Disclaimer: I recently got obsessed with Game of Thrones, but doesn't mean I own it!
Story: It's that time of the year. The annual Stark-Baratheon-Lannister family gathering is at hand. For Sansa, this year things are the same and not. Though...maybe a little more not, if some of her interactions are any indications. After all, some of her guy friends are being really strange with her. Maybe it's just the holiday spirit? Then again, she's still cooking with Tywin and snarking with Renly, and maybe she's still awkward around Roose –but that's just been the way of things, right? Where the hell did Oberyn come from though?! (Kicking off this Universe like I should've ages ago)
Set as a gigantic modern AU universe.
Spoilers: Nope.
Warnings: Nope.
Pairings: (Main) Roosa (Roose /Sansa), Stansa (Stannis/Sansa), and Tysan (Tywin/Sansa). (Side) Oberyn/Sansa for much fun and irritation XD
Deck the Halls
Chapter Three: Sleigh Ride (Through Hell)
Honestly, even after a year had passed, she was still pretty ticked off at Joffrey. She no longer had feelings for him, but that didn't mean she wasn't still hurt and nursing old wounds from his callous treatment of her.
She'd been a foolish, stupid girl that had been too blinded by an irrational crush on him. And she'd paid for it too.
There was no way she was letting herself be put back into the path of hurt again.
Relieved to find the Baratheon library door, she opened it and ducked into the library, eager to escape from the determined harassment of Joffrey.
But as she closed the door behind her, she paused and her eyebrows flew up. That…that was Twenty One Pilots playing in here!
Realizing she wasn't alone in there, but utterly curious as to who would retreat in here to escape the gala (and be listening to this band), she quietly crept further in.
"I wish I found some better sounds no one's ever heard
I wish I had a better voice that sang some better words
I wish I found some chords in an order that is new
I wish I didn't have to rhyme every time I sang
I was told when I get older all my fears would shrink
But now I'm insecure and I care what people think~"
Peeking around a bookcase, she muffled her gasp. There was Renly's older brother, the one who both he and Robert had always complained about being too strict and stern with them all the time.
Curious about him, especially as she hadn't actually had much interaction with him recently (not since she was a kid to be honest) and only having what she had to go on from Renly and Robert (both of whom are not reliable sources on most things), Sansa ended up doing her own observation.
Head tilted back on the couch, tie loosened up and eyes closed, he looked relaxed and with a hand loosely holding onto a glass of water, slice of lemon floating above the liquid.
Stannis Baratheon, from what she heard, was an 'uptight, no-nonsense, boring man'. She heard several different variations of that over the years from both Renly and Robert, but right now, all she saw was a relaxed and…a rather handsome man.
He wasn't handsome in the same way Renly was, or even Robert in his younger years. But…there was a sort of masculine edge to him, even as he sat languid on the couch. He was also all sharp angles and vague sense of intensity Renly had warned her about, even in his relaxed pose.
He was dressed smartly too. Fitted, tailored navy blue suit, with the matching lighter blue tie —he certainly knew how to wear his clothes.
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open and she was treated to stormy blue eyes that matched him more than it ever did on Renly or Robert.
He sat up quickly and her face flushed a bright red.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Baratheon," she rushed to apologize. "I was trying to avoid —"
"Joffrey," he finished for her, voice oddly breathless, and she stared at him in surprise, though the sound of his voice was surprising lovely and made her shiver. "My brothers have talked of it with me, so I…know somewhat of the situation," he ended awkwardly. "I suppose if there was someone you'd try to avoid here, it would've been him."
"You're right, Mr. Baratheon," she admitted, feeling awkward being there with him and talking about her ex-relationship with his nephew. "Though I'm surprised Renly and Uncle Robert talked about it."
He waved her off. "They care about you, it's natural. And…" He frowned, looking at her with those intense eyes. What was it with men always looking at her intensely?! Roose did this too! "Stannis is fine. As you call Robert 'uncle' and Renly as is, I suppose you should address me informally as well. I wouldn't want to be the 'stiff' brother," he ended wryly.
She gave a crooked smile. "They may say you are, but obviously you aren't…Stannis," her smile turned into a larger grin.
His lips upturned into a small smile. Stannis then tapped a single finger on the cushion of the couch next to him and she took it as an invitation, coming over and sitting down next to him.
"I didn't peg you as a Twenty One Pilots fan," she said shyly.
His small smile twitched up a little more. "Looks can be deceiving," he said in a dry tone.
"They certainly can be!" she said brightly, finding that she was enjoying being around the one Baratheon brother she had never really talked to much before. He was certainly surprising her more and more.
"Shireen, my daughter, introduced them to me," he confessed, catching her off guard. "She's not their biggest fan, but she liked a few songs from them and I ended up hearing a few I liked myself."
Pleased he'd shared something personal about himself, she brought up her own favorite songs of them while thinking about Shireen.
She'd really liked the other girl and she knew Renly dotted on her, as did occasionally Robert. She'd never actually focused on thinking about Stannis as Shireen's father, aside from some snide comments from Stannis' brothers, since before now she'd never run across him so personally before. It had always been Renly and Robert she knew best.
Her eyes scanned the table and caught sight of the crossword that was displayed on the folded newspaper.
"Oh! Were you doing the crossword?" she asked in delight.
He gave a glance over at the newspaper and nodded. "I'd taken some time with it earlier. Would you like to finish it?"
Sansa just smiled as widely as she could at him while snatching it up. He smoothly unclipped a pen from his front pocket she hadn't noticed, and then handed it over to her. Happily accepting it, she smoothed out the paper and looked it over.
"Yeet!" she exclaimed gleefully, causing him to give her a strange look. In return, she gave him a sheepish one. "This one talks about a slang term. That was the answer."
"I…see."
Forcing back her giggling, she went back to the crossword. He leaned in closer to her and he pointed to one clue and then to the corresponding spaces. "Abscond."
She filled it in and idly noted the warmth of his body, especially the longer he was closer to her and the more that he leaned in. He smelled really nice. She couldn't put a finger on it, but it smelled really familiar…
His close proximity did make her start to feel self-conscious, but then she figured out another clue and excitedly filled it in. And it went back and forth like that, even with them sitting side by side, their legs brushed up against each other and his arm ending up around her on the back of the couch, the both of them scrunched up close to look over the crossword together.
And…and he smiled.
Nothing huge or just outright grinning, but his small smile ticked up ever so slightly as time passed and they enjoyed solving clues together, with the corners of his eyes crinkling in enjoyment rather than frowns.
"Looks like it's finished," he said once she'd written the last answer down. He glanced to the side before addressing her. "Do you play chess?"
"I do," she answered eagerly, looking to see that he'd glanced at a chess set put aside.
He got up and retrieved the chess set, setting it on the table and resuming his seat next to her.
"White or black?" Stannis asked and she requested white.
After setting up their pieces, she placed a pawn forward and waited. Instead of answering with his own pawn, he took a knight and moved it over his pawns and into the end of an L shape.
She looked at him, admired the look of concentration on his face, and found herself blurting out, "I'm going to beat you!" She swore it.
His stormy blues flickered up at her and his lips ticked up again.
"I give you leave to try."
It left her grinning and determined.
She didn't know how long time passed, but they'd been going back and forth for awhile when a double clearing of throats caused the both of them to startle and look over to the source of the noises. There she saw Jaime and Renly standing next to each other, surprising her since she knew that the two didn't get along and tended to argue on which of them was her "One True Best Friend".
"There you are, Sansa," Renly said cheerfully (maybe a little too cheerful?), his smile weirdly stiff. "We've been looking for you. You too, Stan —Robert's been wondering where you've gone to."
"And now that we've found you, let's drag you back out there, Sansa," Jaime kept frowning, further weirding her out.
"O…kay," she got up unsurely. "We'll have to continue later," she gave a small smile to Stannis before heading over to her two friends.
She suddenly had a thought and practically flounced back over to Stannis, taking the cell phone the man had placed abandoned on the table. She put her number in before handing it to a clearly taken aback Stannis, and then impulsively leaning up on the tip of her toes to land a chaste kiss to his cheek.
"Bye!" she said before rejoining Renly and Jaime, missing twin looks of dismay before one looked thunderous and then the other curling his lip in an irritable sneer.
Stannis did not.
Renly wished he had some earplugs on hand. Honestly, Robert could complain someone's ears off for hours! And he'd lost track of Sansa, so he couldn't just go after her and spend the rest of the gala with her. He totally regretted leaving her side, even for a moment.
Where was she anyway?
Last he'd seen her, she'd been dancing with Bolton —who gave him the shivers, really. Man's eyes were too creepy and his face was hard to read most of the time! How the heck did the Starks deal with him? Hells, how could Sansa even stand being around the guy?
"By the Gods, this is boring as all the Hells!" Robert bellowed. "I hate going around, talking business. Where's Stannis when you need him? He's supposed to do all this smoozing!"
'Stannis hates all that too,' Renly mused. 'He can't stand people sucking up to him and he can't be any more charming than a lobster, as Loras would say. He's just better at business and talking that up, even if it's brusque. I'm more charming, but I don't fucking have a head for business. You, Robert? Used to be charming as hell and actually wasn't too bad at this business thing either. But you've always been impatient and never cared for it.'
So yeah, Renly admitted he and Robert did put Stannis through a lot of shit. But he was a pain in the ass himself. Always with the high and mighty attitude, always in the right, always thinking about things owed to him. And he was always so boring and strict, always lecturing Renly on this and that. Goddamn so uptight he wouldn't do anything but work and probably didn't like anything but it!
Being the third and youngest brother had always sucked. Growing up with Robert and Stannis meant that his things were never his things, and most of the time they weren't even his first. They had money, but the three brothers were possessive and always arguing over things anyway. Growing up, they hadn't really changed much, not when it came to their relationship with each other and how they treated the other brother.
Sansa had always been the real first person who'd gotten him, been the one 'thing' his brothers did not have that Renly could just call for himself.
Robert being 'uncle' to her didn't even count. Sansa and Renly were best friends and had shared almost everything they could. As far as he was concerned, their relationship was special and she was more family to him than his own brothers.
"I'll go find Stannis," Renly volunteered, eager to get away from Robert. Cersei was looking pretty murderous beside him too, and he hoped that the rest of the 'group' came together soon. Maybe Ned would come and distract Robert, while Renly went and found Sansa. Stannis, he meant. Right, Stannis.
Leaving his oldest brother behind, he went wandering around before bumping into Jaime. They sneered at each other.
"What are you doing, Lannister?" Renly scowled.
"Looking for Sansa," Jaime said, smirking arrogantly.
"There's no need to," he said loftily. "I'm doing that already. As her best friend, I want to make sure she's okay."
"As her real best friend, I should do that."
They glared heatedly at each other.
"Whatever," Renly turned away, walking towards the library. "I don't need to deal with you."
"Hey, where are you going?" Jaime yelled.
"Away from you and finding Sansa," he said resolutely.
He opened the door to the library, pausing at the entrance as he heard music playing. Ignoring Jaime, who had followed him, he walked further in and felt his blood boiling at the sight.
Stannis, stupid, stupid Stannis was right in Sansa's space, looking godsdamn utterly smitten.
The Hells Renly was going to share Sansa with anyone, much less Stannis! Robert was a given, unfortunately, but he wasn't going to add freaking Stannis to the list!
Sansa was his and he wasn't going to let Robert and especially Stannis take her from him!
Renly moved forward to cut their little moment (Gods, why was Sansa smiling at his jerk brother?).
"There you are, Sansa!"
Sansa admitted she felt confused at the grumpiness of her two best friends beside her, both of whom were escorting her towards the gathered bunch of their families in their designated spot. The gala was in full swing, so everyone else was having a good time, though they gave a wide berth to the Stark-Baratheon-Lannister brood.
They reached the others quickly enough, though she caught a glimpse of Stannis following at a small distance behind them. As she turned to question her strange as hell friends, her shoulder was tapped lightly and she turned again in confusion.
"May I have this dance, Love?"
Oberyn Martell held out his hand to Sansa and she couldn't help laughing delightedly, elated to have run into the Dornishman once more.
"You're a rogue," she accused him teasingly, trying to bite back a smile.
"At your service," he purred rather seductively, making her blush.
"Honestly," she huffed, shaking her head. Still, she accepted his hand and let him lead her to the dance floor.
"I was quite jealous, Sansa love," he smirked. "You're surrounded by all these men and earlier you were dancing over and over with so many of them!"
"Hardly," she said in amusement. "Just Roose and it was to help me escape from Joffrey."
His lip curled just a bit. "Of course, that boy. Well, I can run away with you whenever you want! And then you could not deal with him for the rest of your life."
She giggled and went into the twirl he moved her into.
Jon sipped at his iced tea, fighting back a grin as he saw the Oberyn Martell twirl his sister (cousin, but eh —who was really being specific?). They all knew about Spring Break and never stopped harassing Sansa about it.
She was doomed to be teased about it forever.
After all, who knew she'd meet the infamous, womanizing fashion designer in the Summer Isles for Spring Break, and apparently 'have a good time of it'?
Yeah, she was never going to hear the end of it.
"Seven Hells!" he heard Jaime explode from near him and he turned to see the blond man glaring over at the dancing couple, where Oberyn had grabbed Sansa's hips and had slipped behind her and had danced too close for 'family comfort'. "That bastard needs to keep his hands to himself!"
Jon kept from snickering, but only just. Jaime's anger was pretty much echoed through the usual —Renly, who was adamant he was the Best Friend, Tywin with his cold, dark stare that pretty much scared the shit out of everyone but Sansa, and the Boltons. Domeric and Ramsay were rowdy booers (well, Domeric was more polite and quiet, alike to his father), while Roose…
He and his siblings weren't unaware of the UST between him and their sister, for all that the two seemed to not say or do anything about it.
So it wasn't unexpected, not really, to see the man with murderous eyes that said he was more than willing to gut Oberyn and hide the body somewhere.
"I can't believe the two of you aren't more outraged about that scoundrel being so inappropriate with Sansa!" Robert bellowed, narrowing his eyes at Catelyn and Ned.
Jon choked on his drink. The-the irony and hypocrisy…
Then again, when it came to Myrcella and Sansa…Well, his daughter and goddaughter were where he apparently drew the line.
Ned just raised an eyebrow at him, taking a sip of his red wine.
"It's quite alright, Robert," he told his friend. "Sansa met Martell during last year's Spring Break and told us about him."
While Robert's face turned red, anger mixing with confusion, Jon saw Renly and Jaime also perk up at that. He studiously ignored the tilt of Tywin's head towards Ned, emerald eyes side-eying his uncle intently; or even Roose stiffening up and staring at Ned without seemingly breathing.
"Spring Break?" Renly asked, sounding horrified, while Jaime looked confused.
"Oh yeah, Sansa went to the Summer Isles for Spring Break and ran into him," Robb grinned.
Arya snickered. "Yeah and apparently got it on with the man!"
Jon interjected. "You mean 'got along.'"
She waved him off. "Nah —I mean that too, but we all know those two did the horizontal tango in bed!"
Jon paid no mind to the sounds of strangled outrage around him, sure that aside from the Starks (and Myrcella, Tommen, and Shireen, who he could see were giggling together with Rickon and Bran; Joffrey was by himself and no one was bothering to listen to his vitriol, not even his mother who had been steadily drinking the night away), everyone else was strangely outraged.
"I told you I should have gone on Spring Break!" Renly hissed furiously at Robert and Stannis, who Jon just noticed looked oddly quiet and subdued for the normally dour-looking man. "Godsdammit, I knew it!"
"I didn't even know she was going to the Summer Isles for Spring Break," Jaime grumbled.
Really, why did his sister attract the weirdoes?
The song finally ended and he gave a sigh of relief when Oberyn led Sansa back to them. But before they could reach them, Tywin stepped away from the group and headed over to them, interrupting the duo and saying something. Then Oberyn was looking surprised and transferring Sansa over to Tywin, who led his caught off guard sister back onto the dance floor.
Well, Gods, who'd expected that?
Sana bit down on her lip to stop herself from laughing.
"Eager to steal the show?" she asked in amusement.
"Why not? Everyone else is making a splash —I'm doubtlessly the only one who feels the need to show off," Tywin said sarcastically, emerald eyes glittering at her. "It would hardly be fair for Martell to steal all of your attention, M'dear."
She felt her cheeks faintly warm up, but they worsened as Tywin pulled her in close, bending her leg around his hip.
"I know it's been awhile since we've done a few ballroom competitions, but surely you haven't forgotten how to dance with me?" he raised an eyebrow.
She blinked before a smirk slowly appeared on her lips.
"Absolutely not."
And Sansa straightened her spine, ready to perform a proper Argentine Tango.
Though honestly! When she returned back with Tywin, she really didn't understand what the fuss was about and why there was such an outrage. If she had to hear Robert yell "Improper!" at her and Tywin again, she was going to lock herself up for the rest of the holidays!
At least, in this, her family was pretty chill and not chaotic as usual.
Godsdammit though, why in the Seven Hells were Renly and Jaime being so weird?
Started 1/3/20 – Completed 1/7/20
Omake! III
"I'm going to bet that Stannis moves in first."
"Oooh, let's bet!"
"I don't know —Stannis is rather repressive, don't you think?"
"Man's desperate."
"You can't say that!"
"Pfft —He was totally gone from the moment he first saw her."
"…I'm not going to argue against that…"
"Oberyn already made the first move, hahaha!"
"Oh, too true. That rogue."
"Mmhm, that rogue."
A pause.
"Stannis is next then."
Started 2/5/20 – Completed 2/5/20
A/n: Whoops, I skipped a day? Oh well, you all get a longer than usual chapter, for those of you actually reading and care XD
Quick Points:
1. Current GoT Fics: Her Song of Fire and Ice (SansaxRoose/Stannis/Tywin), A Red King Bowed (Roose/Sansa), and March to My Heartbeat (Stannis/Sansa). Also Deck the Halls, to get started on that 'verse~
2. Stannis is a Twenty One Pilots fan. You can't change my mind ;p (That Stansa scene in the library is part of why I made this fic, with the Roosa dance earlier being another. Next chapter with TySan is another scene, and all three are basically headcanons~)
3. Oberyn and Sansa, Spring Break also another headcanon XD No, Sansa, it'll never be forgotten and never not be teased about.