Chapter Text
Lunch with Margie and Jeyne was supposed to be casual.
It takes exactly five minutes for that plan to fail.
They’ve barely sat down at their favourite little café with their salads in front of them when Margie leans forward, eyes narrowed in sharp, predatory focus.
“Okay. Spill.”
Sansa blinks. “Spill what?”
She knows it can’t be about the tattoo. They’ve already covered that. Margaery insisted Sansa must show it to them as soon as possible, pulled Sansa into the café’s bathroom and basically forced her to strip down in one of the too tight stalls.
Jeyne tilts her head, already smiling like she knows the answer to Margaery’s question. “Yep. You’re glowing. In a something-happened kind of way.”
Sansa opens her mouth, closes it, and takes a sip of her iced tea instead.
Margie slaps the table, a knowing smirk on her lips.
“Oh my Gods. Something definitely happened.”
“I just got a tattoo,” Sansa says weakly, avoiding their gazes because she’s always been a terrible liar and, well, the eyes don’t lie, do they? “That’s… That’s a lot of adrenaline.”
“Ah, yes,” Margaery says solemnly. “Adrenaline. You hear that, Jeyne?”
“I heard that,” Jeyne replies, not looking away from Sansa. “Very interesting.”
“Yep,” Sansa says, popping the p. “Interesting.”
Margie snorts. “Stark. Let’s not do this, okay?”
“Yeah,” Jeyne adds sweetly. “Let’s just skip to the part where you tell us everything.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” Sansa insists, taking an aggressively normal sized bite of salad.
They both stare at her.
Unblinking.
Margaery leans forward.
“Stark.”
“Okay! Okay!” she gives up, throwing her hands up in defeat.
Way to give up under absolutely no pressure, Sansa!
They keep staring at her.
“So…,” she starts, playing with the straw inside her glass. “You know how I thought that my tattoo artist would be a woman?”
Jeyne and Margaery share a look.
“Yes,” Jeyne says slowly, “and you were on the verge of another sexuality crisis.”
She rolls her eyes as Margaery snorts into her drink.
“Well. It wasn’t.”
“It wasn’t a sexuality crisis waiting to happen?”
“What?” She replies, confused. “No. It wasn’t a woman.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. Oh,” Sansa repeats.
And then she tells them everything.
About walking into the studio. About the blonde girl at the front desk. About Jon stepping out from the back room and completely derailing her expectations. About how calm he’d been, how safe she’d felt. How the pain wasn’t what she thought it would be, and how she’d maybe, even possibly liked it.
Sansa groans and drops her head into her hands. “And then I kissed him.”
Both of them freeze.
Margie lets out a sound somewhere between a gasp and a laugh. “Didn’t think you had it in you, Stark.”
“Well. Technically I kissed him on the cheek before leaving,” Sansa says weekly, the ghost of her lips pressing on his cheek, when she thought that would be all that would come out of it. “Then he… kinda chased me? And then he kissed me first.”
Margaery presses a hand to her chest. “I need to sit down.”
“You are sitting down,” Jeyne says, never taking her eyes off Sansa. “But wow. Okay. Wow.”
Margie nods. “Romantic. Devastating. I hate him already.”
Sansa barely manages not to roll her eyes. Margaery’s got a penchant for drama.
“We need to invite this man to your birthday party.”
Jeyne nods. “Absolutely. We need to meet this man who chased you outside of his shop to kiss you senseless.”
Sansa shakes her head so hard her hair nearly whips her face. “No. No, absolutely not.”
Margie frowns, like it’s unfathomable that she may not want to let them meet him yet. “Well, why not?”
“It’s—” Sansa waves her hand around helplessly. “You know. It’s too soon.”
Before he kissed her, when they were just a client and her tattoo artist, she played with the thought of inviting him. But that was different. That would have been the perfect occasion to flirt with him freely. To dance with him. To make a move.
She doesn’t need to make a move anymore.
She can’t stop grinning like a fool.
Jeyne tilts her head, watching. “You kissed him. He kissed you,” she recounts, “He basically asked you out already. What’s the harm in inviting him to your party?”
Margaery nods.
How do they not get it?
“Well, that doesn’t mean I’m ready to unleash you two on him!” Sansa shoots back. “And Arya and Robb and everyone else…” She shakes her head, terrified just at the thought. “No. Nope. Absolutely not.”
They go back and forth for a few minutes. Jeyne argues that birthdays are actually perfect for first appearances. Margie insists it is practically a public service to vet him early. Sansa refuses every time.
Finally, Margie sighs dramatically and leans back in her chair. “Fine. But only because I respect your right to emotional pacing.”
“Just barely,” Jeyne adds.
“Just barely,” Margaery agrees, very seriously. “So you better be grateful.”
Sansa smiles, relieved. “I just think… that the first time we hang out should be just us. Not surrounded by my friends. Not loud music and twenty people watching. Just… normal, you know?”
Margie studies her for a moment, then softens.
“Okay. That makes sense.”
Jeyne nods. “But we’re meeting him eventually.”
Sansa laughs. “Yes. Eventually.”
—
That evening, back at home, Sansa is curled up on her bed with her laptop abandoned beside her and her phone balanced in her hands. The apartment is quiet. Margie is out and Jeyne is locked in her room, and for the first time all day, everything slows.
Her phone buzzes in her hand.
jon: I tried to wait an appropriate amount of time before texting you.
She smiles immediately.
jon: Turns out I’m terrible at that.
Sansa bit her lip, thumbs hovering.
sansa: is that so?
sansa: i would’ve sworn you’d be smoother than this
The reply comes almost instantly.
jon: This isn’t smooth?
jon: Yeah. No. I figured I’d rather be honest than smooth.
jon: Would you like to go out with me? Properly. On a date
Her heart does a small, ridiculous flip, like it was waiting all day just for that sentence.
sansa: i would.
A pause, long enough to feel deliberate.
jon: Saturday night?
She doesn’t even pretend to consider it. They can both be terribly unsmooth together.
sansa: saturday works for me (:
jon: Good. I’ll make it worth your while
sansa: i can’t wait!!
sansa: also fair warning. i’m not the type of girl that puts out on a first date
jon: No promises. I might just admire my work.
She laughs softly, rolling onto her side. Her heart beats underneath the ink he put there.
sansa: see? that was way smoother
They slip into an easy rhythm after that, light teasing, little compliments disguised as jokes. Jon admitted he was relieved she’d said yes. Sansa told him she’d been replaying the morning in her head more times than she cared to admit. At some point, the messages slow down.
jon: Goodnight, Sansa.
She stares at the screen for a moment before replying.
sansa: goodnight, jon <3
She sets her phone down, heart humming, already counting the hours until Saturday.
—
The days between the tattoo and her birthday blur together in a soft, buzzing way.
Jon texts her Monday morning while she is at her kitchen’s table waiting for her coffee to cool.
jon: Hope your tattoo isn’t too sore today.
She blushes so hard she has to put her phone face-down on the table. She touches the skin beneath her shirt like it’s a secret only the two of them share.
On Tuesday afternoon, Sansa is grading the papers of her summer school’s students. She’s sprawled across the living room floor when her phone lights up again.
He tells her about a half-finished sketch taped to his fridge. She sends him a picture of the stack of essays she’s avoiding grading. (She wasn’t ignoring them until he texted.) He tells her he’d happily distract her. She tells him he’s already doing a very good job.
They start sending pictures, too. Her tea gone cold beside a stack of essays. His hand, ink-stained, holding a pencil over a sketchpad. A blurry photo of his dog Ghost, stretched out on the shop’s floor like he owned the place. A simple sketch of the next tattoo she is thinking of getting.
(She toyed with the idea of sending him a picture of the exact place on her body where she wanted it.
But that seemed way too forward.)
By Wednesday, texting him feels almost too easy. Like something she’d been doing for much longer than a few days.
Her friends have noticed.
Margie smirks every time Sansa’s phone lights up. Jeyne hums knowingly whenever Sansa suddenly finds herself smiling at the ceiling with her phone hugged to her chest.
She tells him about her party again, just in passing. On Wednesday, late afternoon, while she is helping Margie make a punch so strong that could be only enjoyed by approximately three people. It’s nice that he understands. She doesn’t think she’s ever had a boyfriend that would be this cool about it.
(Not that Jon is her boyfriend, of course.
Yet.)
jon: Have fun tonight.
jon: Try not to miss me too much.
She smiles to herself.
Yeah, Jon Snow is nothing like her other boyfriends.
sansa: no promises (:
—
(She doesn’t know it yet, but Wednesday isn’t quite done with either of them.)
—
The party goes well. Suspiciously well.
The apartment fills up fast. Friends spilling into every corner, music a little too loud, laughter bouncing off the walls. The cake is good, which feels important. Vanilla with strawberries, exactly how Sansa likes it. She blows out her candles and makes a wish, though she’s maybe too old for it.
Her wish has absolutely nothing to do with a pretty, dark-haired, pouty lipped tattoo artist.
Margaery and Jeyne do an admirable job of keeping one secret.
They absolutely do not manage to keep it from Arya.
Actually, she doesn’t think they were even trying to keep it from her sister.
Sansa realizes this about twenty minutes in, when she’s in the kitchen refilling her glass and feels a presence at her side that’s far too familiar.
“So,” Arya says casually, grabbing a beer from the fridge. “It’s a good thing I couldn’t come with you to your tattoo appointment, huh?”
Sansa freezes.
Very slowly, she turns her head. Arya is grinning like she’s just found buried treasure in the form of material to tease her older sister over.
“What?”
“Your friends were telling me all about some hot tattoo artist named Jon Snow—”
“Please, shut up,” Sansa says, summoning every scrap of dignity she has, which is a pretty difficult thing to do when her face is already burning up with a scarlet colour.
Arya’s grin widens. “I’m just saying! I would’ve totally ruined the mood.”
“I hate you,” Sansa mutters, and then, grace abandoned entirely, she almost runs out of the kitchen, narrowly avoiding a collision with one of Robb’s friends on the way.
It’s her birthday! Arya should be nice to her.
At least Robb doesn’t know.
She clings to that thought like a lifeline. He would do something worse than some jokes.
She avoids Arya for the rest of the night with the skill of someone who’s had years of practice. She also avoids Margaery and Jeyne, because every time she catches one of them looking at her, they look far too pleased with themselves.
Robb passes her at one point, slinging an arm around her shoulders and loudly declaring that his little sister is officially ancient now (“Closert to thirty than to twenty,” he says, fake-sniffling. “They grow up so fast.”), and Sansa laughs and plays along and thinks, thank the gods for small blessings.
—
The doorbell rings not even ten minutes after the last guest leaves.
Sansa groans from her spot on the bed. Someone definitely forgot a coat. Or a scarf. She considers pretending she didn’t hear it. Margie or Jeyne can get it. She’s the birthday girl. She’s off duty.
“Ugh,” she mutters, dragging herself upright. If it’s her guest, she should be the one to answer. Catelyn Stark raised her better than this.
She pads down the hallway, hair a mess, makeup mostly gone, the oversized sleep shirt that she changed into immediately after everyone left is slipping off one shoulder. She’s halfway through rehearsing a polite, Oh, you left your jacket? Of course, don’t worry, I’ll go grab it for you, when she turns the corner into the entryway.
Margie and Jeyne are already at the door.
Both of them are wearing their jackets.
And standing just outside, hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket, is Jon Snow.
Sansa stops dead in her tracks.
“…Jon?”
“Hey,” he says, offering her a sheepish, slightly nervous smile. “Happy birthday.”
Her brain takes a full second to reboot.
“Thanks,” she says faintly. “What… what are you doing here?”
Not that she isn’t happy. She is. Her heart is doing some sort of acrobatics routine in her chest. But still—
“He’s our birthday present to you,” Jeyne announces.
“You already got me a present,” Sansa says automatically, not taking her eyes off Jon.
A relaxing spa weekend at the Winterfell Hall Spa that she is seriously looking forward too.
“Well yeah,” Margie says, rolling her eyes like this is supposed to be obvious. “He’s our second birthday present to you. That’s why we’re the best friends ever.”
Jeyne nudges Sansa gently toward the door. “You said you wanted the first time you hung out to be just the two of you… so…”
“We made it happen,” Margie finishes, beaming.
Sansa looks between them and Jon, who is trying—and failing—not to look extremely pleased with this entire arrangement.
“You two are unbelievable,” she says, but there’s no heat in it. Only awe. And a little bit of panic. And a lot of excitement.
“We know,” Jeyne says.
“Unbelievably good friends.”
“Right…” Sansa says after a moment of pause. She looks at Jeyne, then at the door, then back at Jeyne pointedly.
Scram, she hopes she’s communicating.
“Of course!” Jeyne answers to her unspoken request. “We’re leaving,” she announces, linking her arms with Margie’s.
“Text us if you need us to stay out longer,” Margie adds, already stepping into the hallway.
“Or if you need anything,” Jeyne says with a wink. “Margie has a secret stash of condoms in the third drawer of her nightstand, by the way.”
“Feel free to use them!”
Seven hells. Leave it to her best friends to embarrass her like this in front of him. And talking about condoms after she made it clear that they would be waiting to have sex. Unbelievable!
“Okay! Bye!” she says, fighting the urge to slam the door in their faces.
“Goodnight!” they sing in unison.
The door closes behind them, leaving the apartment suddenly, completely quiet.
Just Sansa.
And Jon.
Still standing a few feet apart, like the air between them might spark if they move too fast.
“Hey,” Jon says, softer now that it’s just the two of them.
“Hi,” she replies, fingers twisting in the hem of her oversized sleep shirt.
She is suddenly, painfully aware that this is all she’s wearing. No perfectly curated makeup, no carefully chosen outfit, no birthday glow. Just her, her smudged mascara and an old cotton shirt that used to be soft and now is mostly sentimental.
Why did she change out of her party dress? Why did she think the night was over?
She thought it was.
Why would Jeyne and Margaery let her get changed!?
“Sans, if you’re uncomfortable with this, I can leave,” Jon says gently. “We’ll still see each other on Saturday and—”
She shakes her head quickly. “No!”
His eyebrows lift. “No? You sure?”
There’s that combination again, genuine concern wrapped in a quiet confidence that makes her stomach flip and her mouth water.
“Yeah,” she says, nodding. “I’m sure.”
“Your friends were very insistent,” he adds, a smile tugging at his mouth. “And I couldn’t say no.”
“They might actually drag you back here by force if you try to leave,” Sansa says, and only realizes she’s stepped closer to him when there’s barely any space left between them.
“Well,” he murmurs, voice low, “we wouldn’t want that.”
He leans in and kisses her.
It’s warm and steady, and the press of his mouth against hers tells her that they’ve both been thinking about this for days. His hand hovers at her waist, careful, like he’s still asking permission even now.
She reaches over, and guides his hand surely around her waist. He curls his hand steadily, now that he knows he can.
This feels right. Easy. Like stepping into something that’s already been waiting for them.
When they part, just barely, he smiles at her, a little crooked, a little breathless.
“I’m kinda sad I didn’t get to see you in your dress,” he says, fingering the hem of her shirt with his other hand.
Her face heats instantly. She had sent him that picture earlier, just the tiny dress still on its hanger, captioned you’re missing out.
Just to tease him a little bit.
Now she kind of wishes that she hadn’t.
“I could put it back on for you?” she offers, only half teasing.
He shakes his head, eyes warm as they drift over her, not in a way that makes her want to hide, but in a way that makes her feel seen.
“No,” he says quietly. “I like this. I like you like this.”
Her heart stutters, and she doesn’t even try to hide her smile this time.
“Yeah?” she breathes, “Just me and my old tee?”
“I’m kinda digging the disheveled look.”
“Oh?”
He nods, very seriously. “I’d like it off just as much, though,” he adds, with a smirk firm in place.
She throws her head back laughing, keeping one hand firm on his chest. “I’m sure you would,” she says, trying very hard to stay focused on the conversation, and her promise not to sleep with him too early, instead of his hard chest beneath her hand.
“But…” he prompts, both hands still touching her so good that it makes it hard for her to say what she means.
“But not yet,” she finally gets out.
“Well, I tried,” he says with a small laugh, and even though she can tell he’s disappointed (so is she!), he doesn’t push for more.
—
Despite what she promised herself, they end up kissing on her couch.
At some point, Sansa has ended up straddling his lap without even remembering how she got there, her knees on either side of his hips, his hands warm and steady on her thighs. The movie they’d meant to watch is still sitting unwatched on the menu screen, forgotten entirely.
His mouth is slow and deliberate against hers, like he’s savoring something. Like he has all the time in the world.
Her hands slip under the hem of his shirt almost without permission, palms flattening against the warm skin of his stomach where she knows lay hidden tattoos she will not get the chance to see for a while. He inhales softly against her mouth, his fingers tightening where they rest on her leg before sliding higher, just barely brushing the soft material of her panties.
Her whole body feels electric. Every place he touches sparks.
She’s worked up in a way that feels dangerous, intoxicating. It’s easy to forget they’d agreed to take things slow when slow suddenly feels like the worst possible idea.
He has Jon Snow beneath her, hard and willing and so infuriatingly sexy... Maybe this was a bad idea, maybe they should have stuck with the movie.
“I thought,” he murmurs against her lips, voice rougher than before, “you said you didn’t put out on the first date.”
She pulls back just enough to look at him, breath uneven, hair falling into her face. “I lied,” she tells him, though that’s a lie in itself. “I thought you were supposed to be terribly unsmooth.”
His mouth curves. “I lied,” he repeats, the words a hot murmur against her lips.
She laughs softly, the sound dissolving when his thumb traces absent patterns against her thigh.
Then he exhales, forehead falling briefly against hers.
“We should stop.”
The words hang between them, fragile and difficult.
She searches his face. He doesn’t look like he wants to stop. If anything, he looks like it’s costing him something.
But she told him she wouldn’t and he is respecting that. Somehow, that gets her even more aroused.
Eventually, she nods.
“Yeah,” she agrees, though her gaze falls down to his lap, where she can clearly see the shape of his hard cock.
She almost unintentionally licks her lips.
He follows her eyes.
“Tell me something gross,” he demands.
“What?” she says, still distracted.
She grabs her by the waist and, like she weighs nothing at all, he positions her on the couch next to him.
“Tell me something gross,” he repeats, lifting her chin with his fingers to get her to look him right in the eyes, instead of his lap.
“Oh.” She gets it now, though even if he is making sure she isn’t looking at it, she is still thinking about his cock. She bets it looks nice. Sansa’s never cared for the look of a man’s cock, they’re all kind of ugly, aren’t they? But she bets Jon’s would look glorious. “Um, my tattoo’s started, like, shedding? That’s kind of gross, I suppose.”
“Good,” he says, though he looks kind of pained and not very good himself. “That’s good. Means it’s healing correctly.”
“Yeah,” she agrees. “Still kind of gross, though. Every morning I find black specks of skin on my bed and all over my skin,” she says, motioning vaguely to her upper chest area.
“Fuck,” he says, throwing his head back on the couch and squeezing his eyes shut. “See, that was working but now I’m thinking about your tits so it defeats the purpose.”
“Sorry?” she says, almost asks, to be fair. She isn’t particularly sorry to say the truth. Still, she slides off the couch and lands unsteady on the floor. “I can leave?” she offers.
He stops her by the wrist, “And where do you plan on going?”
Oh. That voice, low and growly and unexpectedly hot. She has to rub her thighs together just to alleviate the fire growing inside of her.
“Kitchen?” It comes out sounding like a question. “There’s some… uh, leftover cake. We can eat it while we finish the movie?”
He turns to face the TV, where the movie is still sitting there, unplayed.
“Right,” she says, “We can eat it while we watch the movie from the beginning.”
He nods, letting her wrist go. “That sounds good.”
She almost misses the strong grip he had on her. But that’s ridiculous, if it were any other man, she would be already thinking of throwing him outside her apartment at the next red flag, but Jon? Mmh Jon. Jon grabbing her wrist and encompassing it fully in his hand is maybe the hottest thing to ever happen to her.
“I’ll get the cake,” she says, mostly because she needs a moment to breathe.
In the kitchen, she presses her palms against the counter and stares down at nothing, trying to calm the riot in her chest and the heat between her legs. Jon isn’t the only one who needs time to get himself together. She cuts two slices of leftover birthday cake and carefully places them on plates, willing her hands to stop shaking.
When she returns, Jon is leaning back into the corner of the couch, hair slightly mussed, lips still pink from kissing her.
He looks up when she walks in, his expression softening.
She hands him a plate and settles beside him, leaving just enough space between them to feel intentional.
They sit like that for a moment. Then Jon reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket, which ended up on the love seat next to the couch.
“I almost forgot,” he says, “Happy birthday.”
She is about to tell him that he has already wished her a happy birthday. Twice, in fact. Once via text this morning and the second time earlier that night when she found him standing by her front door.
But then, she notices that he’s holding a small envelope in his hands. It could be the smallest envelope she’s ever seen, she thinks, as Jon hands it to her.
“What is it?” she asks, even as her fingers slide beneath the flap.
Inside is a business card from the tattoo shop. The White Wolf’s logo stands proudly in the center, stark and familiar.
She turns it over. The back is all white but it isn’t blank.
Happy birthday, Sansa.
This voucher is valid for any tattoo of your choosing.
She smiles as she traces the words with the tip of her finger, recognizing his handwriting immediately from when he made her sign the forms before her tattoo session. It’s steady and clean and unmistakably Jon’s.
“We don’t really offer gift cards,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “So I had to improvise.”
Her chest tightens. He didn’t have to do this. He didn’t have to come tonight. He didn’t have to bring her anything at all.
“Thank you,” she says softly.
She throws her arms around his neck before she can overthink it, hugging him tightly. He freezes for half a second in surprise before his arms wrap around her in return, warm and secure. She presses her face into his shoulder, breathing him in.
“You didn’t have to,” Sansa says, once she’s sure her voice won’t betray how close she is to tearing up.
He shrugs, like it’s nothing. “I wasn’t going to buy you anything because I thought it was too soon. Though that probably would’ve been way worse,” he admits with a small huff of laughter. “But then you mentioned you were thinking of getting another tattoo, and I thought… why not?”
She smiles, softer this time.
He listened. It’s such a small thing, objectively. But he’d remembered. With her track record of exes, men who forgot birthdays entirely, who never quite paid attention unless it suited them, it feels monumental.
“Thank you, Jon,” she says, meeting his eyes. “Really. I love it.”
“Good,” he replies, a faint smirk tugging at his mouth. “I also thought it’d be an incentive for you not to change tattoo artists for your next one.”
She laughs, leaning back into the couch cushion. “There was no chance of that.”
“Oh?”
“I’m your customer for life,” she says lightly.
Maybe, in a not so distant future, she will be something else for life.