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This really isn’t the way either of them expected this night to go.
Sansa had been alright with it on the outset, though more on the resigned side. It was going to be another dull party, the glimmer and glamour of which had long ago been tarnished by the fact of the matter, that all anyone does in these big fancy ballrooms is get snockered and try to feel each other up. She may as well go to any downtown pub for the same effect, at far less than half the price.
But at least this way she gets to slip on a pretty dress and spend an hour on her hair and makeup without anyone getting impatient with her. And maybe there was the added bonus that she’d found a pretty dress that perfectly matched the seashell necklace Theon had gifted to her on her last birthday, so maybe he’d finally get the hint.
Theon, for his part, had been less optimistic about things. He hates these things and these people and hates even more that he has to wear a tie to impress them. (Who even wears a tie? They’re oppressive.) The only saving grace this time was that he got to work the bar, and that Sansa’s dress was clingy and glitzy and a little on the short side. His necklace looks good on her, too, nestled at her pulse point just so, and he’s been thinking about how her pulse might react if he licked just beneath that seashell charm for a taste.
Does she even like having her neck kissed? Theon’s wondered that, too, and he’s wondered a lot, in often graphic detail. And by ‘often,’ he means literally all the time.
“But have you seen her?” he asks himself in the bathroom mirror every night at precisely eleven, when he’s trying to sleep but he can’t because of, well, this. “Yes, you have, and you’d have to be goddamn out of your mind not to be a complete idiot over her. So it’s fine. It’s fine.”
These affirmations, while not particularly eloquent, at least help to make him feel more reasonable about these otherwise unreasonable feelings. Because honestly, who does this?
Plenty of people, his ego — for sheer survival purposes, probably — is sure of it. But not Sansa, certainly; she’d never be this much of a wreck over anyone, least of all him. She’s much too composed to let her heart and libido tag-team her emotional state of mind, and much too clever to fall for the likes of him, besides.
That necklace he gave her looks like it belongs there, on her, but that doesn’t mean she belongs with him.
So, really, Theon should count himself lucky that she gives him the time of day at all, and even more so that he’s found himself locked in a supply closet with her for the foreseeable future. It was Arya, after all, who’d shoved them both in here in the first place, and apart from an uncommonly strong upper body for so small a person, Arya is too stubborn to let them out ‘til they do what she wants.
She’d told Sansa ‘Snog him like you want to, for fuck’s sake,’ and to Theon, ‘Do something useful with yourself for once, why don’t you?’, which would be all well and good, if only they didn’t need to count on Arya to let them out before the smell of too many cleaning chemicals does them in. Likely Arya would say they deserved it if they didn’t just go on and kiss already, but the problem is that Sansa can’t be sure that’s what he wants, and Theon is quite sure that it can’t be what she’s after.
Or maybe that’s all he wants, Sansa worries, because she’s been burned before.
If I tried, I’d lose her for good, Theon thinks, and the possibility is more than he can bear.
Perhaps two seconds or so after Sansa’s pushed inside, the door slammed shut and locked behind her, Theon tilts his head back to discourage the impending stress nosebleed and says, cheeky as you like, “Of all the supply cupboards in all the towns in all the world, she’s unceremoniously shoved into mine.”
Sansa laughs in spite of herself, and more so the situation. “Oh, clever you.”
“Oh, clever me,” Theon sighs.
His eyes are shut tight as he wills away the nosebleed that hasn’t yet started, but it’s hardly darker than when his eyes were open. There’s no light in the closet, save for the golden strip that creeps in through the crack in the door; not even a buzzing, questionable lightbulb overhead so that he might get his bearings back. Because if Sansa’s half as embarrassed as he is — and he can always tell by that blush of hers — then maybe he could gather his usually de facto self-confidence and be a little more bold about this whole thing.
Sansa’s a bit on the shaken side, too. She can feel the burn in her face, but thank the gods there’s no light to see it by in here. What was Arya thinking? she wants to know but, then, she already does. Her sister isn’t the subtle type, and she’d left-hook you for casting such slanderous aspersions upon her character.
So it is what it is, Sansa figures. She’s as resigned to the reality of it just as much as she’d been to this party when the evening began. The question is — the trouble is — does Theon know it, too?
She can overthink it all she likes, but the fact is that she wouldn’t like it at all, so there’s nothing else for it when she asks him, “So, what are you in for?”
Theon snorts, just two steps away from her. “Your sister’s a lunatic, that’s what.”
“A lunatic with a cause,” Sansa corrects him. “Always has been.”
“That’s debatable, isn’t it?”
“I suppose that depends on your argument.”
“Alright,” Theon concedes, because he always does to Sansa. The nosebleed appears to have been pacified for the time being, so he straightens up against the far wall of the closet (though not that far, because this closet’s not big enough to have any concept of ‘far’ to begin with). “You’ve got me there.”
You’ve got me completely. But he can’t say that, can he?
…Can he?
“Have I?” Sansa prompts when there’s too long a beat of silence between them. Theon can practically hear the lift of her eyebrow in the question, and in truth Sansa does raise it a fraction, as she does whenever she’s having a lowkey sort of laugh. “So does that mean you’re going to tell me why Arya locked you in here with me, or am I going to be left wanting?”
Are you going to leave me wanting you? is what she means, but Theon’s not to know that. Unless he can guess it, of course, but Sansa’s never been that lucky in love. Theon, though… Well, he hopes. It’s maybe foolish and sure to break his heart, but it’s piqued nonetheless.
There’s another beat of silence, this one heavier, charged with that hope and anticipation, because they both know what this is, and yet neither can be sure that the other knows what they do.
Theon’s foot shuffles forward, half a step, if that, and he asks, “Well, do you know why we’re in here?”
“I asked you first,” Sansa points out, with far more poise than someone who’s heart’s just jumped up into their throat has any right to.
“You’ve got me again,” Theon admits. He has to.
He’s never had a choice, really, where Sansa’s concerned — and that’s not a bad thing, not when it’s because this is where they’ve been meant to end up all along, stuck in a cupboard at yet another party they don’t want to be at, because what’s the point, if they’re not there together?
Theon’s a fool for her and Sansa’s mad about him, and neither of them knows it for truth, but Arya does and it’s Arya who put them both here. So she must know something, surely? She must know the truth of all of it, because Arya doesn’t dabble well in lies. She wouldn’t do that, not to either of them.
There must be… something here.
So what the fuck is Theon doing, asking leading questions when he could answer them himself, and actually do a damn thing about them? And what’s Sansa afraid of, when Theon’s always held her hand when she’s needed him, when he’s not indicated at all that he has any intention of letting go?
What are they waiting for?
Theon knows what she’s waiting for, though: Romance, a good bloke to come sweep her off her feet because he wants her just as much, someone who gets all of her and doesn’t just pick her apart for the bits that he likes, the bits that suit him. Theon’s always known, ever since they were kids; and he knows, too, that she’s never gotten it, that Sansa never gets what she wants.
And now, he wants to be the person who gives it all to her.
He wants to do things for her and to her (because you know how it is), with nary a thought for anything but her.
She’s — god damn. Sansa, she’s fucking it, isn’t she?
Why shouldn’t he tell her?
“You’ve got me,” Theon says again, and this time he talks two resolute steps forward because fuck the shuffling, the doing-things-by-halves, fuck the uncertainty. “Any way you want me, Sansa… love” — he chuckles some, because it’s such a relief to say it — “I’m yours.”
Sansa thinks he must be able to hear her sharp intake of breath, of the way her heart skips even further upwards when the front of his shirt snags a bit on her dress, because he’s gotten that close, so close. He has to hear the nervous bob of her throat, of her skittering pulse beneath the seashell pendant he’d given her, because ‘it’s pretty, yeah? Thought it would suit you.’
Maybe it’s sad, that that had been the most romantic thing she’d ever heard, but it had come from Theon — and that had made all the difference.
And now he’s telling her that she’s got him, that he’s hers, and it makes this dam break inside of her that allows her to feel and want and not be afraid of even a moment of it.
It makes her speechless.
“That right?” Sansa says. It’s not much but somehow she gets through it, mouth like sandpaper when Theon inches closer, so much closer that her back straightens against the locked door to accommodate him, because it’s just where she wants him. “You’re all mine?”
He chuckles. It’s a smokey, dark, and overconfident thing that manages to be all manner of sweet, too, and full of promise. He touches her hair, wraps his fingertips ‘round and ‘round her slightly-split ends, because she’s not bloody perfect, but Theon wants her, anyway.
“Well,” he breathes, and his stubble tickles her chin when he leans in, when his mouth ghosts over hers, “there’s the slight stipulation there that you’re all mine, too.”
Oh, gods, her heart is fit to burst.
But it’s only her chest that relaxes, her lips that move when they twitch up against his, and she tells him, “I am.”
It’s just two words, two syllables, one solemn vow, but Theon’s kissing her before she can speak them fully into existence. Because he knows, and she’s been waiting long enough.
The scratch of that not-even-half-arsed beard against her skin makes everything tingle, and her smooth, champagne-soaked lips make him groan before he means to. It’s a quiet but rough sort of sigh into her mouth, that urges her lips further apart and makes her gasp like a summer’s breeze.
Theon’s hand is at her jaw, his thumb at the corner of her mouth as he coaxes the kiss deeper, one stroke, one pluck, at a time — slowly, meaningfully, like he’s pouring every little thing Sansa’s ever wanted into a first kiss, no matter how or where or why it happens. The semantics don’t matter the way she used to think they did; right now, Theon’s making up for everything she ever feels like she missed out on.
In the end, what she’d been missing out on is him, and he’s more than making up for that now. He wants to prove it to her, just as much as she wants to believe in it.
“I’ve wanted you for so long,” Theon confesses, the words harsh and harried as they spill between kisses. “I’m sorry I waited to tell you.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Sansa assures him, breathless as she gives as good as she gets. He’s everything she’s ever wanted — good and steadfast and he’d worked so hard to get there, he’d wanted to get here and that means the world to her — and she can’t imagine why it took her so long to notice. Maybe it was just that this is what they needed, to figure shit out before they expected anything to come from one another.
Sansa holds him more tightly to her then, fingers grasping in those sort-of-tamed, but-mostly-unruly waves of hair, and she tells him ”Thank you,” before he takes her deeper in this first kiss that’s never going to end, is it? And it’s just as they both want it to be.
When his tongue slips into her mouth, his hand slips down to her waist, fingers biting past the silk and sequins to set her skin aflame. Her hips arch and he groans again, like he’s being slowly tortured and he’s loving every passing second of it. It’s sweet relief to touch him, to be touched by him, this person who wants nothing from her without first giving it ten times over. That’s something, that’s what counts. She wants him to know it.
“You’re beautiful,” Sansa murmurs in the barely-there space between them, when they break the kiss just enough to breathe. Still, she feels the curve of his lips on hers, and she knows she’s done something right.
“Reckon I’m supposed to be the one saying that to you,” Theon points out like it’s a reminder, like they’ve forgotten their places in all this.
But his heart cracks, too, in the best of ways when he realizes that she wants to take care of him the same way he wants to take care of her.
This is what it’s meant to be, he thinks. It’s giving your all to someone else, and knowing that they’re doing the same because they tell you, they show you. And Sansa’s showing him in ways he’s never seen. It’s in her little sighs, the shift of her hips against his, the tug of her fingers in his hair and the press of her lips, ever insistent, telling him that it’s okay to go harder or softer or however he feels, because she feels the same way.
It’s the most fucking incredible thing in the world. Theon holds her tighter and doesn’t have a clue as to how he got so lucky.
“Well, I just thought you ought to know,” Sansa almost-giggles, but Theon catches the sound in his mouth before she can get through it. He has to; he wants to know what it tastes like when she’s happy.
He presses her harder against the door, and she responds in kind. She feels so safe when he holds her like this, and he loves the way her hands feel carding through his hair. Their mouths move in tandem, like there’s nothing they’d rather be doing, as though perhaps they weren’t made to do anything else.
He toys with the seashell at her throat, and she smiles a little wider when he kisses her harder.
It doesn’t matter that it’s dark, that the stench of artificial lemon is so overwhelming, that there’s a party somewhere beyond this door and surely at least someone is wondering where they’ve gone off too.
But.
There’s far better gossip to be had, artificial lemon’s not so bad, and they can feel each other so well that they don’t need light to guide the movements of their hands, their mouths... Their hearts will beat just as wildly, no matter what.
For fuck’s sake, that’s something else, isn’t it?
They laugh so often between kisses that they’re almost not kisses at all, only brief interludes between another chuckle that says so much — like I can’t believe this, I wish I would’ve said so sonner, but this is perfect all the same, and You fancy me, don’t you?, the latter of which only makes the kisses come harder, more fervent, because it’s the truth and it feels so, so good to say it out loud at last.
“Bet your fine arse I do,” Theon mumbles into her mouth the next time she teases him about how much he fancies her, all hoarse and humor, and Sansa’s shriek of laughter is silenced again even when he slaps that aforementioned arse. He’s kissing her too soundly for anything else to matter.
Of course, it does matter, but that conversation can wait. After all, Arya didn’t lock them in this supply closet to talk about their feelings. It was more about the showing, with the understanding that the rest of it will come later.
This really isn’t the way that either of them expected the night to go. But, by the end of it, this is so much far and away better than anything they could have asked for.
THEON: so last night………
amirite????
SANSA: I’m literally in your kitchen at eight in the morning, so
What do you think?
THEON: i AM right, is what i think
SANSA: Didn’t we just have a discussion about how smug doesn’t suit you?
THEON: we did
and loathe as i am to admit it, we also came to the conclusion that you were wrong
(which btw is the first time that’s ever happened)
but like
you’re perfect and i’ve got you
so i think we both win
what d’you say, gorgeous?
SANSA: I say you’re ridiculous, and yet somehow I live for it.
Also, how do you want your eggs?
THEON: sansa side-up, pls and thnx
SANSA: Gods, I want to pretend that I don’t know what that means, and yet… I get it. xx
THEON: just another reason why i’m off-the-wall mad about you, love. xx