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“Okay. Pancakes are now on the table. Pancake meeting has officially begun. Spill.”
And indeed the pancakes are on the table. Margaery reaches out with her fork to grab one, but Loras swats her fork away with his.
“Marg. Come on,” He pleads, “you’ve been silent all day. Even when Renly came out in that hideous sweater this morning you held your tongue—and I don’t believe for a second that you had nothing to say about it! I know you.”
When she doesn’t say anything, he presses, “Silence is unbecoming on you, deary.”
Margaery meets his eyes, giving him a sad smile.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Give me a hint. At least tell me who this is about.”
“Who? Maybe it’s just an existential crisis.” Margaery finally takes her pancake. She laces it with syrup.
“Sure, sweetheart, but about who?” Loras smiles at Margaery’s glare, “You’re not one for deep, depressing introspection, Marg. Not unless some boy makes you think that way. So who is it?”’
“It’s not a boy.” She says, and she leaves it at that.
“…and?” He smiles, drawing it out. Margaery is unamused.
“I need you to take me seriously if I’m going to share this with you, Loras.” His face falls—this is not ordinarily something the Tyrell siblings do. They usually go toe-to-toe making fun of each other mercilessly.
This must be serious. He pretends to think about it, but then relents.
“Okay, okay. No laughing, no jokes. What’s wrong?”
She takes a knife to her pancake, dividing it meticulously. As she does this, Loras watches, confused.
See, as all people experience Margaery, Loras, too, is used to seeing Margaery calm and composed. Put together. And the girl in front of him, for the most part, is. Her nails are a soft seafoam green, her figure clad in a deep purple sundress. Her hair is braided aside carefully, something she possibly spent time on; more time and self-care than she usually bothers with coming over to Loras and Renly’s.
But, being her brother, Loras sees things other people don’t. He sees the weight in her shoulders. The way her lip turns down as she focuses. He watches as she gets more and more frustrated with the pancake, tearing it up into smaller and smaller pieces.
“Margaery.”
She doesn’t stop.
“Margaery.”
When she does meet his eyes, she has tears in her own.
“Oh, Marg.” He gets up, moving to squat down beside her. He takes her hands in his and folds them over her lap. This only makes her cry more.
And Margaery crying is a rare thing.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s… Sansa.”
“What about Sansa, Marg?” Loras brushes her hair out of her eyes.
“I—It’s not a boy. I-it’s--”
Oh.
Loras stands, pulling Margaery into an awkward chair-hug. Having never comforted her like this, he awkwardly pats her head as she cries into his neck.
If he was being perfectly honest, he had always suspected there might be more there, between Sansa and Margaery. At least on Margaery’s end. He’d never seen Margaery dote on anyone that way. He wasn’t even aware Margaery could dote.
But even if Margaery did adore Sansa, he couldn’t imagine Sansa understanding or being able to return that affection. Sansa was too innocent to see what was clearly there.
His heart ached for Margaery. It wasn’t easy, coming to terms with your sexuality. Even if he had always suspected—and he can’t have been the only one—coming out with it felt like ripping off the worst bandage of all time.
He was also a bit excited, to share in that with her. Even if he couldn’t figure out what the hell she saw in Sansa, he knew this would bring them closer.
“Loras. Loras, you’re smothering me.” She laughs, her voice still shaky from the tears.
“Sorry.” He backs off, squatting beside her again.
“I don’t know what to say,” he says, watching her wipe at her tears, “I’ve never seen you cry before.”
“I don’t, usually.” She laughs a little, and something about it is self-deprecating. “I don’t know who this person is, whoever I am now. Whatever she’s done with me.”
“You’ll start to like it, you know.”
She looks at him curiously.
“Falling in love.”
“Ugh, stop,” she laughs, “you’re making me sound pathetic.”
They laugh together. He takes her hand in his.
“So… tell me about her.”
And that’s all it takes to make Margaery smile.
* * *
Gods, it was taking Margaery forever to get home. Sansa knew that pancakes with her brother was like some sort of sacred Tyrell ritual or something, but she really just, like, needed Margaery here now. Who else was going to help her edit her speech for tomorrow?
And like, honestly, this was a house full of sorority girls. There really oughta be someone else. But no one did it as well as her Big, Margaery did. And that was like, commonly known.
So here Sansa sits, by the window, waiting for Margaery’s Audi to pull into the back lot. She bites at her red pen, pretending to edit the paper spread in her lap. For a second, she does actually get sucked in—but then she sees headlights.
She drops her work, rushing out to greet Margaery at the car.
Margaery exits the car, grabbing her bookbag from the passenger seat. Sansa moves in to hug her from behind. Margaery stiffens in her arms.
“It’s just me. I missed you.”
She sees Margaery crack a smile in the mirror. Margaery shuts the car door, locking it. Sansa undoes herself from the older girl’s torso, following her into the house.
“So,” Sansa starts as Margaery walks in, “I really need help with this essay. I can’t figure out how to conclude—“ She stops when she sees Margaery’s eyes are puffy.
“Have you been crying?” She actually reaches up to touch, and Margaery recoils so fast Sansa wonders if she should be offended.
“I’m alright, little dove. Just feeling a bit under the weather.”
“Oh.”
Margaery moves past her, curiously not meeting her eyes.
“Can the essay wait?” It can’t. It’s due tomorrow.
“Of course.” Sansa says anyway. Why does Sansa feel as though something’s wrong? “Of course it can wait. Get some rest.”
“Thanks for understanding.” And then Margaery just walks upstairs. Sansa stands at the bottom of the staircase, confused.
What the hell was that?
* * *
Forced to seek help elsewhere, Sansa hunts down Dany, who diligently reads through her essay with a red pen. Sansa is pleased that Dany puts so much effort into reviewing her work for her. Now if only Sansa could do the same.
Sansa can’t stop replaying the look in Margaery’s eyes. Something was off. Terribly wrong. And she couldn’t focus.
“Have you ever seen Margaery cry?”
… but she was also keeping Dany from focusing.
Dany drops her pen.
“Do you want me to finish your essay?”
“I’m sorry. I’m just worried about Margaery.” Sansa leaves it there, but then Dany nods, rolling her eyes. Sansa takes this as reason to continue, “She came home in tears. Then she just brushed right past me and headed up to her room. That’s just so unlike her.”
“She’s probably just stressed.”
“Have you ever seen Margaery uncomposed, ever? It was really unsettling.”
Dany considers this. “That does sound unsettling.” There’s something in Dany’s eyes that makes Sansa think she knows more than she’s letting on.
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Oh please, Margaery and I are not as close as you two are. What would she tell me that you, her best friend, don’t already know?”
“Gods, fine, you’re her best friend. Shut up. I’m her Little, though—that’s a special relationship.”
“A ‘special relationship’ indeed.” Dany smiles.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Look, Sansa, give her some time to get out of her funk, okay? Then approach her.” Dany dismisses her with a wave of her pen. “Now shush.”
Sansa sits beside Dany as she continues looking through the essay. Time. She could do that. Margaery needed time.
* * *
Sansa doesn’t think she can handle it anymore. She pushed her way through her essay edits, somehow, wrapping it up and turning it in.
But now, as she heads up the stairs toward her own bedroom, she can’t help but circle back to Margaery’s door. She runs her fingers over the ‘Dany’ and ‘Margaery’ door tags, contemplating how on earth she’d explain bursting into Margaery’s room at 2:45 in the morning “just to check on her”.
Then, without much thought, she does it anyway.
The lights are off, but Margaery immediately lifts her head.
“Dany?” Dany’s still downstairs, thank the Gods.
“Sansa.” She says, moving forward. She can hear the tears in Margery’s voice.
“I… I just couldn’t leave it like that. I had to make sure you were okay.”
She hears Margaery chuckle and takes it as an invitation to approach the bed. Margaery sits up, facing her. She winces a little when she turns on her desk lamp.
“I’m fine, deary. This is just how it is sometimes. Stress.”
Sansa smiles sadly. She plops onto the bed beside Margaery, turning to lay her head on Margaery’s shoulder.
“Okay, so this is gonna sound crazy narcissistic: I guess I just kind of thought it was about me.”
Margaery looks at her, perplexed. Sansa blushes.
“I’m used to thinking everything is my fault, though. Especially if I don’t get a chance to fix it.”
“Understandable.” Margaery moves to pick up Sansa’s hair, and Sansa can already feel the comforting strokes Margaery will offer her. She turns instead.
“No, no. No comforting me. Let me do you. Just once.” Margaery doesn’t know what to say to that, so Sansa reaches out and undoes Margaery’s curls from their braid.
She takes Margaery’s hands and pulls her to the bed. Then she curls around her, puling the older girl’s hips back into her own. She stays up on one elbow, running and hand through perfect brown curls and admiring Margaery’s face.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Margaery turns to look at Sansa. Really look at her. There’s a moment—just a beat—where Sansa feels Margaery’s gaze drop to her lips, but it happens so fast she thinks she must have imagined it.
“I will. When I’m ready.” Is all Margaery says.
She turns back around. Sansa looks up to the ceiling, a little dizzy. She exhales sharply to calm down. “You okay?” Marg asks.
“Do you want me to hold you?” is all Sansa asks. She feels Margaery hesitate, but then a hand reaches out and drags Sansa’s own over Margaery’s middle. Sansa tightens her hold. She falls asleep to the evening out of Margaery’s breathing.
* * *
The next few days are odd for Sansa. She and Margaery wake up together the next day, but weird schedules keep them from seeing each other much at all over the course of the week. She feels Dany watching her closely at breakfast, and it grates on her nerves a little. Later in the week, Loras makes a surprise visit to the house, whisking Margaery out on the town on a Tuesday, their usual ice-cream-and-a-movie night. Sansa finds her first gray hair in the mirror. It’s all a little overwhelming.
Most of all, though, it seems kind of like Margaery is avoiding her.
Well, that, or Sansa’s become increasingly obsessed with Margaery. Maybe it’s a little of both.
Sansa spends whole days wracking up things to tell Margaery. As she passes shops, she always finds herself eying something Margaery would like. She finds, when she zones out in the shower, it’s Margaery’s shower she’s imagining.
And she can’t stop thinking about the kiss that could’ve been.
It’s as if the idea of a kiss opened up a part of her brain that secretly really wanted it—a part of her brain that’s still craving it. Or a mention of it. Or some evidence that she’s not crazy and didn’t imagine it.
She spends more time trying to crack this mental puzzle than she does on any of her homework for this week. Peers mention her distraction.
And she hasn’t even gotten to the does this make me gay? thing. She’s still stuck on whether Margaery wanted to kiss her. Because that want, that desire in Margaery—well, she’d be gay for that, yes.
Gods, does that make it feel real.
This realization hits her at dinner, oddly, while she’s surrounded by people she can’t talk to about it. She doesn’t know who to talk to about it, actually.
Her go-to person for that here at school is Margaery.
She excuses herself from the table so that she may at least have her startling, life-changing epiphanies in private, making her way toward the living room. She curls up in a chair, eying the fireplace.
She stares into their flames, wondering what type of witch you have to be to get them to give you the answers.
“Sansa, dove, you alright?”
Of course. That’s how fate works, right. Speak of the devil and he will appear.
“Yeah.” She doesn’t look at her. She wonders if Margaery would be able to read the feelings in her eyes. She always has.
“Sansa.” And this time, she does turn. She hesitates, slightly, and turns slowly. It’s as though Margaery is the sun and Sansa can’t look directly at her or she’ll go blind.
Sansa tries a soft smile in hopes that it will ease Margaery’s worries. It does the opposite.
“What’s wrong?” She briefly considers just telling Margaery. It might be easier. But then this sudden rationality emerges from within her, and she’s shocked at how easily she’s able to put her feelings aside.
“Nothing. Nothing. I was just over the vibe in there. Ygritte chews too loud.”
“That she does.” Margaery eyes the younger girl for a second, hesitating, “I was just about to head up to my room to study. Come with?”
When did this become a question? And why did that question make her stomach twist in what was is surely arousal?
“Yeah, silly. You don’t usually ask.” She tries to remain casual as she follows Margaery upstairs. Margaery opens her bedroom door and Sansa momentarily panics.
“I… I uh—I need to get my books.”
“Right.”
“Be right back.” Sansa rushes away.
* * *
Sansa briefly wonders if she’s always felt this way. It seems possible. There was something different about Margaery from the moment she first saw her—to think that at the time she’d thought that was because they were meant to be sisters—oh how naïve she’d been.
And now, sitting beside her on the bed and watching her work, Sansa knows she can’t go back. This is how she feels about Margaery now.
She doesn’t know if she can sit with this weight on her chest forever.
Margaery reaches over and tickles the bottom of Sansa’s foot, causing her to jump. The older girl laughs.
“You just looked so deep in thought.”
“I was.”
“About...” Margaery leans over to look at her chem textbook, “…chemical equations?”
“Obviously.”
Margaery smirks at that. She closes her textbook.
“Why don’t we take a break? We didn’t get to do our movie night this week.”
“Good plan. This wasn’t getting done anyway.”
They shift on the bed. Sansa moves to lean against the wall, but Margaery shakes her head. “No, my legs hurt when we do that.” She adjusts the pillows. “Let’s try this way.”
They squish side by side against the headboard. Sansa stacks some books and places her laptop on top of it. “We said Freaky Friday, right?”
* * *
Soon, they’re watching. Side by side, Sansa can feel Margaery slipping off the side of the bed. A few days ago, she might’ve adjusted and insisted Margaery curl into her without question. Now, she debated it.
Margaery shifts again in discomfort.
Deciding that it could be construed as a friendly action, Sansa throws her arm over Margaery’s shoulder, pulling her close. Margaery turns into her readily, as though she was waiting for an invitation.
She chances a glance at Margaery’s profile and catches her small smirk.
They stay like that for a while. Sansa wonders if Margaery can feel her sweating. She’s hardly paying attention to the movie at this point.
She leans a little further back into the pillow, lounging, and pulls Margaery in even closer. She feels Margaery rest her head under Sansa’s chin.
The movie ends. Margaery sits up, stepping out of bed. She yawns.
“Bedtime?” Sansa asks. Margaery nods.
Sansa sits up, ready to move.
“Wait.” Margaery lays a hand on her arm. “Don’t go.”
Sansa’s heart starts pounding suddenly in her chest. She looks up into Margaery’s eyes, searching. Margaery looks just as distressed by her own words. Just as she opens her mouth to take them back, Sansa stops her.
“Okay. I won’t.”
Margaery meets her eyes again, trying to read them.
“Okay.”
They crawl back into their spots, Sansa pulling the covers over them both. Margaery turns out the light.
“Good night.”
“’Night.”
But instead of closing her eyes, Sansa stares up at the ceiling. Her heart pounds. Despite asking her to stay, Margaery is careful not to touch Sansa anywhere. Regardless, she can feel the heated outline of Margaery’s skin just centimeters away. What it would take to reach and touch it—
Margaery didn’t keep her here to touch her. She didn’t honestly stay to touch Margaery either. This feels bigger than that. This feels massive.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Margaery says, and Sansa’s not even surprised.
“I can feel how warm you are without touching you.” It’s an honest observation, but it feels erotic and intimate at the same time.
After a while, Sansa adds, “Yours?”
“I think I’m sleeping on your hair.” And just like that, the tension dissipates. Both girls laugh.
“When are you not, though?” Sansa props herself up on one elbow to look at Margaery.
And in that moment Margaery is so beautiful, so kind, so thoughtful, so perfect, kissing her feels inevitable. Her eyes now adjusted to the dark, this time Sansa watches Margaery’s eyes deliberately drop to her lips. Her stomach flips again.
“Why didn’t you kiss me the other day?” It’s the closest to an admission Sansa can manage. Margaery’s eyes search hers. She can feel her breath on her face.
“I wasn’t sure you wanted me to.”
Sansa drops down, pressing her forehead to Margaery’s.
“You should’ve.”
Sansa leans in, kissing Margaery. She feels her inhale sharply, a light squeak caught somewhere in the back of her throat. Margaery relaxes into it, rolling over to take charge. Sansa moves her arms to hold her waist. Margaery pulls away just slightly, panting.
“I really should have.”
* * *
Margaery and Sansa don’t make it down for breakfast the next day. When they stumble down for lunch, they do it separately, careful to maintain appearances. Word spreads fast in a sorority house.
Still, when Margaery smirks at her from across the buffet line, Sansa briefly considers screaming it from the rooftops then and there.
They make their way to their seats, opting to sit beside each other because that wouldn’t be unusual. Still, there’s something odd about today…
“Do you feel like people are staring?” Sansa whispers.
“Definitely.”
They both think for a second, before suddenly coming up with the answer at the same time: “Dany.”
Dany coincidentally chooses that moment to emerge from the buffet line and take a seat across from them.
“Congrats, lovebirds.” She pretends to think, scratching her chin, “Or is lovedoves better? You know, because you call Sansa a dove?” Margaery looks unamused.
“Who all did you tell?” Margaery asks.
“Not that many people. Chill.”
Suddenly, the front door opens to Loras. He enters quickly, seeing the girls and smiling giddily.
“Girls! So good to see you both. You’re just glowing!”
Margaery looks to Dany, annoyed.
“Okay, but how was I supposed to know he’d react that way?” Dany says, shrugging.
“Years of experience?” Margaery deadpans.
Loras takes a seat. He sticks out like a sore thumb among sorority girls, and his presence causes everyone to stare. “So now that you’ve done the deed, when’s the coming out party?”
Sansa cuts in, “We haven’t—“
Margaery cuts her off, “Loras. We’re trying to keep this on the dl. Come on.”
Loras looks around. “Please, everyone here will know by the end of today.”
Margaery presses, “Still, it’s called decency—“
“So what you’re saying is, you don’t want me to give you the cake I baked you guys.”
“Gods, Loras.”
“Cake?! He baked us a cake, Marg, come on.” Sansa reaches down, intertwining their hands. She smiles at Margaery, and something subtly shifts—like pieces falling into place. Margaery sighs.
“Fine. Bring in the cake.”