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She had stupidly and naïvely thought that the noise would die down during the night but it was past two o’clock in the morning and the mobs of people were still standing outside the hotel, shouting and screaming for the Direwolves.
Sansa Stark tossed and turned and then laid on her back, willing herself to go to sleep but no matter what position she tried – or how much she tried to tell herself that noise outside was white noise and would help put her to sleep – the truth was she knew she wouldn’t get to sleep any time soon.
Robb and Grenn had both offered to give her something to help her sleep but she hadn’t wanted anything. She had joined the guys a few times on tour – when she was able to get away from school and meet them – and she knew that all four of them took things; pills to help keep their energy up so they could go for hours and hours and then other pills to help them sleep when it was finally time to do so. Sansa didn’t tell her parents about the pills and she had no desire to take any herself but she didn’t try to stop the guys. She didn’t like it but she kept that to herself.
Knowing sleep was not coming to her, she pulled herself from the bed. She had a book with her she could read or she could order a movie to watch but neither of those things sounded that interesting to her.
She went to the windows and parted the curtains just enough to look down the ten stories to the ground below. Oh my goodness, was it possible that the crowds had actually grown? This was absolute insanity. It was just a sea of people – all down there, screaming and chanting for the Direwolves, waving signs – more than a few asking one of the guys to marry them.
Sansa stepped back, the curtains falling into place and the room went dark again. She didn’t know why but it was scary to see that many fans downstairs, wanting the four guys in this hotel. Four guys she knew as being more than just the four Direwolves. They weren’t Gods. They were just guys. Real guys. They were her friends and it was scary and surreal to see so many people treat them as if they were anything more.
Staying in her pajama shorts and tee-shirt, she grabbed her soft white fleece robe with a doughnut print on it and slipped it on, cinching it around her waist, and making sure she had the room key, she left, stepping out into the hallway. Despite the racket on the streets outside, the hotel, itself, seemed completely silent.
Sansa had left her shoes off and her bare feet moved along the carpet, heading for the elevators. She didn’t know where she would go but she just knew she couldn’t sleep and she didn’t want to stay in her bedroom. In the elevator, she just pushed the “1” button without thinking about it.
The lobby was empty as well except for the single woman behind the front desk and a maid wiping tables in the breakfast area. It was cold down here and she shivered, wishing her feet weren’t bare as she crossed the marble floor. In Sunspear, in Dorne, it was so hot outside and freezing cold in any place they went into, Sansa fully expected to become sick from the drastic temperatures. (As soon as she had entered her hotel room, she had raced to turn up the AC so she didn’t feel like she was a piece of meat, hanging in a walk-in freezer.)
Down here, the screams and chants from the crowds were even louder but she saw the security and police outside, still keeping the fans from storming across the street and bursting into the hotel. Sansa looked out the main doors for a moment before she continued on her way, still not entirely sure what she was doing. She heard soft music and she moved towards it; it coming from the hotel bar she soon discovered.
She found herself smiling when she poked her head in. No one was there except the bartender, wiping glasses behind the bar, and Jon Snow, sitting on a chair stool at one end. His head was down and he was bent over a notebook, writing away. Probably working on the Direwolves' next hit song.
She paused, wondering if she should bother him or just continue walking randomly around the hotel. She could imagine it would be hard for him to get a moment alone – truly alone. He, Robb, Grenn and Theon were together. Always. They even hung out in one of their bathrooms in a hotel room to get away from the fans that chanted for them outside. She didn’t want to take his solitude away from him.
But just as she made the decision to move along, Jon lifted his head suddenly; as if he had sensed her. Turning it, his eyes landed right on her, lingering in the entry, and he smiled as soon as they did. Sansa smiled as well and decided she would sit with him – for only a moment.
She crossed the room to approach him and he smiled a bit wider as he saw her pajamas. Sansa smiled, too, blushing faintly. She was glad she had thrown on her doughnut robe over her tee-shirt because she wasn’t wearing a bra and she didn’t know if she would feel comfortable around him, knowing she wasn’t wearing one. He was Jon Snow. They had known one another since they were little because that’s how old they had been when Robb and Jon met at school and became best friends. It would be easy to look at him as another brother but he wasn’t. He was Jon Snow and she didn’t want to be braless around him.
“What are you doing awake?” Jon asked as she pulled herself up onto the chair stool next to him.
“Well, I don’t know if you can hear it, Jon, but there’s a mob outside our hotel,” she stated and he cracked into a wider grin. “What are you doing awake? Sam said you boys need your rest for tomorrow.”
A full day of press appearances, interviews, photos and finally, the concert tomorrow night.
“I’m just writing,” he said. “I’m sorry about the noise.”
She laughed. “I mean, technically yes, it is your fault but it’s not your fault, Jon.”
“Still. We’re all so glad you were able to join us and I’m sorry about that.”
Sansa just smiled.
The bartender appeared in front of her. “Can I get you anything?”
“Um…” she looked to Jon. He had a beer bottle in front of him. She didn’t necessarily want a beer at two o’clock in the morning. “Could we order some food?” She asked him.
She knew the label paid for all of this – the tour and hotels and anything the guys wanted but she wasn’t a Direwolf and she didn’t want to take advantage anything. It was nice enough that she got her own hotel room – hotel suite – when she came to visit them on tour. Before the band “made it” and all four guys were living in a single – very dingy – room while playing in Essos, Sansa had no problem sleeping on the floor, too, when she came to visit. She hoped the guys didn’t think that she needed a suite.
Jon’s grin grew so much, he was practically laughing. “Yes, Sansa. We can order some food.”
The bartender seemed to be hiding his own smile as he pulled a menu out from beneath the bar and set it down in front of Sansa. She elbowed Jon in the side for teasing her and he did laugh this time. With the menu, she admitted into leaning in a little closer to Jon under the disguise of sharing the menu.
She doubted that Jon even noticed.
“The pretzel?” Jon guessed and Sansa smiled, feeling herself blush.
He still knew that she absolutely loved soft pretzels. She loved that even with all of this – fancy, freezing cold, hotels and screaming mobs of fans, he still knew that about her.
“Yes! And the fried mushrooms?” She suggested.
“What better to eat at two o’clock in the morning?” Jon teased her and she elbowed him again.
“Can I also get a ginger ale?” Sansa lastly added and the bartender nodded, taking the menu and going to put in their order with the kitchen. “May I see?” She asked, nodding down to the notebook.
“It’s not done yet,” Jon said, glancing down to it before to her. “Just sentences right now. I have a melody in my head and I’m trying to add to it.”
“I’m sure it’s amazing, Jon,” she told him because that’s what she always said. Whenever Robb and Jon were working on a new song, it was the automatic response that Sansa would give them but it was also always the absolute truth. They hadn’t written a song yet that Sansa didn’t like.
And apparently, judging by the noise volume still outside, the rest of the world agreed.
Jon seemed hesitant but he pushed the notebook towards her and as she read, he sipped from his beer.
I’ve just seen a face,
I can’t forget the time or place that we just met.
She’s the girl for me,
She’s JUST the girl for me.
And I want all the world to see we’ve met.
Falling, yes. I’m falling.
And she keeps calling me back again.
As she read the words, she found herself smiling and when she lifted her head, Jon was watching her. He seemed nervous now, too, and she smiled at him, hoping it would relax him. There was no reason he should be nervous. He was the Jon Snow of the Direwolves. Why would he look nervous with her reading anything he wrote?
“This might be my new favorite,” Sansa told him, smiling.
And at her words, Jon seemed to exhale a breath and he smiled, too.
The food appeared in front of them and as Sansa dunked her straw into her ginger ale, Jon grabbed one of the mushrooms and popped it into his mouth. He let out some sort of gasp/scream and spit the mushroom right out, it sailing from his mouth and landing on the floor on the other side of the bar. Sansa burst out with laughter and slapped a hand over her mouth in a way to muffle it but it didn’t help. She only laughed harder and Jon grabbed his beer, chugging it to help his seared tongue.
…