Chapter Text
"You guys got all your decorations up yet?"
Arya asks the question from over the table, fingers reaching in to grab some more fries from the huge basket. She chomps, and Sansa scowls.
"Nah, I've got my tree up. That's about it."
Robb nods, "Margaery's taken control so... I'm letting her do what she wants this year. I have handed over the reigns... Mind the pun."
Sansa smiles, dropping her scowl as she glances over at her brother's best friend.
"Jon, if you want, I could help you decorate." She takes a moment, pauses to swallow what feels like a heavy lump in her throat. "If you want, you know, not that you have to."
"I'm not sure I want to decorate this year, to be honest." He shifts uncomfortably for a moment, avoids her gaze.
Trying not to look too disappointed, Sansa sinks back into her seat and pinches a fry from Arya, trying to avoid Robb's curious stare.
"I mean I'll probably just be spending Christmas day with you guys anyway and the holidays have never really been my thing so..." He shrugs, sips from his beer and tries a decent smile.
That's a lie. If she had to pick any holiday to be Jon's favourite, it would be Christmas. And it wasn't for the presents or the family get-togethers. No. It was for the food.
A good roast was his favourite and the build-up to that one day was something he enjoyed, Sansa knows this. She's known it for years, watched his face light up when her mum decorates their tree and house and front lawn.
He lives alone, orphaned at twelve and living with her family as though her parents were his surrogate mum and dad until he was nineteen and could afford his own place. It's a flat, and it's small, but it suits him just fine.
He's lying now, he doesn't want her help and she feels stupid.
"Thank you though, Sansa."
The redhead only nods, brushing her hair behind her ears and trying to avoid the embarrassed blush that creeps up her cheeks.
He's twenty, she's seventeen, and she's desperate for his attention.
------
She doesn't relent.
She offers to help him shop for groceries and cook sometimes. She knows how, she informs him, 'Mum showed me'.
She offers to help him kit his flat out with ornaments and such, to try and make it look a little more homely. She's only seen it once, when she popped around with Robb to drop something off.
He refuses her offer every time, every damn time she tries to be helpful and lend him a hand.
He doesn't take her up on any of her suggestions, doesn't accept her helping hand. Jon says he can do it himself, that things would be done quicker alone, that he would get more done if it was just him.
She has trouble believing him.
When it's his birthday, she buys him a fancy tie and he finds it strange when she offers to help him do it up. He chuckles and stops her hand and a mumbles a quiet "I can do it, Sansa. Thanks though."
Gratitude has never stung so much. It shouldn't hurt so bad to have someone thank you. But it happens a lot and it's the tone of voice he uses that wounds her.
She thinks it's the 'though' that scolds the most, that bruises her skin. He may as well pat her on the back and look at her like old people look at children who've just lost a parent. It hurts.
She's a teenage girl and she has a sexuality to discover and he is only making her feel terrible. But she can't shake him, and it sucks.
------
"Robb, come on!" She's squeaking down the phone, slurring her speech and trying to hold back the sudden urge to giggle. It isn't funny and she knows this.
"San, I told you to make sure you had a ride home! I can't come right now, I'm at the fucking office!"
He's a lawyer and Sansa hates it, thinks it's changed him.
"Well, leave!"
She slaps the back of her hand against her friend Jeyne's arm, trying to grasp her attention and turn the girl away from ogling a bunch of college boys. There are four of them, and only two of them, and Sansa doesn't like it.
"I'll see what I can do."
He hangs up after that, and Sansa huffs as she shoves her phone back into her clutch, almost catching her polished fingertip in the force of the snap.
She has to grab Jeyne by the arm, digging her nails so deep into the girl's skin they leave a mark. "No." She was heading over to the boys, hips swaying and heels tapping.
They're lonely and pissed and bait for perverts. This isn't good.
Sansa almost has to drag her into the corner store so they can get away from the group. The place is dimly lit, and it smells of fags and there's some old school music playing over the crappy speaker.
The old man behind the counter barely pays them any attention, only counts the coins laid out on his till and hums to the melody of the 90s hit.
They buy - well, Sansa buys - two bottles of water and a pack of gum. It's a quick purchase, but they hang around inside the store as some kind of safety measure.
Jeyne is sat on the floor by the freezers, and Sansa is watching the seconds tick away on a grimy old clock when she hears Jon's voice.
It catches her by surprise, and she finds herself brushing down her short skirt as he clears his throat.
"Robb called, said you needed picking up from the club."
Sansa nods, because that's all she ever does when she's around him, and licks her lips. "Yeah." Her cheeks flush as she curses herself for still being kinda tipsy. "I didn't know he was sending you though."
"Yeah, well..." Jon lifts both brows and rattles his keys, almost seems annoyed at the turn of events. "Come on. I'll take you guys home."
"We have to drop Jeyne off first. She lives nearby."
He only listens, leads the way out of the store but waits for them to head toward his car before he follows.
Sansa sees him shoot a weary look over at the group of lads by the alley, but she ducks her head when his face turns to hers with a frown.
"Were they giving you trouble?"
She wants to not feel so gormless around him. She wants to slap herself across the face for thinking 'Oh, he cares about my safety. Oh, he's concerned.' Of course, Sansa, you're like a little sister to him.
"No." Her head is foggy and she's grateful is car is only a couple feet away. Fuck booze.
They pile into his car quickly, with her taking the passenger side and Jon ushering Jeyne into the back unceremoniously.
The girl is a floozy, and Sansa grinds her teeth when her friend's hands wrap around the collar of Jon's jacket.
She knows how Sansa feels about him, or at least how she thinks she feels. Jeyne says its immature to have a crush on him and call it love, to fantasise about him and refuse any other guys' dates. She says Sansa is holding onto her childhood daydream and she's going to have her little heart crushed when she realises Jon doesn't love her back.
Sansa keeps ignoring her though, instead pointing out that boys their age are idiots and she wants someone older, wiser, stronger, gentler. She wants Jon, but she'll settle for someone similar if she has to, if she is ever let down.
Jeyne seems to pass out in the backseat, and the station playing on the radio is the same as back in the store, all nineties soft rock and punk pop. It's on low and Sansa has to clear her throat to break the quasi silence.
"Were you working?"
"At two in the morning?" He's a firefighter, gets paid to be all hot and sweaty and steamy and the muse of Sansa's fantasies. Jon feigns a smile, glances over at her, only briefly, "No, Sansa. I wasn't working. My shift ended awhile ago."
She nods, again, and she doesn't say anything aside from when they approach Jeyne's street and she has to give him directions.
Jon gets her out of her car, wakes her up, and Sansa makes sure she is safely inside and upstairs before she's running back to Jon's car and settling into the warm seat.
"Okay." He sighs, closing his eyes for a couple of seconds.
She wonders what he's doing until he starts the engine up again and regains control, pulls out of Jeyne's street and back onto the long road leading to the Stark household.
"Are you taking me home?"
"Why wouldn't I?"
Sansa shrugs, feels her face redden and her nerves set themselves on fire when she somehow, miraculously, finds the balls to ask, "I thought you might take me to your place?"
He's twenty one, she's eighteen, and she's desperate for his affection.
There's a silence, a long one that resonates even after he has coughed her suggestion away and ignored it.
He drops her off five minutes later, without saying a word, without mentioning what she spoke of.
She feels stupid, and numb, and she mumbles the quickest of goodbyes before she slips past the front door and and collapses against it in a heap of sobs.
He doesn't want her, doesn't love her.
"Sans?"
Arya is stood at the top of the stairs, empty bowl in one hand with a spoon dangling from her other. She frowns, manages to get down two steps before Sansa finally speaks.
She's slumped in a ball, legs curled up under her and she's trying her hardest to kick her shoes off.
"You were right." Arya had told her it would come to this, it would end like this. She saw Jon as a brother, saw him a way Sansa couldn't. She knew he thought of them as sisters and nothing else. "I'm a fucking moron."
Her little sister isn't one for hugging or sympathising too much, but she comes down the stairs and taps Sansa on the knee and suggests they watch a shitty horror movie tucked under the covers with an entire tub of ice cream. And she grins as she does this.
------
When she turns nineteen, he's already been in a relationship for a good six months.
The girl's called Ygritte, and she's nice, if not a little loud, and Sansa truly doesn't mind her. Except she has red hair, like her, and she has was Sansa has wanted for three years, unlike her.
She didn't want a birthday party this year, not one with the family at least. Instead, she went down to the pub with Arya and Jeyne and some friends and they all got smashed on vodka and tequila, with a Sunday roast. It was great.
She made out with one guy, pretended he was someone else when he hand grabbed her ass. But she didn't take it further and denied him outright when he tried to encourage her otherwise.
"I'm not a prude, I'm just wise."
Jeyne has had two pregnancy scares by now, and Sansa has lived through both. The girl wasn't ready, and Sansa prides herself on remaining a virgin in this day and age. With her face and her body, Jeyne says it's a miracle, though she still foolishly wants to believe it's fate.
"You're waiting for him?" The question isn't new. "He has a girlfriend, Sans. And it's been years and nothing has happened. Move on. Get a boyfriend."
She doesn't, doesn't even want to.
Robb and Jon have somehow made their way into the back of the pub and crept up on her celebrations uninvited. Robb buys everyone a round and promises to never tell mum how much she has had to drink.
Sansa thinks he's a pretty great brother. He's a brother, and Jon isn't. He's just the brooding one who sits and chats occasionally and rarely smiles. He wishes her a happy birthday but he doesn't join in on the singing when her cake is brought out. He just smiles, and Sansa has to force her gaze away.
He has a girlfriend, and he doesn't want you.
------
Sansa spends a whole two years without seeing him. Her twentieth birthday came and went, and she is gone twenty one years old now.
She's been in Africa for all that time, on an exchange program, aiding the world and clearing her head, and trying to convince herself that she'd gone there for entirely selfless reasons.
She keeps in touch with Arya mostly, keeps up to date on everything that's happened over those two years.
Arya is moving in with her painted boyfriend Gendry. Robb's wife Margaery is pregnant with a son due in the spring. Jon got engaged and called his engagement off all within two weeks. Apparently Ygritte wasn't right for him.
Her little sister doesn't tell her too much, but she knows Sansa will want details. She promises to tell her everything when she gets back tomorrow, and they sign off of Skype with a kiss and a blow.
Nighttime passes rather fast, and Sansa is on the place home quicker than she had imagined she would be.
It's a long flight back to the UK, and she has more than a couple movies available to entertain her. Romantic comedies have only ever given her false hope, only ever made her believe that one day she could be the girl who the guy wants.
Not anymore. While she still pines and aches for someone she knows she will never have, she's made peace with her situation. She will love him from a distance, and let him have whatever he wants. It hurts, but at last she knows this isn't a crush anymore.
A lame crush would have faded, evaporated. But love, love remained and love fucked her up and she has pushed romance way back down to the bottom of her priority list.
Granted, she has never really dated, has never really gotten too close to anyone. But she will one day, and if it's great than that will be good for her. She deserves love, she knows.
When her plane lands, it's pouring down with rain and the sky is an enchanting midnight shade of blue. The stars are out, and she grins at the familiarity of English rain and northern accents. She missed home.
Robb said he would be picking her up, so when she's off the plane and collected her bags, she hurries her way down to arrivals so he isn't left waiting. The meter runs fast in the airport.
Arrivals is pretty empty, and she has been hanging around for a good twenty minutes, unable to get through to him, sat on some lonely bench, when a nearing face across the room catches her attention.
It's familiar, but the heavy scruff across the jaw is new and she foolishly kind of likes it.
"Hi."
His eyes are dark, darker than usual. Although maybe this is just their colour now, or maybe she has forgotten these little details about him she once held dear.
The smile gracing his lips holds her attention for longer than she would like it to, and she swallows. She has moved on, or at the very least tried to.
"Jon." She nods once, reassures herself that he's really here, really with her. "What are you doing here?"
"Robb called, said you needed picking up from the airport." It's a rehashing of older words and the eighteen year old inside of her is screaming.
"Right." The smile is still on his face and she cannot understand why. "And where is my brother?" She's older now, stronger.
"At home." Jon steps closer, pulls on the handle of her carry-on luggage and throws it over his shoulder, the leather of her bag creaking against his jacket. "He thought I was better for the job."
"And why would that be?" She lets him grab her suitcase, lets him pull the handle up and lift a brow at her in adoration. He is smirking and she does not understand why. Or at least she doesn't until he is getting closer, and within her personal space.
"Because we need to talk."
She follows him out to the parking lot, to his same car from years before. It's crappy but it runs and she still kind of likes it.
Does he know? Obviously he's been aware of her crush for years. She'd made that blatantly obvious with her suggestion and stares.
But does he know? Has Arya - or fucking Jeyne - told him that her fascination lasted into those couple years beyond adolescence and she was still batshit in love with him when she left for Africa?
Does he know she has had to force herself, through sleepless nights and long bouts of tears, to accept the hard truth that he will never harbour those kinds of feelings towards her? Does he know all of this and still want to embarrass her some more?
"What do we need to talk about Jon?"
She's not a little girl, and she isn't his little sister.
She's a woman who has adored him, loved him for years and only ever sought recognition from him. She does not need pity or mockery.
The trunk of his car slams then, when he pushes it down on her last word, on her speaking his name.
He nears her, moving her to stand beside the backdoor of his car but not yet caging her in.
Jon's voice is warm, and she almost wants to slap him for standing so close. He must know what he's doing to her.
"You were gone for two years."
"Yeah." She shifts, pushes her shoulders back and goes to move away from him until his hand wraps around her elbow and he holds her steady, gently. "What does that matter to you? I'm surprised you even noticed."
She sounds bitter, she knows, but she can't help it.
"I noticed. Believe me, I noticed." He sounds groggy, moody. "I noticed because every time I was around your family's place, I was waiting for you to appear and you didn't. I was looking for you, and you were nowhere to be found."
"I was in Africa, helping sick kids-"
"Yeah, I know." He nods, "You were in Africa, helping sick kids, and building homes, and trying to pretend you weren't in love with me."
"Did Arya-?"
"Arya didn't need to tell me. I've known for years, Sansa."
She feels her lips part then, as her nostrils flare and her eyes begin to glimmer.
"You knew?" She won't hold back, couldn't even if she wanted to. "You knew that it wasn't just a stupid crush, and yet you didn't think to just let me down easy?"
"No, and yes. Well, yes and no, really." Jon sighs, looks down at the concrete ground for a moment. The airport parking lot is quiet, dead.
"How did you know? How did you know it wasn't just a crush?"
"Because all that time you were gone, I felt the exact same way you used to feel about me."
He cages her in then, arms on either side of her body, frame over frame. "Are you saying that you missed me?"
"I'm saying that I missed you, and I'm stupidly in love with you, and have been for quite some time, and I will help you decorate your fucking Christmas tree any day of the year, if you'll let me."
Her insides are screaming, squealing. Reduced to embers, her promise to herself to push down and ignore the love she harbours for him has been broken and she is smiling.
Her feet fidget and she gulps, "It's only November."
"It's never too soon to decorate a Christmas tree. You know it's my favourite holiday." He grins, licks at his bottom lip as he stares down at her own. "I mean, if you want to help, that is. You don't have to."
"I want to."
"Well, you're gonna plenty of sleep then because I bought one hell of a huge tree this year." He's moved into a house apparently, with two bedrooms and basement. "Shall I take you home?"
"Where else would I go?"
"Oh, I don't know." He leans in, rests his head against hers, lets his dark curls dance across her forehead, "I thought I might take you to my place."