped back and looked away from him, suddenly every inch a lady.
"Please don't," she said.
"Don't what? Don't tell you the truth? Don't tell you that the idea of you with that blond prick makes me want to drive a knife through his gut? Don't tell you that I love you?"
Theon nearly swallowed his own tongue when those last three words came out of his mouth. He hadn't said them since he left Pyke as a boy. Not to any of the girls he bedded, even when they wanted to hear it, not to Robb, who he did love, after a fashion, and certainly not to Sansa. His declaration hung in the air a moment before Sansa was in his arms again, and this time, she was crying.
"I'm sorry…" Theon said. He wasn't exactly sure what he was apologizing for, but she hadn't been crying before, and now she was. Apologizing seemed like the thing to do.
Sansa laughed a little and rested her damp cheek against his shoulder. "You don't even know what you're sorry for, do you?" she asked.
"I'm… sorry you're crying," Theon ventured.
"You should be sorry for giving me a taste of what I can't have," she said. "But… I forgive you anyway."
"Would you have me if you could?" Theon asked.
Sansa brushed her lips against his one last time before stepping back and putting far too much of the cool Northern air between them.
"Yes. I think… I'd like to give you a chance to make me happy."
Then, she flashed a faint smile at him before hurrying up the path up to the castle.
In the days that followed, Theon took some comfort that for once, someone he cared for would have chosen him in return.
Author: corrielle
Rating: PG-13
Paring: Sansa/Theon
Word Count: 2,107
Author's Notes: I wrote this a prompt over at the asoiafkinkmeme, which should really be called the "ASoIaF Really Awesome and Interesting Prompts That Might or Might Not be Sexy" Meme. The prompt called for Sansa to be older or Robb's twin (I went with the latter), and for Sansa and Theon to have developed a close friendship over the years because she's the only person who was kind to him.
Summary: Selected moments in the friendship between Sansa Stark and her father's ward. Or, lots of times Theon cared about Sansa and one time he admitted it.
Some said that Ned Stark's twins had a gentling affect on Theon. Two years his junior, Robb and Sansa had their mother's auburn Tully hair and their father's bone-deep Northern honor. For Robb, Theon tried to be honorable, though he often failed. For Sansa, he tried to be polite, though half the jokes he whispered to her when they sat at table weren't fit for a lady's ears.
When Theon was twelve, Sansa gifted him with one of her bits of embroidery practice. Theon tucked the piece of cloth into his sleeve and called it his lady's favor until he saw the sharp look that Lady Stark gave him. That night, he folded it gently and laid it in the bottom of the chest where he kept his clothes.
When Theon was fourteen, he snuck out of Winterfell and found a brothel. This, he did alone. Robb would not come with him, no matter how much he teased and pleaded.
"Suit yourself," Theon said, and when he returned he boasted about his exploits to Robb and Jon, though he kept quiet when he thought Sansa might be listening.
When Theon was fifteen and the twins thirteen, Sansa's mare threw a shoe as she rode with Theon and her brother in the woods near the castle.
Robb's stallion required a firm hand and was too skittish to take another rider, and so Theon lifted her up in front of him so that her legs dangled to one side, and they rode back to Winterfell with one of his arms around her waist.
When they rode through the gates, he saw Lord Stark watching him closely, and he made sure to give Sansa every courtesy as he helped her down.
That night, he dreamed of racing down the beach at Pyke, Sansa's hair blowing in his face and her body pressed against his.
When he was sixteen, he groaned Sansa's name into the ear of a red-haired whore, and he gave the girl an extra coin to buy her silence.
That was when Theon realized he was in love with Sansa Stark. He called himself an idiot, a fool, a hopeless sot, and he held his secret close. He knew Robb loved him like a brother, but Sansa was Robb's blood, and she would marry a lord that Ned Stark chose, not the ward he'd been burdened with.
The knowledge that he could not have her made Theon cruel, and the next time he and Robb sat with her while she practiced for her music lesson, he made sharp jests about the songs of knights and ladies that Sansa loved.
"If you do not like the music I choose to sing, you may leave," Sansa said icily.
"Maybe I will, then," Theon said. "I've got better things to do than listen to stupid songs about knights and flowers, anyway."
"I suppose you prefer blood and beheading?" Sansa asked.
"If I thought you knew any song that interesting, I might," Theon said as he backed toward the door. "But you don't. So I'll be going."
He slammed the door behind him and stalked away quickly. He hadn't meant to call her stupid songs stupid. Truth be told, a good song was a good song, knights or no, and Sansa had a pretty voice, and he'd never minded her courtly music before…
He stopped in the middle of the corridor when he heard footsteps coming up behind him.
"What did you do that for?" Robb demanded. His expression was a mixture of anger, hurt, and honest confusion that only Starks seemed to be able to manage. "You made her cry, Theon."
"Well, I didn't mean to, so whose fault is that?" Theon shot back, even as he tried to hide a flush of embarrassment. He'd never made her cry before. The three of them bickered all the time, but never like this. Never to the point of tears.
Robb grabbed Theon by the forearm and glared at him.
"Your fault, of course," Robb said. "What is wrong with you? This is Sansa we're talking about. My sister. Your friend."
"I know who she is," Theon said. The painful twisting in his gut wouldn't let him forget. "You don't have to remind me."
He pulled away from Robb and walked back towards his rooms without so much as a glance behind him.
Sansa avoided him at dinner, and he stayed away from her the next day, and the day after that. Once, he chanced to hear her talking in the hall with Robb, and he thought he heard Robb say something about "…make him apologize," and Sansa respond with an emphatic shake of her head and "…do it on his own."
The next day, he leaned against the open doorway of the room where she sat with her needlework on her lap and said, "I'll have you know I'm doing this on my own."
"And… what exactly is it that you're doing?" Sansa asked, not looking up from her hands.
"Apologizing… for… what I said. I was cruel for no reason, and you didn't deserve it."
"You are rarely cruel for no reason," Sansa said. "What's bothering you, Theon?"
"Same as always, I suppose. I'm miles from home with few friends and no future," he said. He hadn't meant to say it, but it was true, and it made her smile sadly and beckon him to come sit next to her.
"I'd sing you a song from home if you could teach me one," she offered. "I… thought you might like that."
"I don't remember any songs from home," Theon told her.
That, too, seemed to make her sad.
*
On the night before she left for King's Landing with the royal party and her new betrothed, Sansa went to pray by the weirwood tree. Theon was waiting for her when she came out of the godswood. She was a slender shadow with pale skin and copper hair.
"What were you praying for?" he asked.
"For Bran," she said. "And for a safe journey."
Theon looked up at the castle. The torches were still lit in the great hall, and every once in a while, the sounds of laughter or music filtered down to them.
"Do you want to marry him?" he asked.
"It means I'll be queen someday," Sansa said.
"Do you want that so badly?"
"I never wanted it at all," Sansa said, "but now that I am betrothed… There are worse things to be than queen."
"And what about Joffrey? Your prince?" Theon asked.
"He's… a boy still. He seems gracious enough, though."
"He's a prick," Theon said, and even though Sansa pressed her lips together primly at his language, the words kept tumbling out of him. "He's an ass to his little brother, and to everyone else in the practice yard, he boasts where he has no right to, and he throws a fit when someone gives the lie to his boasting, and…"
"There are some who would have said the same of you when you were his age," Sansa reminded him.
"No. It's different. I wasn't like him. I know I can be nasty…" Sansa nodded in agreement. "But I don't mean it. He does."
Sansa's face went very still all of a sudden. She knows. She's seen it too, what this precious prince of hers is made of.
"Why are you telling me this?" she asked him. "Is it to warn me? To frighten me?"
"No… I didn't mean…"
"Because if you meant to frighten me, you've done it."
"I wanted you to see him for what he is," Theon said.
"And what good does that do me?" Sansa asked.
Theon didn't have an answer for that.
"The king wants me to wed his son. My father has agreed. What am I to say? 'I think that Prince Joffrey is cruel, and I will not have him?' The king would be angry, and my father would be ashamed."
"Your father loves you. He would not want you to be unhappy…"
"He agreed to the betrothal before he had even met the prince, and I do not fault him for it. Father knew he could not refuse the king in this, any more than he could refuse to be his Hand."
"Maybe I don't want you to be unhappy," Theon said, leaning against one of the trees at the entrance to the godswood.
Sansa reached out and took his hand, like she had so often when they were children, before they got too old for such things to be proper between a Lord's daughter and his ward.
"You would keep me from sadness if you could?" she said. "I like knowing that."
With her hand still warm in his, she stood up on the tips of her toes to kiss him on the cheek, and when she went to back away, he put one around her waist and pulled her close to him.
"Theon…" she started to say, but she didn't get any more words out before he kissed her.
She was warm and small and hesitant in his arms, but she didn't try to push him away. She let him kiss her, and when he let go of her hand, she wrapped her arms around his waist and kissed him back, shyly at first, but when he flicked his tongue between her lips she giggled into his mouth for a moment before doing the same to him.
Starks, he had noticed, were quick learners.
If she'd been a kitchen girl or a whore, he would have hiked up her skirts and taken her against the tree right then, but this was Sansa, and so he ran his hands through her long, loose hair and kissed her temple, her neck, her shoulders. He ran one hand down her back, around her waist, and up to where her breasts curved beneath her dress, and Sansa jumped and put her hand on his chest.
"Theon, stop," she said. They were both breathing heavily, and he could feel heat rising from her skin.
"Are you sure that's what you want?" he said, nipping at her shoulder and gently squeezing at her breast.
She extended her arm, pushing him away from her.
"I'm sure your life would be in danger if someone saw us, as would my honor."
"My life? Just for kissing the prince's betrothed?" Theon laughed. "The Wall, maybe, unless you think your prince would call for my head."
"He's not my prince," Sansa said angrily. "And I don't want you sent to the Wall, either."
"What do you want for me?" he asked. It was a cruel question, and he knew it.
Sansa sighed. "The same thing you want for me, I suppose… happiness…"
"You'll take my chance for that with you when you leave with the king," Theon said.
Sansa stepped back and looked away from him, suddenly every inch a lady.
"Please don't," she said.
"Don't what? Don't tell you the truth? Don't tell you that the idea of you with that blond prick makes me want to drive a knife through his gut? Don't tell you that I love you?"
Theon nearly swallowed his own tongue when those last three words came out of his mouth. He hadn't said them since he left Pyke as a boy. Not to any of the girls he bedded, even when they wanted to hear it, not to Robb, who he did love, after a fashion, and certainly not to Sansa. His declaration hung in the air a moment before Sansa was in his arms again, and this time, she was crying.
"I'm sorry…" Theon said. He wasn't exactly sure what he was apologizing for, but she hadn't been crying before, and now she was. Apologizing seemed like the thing to do.
Sansa laughed a little and rested her damp cheek against his shoulder. "You don't even know what you're sorry for, do you?" she asked.
"I'm… sorry you're crying," Theon ventured.
"You should be sorry for giving me a taste of what I can't have," she said. "But… I forgive you anyway."
"Would you have me if you could?" Theon asked.
Sansa brushed her lips against his one last time before stepping back and putting far too much of the cool Northern air between them.
"Yes. I think… I'd like to give you a chance to make me happy."
Then, she flashed a faint smile at him before hurrying up the path up to the castle.
In the days that followed, Theon took some comfort that for once, someone he cared for would have chosen him in return.