Chapter Text
Chapter 2: Cold Water and Hot Head
The kitchen smelled like lavender dish soap and impending doom.
Sansa stood over the sink, the faucet running icy stream over her left hand. Her knuckles were already a furious, irritated pink from twenty minutes of aggressive scrubbing, but the ring hadn’t budged a single millimeter. It sat there, glittering under the harsh fluorescent light, looking smug.
“You’re going to rub your skin raw,” Jon muttered, swinging around the doorframe. He didn’t sound like a man whose future engagement was currently trapped on his best friend’s finger. He sounded like a guy who had just found a missing twenty-dollar bill in his jeans.
“I am trying,” she said through gritted teeth, not looking at him, “to give you your life back. You’re welcome.”
“Mhmm.”
He leaned against the counter right next to her, hip brushing against hers. Way too casual for someone who had just had his hand inside her pocket two minutes ago. Sansa ignored the sudden spike in her pulse, focusing entirely on a stubborn bubble of soap clinging to the princess-cut diamond.
“Move,” he murmured, reaching past her to turn the handle further to the right. The water turned punishingly cold.
Before she could protest, he took her wrist. His hand was warm—infuriatingly so, considering he’d just come in from the outside—and his thumb automatically pressed into the soft flesh of her inner wrist. A habit from when they were kids and he used to check if her hands were cold after they stayed out too late in the winter.
“Jon, it’s freezing—”
“Hold still, Sansa.”
He grabbed the blue bottle of Dawn soap from the ledge, squeezing a generous dollop directly onto her ring finger. His fingers were blunt, calloused, and entirely unbothered by the icy water as he began to work the lather around the stubborn band of gold.
Sansa kept her eyes glued to the tiled backsplash. If she looked down, she’d look at his hair. If she looked at his hair, she’d think about how it felt between her fingers when they were twelve and he’d let her try to braid it into a single, terrible column because she was bored.
Don’t look. Do not look.
“You’re pulling too hard,” she squeaked, her voice betraying her.
“I haven’t even pulled yet,” he replied, his voice dropping into that quiet, steady register he used whenever she was throwing a tantrum. “Stop tensing your hand. Relax your fingers.”
“I am relaxed.”
“You’re stiff as a board.” He glanced up, his dark grey eyes catching hers before she could look away. There was no teasing in them now, just that heavy, frustratingly perceptive focus that made her feel like she was made of glass. “Come on. Just a little bit.”
He twisted the ring gently. The metal dug into her skin, catching on the knuckle. Sansa winced, a sharp intake of breath escaping her lips. Jon stopped instantly. He didn’t let go of her hand, though. He just held it under the running water, his thumb smoothing over her wet skin in a slow, subconscious circle.
“It’s really stuck, isn’t it?” he muttered, more to himself than to her.
“I told you,” she whispered. Her hand was numb from the cold, but where his skin met hers, it felt like it was burning. “I didn’t do it on purpose. To... sabotage anything. I just wanted to see.”
“I know.”
“Val has very small fingers.”
“She does.”
“I hate her.” The words slipped out before she could filter them. It wasn’t a lie, but it was a truth she usually kept locked away in the dark, heavy drawer of her mind alongside her old diaries and the pressed flowers from the prom he’d taken someone else to.
Jon let out a low, breathy huff that might have been a laugh if he wasn’t trying to be good. He turned off the faucet, the sudden silence in the kitchen loud enough to echo. He grabbed a kitchen towel and began drying her hand with ridiculous care, wiping away the soap suds until her skin was just red and damp.
“You don’t even know her, Sans,” he said softly, keeping his eyes on his task.
“I know she drinks green juice that smells like lawn clippings and she doesn’t laugh at Robb’s jokes,” Sansa countered, pulling her hand out of his grip the second it was dry. She tucked it behind her back again, suddenly missing the warmth of his fingers. “Robb’s jokes are terrible, but it’s a matter of principle. You’re supposed to pity-laugh.”
Jon leaned back against the sink, crossing his arms. He was studying her again. That same, quiet look from the bedroom, the one that made her knees feel like jelly.
“Is that why you put the ring on?” he asked.
Sansa’s heart did a violent, erratic tap-dance against her ribs. “I told you. It was the curiosity.”
“Right.” He didn’t sound convinced. He didn’t sound angry, either, which was worse. If he was angry, she could fight him. If he was angry, it meant he cared about the timeline, about the proposal, about Val. This casual, slow-rolling patience was dangerous. It gave her room to hope, and hope was a terrible thing to have in a kitchen at noon on a Tuesday.
“What are you going to tell her?” Sansa asked, desperate to change the angle of the conversation. “The jeweler took three months to source that diamond. You can’t exactly go buy a placeholder at Claire’s.”
“I’ll think of something.” Jon ran a hand through his hair, successfully ruining whatever order it had left. “Maybe I’ll tell her the truth. That my best friend has a giant knuckle and a penchant for grand larceny.”
“Jon!”
“Or,” he stepped closer again, his boots clicking softly against the linoleum. He reached out, his hand hovering for a second before his fingers caught the hem of her oversized shirt, giving it a tiny, playful tug. “I could just tell her the engagement is on hold. Until further notice.”
Sansa froze. Her blue eyes flew to his face, looking for the joke or the amusement. The dancing light in his eyes that meant he was just playing his favorite game of rattle Sansa’s cage.
It wasn’t there. Or if it was, it was buried under something much heavier.
“Don’t say things like that,” she whispered, her voice smaller than she wanted it to be. “It’s not funny.”
“Who’s laughing?” he asked quietly. He didn’t touch her hand this time. He just stood there, close enough that she could smell the cold air and woodsmoke clinging to his jacket, his dark eyes fixed on her mouth for a fraction of a second before lifting back to her eyes.
The silence stretched, thick and suffocating and sweet, until the front door slammed open down the hall.
“Hey! Anyone home? I brought butter chicken!” Robb’s voice boomed through the house, shattering the bubble with the subtlety of a brick through a window.
Jon didn’t jump, but the corner of his mouth twitched up into that familiar, infuriating half-smile. He took a step back, giving her space to breathe again, though her lungs still felt like they were operating at half capacity.
“We’re in the kitchen!” Jon called back, his voice perfectly normal. Perfectly steady. As if he hadn’t just hinted at ruining his own life. He looked at Sansa one last time, his eyes dropping to her pocket where her hand was hidden.
“Keep it safe,” he murmured, so low Robb wouldn’t hear over the sound of his keys jingling in the hallway. “Don’t go losing my investment.”
Before she could throw the dish towel at his head, he turned and walked out to meet her brother, leaving Sansa alone with the cold water, the lavender soap, and a ring that felt heavier by the second.