Written for Day 4 of Jon x Sansa Fanfiction's 15 Days of Valentine's challenge.
"Margaery Tyrell, do you even know what the phrase 'Buzz Off' means?"
Sansa's best friend rolled her eyes. "Please, Sansa. I left middle school a long time ago. I believe the phrase 'Fuck Off' is more appropriate in this case, and before you ask, no, I won't. You should know by now that fucking off your case is strictly against my personal moral code." Sansa's mouth opened, but Margaery raised her hand palm upward. "You're going on the damn date. End of discussion."
Sansa sighed. "'Talk to the hand,' Marg? Are you that sure you ever left middle school?"
The other girl merely lowered four of the fingers of her raised hand so that only one was left raised in her friend's direction.
Sansa rolled her eyes. "'Talk to the finger.' Even more appropriate."
Margaery grinned. "Actually, it's perfectly appropriate in this case, since it's been a bloody year and you still refuse to get over the biggest douchebag on the planet." She cut off her friend's reply with a wag of her finger, which was still turned firmly upright.
"Not that I and this entire bloody floor haven't told you a billion times already," she continued, "but Joffrey fucking Baratheon does not deserve your fucking moping. And not that Mya and Jeyne and I haven't told you a trillion times already, since you and your brilliant brain haven't noticed, almost any bloody guy on this campus is better than he is. And there are a few of them that might even actually deserve a shot with you."
Sansa raised both eyebrows. "Finished?" she finally asked. Margaery rolled her eyes again and showed every indication of continuing her rant, but this time it was Sansa who cut the other girl off.
"Like I told you and Myranda and Jeyne and everybody else," she returned, "I'm busy studying, which is actually what I came to university to do – "
"Oh, gods." Margaery threw both hands into the air. "As if we don't all know you've had straight As whether or not you've been dating Joffrey or anybody else, Sansa." She plopped herself onto the corduroy fuchsia couch she'd contributed to the tiny sitting area of the quadruple dormitory room shared by herself, Sansa, and their best friends Mya Stone and Jeyne Poole. "And if you could get As while putting up with his – " she twirled one hand through the air – "especially disgusting forms of misbehavior, gods know you can get them when you're actually dating a decent guy." She sighed again with a depth that earned her another glare from Sansa. "Again, not that you've been willing to try even one date with any of the more than decent guys I've tried getting you to consider."
Sansa set down her East Asian art class textbook on the end table next to the couch's matching fuchsia chair, which she was currently occupying. "And believe it or not," she said, her voice softening, "I do occasionally appreciate your insane attempts to restrict my future boyfriends to the 'decent' category." She held her fingers up in the shapes of quotation marks to emphasize her last two words. "Although I would have appreciated them more if you'd waited longer than two months after the last one – " to this day, she refused to say the actual name of the boy who, when she'd finally confronted him with irrefutable evidence of his cheating, had laughed in her face for taking so long to catch him at it – "to make them."
Margaery had the grace to look a tiny bit abashed, which Sansa knew was the most she could hope for.
"But," she continued, "may I remind you that I have in fact been on a few dates since then – "
The other girl waved her hand. "Oh, please, Sansa," she said. "They weren't picked or approved by me."
"Oh, gods." Sansa rolled her eyes again. "They were perfectly good possibilities to begin with."
"And mine weren't?"
Sansa shot her a dirty look. "Your suggestions are not my type, Marg. They consist overwhelmingly of hipsters and gamers."
Margaery glared at her. "If you'd be willing to try even one guy that's not quite your type, Sansa, you might be pleasantly surprised for once. Maybe you'd even find another 'type' that suits you better than you think." She sighed. "Anyway, you'll be happy to know that the guy I picked for you this time is, in fact, your type."
Sansa shot her a suspicious look. Margaery raised an eyebrow and brought one hand up to tick off the fingers of the other.
"He's tall, blonde, handsome, and an art student," she said. "I mean it. You might actually like this one. Besides, you'll be with twenty other people, so if you don't like him, you can always try checking out one of the other girls' dates." She winked.
"Oh, gods, Margaery." Sansa stood up and headed for the bedroom. "I am not having this conversation any more."
Margaery only shrugged. "They're all blind dates, Sansa. It's not like you're stealing anyone's boyfriend or anything." She bit her lip. "Sorry, bad choice of words. But you know what I mean." Her face brightened back into the mischievous grin she'd produced when she'd first announced that she had obtained Sansa a partner for Red Keep Hall's annual Valentine's Day group date, in which the roommates and friends of those residents who happened to be single at the time paired them up with equally single men (or women, as the case might be) for a group date and game night at the local Bear and Maiden pub.
"Wear something nice, roomie!" she chirped. Sansa stuck out her tongue and closed the door.
The following night, Sansa shook the hand of Harry Hardyng, a junior transfer student from South Vale College. He was indeed a tall, blond, and gorgeous art student, and when he presented Sansa with half a dozen yellow roses before helping her into her coat, she thought he might have second-date potential. She could, of course, put on her own coat, but Joffrey had never offered to help her even once, nor had he bothered to pay attention to the fact that yellow was her favorite color, or the fact that she disliked red roses. When everybody gathered in the dormitory's parking lot to carpool to the pub, Harry gallantly opened his car door for her, and she rewarded him with a bright smile.
Once the group got to the pub, Sansa and Harry found themselves sitting next to Mya, Sansa's roommate, and her blind date, a computer science student by the name of Jon Snow. Margaery had set up Mya and Jon as well as Sansa and Harry, and Sansa had thought it a bit of an odd pairing; Mya was a cheerleader who tended to date jocks, and Jon Snow had a reputation for loving all things hipster and wanting nothing to do with most sports. Mya, however, initially seemed fascinated by Jon. She asked question after question about his senior project, which revolved around designing something called glitch art, and eventually persuaded Jon, who had barely spoken a word during their introductions in the parking lot, to bring up pictures of his favorite pieces of glitch art on his phone. Sansa was fascinated by the manipulation of computers' error message screens into neon mosaics. Harry, however, was not. He began an argument with Jon over the superiority of classic artists such as Rembrandt and Van Gogh, and he kept on turning to Sansa and saying that of course she must agree with him. Sansa normally preferred classic art herself, but at the moment she preferred snapping at Harry for his boorishness, especially since he had not yet even gotten through one beer. She held her tongue long enough to redirect the conversation by politely asking Harry what his drink of choice normally was. Harry spent the next five minutes elaborating on the virtues of IPAs and questioning why anyone in the world would prefer stouts or porters. Mya, in the middle of sipping her own glass of coffee stout, began arguing with him, and only when Jon interrupted them with a dry joke about hops and rabbits did they subside.
After that, Mya seemed to lose interest in Jon. She wandered over to join her friends at the next table, and Jon, who seemed as supremely unruffled as he was supremely interesting for such a computer game-loving hipster, tried to smooth things over by redirecting the conversation multiple times by asking Sansa about her opinions on Hornwood House, the new microbrewery that had just opened on Winterfell Avenue (Harry cut her off by declaring his preference for Bolton's Sports Bar), martial arts (which Harry proclaimed were not truly arts), and, of all things, Philip K. Dick (Harry thought he must have been on LSD when he wrote his works). By the time the servers brought everybody's dinner to their table, Sansa, who had lost her appetite entirely, could not decide which of her desires was stronger at the moment: the urge to smack Harry with his yellow roses and throw them in his face to boot, or the urge to excuse herself to the bathroom and send obscene text messages to Margaery for setting up this whole miserable affair to begin with. She decided instead to feign a headache and hint that she would like to go home early. Harry sighed and asked if she couldn't gut it out if he gave her some aspirin. Jon's jaw tightened.
"I'll take her home," he said sharply. It was the most perturbed Sansa had seen him that night. Then he turned to Sansa. "That is – if you're all right with it, Sansa."
Sansa nodded, stood up, and grabbed her purse. Harry stood too and made his way over next to her, where he leaned his face to within an inch of hers. Sansa stepped back at once.
"I'm not going to kiss you good night, if that's what you want," she informed him.
"Not even for six bloody roses – " Harry began. Jon suddenly appeared at Sansa's side and stepped between her and Harry.
"She said no, Hardyng," he snapped, and turned to hand Sansa her coat, which she had left draped over her chair. He did not help her put it on, as Harry had earlier, but she was far past caring about a little thing like that now. She stalked over to the doorway and donned it herself while Jon informed Mya, who had happily joined some of the others at a game of pool in the next room, that they were leaving.
"Thanks," she said once they were on their way back to campus. "You didn't have to do that."
Jon shook his head. "Least I could do," he said, "to make up for your friends getting you such a lousy date."
Sansa shrugged. "I've been stupid enough to date worse of my own accord," she said. They drove the rest of the way in silence, but Sansa found it comforting rather than awkward.
"Oh, and for the record," she said as Jon opened her door in front of Red Keep Hall, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is my favorite Dick story. I don't care if he was on LSD when he wrote it. It's good literature." She paused. "And I haven't been to Hornwood House, but I think I'll go some time."
Jon smiled. Sansa thought his face might be a shade redder than it had been in the pub, but in the dark she could not tell.
"Good night, Sansa," he said when they reached the dormitory's front door. He turned and walked away before she could reply.
Sansa's phone buzzed before she got back to her room. Thanks, girl, said the blue message balloon on her screen. I owe you one.
For what? Sansa had barely typed when she saw three blinking dots, then another bubble.
Ouch, the words in it read. Shit. Sorry about that. I didn't realize he'd be such a douche. Sansa didn't deserve that.
Sansa was still staring mystified at the screen when yet another balloon popped up.
Glad to hear it. Sounds like he's even more perfect than you said. If I weren't dating Tommen, I'd have snapped him up for myself.
Thirty seconds later, Sansa stalked into her dorm room. She picked up the flowered throw pillow sitting on the living room chair, stalked into the bedroom she shared with Margaery, and threw the pillow at the back of the other girl's head.
"Gods almighty!" Margaery whipped around from where she had been sitting at her desk. "What the hell, Sansa?"
Sansa set her phone down on the other girl's desk with a bit more force than was necessary. Margaery stared at the screen for a few seconds before flushing scarlet.
"Oops," she finally said.
"'Oops'? That's it? After all of that shit you just pulled? Mother, Maiden, and fucking Crone, Marg!"
Margaery had the grace to look ashamed. "Sansa, honestly, I didn't know he'd be such an ass. But gods, I just wanted you to have fun with a great guy, and you said Jon wasn't your type, and Mya figured it wouldn't look as suspicious if she went with him instead, so…" She shrugged. "Sorry he was such a douche. Hardyng, I mean. Not Jon."
Sansa shot her a dirty look. "I'll consider accepting your apology," she said. "After you've ordered pizza for me, that is. You owe me more than one, Tyrell."
Margaery beamed at her, the scheming spark back in her eyes. "Done."
Thirty minutes later, as she bit blissfully into a slice of pepperoni-and-mushroom-flavored heaven, Sansa decided that perhaps considering her type of guy was just as fair as considering Margaery's apology.
The next afternoon, when Jon Snow called to let her know he'd retrieved her yellow roses from Harry Hardyng's car and could give them back to her at either her dorm room or Hornwood House, whichever she would prefer, Sansa decided that considering wasn't enough.
"I don't want to see anything Hardyng gave me ever again," she said, "so you can do what you want with the flowers. But I'd love to go to Hornwood House any time you want."
And she did.