Chapter Text
Jon has just gotten back from his morning run when his eyes catch the fancy beige envelope in the mail pile. His eyes narrow, immediately suspicious, and he reaches for it.
He opens it without thought and scowls when it is exactly what he suspected it to be. A wedding invitation to his brother’s wedding, who happens to be getting married to his ex.
His eyes skim the first page, Mr. and Mrs. Mace Tyrell cordially invite you…
He huffs out a disbelieving laugh. He’s not sure why he’s surprised, but part of him thought maybe they’d have enough tact not to invite him.
He grabs the rest of the mail and heads into the house, greeted by two six-month-old direwolf mixes jumping onto him.
“Alright, alright, both of you relax,” he chuckles, giving each of them a pet on the head so they can calm down a bit.
He walks over to the console table, where most of their mail is. He drops the rest of the mail on the plate except the invite, pulls out the RSVP, grabs a pen, and checks the ‘no’ box. He then takes a fresh envelope, copies their mailing address, stamps it, and places it in the send-out pile.
Once that’s all done, he gives the envelope a final look. There’s this feeling in the pit of his stomach that this wouldn’t be the end of it.
He hasn’t spoken to his brother in five years, not since he left King’s Landing and decided to cut contact with that side of the family. His father has tried to reach out here and there, to no avail, but that’s all the contact he’s had with any of them until now.
His brother, Aegon, wouldn’t be dumb enough to think he’d willingly go to his wedding after how things went down. The fact that Egg would agree to send an invite anyway tells Jon that they, for some reason, need him to be there.
He blows out a breath and leaves it for now, making his way upstairs. As expected, his girlfriend is still fast asleep on the bed, making him smile.
He goes over to her, beaten in speed by their two dogs, who both jump on the bed, and he leans down to press a kiss against his girlfriend’s cheek.
“I thought you said you were getting up before I left?” He asks when he sees her eyes flutter open.
She hums, arms reaching up to wrap around his neck before pulling him down for a longer kiss. He indulges her for a bit before pulling back and slapping her playfully on the ass.
“Come on, up. We promised your brother we’ll be there early to mediate.”
She lets out a whine, turning sideways to cuddle up to Lady, who has settled right next to her. “Robb’s a big boy who should learn to deal with the consequences of his own actions.”
Jon snorts, leaning in to fold one arm around her back and the other around her legs. “You’re the one who swore you’d have his back today.”
She squeaks out when he pulls her up, her hand immediately grasping at his shoulder. He carries her all the way to the bathroom and just chuckles at the glare she throws at him.
On any given weekday, she's the first one up and out of bed, her disposition as bright as the morning sun and ready to start the day. Come the weekend, she turns into this grumpy creature who snarls at anyone who tries to get her out of bed before lunchtime.
Jon smiles as her glare melts into a pitiful pout, as if she thinks it’ll compel him to bring her back to bed for five more minutes of sleep, and cups her jaw with both hands. “Sweetheart, we have about forty minutes before your brother starts bombarding your phone with panicked calls, thirty-five before Arya starts blowing up mine because she's already ready to strangle him, and maybe five before your mom calls asking what time you’re going to get there because we all know you’re the only one who can keep her sane through it all today."
She sighs, gives him another - less lethal - glare, then starts to undress before heading into the shower because she knows he’s right.
***
An hour and a barrage of calls from all the Starks later, they're ready to head to her parents’ house for their scheduled lunch. On their way out, Sansa pauses in front of the console table and frowns. She picks up the wedding invitation he’d already forgotten about.
“What's this?” she asks.
“Oh, right, that came in the mail today.”
She reads the front. “They sent you an invite for their wedding?” She asks incredulously, her voice pitching up a little.
“Yeah. But let's talk about it in the car or we're going to be late.”
She takes it with her, her frown deepening as she skims through the details on their way to the car.
She's never actually met any of his blood relations, but she knows why he isn’t in contact with them. He told her all about how his brother and his ex cheated behind his back. It's something he told her before they even started dating, back when they were just starting to be friends.
He shared with her how he got home early from a work trip, only to find his own brother naked on his bed with his girlfriend. He told her how it kept unraveling from there - finding out how long it's been going on, learning that his father and half-sister knew about it, listening to Margaery blame him for it and spouting some bullshit about always being too busy and how she was lonely and sad and that she couldn't help falling in love with Aegon.
It had taken him ten minutes to pack up his stuff from the apartment, a week to pack up his life in King’s Landing, then he booked a flight straight to Winterfell and never looked back.
He cut off his entire family, moved into the house his mother had left him in her will, and applied for jobs in the north.
Two months later, he got an offer at Stark Land Trust as a land development engineer. He started a week after that phone call, poured everything into his job for the next few months, and kept himself busy on his off days.
For a while, it felt like he was running away from his problems, a lost little pup who didn't know how to pick up the pieces, but it eventually felt less like that and like he was rebuilding his life.
“I cannot believe the audacity to even send this,” Sansa says as he drives, flipping through the pages of the invitation angrily. “How dare they?”
“They probably want something from me,” Jon says distractedly as he maneuvers the wheel for a turn. “Probably to show up so people would think I support them? I don’t know.”
“Why in the seven hells would they think you’d support them after what they did? They’re fucking deranged.”
Jon agrees with her wholeheartedly, and he should probably be more angry about the whole thing, but he just can’t find it in him to really care. He’d spent enough time grappling with the betrayal and mourning those relationships, and he’d come out the other side knowing he could build a happy life without any of them.
He does get Sansa’s anger, though, because she loves him and hates everyone who’s ever hurt him on principle. But just that fact - the knowledge that he found a partner who will fight in his corner no matter what - makes it pretty difficult for him to summon any anger towards how everything turned out.
He reaches for her hand, twines their fingers together, and tugs it to press a kiss to the back of her hand. “Okay, sweetheart, we’re almost at your parents’ place. I know you’re still angry about this but you’re gonna have to rein all this in for a bit.”
They’re about to meet her family and deal with a sort of family crisis, so she knows they have to put a pause on his family drama.
Their present crisis comes in the form of her older brother, who suddenly quit his position in their family company, flew to Essos without telling anyone, eloped with a girl he got pregnant, and came back home nearly three months later to a family who now has no idea how to interact with him.
Now they’re all about to meet for a family lunch in an attempt to understand how and why everything happened, and smooth over whatever needs smoothing.
It is going to be an awkward, possibly emotional lunch, and they need to focus on that before anything else.
***
Lunch turns out a lot better than any of them anticipated. Still awkward, but Robb’s fears of their mother blowing up on him for all he’s put them through over the last three months don't happen, and that seems to lessen a lot of the tension.
Jon didn’t think that was ever going to happen, and even Sansa had assured her brother that she would have his back in that extremely unlikely scenario, but there was really nothing they could do but just let Robb get through it himself.
“That went surprisingly well. Is it terrible that I find it funny how Mom kind of short-circuits whenever one of you assholes does something she expects from me?” Arya whispers to them after lunch when everyone's moving from the dining area into the living room.
Sansa gives her a ‘not the time’ look, but Jon can’t help but snort. “I think your mom would actually consider it a win if you ever decided to get hitched and pregnant.”
Arya shivers at the idea because those are two things she’s been very clear about not wanting. “Shoot me in the head if I ever do something that idiotic.”
“Arya,” Sansa hisses, making her sister wince.
“I meant idiotic for me,” she clarifies in a hushed tone, “I wasn’t trying to pass judgment."
Later, Jon gets a moment alone with Robb when he steps out to the backyard for a bit of fresh air. “Hey, man,” he greets as he walks out through the kitchen door, alerting Robb of his presence.
Robb turns, nods with a wry smile. “What’s up, man?”
“You good?”
“Sansa still with Jeyne?” he asks with a slight furrow to his brows.
“Yeah. Sansa’s got her,” Jon assures, which makes Robb snort.
“And you got me,” Robb comments with amusement.
Jon smiles. “Your sister thought you could use a friend.”
“I’m okay, don’t worry. Just… just a bit weirded out, I guess,” he admits, nodding towards the house. “They’re all being too nice and painfully polite, I kind of wish they’d just act normal and harass me with questions that even I don't know the answer to.”
“I think that’s more for Jeyne’s benefit than yours. Come by alone and I’m sure you’ll get what you’re stupidly wishing for,” Jon jokes.
Robb laughs. “Funny how their normal reaction was what I was trying to avoid in the first place.”
***
Both Jon and Sansa forget all about the wedding invitation in the days that follow once he sends back his no.
It isn’t until three weeks later, when his father starts calling, that he remembers. They’ve probably received his RSVP by now and didn’t like that he declined the invitation. He ignores the calls for a few days until he gets annoyed and texts Rhaegar to ‘leave me alone’.
Of course, in true Rhaegar fashion, he shows up at Jon’s doorstep the very next day.
“Oh, fucking hells,” Jon mutters when he sees the man sitting on his porch. He parks his car on the driveway, taking his sweet time with it just to prolong the shitshow.
Rhaegar stands as soon as he’s out of the car, and starts with, “Before you get angry, you know you could have made this easier by not ignoring my calls.”
“Most people would take that as a sign that I don’t want to talk to them, much less see them.”
“Jon,” he says, already sounding tired, like Jon has already exhausted him. the fucking nerve. “It’s been five years.”
Jon looks at him flatly. “What, that just magically erases everything that happened?”
“No, of course not, but we’ve all given you space like you wanted. But I just think it’s now time we all move on from what happened.”
“I already moved on,” Jon informs him.
“Jon, you won’t even talk to any of us. That’s an obvious sign that you still hold some resentment over what happened.”
Jon scoffs at that. “That’s where you’re wrong. I have moved on. I just don’t want any of you in my life and I think I've made that pretty clear.”
Rhaegar is quiet for a moment. “I know you’re still angry at me, that much is clear. I don’t blame you. I know my actions left a lot to be desired back then. I know I could have done more, but Jon, I thought I was doing the best I could. You know Aegon was going through a rough patch -” Jon rolls his eyes. He says it as if Egg was going through some great personal hardship when what actually happened was that he cost the company millions of dragons because of his own stupidity. He didn’t even have to face the consequences because daddy dearest swooped in like he always does to save his useless ass. “- And Margaery was the only one who could help him. They were in love, Jon, what was I supposed to do? I told them to tell you as soon as I found out, I swear it, it was just unfortunate timing that -”
“Enough. I don’t want to rehash all of this,” he cuts in because they can go round and round and Rhaegar will never understand that it wasn't just about his ex cheating with his own fucking brother, it was also knowing that his own father and sister would let it go on behind his back for so long.
He didn’t just feel betrayed; he felt insignificant. Worthless. And so alone. Like his feelings didn’t hold any weight compared to his brother, as he’ll always come second.
“Alright, I understand,” Rhaegar concedes, “But what can I do to make things better? What can we do? Marg and Aegon are ready to talk if that’s what you want. They’ve been staying away out of respect, but they’ll do whatever you want. They want to fix this, to reconnect.”
“Fix what?” Jon asks loudly, with more emotion than he expected. He takes a deep breath and tries to calm himself. “If they want my forgiveness - fine, they have it. My blessing? Fucking sure. Just leave me the fuck alone.”
Rhaegar takes a deep breath as if to brace himself. “They would do anything to have you at the wedding.”
Jon shuts his eyes and laughs. “What part of leave me alone is so hard to understand?”
Rhaegar doesn’t say anything to that. He waits until Jon opens his eyes again before saying, “Jon, what can we do to make it happen?”
Ten minutes. This conversation can’t have been going on for more than ten minutes and Jon is already so emotionally drained from it. He’d forgotten how helpless he always feels when talking to his father; when he wants something and won’t accept any answer other than the one he wants. It’s why he’s so successful as a businessman, not so much as a father.
Jon knows exactly how this will go, knows the lengths Rhaegar will go to break down Jon’s resolve. He’ll never stop until he gets what he wants. That’s the Targaryen way, conquerors then and now.
He’d warned Sansa about it after he received the first call some days ago. They had a long talk about what Jon should be prepared to do and how to handle it.
He takes a deep breath. “Why do you need me at the wedding? Spare me all that bullshit about reconnecting and tell me the truth.”
“That is not bullshit. You are my son, my blood, and I want us to be a whole family a-”
“I said spare me,” he cuts in loudly, “Why does your precious Aegon need me to be at the wedding?”
“Your brother would like you there to show a united front.”
“So for appearances,” Jon fills in, “You want me to play nice and pretend I support their marriage.”
“We just want to show people that no matter what happens, we’re family. We can surpass our differences, and we will show up for each other.”
“Uh-huh, sure. How about we make a deal instead, since I know you like those. I'll play along and attend the wedding under three conditions. One, I get a plus one. My girlfriend. Two, you pay for all our expenses to attend the wedding. Three, you never contact me ever again after it. Not just you, Aegon and Margaery, too. Hells, add Rhaenys on the list since I know you're perfectly capable of using her if you ever needed to get to me again.”
There’s a long pause before Rhaegar says anything. “That's what you want? To never be in contact with your family again?”
“You're not my family,” he corrects, not unkindly. Sansa is his family. Sansa, their two dogs, the Starks, Sam and Gilly, Tormund - they're the family he chose. “Do we have a deal?”
He looks conflicted for a moment, but then nods. “If that will make you happy, then, yes, we have a deal.”
“I want it in writing. I want you to sign it.”
Jon’s not sure that kind of thing will hold up in court, but he needs Rhaegar to know he’s serious. That paper trail should be enough to keep them all at bay; they'll stay away from him if they want to keep that kind of contract away from the press.