The briefing Tyrion was meant to attend that morning was a might bigger than he'd expected. He'd expected it to be some type of family matter. He'd listen to his father rattle off demands and plans, snipe some painful truths at Cersei and be back to Sansa in no time. He realized he was wrong when he arrived and saw the Small Counsel, or what was left of it after the flight of Renly Baratheon and his subsequent death and departure of Lord Baelish for the Vale and his marriage to Lysa Arryn. He hadn't thought about it before, but technically that made Littlefinger his uncle by marriage. He shuddered at the thought. Tyrion sat at the head of the table between Varys and Grand Maester Pycelle, opposite his father, with Cersei to his right. Joffrey paced around the table like an excited child. Something about the whole matter had an air of foreboding to Tyrion, perhaps it was the frown Varys wore that seemed to betray a sense of pity for him, but he didn't want to let his mind travel to it's more dire suggestions. Instead, he'd just wait.
When the Grand Maester thrust the scroll to Tyrion, he didn't want to read it. He didn't want to know. "Roslin caught a fat trout. Her brothers gave her two wolf pelts for the wedding," he read to himself, then checked the seal. The twins meant Walder Frey, that much he knew. Roslin Frey had been intended to marry Robb Stark, when last he'd heard, but trouts were Tullys. Perhaps another match had been made to one of Lady Catelyn's brothers. Bully for them, he supposed but what does that have to do with wol-
Before Tyrion could work himself through the whole cryptic mess, Joffrey was rounding on him, nearly shaking with a sick sense of glee. "Have them send me Robb Stark's head. I'll serve your bitch wife her traitor brother's head on a platter. I'll make her kiss her mother's head goodnight. I'll-"
"No," Tyrion said low, through gritted teeth. He'd talk to Varys later since he clearly had more details and he knew he had to be the one to tell Sansa.
Joffrey's eyes widened, pleased with the dissent. "No?" A no to Joffrey gave him all the more fuel for his fire. A no meant a fight. A no meant a challenge. People were so much more fun to get a rise out of when they thought they had a chance.
Blood pulsing in his ears, he chanced a look to his father who seemed rather nonplussed by the whole thing. "No. You'll leave her be," he warned, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair. "She is no longer yours to torment."
"Everyone is mine to torment," the monarch reminded, leaning across a visibly disturbed Varys to spit his insults in Tyrion's face. "You'd do well to remember that, you little monster."
Managing his rage well, he allowed merely a wicked grin to cross his face. "Monster, am I? One might choose to speak more carefully to monsters, especially the ones that are succinctly real at a time when Kings are dropping like flies..." The meeting spiraled into a flurry of insults and threats, climaxing in the King being ejected from the meeting by the Hand. When all was said and done, Tywin held his son back to unleash some more threats and hurt on him, all the while making it very clear to Tyrion that he should have stayed in bed. When he was finally dismissed, Varys was waiting outside for him. He gave Tyrion as many details as he could stomach, walking him back to his quarters. He thanked him for his time and entered their chambers quietly.
Tyrion scanned the dimly lit room for his wife, finding her staring out the opened window, bathed in the waning sunlight. She looked almost serene and he longed to grant her more time. He hesitated to steel himself. Tyrion found himself lost for words. He called out to her. Sansa turned to him, eyes bloodshot tears streaming down her expressionless face, and jaw set into a firm frown. He stammered for a moment, unsure where to begin when she clearly already knew. She returned her gaze to the outside and ignored his intermittent questions. The day wore on to night. When Sansa readied for bed, she didn't call for him to join her. He stayed on the settee. He was a Lannister, after all. The message of the wedding was carried with "The Lannisters send their regards." He prayed that night again that Sansa would find relief and peace and that the victims of the wedding would find comfort in death, away from the cruelty of this world. He lay awake the majority of the night, watching Sansa's broken, fitful sleep. He longed to go to her but knew that he couldn't help her. Not now. She'd come to him when she was ready.
The following morning, Tyrion dismissed her handmaidens when they arrived. He didn't want anyone to force her to rise when she'd only finally gone to sleep just before the sunrise and if she didn't wish to leave the bed at all today, he didn't blame her. The girls nodded, unsure of what to do with their day. He promised that, if she wished to rise at any point, that he'd notify them, but otherwise, he insisted that they take the day, enjoy, and keep Sansa in their thoughts and prayers. Tyrion grabbed a book and sat on the step of the bed's platform, not willing to be any further away than that.
When she awoke that afternoon, the first thing Sansa saw was Tyrion, reading with his back to the bed. She rolled over. She didn't want to look at him. Surely, he had no part of it, but that didn't change the fact that he was one of them. He was her husband and he was one of them. She began to cry again as the realization dawned. She was Lady Lannister. The Kingsguard who had told her the whole story in vivid detail reminded her enough. She'd kept up her strong front as he regaled in the story of her goodsister's pregnancy, how the baby was cut from her belly, how her brother wept, her mother's screams as Robb was killed until her throat was slashed. He went on from there, detailing the desecration of their bodies afterward. When he'd finished, she stated plainly, "As you said, I am Lady Lannister. I have no family but my husband. The traitor Robb and all those who support him got what they deserved." Her stomach tensed as she spoke. She couldn't believe how readily she'd slipped back into the oft-practiced lies of protection. When the man left, she turned back to Margaery who wordlessly offered a hug. Sansa shook her head, grasping the girl's outstretched arms with icy fingers and turned away, heading back for the keep, hands folded and expression unchanging. She couldn't cry. Not here. Not when someone could see. As soon as she'd reached the door, she noticed her hand shaking as she turned the knob. Finding the chambers empty, she took a few steps inside and collapsed, legs giving way under the weight of her grief. She wept openly and loudly, sure that someone would hear and make her pay for her emotional outburst. When she finally managed to get up from the floor, she paced the room like a ghost, unsure of what to do. She focused on the water outside the window, it's rhythmic pace calming her, and stared. She didn't know how much time had passed before Tyrion returned, but by the expression on his face when he did, she knew he knew. At least she wouldn't have to tell him. Perhaps, she thought, she had been too harsh in closing him out, but this was her grief and hers alone.
As the days passed, Sansa had scarcely eaten or drunk anything and had spoken even less. Tyrion grew terrified of the girl wasting away before him. On the third day, he managed to coax her out onto the terrace, having had her ladies' maids bring as much variety as they could wrangle together. The handmaid Sansa was closest to even somehow found an entire plate of lemon cakes. They sat at the small table in relative silence as he tried suggesting everything he could. Before long, he found himself pleading. "Sansa, please eat something," he slid his hand over hers and eased, finding that she didn't pull away. "I swore to protect you. At least let me help you."
Sansa shook her head. "How? How can you help me?"
"I don't know, but I can try," Tyrion said shakily, observing her carefully. She was talking. She was still there.
"You can try," Sansa said flatly. "You can try," she repeated, the words feeling empty. "Tell me, how do you suggest that you would try to help me forget that they sewed the head of his direwolf to my brother's body?" She didn't look at him, but she could tell that he hadn't expected her to know that. "How they stabbed his pregnant wife in front of him so that he could watch them both fall from his grasp? Or that they slit my mother's throat to the bone and threw her naked body in the river to make a mockery of the burial rites of the Riverlands?" Her voice broke into a low sob. "How do you suppose I forget that?" She couldn't continue.
Tyrion shook his head, sliding forward in his chair to clasp her hand more tightly between his. "I would never suggest that you could forget. What I am suggesting is only that you carry on," he said. Sansa looked at him, finally, tears streaming down her face. "Your mother was a strong woman, Sansa. She would want you to fight. How can I..." Her expression grew cold and she stood to leave. She could see how badly he wanted to help, but she just couldn't. She couldn't handle hearing a Lannister speak so fondly of her mother. She crossed into their rooms and moved to the bed. "Would you like me to stay with you?" Tyrion asked from the doorway.
Sliding the curtains shut, she simply murmured, "No, thank you, My Lord."
Feeling as though the wind had been knocked out of him, Tyrion covered his face in his hands. She was hurting so thoroughly and he could do nothing to stave it off. He could do nothing to comfort her. He felt utterly and completely useless.
When Sansa awoke the following morning, the room was empty. She should have expected as much, since she'd been so awful to Tyrion the night prior. She sat at the table, where some bread, cured meats, hard cheese, fruits, and wine had been left for her, with a note that simply said "Please eat something" in Tyrion's neat script. Her heart broke all over. He was trying so hard to help. It was the least she could do, she supposed, to try to accept it. She took a bite from a dried apricot and chewed it carefully before acknowledging that she was, indeed, famished and continued to pick at the tray.
Some time later, a knock came to the door and a delivery boy entered carrying a bowl overflowing with the tiniest dark blue flowers and Sansa found herself glad that she'd cried so much over the last few days because she thought, perhaps, the boy might laugh if she were to cry over flowers. He complimented her taste, noting that his shop was the only one in all of King's Landing that carried the more rare northern blooms and that her husband must truly love her to have spent so much time seeking out something as specific as Honeywort. She gave a weak smile and nodded. He certainly does, she admitted to herself only, even if he's never told me so. She saw a small piece of stiff paper inside and picked it out of the plant, reading the words, again in Tyrion's hand. "Thriving through adversity." She pressed the paper to her heart, resolving not to shut him out anymore.
When Sansa had eaten her fill, she sat down on the settee and worked through what she wanted to say to Tyrion when he returned. She could tell him how she'd hoped that, maybe, Robb could still win and they'd be able to escape King's Landing together. Or how she was glad she heard it all from a stranger and not Tyrion because she wouldn't be forced to try to divorce the man she cared about from the man who told her of her family's deaths. Or how she felt foolish for still holding on to hope that perhaps Arya was alive, that she wasn't completely without her blood, the lone wolf.
Instead, as Tyrion came in and sat beside her, all she could manage was a weak, "I miss my mother," before giving in to the sobs once more. She leaned against him and repeated it over and over as Tyrion pulled her close, his strong arms cradling her. He didn't know if it was helping, but she was letting him try. He petted her hair and rubbed her back as she wept uncontrollably.
Eventually, the couple made their way to bed and Sansa spoke at length about her family. She had told him that she didn't want to make him uncomfortable and he insisted that nothing would make him more comfortable than to hear her speak and remember her loved ones. She didn't want to eulogize. She didn't want to mourn. She didn't want to grieve, but when Tyrion phrased it as remember, she knew she could do that. She told him everything she could remember, everything from how her love of citrus came from her mother's attempts at bringing the south to Winterfell to how she'd used to seek out her father for comfort when Arya annoyed her because she'd always been a little jealous of how he'd been able to get through to her when she couldn't and their fights seemed to end quicker, as if by magic, even though it had really been her father's meddling between them to fix it. She talked and talked until she couldn't think of anything else as sleep claimed her. Tyrion stayed awake, watching her sleep soundly for who knows how long, waiting for her to wake up in a fit as she had those nights prior, but she didn't. She slept calmly and he managed to drift off as well.
They spent their morning trying to regain a sense of normalcy. While Sansa dressed, Tyrion headed off for the library to swap out some of the books he'd finished for some lighter fare he might want to share with Sansa.
When he returned, the sullen figure of Lord Tywin was heading toward him from the other direction. He thanked whichever God had anything to do with timing for this one because there was a very small list of people who he'd like to see barred from ever speaking to his wife. Tywin Lannister was one of them.
"Tyrion," he said, making his presence known in the most absolute terms.
"Father," he answered, making a little resolute bow of his head.
Thin angry lips twisting into a devilish smile, he asked, "How is your lovely wife?"
"Fine, thank you." He chewed on the inside of his cheek to keep from snapping at him. Sansa was utterly broken and it was, to the nearest he could imagine, entirely Lord Tywin's fault. Surely, Joffrey could try to take the credit, but everyone knew the boy had neither the tactical mind, networking means, or organizational restraint to pull off a strike like the one the smallfolk were calling the Red Wedding. No, it reeked of Tywin, right down to the Rains of Castamere. There was no mistaking his handiwork.
Leering down upon him, he sneered, "As the two of you have scarcely left these quarters since your wedding, I presume we should be hearing an announcement of the growth of your family any day now, correct?"
"With any luck," he said, beaming with a faux-pride.
He gave a humorless laugh and added, "At least the drunken little lust-filled beast has a reason to be so now. She is a pretty little thing, isn't she? A shame she'll be wasted on you." Tyrion frowned imperceptibly, having thought the same thing. Tywin certainly had a way of honing in on his son's own self-doubt, though he often wondered how much of it would be there if it didn't speak with his father's calculated drawl. "Don't disappoint me," he said, turning on his heel and heading back from whence he came. The deepest levels of hell, Tyrion could only hope.
"When have I ever?" Tyrion muttered to himself, opening the door to find Sansa, with her arms crossed behind the door. "And how much of that did you hear?"
Hugging herself a little tighter, she shrugged, "All of it."
Easing into the room and closing the door behind him, he reached for her arm, guiding her further inside. "Sansa," he began, struggling to come up with something helpful.
She shook her head, kneeling before him. "He was right. We're pushing our luck." Sansa reached to brush the curls from in front of his eyes with a trembling hand and smiled, a little sadly. "We should just-"
"No," he insisted. "You're hurting. You're afraid," he placed a hand atop hers. "I will not add to that, Sansa."
She rested atop her heels. "How would you be adding to it?" she asked. She hated to see him so troubled by this. She wanted to tell him that there was no way he could hurt her in that way, but she knew that he also wouldn't be swayed until she wanted him because she loved him.
"I don't know, but let's not find out," he said, meeting her eyes momentarily before heading in to put the books down.
The days that followed found them slowly regaining their footing. In fact, Sansa found herself less comfortable with being alone in the light of all that had happened.
Tyrion felt similarly, mistrusting a great many people, but when, one late afternoon a knock came on their door, the visitor was a welcome treat.
"Lady Margaery," Tyrion said, peeking around the door before opening it, welcoming her inside. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"
Her normal sunny smile brightened the room entirely. "I just came to check in on Lady Sansa," she said, glancing between the two, "if it's all right with you, My Lord," she added, noticing that he had gone right back to Sansa's side, wrapping a protective arm around his wife. He knew the girls were close, but she was still marrying King Joffrey which left her suspect in his eyes.
Still, he was glad to see the shift in Sansa's happiness at her friend's visit. "By all means, go right ahead," he said, gently kissing Sansa's cheek and taking a hesitant leave. "I'll leave you two to yourselves."
Margaery sat beside Sansa, placing her hand on the girl's knee. "How are you feeling?"
"I don't know," Sansa said, looking off somewhere and nowhere at the same time.
"I'm so sorry, sweet girl," she said, scooting in closer and draping an arm around her shoulders. "It's absolutely dreadful. Is there anything I can do?"
"Tyrion asks the same thing," she laughed.
A knowing smile played at Margaery's delicate features. "I'd imagine his help and mine wouldn't necessarily be the same," she said, nudging Sansa playfully.
"Strikingly similar, at this point," Sansa sighed. "I'm afraid I might have scared him off."
The older girl shook her head insistently, "Not possible. Your husband is absolutely taken with you."
Sansa turned a little to address her straight on. "Margaery, he looked as though he thought he might break me just to kiss my cheek. We were..." She trailed off. She'd imagined that they were certainly getting somewhere before news of her mother and Robb. "Things were good and then..." Another hesitation. They were good for her. Were they good for him? He had seemed to be enjoying just being with her, but he wasn't particularly forthcoming with how he felt. He was so lovely to keep checking in and making sure that she was okay, but she couldn't remember if he'd ever mentioned it being good for him. She sighed, deciding to push that aside for the time being. "He holds me at night when I cry, but any of the little things I was coming to enjoy, he seems not to believe that I want anymore."
"Have you given him any reason to believe that you would?" Margaery asked. When she didn't get any sort of verbal response, she tried again. "Sansa, be truthful with me. You haven't consummated your marriage yet?"
Sansa blanched. Was it that obvious? She knew she couldn't lie now, she just had to own up to it. "No," she whispered, suddenly feeling very vulnerable and very naive.
"Why not?" Margaery asked.
Leaning back into the corner of the settee, she sighed. "I don't know. He wants to. He has to want to. Sometimes when we awake in the morning, I know for sure that he wants to." The small self-satisfied smile on her face spoke volumes to Margaery that she wasn't sure Sansa herself realized. "I know that my words are on his chest but he's never said that he loves me. I don't honestly know how he feels about me. Everything he says is about friendship and protection and..." she pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them. "I sound more like an obligation."
Mimicking Sansa's motion, Margaery pulled her legs up and crossed them, resting her elbows on her knees and propping her chin in her hands. "Have you said it to him?"
"I don't know that I do," Sansa said, shaking her head. Margaery rolled her eyes. It was painfully obvious to her, but there was no use scaring Sansa with that. "I could, someday, I'm sure. But I don't know. And he's never..."
Margaery pursed her lips thoughtfully. "He may presume that you know, Sansa. It's a funny thing," she said wistfully, remembering how desperately she ached for Renly and how, even when it goes phantom with their death, it never truly goes away. "When you have that type of feeling, you do forget that it's not as clear to other people. But it never changes." She smiled. Even though trading spaces with Loras nightly pained her so deeply, seeing him happy was enough, at least for her. She'd have gone to the farthest reaches of the known world to keep him happy. "Those bonds are never gone. Talk to him about it," she insisted.
"What if he's not..."
Margaery shook her head. Instead of what she really wanted to say, she simply asked, "Would the Gods be that cruel?"
Sansa mulled Margaery's words over. When Tyrion rejoined her for dinner, she decided to broach the topic with him. She desperately needed to know that she hadn't done irreparable damage in pushing him away.
"Would the Gods be that..." Tyrion stammered, not sure he was hearing her correctly. "Would the Gods be that cruel? Sansa, have you seen me?" he asked, gesturing at his stunted frame and then his scar with disgust. "Have you seen you?" he said, gesturing at her with wonder. "Yes, they are very cruel. How can you look at the pair of us together and not think of how cruel they've been to stick you to me?" He raised from his chair and began to pace. "You were to marry the prince. Sansa, you were to be queen," he said, turning back to her, crossing his arms. "You were to have everything and I have to believe that, if you were in that position, he would not have let any harm to your mother and brother." He looked down at his feet, walking toward her slowly. "I have to believe that he wouldn't have done that to his wife. If I had just kept my mouth shut-"
"Is my father's death on your hands, too?" Sansa asked, reaching for his hands, looking them over as though examining them for blood before dropping them. "You weren't even here. We'd never even spoken. I was betrothed to him then. It didn't matter," she rolled her eyes. Nothing mattered to Joffrey, what difference would their marriage have made. All that would have meant was that she legally belonged to him and he could do as he pleased. It would have been so much worse. Could he not see that? She shifted, pulling him closer. "On the day you returned to King's Landing, he told me he'd have my head on a pike next to my father's as soon as I gave him an heir. You saw that he was a breath away from taking my hand as a lesson to my mother and brother." Tyrion frowned, pulling back a little. She was making him sound like something he wasn't. "Listen to me. You have been the farthest thing from cruel that has happened to me in a long time. The Gods gifted you to me. You may not believe me, but can you at least listen to me?" He sighed and looked at her, exasperated, but momentarily losing himself in her startlingly blue eyes. "We're married, now. I know what that means for me. Do you honestly think that I'd believed for one second that Joffrey was my soulmate?" Tyrion raised his brows a little, as though to say that, yes, the thought had crossed his mind once or twice or a thousand times. She shook her head. "I had resigned to the idea that he was an inevitability. My father didn't make the announcement until then but, Tyrion, he and King Robert were the best of friends. Their oldest daughter and oldest son? Be reasonable." She tapped her hands on her thighs emphatically, growing quite frustrated at his indignance. "How many people in our position end up married to their soulmates? No one knows Cersei's but her perpetual misery leads me to believe it was not Robert. Robert's was my aunt. My aunt died before hers was decided. Margaery's was Renly Baratheon. Loras's was Renly Baratheon. Renly's was Loras, but they could never be. My parents were but look at how things turned out for them?" Her list seemed to turn into a reminder that this whole soulmate thing was kind of a dice game, but that wasn't how she'd intended it. She tried to regain her thoughts for a moment, starting over. "Even if you end up not being mine, you're still better than anything I could ever have imagined and I will not leave you." She noticed that she was starting to soften him and continued, going in for the proverbial kill. "You know, you have never told me how you feel about me. I have tried to be honest with you; As honest as I can be given that I don't know. I don't truly know anything." He looked at her curiously. How could she not know? Sansa shook her head, moving a little so that he could not avoid her stare. "And my husband has never told me that he loves me."
"I have," he groaned, running back over the time since he'd arrived at King's Landing in his mind, trying to isolate every conversation.
"Barring our wedding vows," she said, shaking her head and pursing her lips, "you most certainly have not."
He continued the foraging through his memories. He must have when they were... no. The day they went... no. Day after day flew through his mind. "I have..." he protested, and when he noticed her subtle persistence, not anger, not sadness, just plain fact, it dawned on him. She was right, "not."
Nonplussed by the matter, she affirmed, "You have not. You spend so much time considering how I feel, but you've never once mentioned what this is for you." She smiled gently, sensing his sudden guilt and panic. "The blame for that may fall to me because I've never asked you. What does this feel like for you?"
That certainly was the question, wasn't it? He paced a little, beginning to muddle it out. He'd spent so long telling himself it would never happen that he'd never allowed himself the chance to think about what would happen if it did. Then, to find himself all of the sudden married to the woman of his dreams? He resolved to just talk through it. "Before, it was hopelessness. Before I knew that it was you, I had decided that it didn't matter. Every time it was brought up, I made a different joke," he shrugged, remembering one instance where he'd proudly told his sister that his mark read 'It's even bigger than your brother's' just to take the piss out of her. "No one knew. Well, that's not true. You should know, Sansa..." he stopped, staring at the floor. "I'm not proud of this fact, but prior to seeing you for the first time, I was angry. I was an angry, drunken, lecherous thing. I spent time in many a brothel, with many a woman. Does that bother you?" Sansa shook her head. His reputation had certainly preceded him, but even more, if she judged him for bedding women before, she'd have no leg to stand on if he ever found out how Joffrey had used her. She moved from her chair and sat on the floor in front of him, motioning for him to do the same. "Since I laid eyes on you, that day in Winterfell, I have not touched another woman. It was almost a year before I saw you again, but it was..." he rubbed his eyes. "That year was excruciating. I could think of none other but the woman I would never have. The woman I could never be in love with. I could love from afar but never, ever in my wildest dreams could I tell her. And she would never, ever love me. But something kept pulling me back to you. When I rode North, I nearly did take the Black. That was a keen observation on your part, perhaps thanks to whatever this bond represents for you." She smiled at him, liking his choice of the word bond. That was certainly accurate on her part. "But, the thought of never seeing you again was never an option. I had to hear you say these words," he said, pushing his shirt out of the way and touching them lightly. "I had to. No matter how much it pained me. I had to know. When I approached that dais where you were all sitting, it felt like the skin where your words lived was trembling, like they would jump from my chest to make themselves known to you." He thought back to that day, how sullen she looked and how much he knew he was thoroughly fucked. Being so close to her, there was no turning back. "But you were so hurt. So scared. And I had no intention of ever telling a soul. I wanted to show you kindness. To let you know that you didn't have to be alone." He reached for her hands and she sighed, offering them gladly. "I wanted to protect you. To heal you. Even now, it's like I'm drawn to you over and over again. Like I can't rest if I'm not near you. If that's not love..." That was it wasn't it? The words he'd spent so much time uselessly denying. There they were. He had to say it. "Sansa, I love you. And I know that you don't. But I love you. It is maddening and all-consuming and desperate and heartbreaking and beautiful and powerful. I can't describe it. I love you."
She smiled, leaning forward and brushing her fingers against the mark on his chest hesitantly. "Does it..." Sansa didn't know what she was asking. She wanted to know it felt any different when she touched him. "I've heard that there's a sensation when..."
"A tingling," he admitted, nodding. "Like the words are alive and that they know that they're yours." He placed his hand over hers. "The words are as much yours as the man who bears them."
"Tyrion, I..."
He shook his head. "Don't. You don't have to say it." He released her hands and moved his to cup her face. "I don't want you to. I have spent so long resigned to the fact that you won't love me. Don't say it until you're sure."
Sansa's breath quickened. His face was right there in front of hers and she needed... what did she need? "Will you kiss me, already?" she asked, knocking the wind out of him completely. "Please?" she whispered, moving even closer by half.
Tyrion could hardly believe his ears. Still, he plucked up all his courage and did as he was asked, bringing his lips to hers. He started gently. So gently. Sansa parted her lips slightly, closing them lightly around one of his, trying to deepen the kiss. He obliged in kind, nipping and sucking at her lower lip until she let out a breathless gasp. She pulled back, searching his face for some signal that he wanted to stop. Instead, he seemed just as desperate to continue as she was, so she brought her mouth back to his harder this time, inviting herself into his lap and twisting her hands into the bottom of his shirt. He laced his hands into her hair and drank her in. His tongue traced along hers, exploring as much of her kiss as she'd allow.
Finally, breathlessly, Sansa broke the kiss, lips pink and plump from such vigorous use. "Was that so bad?" she asked, a little proud of herself.
"No," he shook his head, running his thumb along her jawline gently. "Not bad at all."
"Can you say it again?" she asked, lost in her own thoughts.
Tyrion eyed her curiously. "Not bad at all." Sansa shook her head and he laughed, having figured as much. "Oh. I love you, Sansa," he said, kissing her again, very gently, thoroughly pleased with this new development.