Sansa woke up in a sort of daze, not quite sure if she was still dreaming or not. She was surrounded by the warmth of her thick blanket that was perfectly snug around her body. But even half asleep she thought she heard her name was being whispered in her ear.

Her eyes slowly blinked but she was too tired to keep them open for long, and everything in her room was blurry. Or it might have just been because of her crusted over mascara, which was seriously gross. Sansa rolled onto her side and tried to will herself back to sleep before she woke up too much and stayed up. Her body stiffened with a yawn.

"Sansa...Sansa...Sansa."

There was that voice again...soft and gruff so she must have been still asleep. It was just a weird dream. It had to be a weird dream. But there was no darkness of a dream and she was she still heard that gruff voice whispering in her ear, seeming like he-because she knew it was a man's voice-was right next to her.

"Sansa...Sansa...Sansa."

It was like a prayer, being said over and over by a voice that was so familiar yet she couldn't place it in the fuzzy haze of confusion and comfort. Sansa. Sansa. Sa-

Sansa! Sansa! Sansa! The voice changed, harsh as a whip slapping it across her face. It was still a voice in her head calling her name, but not nearly as consoling. Insistently, it chanted her name, mocking her in a high, sneering voice. It was a high pitched, hostile voice, one all too familiar. Sansa. Sansa. Sansa! Sansa! SANSA!

"Shut up!" She screamed at nothing, flinging her pillow against the wall. She thought she would see Joffrey standing at the end of her bed, pointing an accusing finger at her and sneering, something he's been doing a lot lately. But all she saw was her desk and nothing else and that's when she realized she woke up.

She fell back into her pillow and felt her cheeks burn along with her eyes. Stop it. I cannot be weak. She couldn't believe she was about to cry, but she pushed it back and focused on her poster of the Stormcrows hidden in the corner. She had gotten it from Arya a few years back when the younger girl found out Sansa harbored a love for the alternative band.

It was just a dream, she told herself attempting to placate herself. Just a dream. It wasn't real. But she couldn't fall asleep and everything that just happened stuck with her. She still heard Joffrey's voice in the back of her head, a nasty, malicious thing.

..o..o..o..

Sansa's day was just getting worse by the minute.

It started off with her dazing off so long that she missed her alarm. When she tried to shower, the water shot out jets of boiling hot water that left her back bright red. She managed to dress herself accordingly in her only clean pair of comfortable jeans and a school sweater that used to belong to Robb. But when she tried to eat with the rest of her family, she burnt her toast, spilled orange juice all over the table, and banged her knee on the counter. Swearing quietly, she settled for yogurt only to have Shaggydog jump up and take a big slobbery lick out of her bowl. She gave up after that.

Now, the effects of not eating breakfast or sleeping were creeping up on her. Sitting in the middle of class with her teacher going on and on, her urge to leave the classroom steadily grew. I'm dying, she thought, laying her head on her arms, her stomach clenching with hunger. I'm dying and it's all my fault. It was impossible to pay attention to anything but the uncomfortable feeling eating at her, not with her eyeballs about to burst out of her skull.

A kid a few seats behind her was snoring into his arms, probably not caring if he might be drooling either. Envy bubbled in her aching stomach. She was too self conscious to be that open like that around her peers. And she's never fallen asleep in class before so she didn't want to start doing it today. But the need to sleep was nagging at her, her eyes drooping and her head sagging into her arms.

And she knew that if she did go to sleep right now, her teacher would actually notice something going amiss in her class and Sansa would get detention but not the other kid.

She sat it out, staring bleakly at the teacher but completely out of her body. She wouldn't have noticed if a storm tore the building to shreds at that moment. When the bell rang she didn't notice, and so the sleeping kid, a kid with dyed, dark blue hair and a few piercings in his ear, shook her shoulder and called her name.

"Sansa."

She jumped a little and tried to cover it up by stretching, but still felt like that didn't do anything but make her look stupid. Her muscles still ached either way. She was becoming uncomfortable in her own skin. She gave the blue haired kid...something like Mario but not that...Maario Harris-

(Something like that. Whatever.)

-she gave him a polite smile and grabbed her things. "Thanks." She stood and felt his stare as she walked out the room, turning right to the staircase.

She was losing it, probably. People were noticing. She could see the stares and hear the hushed whispers behind her as she walked up the stairs. Everywhere she went she was uneasy. Now she was losing herself in her own body, in her own head.

It all seemed to be down to one reason and one reason alone: Joffrey.

He's been a real prick lately, as Arya would put it. But that doesn't even cover it. He's been nasty to her for days. Calling her names like useless and stupid. All Thursday and Friday he glared at her and claimed that everything she said was idiotic. He stepped on her feet on purpose, but yelled at her and said she was in his way. He laughed at her when she was in pain. He made her feel like complete garbage.

When the weekend came she tried to text him. She hoped that he was only acting that way in front of his friends. But he replied to her sweet text with scorn, saying that he had better things to do than see her. All weekend she was confused because she didn't know if that was his way of breaking up with her or not. She worried herself sick and she didn't know why.

Why waste time crying over a boy like that? Arya would say she was stupid. And Robb would most likely threaten to kick the Baratheon's ass and Jon would just give her some bullshit line and avoid her, and Bran would run over Joffrey's toes. At least she knew some of her family could back her up.

She might as well go home and try to go to sleep. She was completely useless school nurses will understand and let her leave due to exhaustion.

If not she would just leave during lunch.

Luckily, she didn't have to bullshit her way out of school. The old school nurse, Ms. Mordane, said she looked awful and just rambled on about how she was such a poor thing for getting her health so bad. Sansa was only half listening to the frantic old woman as she wrote the details down of why she was leaving. The old nurse gave her a pat on the back as she left.

Sansa just wanted to be alone.

..o..o..o..

Bran noticed that Jojen was just sitting there staring at him, with his arms wrapped around his knees. His mossy green eyes looking fondly at him. Jojen's book was left next to him, faced down and untouched for several minutes.

Bran's eyebrow quirked up. "What?"

The kind of dazed look didn't leave Jojen's eyes and he was trying not to smile. "Nothing...I'm just appreciating you."

A small bit of heat warmed his neck and maybe his cheeks but it was hardly noticeable. His head tilted to the left, his lips pressed together in a pleased smile. "Continue then." He returned to reading, but not long after he started to smile, losing focus on the words, because all he could think of was Jojen's words.

Appreciating me, huh? Alright, go ahead. Bran would appreciate being appreciated.

Of course that meant Jojen would be staring at him. Gods, did he know what that did to him? He could feel those green eyes boring deep into him, not needing to memorize Bran's features since he was already so familiar with them. Bran's mouth went dry. Like hell would he be able to do any work while receiving a look like that.

He put his pencil in his book in lieu of a bookmark and closed it. He set it on top of his bag and turned his body to look at Jojen. He reached for Jojen's hands. "Come here."

Jojen scooted closer and now the air around Bran was filled with the scent of his boyfriend. He closed his eyes and just basked in it. Hmm…

He heard Jojen shifting and then there was the unmistakable feel of lips on his. He pressed against Jojen's lips, the feeling of bliss only growing. Gods, kissing Jojen...it felt like everything was coming back together and actually making sense again. His nerves were warming up, his body leaning closer to Jojen, craving to be closer.

Jojen's fingers were tangling in his hair, drowning in the softness. Jojen's other hand was at Bran's neck, his thumb was stroking his jaw. Jojen kissed him deeper, his lips parting and his teeth gently biting at Bran's bottom lip.

Bran felt his stomach clench in a good way. His breathing hitched as he welcomed Jojen's tongue into his mouth. Jojen took lead in the kiss this time and Bran liked it. His tongue swirled around his and licked at the roof of his mouth. He sucked on Bran's bottom lip, biting it as he pulled away.

He liked teeth. The harsh bites felt good. Along with the occasional hair pulling from Jojen.

"Ahh," that was his first moan. A beginning to the end. It was likely that Jojen was going to get a ton more out of him by how things were going.

Jojen moved his hands to Bran's waist now, pressing his body closer to him. Bran wrapped his arms around his shoulders and dragged him down with him. His mouth opened in another soft grunt as their bodies were even closer now. He loved feeling the heat come off Jojen's body and warm him up and how his lips felt on his neck. There were places Jojen kissed that left him breathing harder and letting out breathless whimpers.

"Mm," Jojen moaned softly into Bran's neck. Bran always liked hearing Jojen make sounds like that. Bran thought he sounded really fucking hot like that.

But that was as far as it went.

Bran wanted to get Jojen out of his green sweater and everything else, taste the sweat on his skin and feel Jojen's bare skin with his own hands for real. But they were in the bookstore, laying on the ground between the graphic novels and manga, and they probably shouldn't be making out there in the first place let alone fool around.

That didn't stop Jojen from pulling down a section in Bran's shirt and sucking a red mark into his collarbone before pulling away completely.

They both looked disheveled as they parted, but Bran was smiling it off. Jojen was hovering over him with a smug smile on his face, looking devilishly handsome like that. "I think we might need a better spot to do this."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious." Jojen teased, glancing behind his shoulder as a middle aged woman passed their row, giving them both disapproving looks.

Bran playfully hit Jojen's thigh and laughed. "Shut up."

Jojen explained that the Bookstore-seeing that it was really named that, Bran kind of hated the place-was really only open when if there was someone to work it. So now that someone was here regularly they didn't get to be alone as much. Bran was starting to think it was time to go to each others houses-but, no, definitely not his.

Nope. Nope. Nope. His mother could not find about this in any way. Not until they had time to be together alone. It wasn't like Jojen didn't know all sorts of horrendous things about his family, but Bran didn't know how his mother would take finding out he was dating a boy. He wasn't ready to come out to his mother yet.

He knew Sansa and Arya knew about them. They knew about them before even he did. And everyone of their friends sort of knew too. They didn't shout it from the rooftops but it was the way they looked at each other and how Bran was so easy to smile at the blond, ignoring everyone else. They were practically inseparable.

Gendry and Jojen instantly got along, but, like Bran, didn't really talk to Hot Pie and Lommy. It wasn't that he didn't like them really, it was just that Lommy was really annoying and Hot Pie was just too fucking awkward. They were more Arya's friends than theirs anyway. They didn't seem to care either. Lommy just mumbled, "I knew it," to Hot Pie and Hot Pie just shrugged and that was that.

But of course there were those douche bags that had shit to say. Like a certain Joffrey Baratheon and his loser friends, Boros and Meryn. It was Friday, when they came down for lunch, when the first time the word "fag" was heard sneered across the table.

Bran had felt his stomach drop because he knew it was only a matter of time for shit to gradually hit the fan. The conversations dropped and uneasy glances were shared. At the corner of his eye, Bran saw Jojen's jaw clench. He was glaring at Joffrey, too. He hated that swarmy little jerk. Ever since he came around in Sansa's life Bran knew he was the worst possible thing on the planet. Joffrey never had anything good to say and he never did anything good. He was the type of person that would never change, living to be rotten and no one would do anything about it.

"You want to say that again?" Jojen asked, startling probably everyone at the table, including Joffrey, by speaking up.

Bran had turned to look at Jojen in awe and saw that he was giving Joffrey a look no one should be on the receiving end of. It was like his eyes had turned to green ice. But Bran didn't care that Joffrey was under that unnerving stare; it actually made him proud to be Jojen's boyfriend.

Joffrey sat up, parting his lips and scoffing like this whole thing wasn't worth his time. "You guys are fags, right?"

"And what the hell does it have to do with you?" Jojen's voice was cold steel.

"Nothing! I wouldn't want anything to do with something so disgusting." Joffrey sneered, his voice reaching a new level of nastiness.

Gods, Bran fucking hated him. He wanted to shove the table into him and watch him land on his face. He hoped he would fall into a pencil and bleed out, choking on his own blood.

"Joffrey, shut the fuck up!" Arya snapped, fixing a hard Stark glare at the blond. Bran was immensely glad to have a sister like her.

Now Joffrey's attention was at Arya. He glanced at his two constant companions before he looked at her and said, "You should hold your tongue, you wouldn't want to get cut out of your head, would you?"

"I'll have you bleeding out your neck before your dumbass guards can touch me," Arya threatened, holding the plastic fork in her hand harder. She was tense like she was about to jump and stab him for real.

Jojen gently touched Arya's arm. "Thank you, Arya, but don't fight our battles for us." He never stopped glaring at Joffrey. "You can call us fags and queers all you want, but I swear if I see you looking at my ass one more time I might start thinking you're just like us."

Bran had to look away before he started laughing. Leave it to Jojen to say something like that. Joffrey looked so offended by being called gay and under all his amusement of his boyfriend's tactics, he felt so angry.

Joffrey sputtered, red with anger. "That's a lie! I would never-"

"But you have! I've seen it with my own two eyes. And Bran can attest that I see everything." Jojen winked at him. "And I totally saw you ogling my ass the other day. And I see through your act. You're just afraid that your friends here won't accept you for being who you really are. A flaming homosexual. But Joffrey," he reached out as if about to grab his hand. "It's okay to leave the closet...we all do one day."

Joffrey's red face reddened even more. Bran wasn't sure if what Jojen had said was true, but it shut Joffrey up. He stalked off with his loser friends, grumbling words like degenerates and sword swallowers.

Bran laughed at that now but at the time he was uber pissed. "Jojen, I have to ask, but does Joffrey really look at your butt?"

The blond boy smirked. "Oh yeah, I wasn't lying about that. Little twat stares at my ass all through gym. But I understand, my ass does look good in sweatpants."

Bran's nose wrinkled when he made an annoyed face. "I don't like that. Your butt is only for my eyes." My eyes, my hands, anything else I want to touch it with. Mine.

Jojen grabbed his face and pulled him into a hot kiss, not seeming to care that both Bran's sisters and their friends were watching. "Don't worry, my ass is yours to do as you please," he whispered against his lips.

Bran laughed, turning pink at his cheeks from both embarrassment and Jojen's words. "Don't tempt me."

"But what if I want to." Jojen smirked, leaning in to kiss him again.

And now Bran felt hot again, like remembering Jojen's words struck a match and lit a fire inside him. He pulled the blond back down and kissed him. His lips parted and his tongue came to lick Jojen's bottom lip. Their tongues brushed against each other, and Bran heard a pathetic whimper come out of him. He tangled his fingers in Jojen's hair while his other hand went down to rest on Jojen's firm butt. He was waiting to do that all day.

But because the world hates him and likes to see him suffer-

"Ahem!"

Reluctantly they parted, giving each other mutual looks of oh my gods I hate everyone why can't people just let us make out in peace and turned to look at Daario Naharis a.k.a. the biggest cock block of the year, who was standing there and giving them both disapproving looks.

What's with the disapproving looks today? Damn...

"Hey...are you guys just going to sit here and make out or...I don't know, do some work around here?" He nodded in the direction of the cart stacked with books that needed to be reshelved.

"It's my day off," Jojen said.

Daario snorted and leaned against the shelf. "So you want to spend your day off, at work, making out with your boyfriend. Where you have little to no privacy here and I have perfect view of you two on the cameras."

Bran's eyes widened. He glared at Jojen. Why didn't he tell him that Daario could see them? He worked here too, he knew where the cameras were and weren't. Bran wasn't mad, just extremely embarrassed. Not only did Jojen have to see how horribly awkward he was but Daario and whoever the fuck else too. He wasn't mature enough for all that.

Jojen sighed, looking up at the camera that was pointed at them in the corner. "Good point. Did you enjoy the show?"

The blue haired teen rolled his eyes and flipped him off. "No, jackass. Hey, are you working tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Jojen answered, looking a bit suspicious. "Why?"

Daario smirked and raised his hands in mock surrender. "Nothing weird, I swear. But...I got that date." Although his typical bad boy smirk was in place, his cheeks were a bit pink and his eyes were filled with satisfying happiness.

Jojen's face lit up with a smile and Bran smiled at him because Jojen had no idea how charming he looked just then. "Dany said yes? Man, that's great!"

Daario looked smug, but Bran could see that the tips of his ears were pink. "After two years she finally said yes. I mean, I get it, especially after what happened between her and Drogo." His smug expression was replaced with downcast eyes.

Jojen nodded in understanding but Bran was totally confused. He only knew Daario because he worked with Jojen and he sometimes saw his blue hair in the halls, but that was it. He had no clue who Dany and Drogo were.

"Well, you know you can't bring her here. This is our spot to make out." Jojen put his arm around Bran, grinning like an idiot.

"Tch, dude, I know that. And I don't want you-know-who to get any ideas..." he gave the door at the back of the store a dirty look.

Jojen nodded. "Right."

Bran was confused on so many levels but Jojen gave him this we'll talk later look so he just stayed quiet and invisible.

"Anyway, we're leaving. No more free shows for you today." Jojen smirked.

"Whatever, man. I'll see you tomorrow. Bye Bran."

"Bye," he mumbled awkwardly and watched as Daario walked away, back to his post behind the counter.

Jojen helped him get into his chair, which he really hated. He didn't like how useless he felt all the time, unable to do practically anything for himself. Not being able to tie his own shoe or reach for a cup in the cupboard. It sometimes made him feel sick just thinking about it. But he never complained out loud. Who would want to hear that? Jojen would get sick of hearing him bitching and it wasn't like they could do anything about it. He didn't want to push Jojen away over something like that. He never heard Jojen complain but that didn't mean the blond probably didn't think about it too.

And now the usual feeling of doubt crept in. It always happened like this. And it always made him feel like a horrible person. He knew he shouldn't think that Jojen would resent him for being a cripple but sometimes he couldn't help but wonder if Jojen wished Bran was normal. He knew he did all the time. He just hated having to make Jojen be restricted from doing normal couple things with him because he was the way he was.

Suddenly Jojen was kneeling in front of him, giving him a concerned look. "You're doing it again, Bran."

Bran frowned. "Doing what?"

Jojen poked him in the middle of his forehead. "Thinking about your disability. Stop it."

"How did you know that?"

"Don't you know by now, Bran? I know everything."

"Bullshit. You don't know everything."

"Try me."

"Jon's favorite color?"

"Blue and silver. Come on, you can do better than that."

"When will it rain next?"

"In two days, at noon."

Bran raised a skeptical eyebrow. "I'm holding you to that."

Jojen smiled but didn't respond to that. He gently kissed Bran's forehead, where it wrinkled from his frowning. "I love you, Bran. It doesn't matter to me that you're in a wheelchair, it really doesn't. Do you really think that something like that would ever make me love you any less?"

Bran couldn't stop the grin that spread across his face. He loved hearing Jojen say he loved him; it made his Inner Girl squirm with delight. He leaned forward to give him a quick kiss. "If you say so."

"I do. Now," Jojen turned the engine on. "Where to?"

"Hmm…" Bran pretended to think about it but he really knew where he wanted to go this whole time. "hows your place sound?"