#huh dialux? what's this random three paragraphs? why is it like this? we're very confused.

[dialux]

trope it all up

My submission for the @jonxsansafanfiction​ Valentine’s Challenge, Day 12: Stuck together. My best attempt at working in four different prompts from the prompt challenge- each chapter encompasses one prompt. Chapter 3 of 5; Part 1 can be found here. Part 2 can be found here.

[ETA: Previous notes said that there would be four chapters. There will be five chapters; the last one is of the author’s choice day- confessions.]

Chapter 3: Arya and Bran are entirely convinced of Jon and Sansa’s relationship- and are willing to put aside their personal feelings for the match for their cousin and sister’s sakes; but with the two refusing to speak to each other and, even worse, Jon deciding to leave for the south, they decide to take matters into their own hands.

iii. stuck together

Jon yanked the ties around the neck of his rucksack in place firmly, and leaned down to place the sheets he’d tossed away back onto the bed. At the new angle, he saw the rough boots he’d forgotten to pack.

He cursed aloud, loudly, startling Ghost from his slumber.

“That’s not very lordly.”

“I’m not a lord,” replied Jon, turning to face Arya, who stood at the door.

She shrugged. “You were a king. I’d think you were worthy of a lordship, you know?”

He sighed and knelt, picking up the boots and folding the loose legs of the boots so they could easier fit into the pile. When he straightened, Arya was still there.

“What d’you want?” Jon grunted.

“Not me,” said Arya. “Bran- he wants to go over some numbers or something. Before you leave, I think.”

“Tonight early enough for him?”

She winced. “A bit earlier might be better. He has to talk about the stores we have then, with Sansa and the stewards- something about the Vale knights’ arrival.”

“Ah,” said Jon. “I’ll be certain to not overstay then.”

“Jon,” Arya sighed. He wasn’t sure what his face looked like, then, only that Arya took one look at it and started to backtrack. “No, nothing, I don’t- it’s just, you know, what happened? You two looked so happy-”

“Things change,” said Jon, and walked away.

...

Sansa sighed as the door opened. 

“Bran, I’ve been waiting for nearly a half hour,” she began, only to cut herself off when she saw who was at the door.

Jon was staring at her as if he hadn’t ever seen her before, which was, admittedly, absolutely untrue; just because he’d refused to be in the same room as her for the past two weeks didn’t mean that he’d never seen her- and then, just as abrupt as his entrance, he turned on his heel to walk back.

Sansa saw it coming a heartbeat before it happened. Her eyes widened, arm stretching out.

The wooden door slammed shut at the exact moment as Jon walked forwards, at precisely the right velocity to hit his nose. Jon wavered, and then stumbled backwards before finally toppling over. It was almost loud enough that Sansa didn’t hear the sound of the latch sliding into place.

She started forwards, concern outweighing both amusement and underlying awkwardness. Jon was leaning back against the ground, completely prone, hands cupping over his nose- he looked utterly ridiculous.

“Are you okay?” Sansa asked, bending over and prodding his arm. 

Jon hissed something out, muffled by his hands. When he remained in that position, Sansa reached out and tugged one hand away.

His nose looked- slightly crooked.

Better take care of that, she thought, and snapped the bone back into place.

Jon bucked at the feeling, chest hollowing out. After he’d calmed down, he glared at her; it didn’t do much, though, with his nose still bright red, his eyes watering, and him still prone against the ground.

“What the hell, Sansa?”

“If we’d waited for someone else to fix that broken nose,” Sansa replied, “you’d have had a very crooked nose, and I know precisely how vain you are about your looks-”

“You couldn’t get Sam?” He demanded.

Sansa waved a hand. “Someone’s locked the door.”

“What.”

“I’m thinking it’s Arya,” she told him. “Or Bran, but most likely both.” She could barely stop herself from snorting when Jon gingerly ran his fingers across the bone. “Oh, don’t worry- your nose will be fine. I’ve snapped enough bones together, Jon, I know I didn’t mess this one up.”

“I thought we taught her not to interfere,” Jon commented, slowly sitting up. “I mean, making her completely rebuild the south wall isn’t the kind of thing you forget, you know?”

She shrugged. “Arya’s always been uniquely stubborn.” Her lips quirked. “She gets that from you, I think.”

“Or your mother.”

“Or my mother. She doesn’t have any lack of people to choose from.” 

Jon made an inarticulate sound in response, still struggling to sit up. Sansa’s eyes narrowed, slightly. 

She hadn’t meant to say as much as she did, before. Those were old grievances, and ones that she’d thought she’d moved past. But there was something in the way that Jon blamed her, as if he wasn’t at fault- it lit a fire in her chest.

Sansa had made mistakes. She’d own up to them. What she wouldn’t accept was Jon’s proclamation of innocence. And until he accepted that, she wouldn’t offer her own apologies.

That, however, didn’t mean that Sansa would have to be constantly belligerent.

“Anyhow,” she said, affixing a smile to her face, “when are you- leaving?”

“I was going to leave tonight,” he said, eyes dipping away. “Before this idiotic stunt, I mean.”

“I doubt Arya meant to break your nose.”

“Arya doesn’t mean for a lot of things,” Jon replied dryly. “Things still, miraculously, happen.”

Sansa sighed and rose, turning towards the door. 

“Do you want to try to...” she waved a hand at the door.

Jon frowned. “Do what?”

“Break the door down?” Sansa arched an eyebrow. “You did that a couple years ago, didn’t you?”

“That,” he said, dignifiedly, “was because Arya was having a nightmare and was an absolute idiot. Also, I don’t doubt that Arya’s placed something significantly heavier in front of the door, and I don’t plan to dislocate my shoulder on top of breaking my nose today.”

That... sounded like Arya.

“I could pop it back in,” Sansa offered, and Jon snorted.

...

The silence was uncomfortable, enough to leave Jon itching to actually take a pass at breaking the door down. A dislocated shoulder would at least leave the two of them with something to talk about, as opposed to this itching, tense quiet.

Jon hadn’t- he hadn’t meant to hurt Sansa. 

He’d watched Sansa enter Castle Cerwyn, had seen the horror writ across her face when she heard that he’d given up his crown; and then Sansa had swept herself tall, hair glittering bright as a banner, and told Daenerys that Jon wasn’t the King in the North, not any longer.

It’d been betrayal that Jon felt, when Sansa called him a bastard in all but name. He hadn’t been able to speak to her after that, not without feeling a peculiar mixture of shame, guilt, and anger; and Sansa hadn’t approached him either. 

And when he returned to Winterfell, having abandoned the south and Daenerys, while Arya and Bran embraced him, Sansa had simply watched, as disapproving and coldly haughty as Lady Catelyn. 

But that was all in the past- and more to the point, it wasn’t Sansa’s fault alone. Jon carried his own mixture of blame. It might have taken Sansa throwing it in his face for him to acknowledge it, but that didn’t mean he was incapable of doing so.

He sighed. 

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Sansa looked up from where she’d been hemming a gown, brows pulling together. “What?”

“I’m sorry,” said Jon, breathing out heavily. “I was- an ass. I didn’t think very much about you or anything other than the war, and... I was angry.” His shoulders lifted, almost helplessly. “Angry at you, and myself, and our situation, and you were the easiest to face.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Sansa told him, and Jon remembered how stiffly she’d told him not to apologize for something he didn’t feel sorry for a week previous.

“I don’t,” Jon told her, leaning back against the chair. “I’m not saying this because I owe you something. I never have. I never will.”

Even years ago, there had been something furious in Sansa’s pale face, her dawn-bright hair; something that filled the hollows that had lived inside Jon’s chest since being killed. Jon had been caught up in Sansa’s terrible wake, like a leaf floating behind a boat’s paddle. Even when Jon expected to die in the worst ways possible, even when he was so afraid, so tired- there had been something that screamed of life in seeing Sansa, who always stood as undying and unbent as any weirwood tree.

“But it’s true,” Jon finished. “I’m apologizing because I owed you safety, and I didn’t offer it. I’m apologizing because I owed you kindness, and I offered you only grief. I’m apologizing because I owed you love, and all I gave you was anger.”

Jon wasn’t good with words; he was remarkable at fumbling with them, all told. 

But Sansa didn’t seem to care about his awkwardness, the way in which he stumbled over the syllables and hesitated; she blinked at him, and then placed her sewing aside and rose to her feet. She was of a height with him now; Jon could see, precisely, the way her eyes flicked between something bright enough to outshine the stars and something sharp enough to draw blood.

“And I should have told you of Bran and Arya,” she said quietly. “I shouldn’t have- avoided you, I know.” Her lips tipped upwards into a small smile. “I am sorry for that.”

“Sansa,” he said, softly, and she nodded, stepping closer to him. 

“Yes,” she whispered. One hand came up to cup his cheek, rubbing over his beard; Jon shuddered at the contrast between her skin and his own. “Yes, Jon.”

They hadn’t spoken of it, not ever. This attraction that lay between them like a weighted stone- they’d never once even breathed of it. There had been nights when Jon went to bed, drunk out of his mind, and dreamed of a girl: too bright to be Ygritte, too tall to be Daenerys. There had been mornings when he saw Sansa, backlit by the morning sun, eyes glittering, and felt something balloon in his chest. He hadn’t once so much as imagined that Sansa had felt the same, but then she’d laced her fingers through his in a small clearing next to a river and grinned. 

Jon swallowed, hard, and kept his eyes wide, wide open when Sansa leaned in.

Their first, proper kiss was soft- soft enough that Jon scarce felt it. The second was longer. On the third, he threaded his fingers through her hair, brought the other hand to her waist, and kissed Sansa, properly.

She made a thin, high sound when he pulled away. Sansa’s cheeks were flushed, her eyes wide and dark, and there was a smile curving her lips.

Jon grinned back, and leaned in to kiss her once more-

-only for the door to burst open.

“Oh my gods,” Arya wailed, “do you have to do it all the time?”

Sansa strangled an irritated sound in the back of her throat, just soft enough that Jon could barely hear it. He felt his initial irritation fade into laughter at the sound, and hid his smile in the curve of her neck, and then turned, arching an eyebrow at Arya and Bran.

“You began this,” he said, and though just a few hours previous he would have meant this is your fault, right then Jon could only think: thank you.