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…
She’s made it two days.
She supposes she shouldn’t be too hard on herself. Two days is still very good considering she had been waiting for nearly six months before Jon asked and gave her the ring that she knows he’s been holding onto before finally feeling ready himself to give it to her. Two days since Jon Snow asked her to marry him and slipped the ring onto her finger, making their engagement well and truly official, Sansa was at the drugstore and was unable to stop herself from buying her first bridal magazine.
She now curls in the armchair in their living room, carefully pouring over each and every page. She knows she’s going to design and make her own wedding dress – with no question or doubt – but she pauses on the dozens of pages of wedding dresses, trying to get a feel for what’s in style for brides at the moment.
It’s funny, but for as long as she’s been in love with Jon and has imagined them getting married and then for as long as she’s known that Jon had a ring and fully intended to propose to her before he actually did, Sansa hasn’t imagined her wedding dress. She would have thought it would be the first thing she would imagine, but now, looking at all of the wedding dresses, Sansa realizes that she has absolutely no idea what she wants her own wedding dress to look like.
As one of the premiere fashion designers in Westeros, it’s almost embarrassing to admit to even herself.
Sansa looks up when she hears footsteps coming up the stairs and then the front door of their flat opens. She smiles as she sees Jon enter with Arya following right behind, but it fades when she notes Jon’s scowl.
“What’s the worst thing that could happen?” Arya demands to know, closing – slamming – the door behind her and following right after Jon as he goes into the kitchen. “It’s just one night. Sunday. You’ve said yourself that Sunday night is the bar’s quietest night.”
“And you think I would ruin that quiet by letting your band play?” Jon snaps.
“For fuck’s sake, Snow!” Arya snaps at him.
“Now that’s the way to convince me to let your band play in my bar. Lose your temper at me,” Jon retorts as he opens the refrigerator, peering inside. Sansa knows he won’t reach for anything though. When he’s in a foul mood as he seems to currently be in, he can’t eat or drink anything.
Sure enough, a moment later after looking, he closes the refrigerator and comes into the living room – with Arya following after him. Jon gives Sansa a small smile and she smiles up at him as he leans down, giving her a kiss on her head before he collapses onto the couch, promptly closing his eyes.
“Sansa, please help me,” Arya pleads with her sister, sitting down on the couch as well, turning towards Sansa. “You’ve heard us. We’re not terrible. Tell your boyfriend we’re not terrible. We just want one night to play. We’re sick of playing drunk frat parties where no one listens to us and we don’t get paid.”
“Fiancé,” Jon corrects, his eyes still closed. “And I’m sure as Seven Hells not going to pay you.”
Arya turns to Jon. “You don’t have to pay us. Not this first time.”
Sansa purses her lips to keep herself from smiling at that as she turns the page in her magazine.
Does she want a strapless dress? Strapless has never been her favorite look on dresses and none of her designs have ever showcased a strapless dress. It just doesn’t fit in with her particular collections for the North. But… could she make it fit in? She doesn’t hate her shoulders, but she doesn’t know. So many decisions and she feels like no matter what she makes for her wedding dress, people will be staring at it more than seeing what flowers they’ve chosen or what their cake looks like. Because it’s her and one of her dresses. No matter what she gets married in, it will be in fashion magazines and that’s just an added pressure she hadn’t even thought of until this very moment.
She sighs heavily, unable to help herself, and the sound gets Jon to open his eyes to look at her. Sansa looks at him and shakes her head. “I don’t know what I want to get married in,” she tells him.
He smiles a little. “Well, I just assumed you’d wear the dress and I’d wear the suit.”
Sansa rolls her eyes, but can’t keep from smiling. “My dress has to be perfect, Jon. It’s the only wedding dress I’m ever going to wear and everyone will be looking at what kind of dress I’ve made myself.”
“Do you have any idea if you’re going to have live music or a DJ at the reception?” Arya speaks up.
“Seven Hells, Arya!” Jon can’t help, but snap. “If I let you and your friends play for one hour on Sunday, will you leave me alone?”
“Yes!” Arya snaps back. “You haven’t figured that out yet?”
“Bring your own amps. My bar is not a music bar and you’re setting yourselves up.”
Sansa has looked back to her magazine, turning another page. “They’re really not that bad,” she says, looking at another dress, this one knee-length. She has always envisioned getting married in a long dress so at least that’s one thing she’s certain of. “I heard them once when I went over to Hot Pie’s flat and they were practicing.”
“Why were you at Hot Pie’s flat?” Jon wonders curiously.
“To seduce him, of course,” Arya quips.
Sansa smiles, a slight laugh escaping past her lips. “He offered to pay me a ridiculous amount of money to sew a button back on his shirt. I felt guilty taking it, but he wanted to give me something.”
“So he gave her an orgasm instead,” Arya grins at Jon and Jon just frowns at her.
Sansa rolls her eyes at her sister. “The band played me one song and Hot Pie gave me a grape soda. They really aren’t that bad.”
“Why do you except us to be bad?” Arya gives Jon her fiercest frown yet.
Jon ignores her. “Show up at six. You’ll play from seven to eight, but I want to hear you myself before I let you drive all of my customers away for the night.”
“Thanks,” Arya huffs at him. “And I know I might sound sarcastic, but I really mean it. Thank you!” She practically shouts before getting up from the couch and storming out of the flat, the door closing with a bang behind her.
Jon leans forward and takes Sansa’s cell phone from the coffee table, looking down to the screen.
“What are you doing?” Sansa asks him with a smile.
“Marking the day and time of when I officially began Castle Black Bar on a downward slide,” Jon replies. Sansa just smiles and doesn’t say anything to that as she turns another page in the magazine.
“I don’t know. I think you might be pleasantly surprised,” Sansa says. She gets up from the armchair and comes to collapse next to him on the couch. “Want to look at wedding colors with me?” She offers.
“I was thinking of gray and pink,” Jon says without a moment’s thought.
Sansa looks at him, surprised. “Gray and pink? You‘ve picked our colors already?”
“They’re our favorite colors,” he shrugs and puts an arm around her shoulders so she’s nestled more into his side. “And I might have proposed to you two days ago, but I’ve been thinking about our wedding for a lot longer than that.”
Sansa feels a warmth in her chest, spreading out to all of her extremities whenever Jon says something that reminds her – not that she ever forgets – that in many senses, even without a ring or the question being asked, they’ve been engaged for a long time now; so in love with one another and already merging their lives together and building a new one together.
Sansa is smiling as she turns towards the back of the thick magazine, finding all sorts of color pallets and sure enough, she finds the grays and pinks featured. Gray and pink together seem to be popular colors for a wedding. She gets herself comfortable and holds the magazine for both of them to look at.
“If the bar does close, you’re going to have to support us for a while and pay for the wedding,” Jon says.
Sansa lets out a laugh at that. “I think you might be acting slightly over-dramatic right now. The bar won’t close after one hour-long performance from my sister and her band.”
“Castle Black Bar isn’t a music bar. My customers don’t want a music bar. They show up and there’s live music playing, they’ll leave and find another quiet bar to go to.”
“You were unsure of showing the VH1 reality shows on Tuesday nights and now, Tuesday nights are one of your busiest and most profitable nights,” she points out to him.
Jon won’t be swayed though and he shakes his head. “Live music is different. Especially live music from bands who play in bars. Few people purposely go to a bar when they hear there’s live music there.”
“So then why did you agree to let Arya and her band play?”
He looks to Sansa and gives her the smallest smile. “Isn’t that obvious? Arya terrifies me.”
…
The last thing Jon wants to do is encourage any of this, but Arya and her band will need room to perform. Maybe if they have actual room, they won’t ruin tonight’s business.
With the help of Tormund and Daario, the three manage to move the pool table from the back of the bar, where it’s always been, to the front of the bar, in front of the large window where there’s a big empty space. Jon had always liked the fact that his bar was never too crowded. He has tables and stools, the pool table, the jukebox, an old-fashioned photo booth, and nothing more than that. He’s never needed anything more than that. He’s been to other bars that are just absolutely cluttered with unnecessary things. One bar he went to had a ridiculous cotton candy machine. Jon likes that his bar is minimum. People come to Castle Black Bar for pool and beers and VH1 reality show marathons on Tuesday nights and he likes that that is the reputation his bar has.
He cannot stress enough that CBB is not a music bar. He doesn’t have sound equipment, speakers, microphones; certainly not a stage. And he will get none of those things.
Arya and her band damn well better understand just how big of a deal this is that Jon is letting them play for even an hour anywhere near his bar.
“Thank you for this, Jon,” Gendry says as the two other members, Hot Pie, their drummer, and Podrick, lead singer and rhythm guitar player, carry in the second of their two amps. “It means a lot to all of us.”
Jon doesn’t say anything; just watches them set up with his arms crossed over his chest.
“What kind of music do they play?” Daario asks when Jon comes to the bar.
Daario is refilling a customer’s pitcher of beer and Tormund is leaning against a bar, no one coming in at the moment who’s id he has to check.
“I didn’t ask,” Jon shakes his head. “Does it matter? We’ll lose money for an hour and then never have to do this again.”
Tormund gives him a grin. “I don’t know. I heard them before. They’re not bad.”
“Where’d you hear them?” Jon asks, wondering if he went to Hot Pie’s flat, too, for something or other and was repaid with a song and a grape soda as well.
“Myrcella dragged me to a college party a couple of months ago,” Tormund shrugs. “They were playing and weren’t the worst thing I ever heard.”
Daario frowns at the man. “You went to a college party and didn’t think to call me up and invite me?”
“And how would Jeyne feel about her bloke going to a college party with college girls?” Tormund asks.
“I wasn’t even thinking of the girls. I was thinking of kegs of beer and the two bucks cover charge.”
Jon leaves the two to bicker as he heads back towards the back of the bar, where the band is now plugged in and tuning their guitars. Hot Pie’s drum set is set up as well and he adjusts his stool.
“You ready to play me something?” He asks the four of them.
“Just about,” Arya nods in confirmation. “Thanks for this, Jon,” she says with a smile and this time, her thanks doesn’t sound angry or sarcastic at all.
Jon looks at her and then the other three. “If you play too loud, I’m walking out,” he informs them.
He then goes to the nearest table and pulls himself up onto the stool. On Sunday nights, when it’s slow and quiet, he will bring Ghost down from the flat upstairs. Ghost now sits himself down in front of Jon, looking towards the band as if he is also waiting for them to begin.
Just as Hot Pie begins to tap his sticks, counting it out, Sansa appears, standing at Jon’s side. She had been upstairs, sketching, but she looks to her sister’s band now with a smile.
Arya begins playing her bass, plucking the strings in a steady beat, over and over. Hot Pie than joins, doing soft rolls on his cymbals, over and over again. Gendry then joins on his guitar, playing a gentle riff, over and over. Podrick, bobbing his head to the beats, licks his lips and steps up to the microphone.
“Listen.
Listen to the thunder and the rain.”
He steps back as the three members continue playing those same notes and keeping the same tempo. Bobbing his head, Podrick comes back after a few beats.
“Remember.
Remember the darkness and pain.”
It’s not too loud. It’s not too brash or annoying. Jon can actually understand the lyrics. Hell, he finds himself almost not hating it immediately. From the corner of his eye, he can see Sansa watching with a smile and bobbing her head along. Jon then looks over his shoulder to the few patrons that have already been in the bar before the band playing. So far, none of them have walked right out. Actually, Jon sees a couple of them bobbing their heads along as well. The beat is catchy.
“I was standing,
When the lightning struck me.”
Hearing voices behind him, Jon looks over his shoulder again sees Tormund standing at the bar, a small group of four guys, has come into the bar and Tormund is checking their ids. The four guys are looking towards the band, their heads already bobbing to the song.
Jon looks back to Arya and the other three and with a deep sigh, he stands up and walks away, Ghost instantly at his side. Glancing back, he sees Sansa smiling at the band and signaling with her finger to keep playing. Jon goes into his office, sitting in his chair, exhaling another heavy sigh. He tips his head back and closes his eyes. Ghost jumps up on the couch and promptly goes to sleep. Even with his eyes closed, he knows when Sansa comes into the office. She closes the door behind him – the band muffled now – and a moment later, she lowers herself sideways down on his lap.
“What are you thinking?” Sansa asks, her fingers scratching through his hair.
Jon doesn’t answer her right away; her fingers proving a good distraction. He then feels her lips brush along his beard-covered jaw. He sighs again; softer now.
He opens his eyes to look to his fiancée and that’s such a better word than girlfriend. His fiancée. Sansa is his fiancée. He can’t wait until they’re married. He already knows wife will be the best word of them all.
“Sundays are live music night and Tuesdays are VH1 reality show night and I mean it, Sansa. Those are the only special nights at Castle Black Bar and I’m not going to add anything else.”
…