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2025-09-22
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2025-10-13
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fragilely, gradually, and surrounding

Summary:

She often finds herself in the godswood asking the red leaves for absolution, for love from a husband who barely looks at her, for a child to grow inside her. Her prayers remain unanswered.

Notes:

I had a rough few days and this fic came out of that, along with listening to Ingydar by Adrienne Lenker on repeat. The title comes from there too.

Please note that Sansa has very limited knowledge of what Jon felt for Daenerys. She assumes he loved her, that he still grieves her, and that he resents Sansa. Meanwhile, Sansa is trying to answer the question "what if you were in love with your husband and having sex with him all the time, but believed he hated you and you were also the loneliest person in the world?"

That is all. Thank you so much for reading. I am only a little nervous to post this since it is more explicit than my usual lol.

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Sansa has grown weary of nights where sleep comes too quickly. 

She knows it means she will wake after only a couple of hours and be left wide-eyed in the asphyxiating quiet of Winterfell. 

Tonight, not even the steady sound of her husband’s breathing helps her go back to sleep. Maybe Jon himself is the reason the war in her mind won’t quiet. Every breath reminds her of regrets. Of the emptiness between them. Of the life she has condemned them both to.

He sleeps well most nights, always facing her, always so far from her that he might as well be in another bed altogether. Sansa sometimes spends hours looking at his face while he sleeps. 

At times he jerks awake, reaching for her, and Sansa wonders if in his dreams he reaches for someone else. Other nights he breathes her name into the dark and she wonders if he curses her in his sleep.

She is sure he still mourns Daenerys. How could he not? Love like that does not die cleanly. It clings to him now the way the ashes of King’s Landing once clung to the skin beneath his fingernails.

And in the mornings, when his eyes slide shut while he is inside her, Sansa imagines the dead woman waiting for him behind his lids. The thought is ugly and she knows it. Yet she cannot stop it. It turns in circles. She resents the dead, then loathes herself for it, then aches worse for him to look at her as if she were the choice, not the duty. 

Beside her, Jon shifts as the room drains from midnight blue into the pale grey of dawn. Sansa knows what comes next. Need pools hot and heavy between her legs.

They’ve found no joy in their hasty marriage, but they’ve found pleasure in the marriage bed. It leaves her wretched with guilt. She should not revel in the strength of his hands on her thighs, or hunger for his mouth on her breasts, or the drive of his hips beneath her. But she does.

Even the fact that Jon shares her pleasure cannot mend their unhappiness. She welcomes it when he finishes in her, the warmth she feels deep, the way her body answers him. He never withholds, never leaves her empty. Still she knows it is not for her. It is for the child they are bound to make. It is always for the heir.

The wanting crawls under her skin and will not be soothed. She often finds herself in the godswood asking the red leaves for absolution, for love from a husband who barely looks at her, for a child to grow inside her. Her prayers remain unanswered. 

A daughter and a bastard prince do not equal a son. That was what led them here. The lords had suggested the union as they traveled north, their voices heavy with victory and calculation. The words turned her stomach. Did they all see through her so easily? Did Jon?

He gave nothing away, always stoic, as if carved from the same stone as Winterfell’s walls.

That night he had come to her cabin. He did not waste words. “What do you think?”

Sansa told him the truth. “It would make sense. We could rule together. We could bury the past.”

He looked at her then, long enough that she felt the air shift between them. 

“All my life I was told I was your brother. Then we were cousins. Now they would make me your husband. Do you not see the sickness in it?” His hand had curled into a fist, as if he could crush the thought to dust.

The words had cut her, yet beneath the sting was the truth she could not escape. She had wanted him longer than was decent, longer than she dared admit even to herself. The wrongness of it had never dulled the hunger. If anything, it had sharpened it, until shame and desire lived side by side in her chest, inseparable, unbearable.

She had no answer for that, only the heat of his honesty pressing against her ribs. At last she forced herself to speak. 

“I don’t deny it will be difficult, " she said. “But we must think of the North. And if we wed, I will not have to endure another husband. That alone would be a mercy.”

His silence was heavy, but not unkind. When he spoke again it was about the terms. Their children would bear the Stark name, that much had been made clear by the lords who pushed them together, but Jon refused to take it for himself. “I’ll not wear the name that was never mine. I am Snow. That is the truth of me.”

​​Sansa had wanted to tell him he was still a Stark to her, that Winterfell had always been his. But the words had died on her tongue. He would not have wanted to hear them from her anyway. 

By morning, the decision was done. When they returned home, vows were spoken in haste. A crown set on his dark head, another on hers. King and Queen in the same breath, before she could even understand the depth of his unhappiness.

They’ve been wed for almost seven moons and Sansa has continued to bleed. Every sheet stained in the night, every cramp of her lower belly is a reminder of her failure.  The midwife told Sansa to be patient. “It is early yet, Your Grace. Grief unsettles the courses. The King is young; your body is learning him. You will get your blessing soon.”

Sansa thinks blessing is too strong of a word for people as cursed as them. 

She remembers the tales her mother would tell, eyes full of love and voice heavy with memories, of how she conceived on the very night she and Sansa’s father were wed. 

Sansa half-fears a babe will never quicken. Months in Ramsay’s bed had borne no results. And if she cannot give the North what it asks for? Jon could bed another woman, name the child heir, call it a sacrifice made for his people. Sansa has imagined herself suggesting it. In the imagining, he agrees without bitterness and she nods as the bile at the back of her throat threatens to choke her.

What's one more sacrifice in a life ruled by duty?

They need an heir. The North needs it, so it has become the focus on Sansa’s action since they wedded. 

She had flinched when Jon had reached to touch between her thighs. With his ears red in embarrassment he had murmured that it would make it easier, that it would hurt less if she was ready. She had lain still, staring at the canopy, while his calloused fingers worked her open, her body softening against her will. And when her mouth had unwillingly let out a gasp of pleasure that surely wasn’t proper, she had seen the small smile he had not been able to hide. 

And still, when his weight on top of her made her freeze and when she asked to keep a candle burning so she could see his face, Jon had suggested she take him astride instead. She had been embarrassed at first, cheeks burning with the humiliation of needing such a thing, certain it only confirmed how poor a wife she would make. 

She had expected pain and discomfort, but had found pleasure instead. He had been kind that night, almost sweet, he had kept his eyes on hers and had kissed her neck and her chest without ever touching or taking more than she allowed. 

When it was over, she prayed his seed would take, that duty might at least give way to comfort, or even friendship, where love could not. The gods, as always, were deaf to her pleas.

“Perhaps,” Jon had said, his voice rough with sleep in a way that stirred something in her, “perhaps we could do…this in the mornings instead of at night.”

“This?”

“The—uh—the coupling.” He hadn’t looked at her when he said it, only stared up at the ceiling. “If we’re to conceive an heir.”

“Wouldn’t that be troublesome? For you to come to my chambers every morning?”

“Every morning?” 

Had Sansa not known better, she might have thought there was the barest trace of teasing in his tone.

“The faster we conceive, the sooner we can stop doing this.”

“Right.” He cleared his throat.

“So—wouldn’t it be too troublesome?” She asked again.

“I could sleep here, if that were agreeable to you.”

She had not disliked the idea. Someone else in the bed could keep the ghosts away. “Yes. I suppose that could work.”

And so, since that night, they had shared the chambers that once belonged to her parents nearly every evening. She had ordered a new bed and mattress, replaced the old hangings, anything to keep Jon from thinking he was bedding Catelyn Stark’s daughter in the very bed of the woman who had never welcomed him.

Since then, life in Winterfell has settled into its own rhythm. On the occasions she had her moonblood, Sansa insisted he return to his own room. 

The days crawl with disputes and demands. The nights lie hollow with silence. The mornings are filled with her muffled cries and the crude rhythm of skin on skin.

They do their duty, but beyond that, Sansa would like a babe. She believes she could love it, care for it as her parents once cared for her. She thinks Jon could love it too, even if half its blood is hers.

She had never expected love from this union, not with the resentment he carries, but she had thought there might be something gentler than this emptiness.

Jon is not Ramsay. He is not even Tyrion. But he is not a loving husband. He endures her for the North’s sake. However, when his lips close over her throat and his eyes shut against the light, when he is thrusting inside her, it is the only time she does not feel the loneliness creeping so deep it might swallow her whole. 

His hand settles on her hip, heavy and abrupt, jolting her from her thoughts. Sansa forces herself still. She has learned too well how to master her reactions.

“You didn’t sleep,” he says. His voice is hoarse with the last of night, rough in a way that always lands low in her belly.

“Not tired,” Sansa lies.

He looks away as soon as she looks at him. His eyes stay fixed on the ceiling.

“If you’d want it,” he says at last, “We could…be together now. I promised some of the men I would join the hunt at daybreak and will need to leave soon.”

Sansa watches him, the way he stumbles over words he never wants to say aloud. Be together. As if the thing they do nearly every morning is too shameful to name. She thinks of all the words she’s heard for it in whispered lessons, in bawdy songs, in Ramsay’s cruel mouth. She wonders what Jon would do if she turned to him now and asked him to fuck her, plain and sharp. Would he flinch? Would he do as she asked? Would he look at her for once with something other than restraint?

Her shame is a creature that eats the bolder words before they reach her tongue, so she only says yes and lets the thought sit heavy in her chest. 

Jon sits up and guides her gently, helping her kneel beside him as the furs slip off her body. Cool air lifts the fine hairs on her thighs. She wears a thinner shift now that the nights grow warmer and spring approaches. She never fails to notice the way his eyes linger on the faint shadow of her nipples beneath it when he thinks she isn’t watching.

His touch is careful. She swallows and stares at nothing, willing her own body to behave. She loves the way his breath turns ragged when he slides his fingertips between her thighs and finds her slick for him.

An undignified sound escapes her as soon as his fingers pry her apart. Heat floods her cheeks.

His touch firms. The flat of his thumb finds the spot that always brings her pleasure and begins those patient arcs while two fingers press inside slowly. She opens her legs wider for him. Her hips tip into his hand without permission. 

“Is this all right?” He asks.

“Yes,” she breathes and hates the tremor. 

He makes the circles smaller, meaner, pinning her nub and rolling it until her nerves ring like struck glass. Inside, his fingers keep that slow, coaxing rhythm, rubbing the soft, swollen place that makes her tighten around him. She bites her lip because the crest is coming too fast. 

Her mind tries to save her with ugliness. She thinks of how empty she will feel after, how useless this moment will feel when she bleeds again, of how every small lovely thing won’t matter when Jon refuses to be around her. 

Her mind claws at shame, at calculation. It does not save her. Heat snaps taut. She is close, embarrassingly close, thighs trembling around his hand, cunt fluttering around his fingers. She wants him to push her over, to hold her until she begs. She wants both, and neither will save her.

It is not proper for a lady, much less for a queen, yet his fingers draw such fierce feelings from her that she fears she will cry. 

His body is already responding to the mewls she cannot hold back. Her hand hovers, ghosting over the hard outline of his want through the linen. Jon never asks her to touch him. He never reaches for her hand, never tips his chin in silent demand. That restraint should comfort her, but instead it leaves her restless. Sometimes, she aches for him to be rougher, to press her fingers where he needs them most. She wants to undo him as he undoes her, to touch him until he’s gasping against her mouth. 

Sansa imagines his hand over hers, forcing her palm down his cock, guiding her until there’s no mercy in her grip. He would groan against her ear, beg for more, his fist tightening over hers to drive the rhythm he needs. The image burns through her, sharp and searing, her cunt clenching with want she cannot deny. She squeezes her thighs together. He slips another finger inside. She wonders, what would happen if he did? If Jon asked her outright to make him peak with her hand or her mouth? Would it make her feel wanted, even just once?

Sansa closes her eyes and lets herself lean into it. She is right on the edge when he stops, withdrawing his fingers slick with her arousal. He never lets her finish like this. Instead, he shifts her onto his lap and guides her down.

She can give him her body and maybe one day he’ll give her a child.

The blunt head of his cock nudges at her entrance, then pushes inside her inch by inch. She gasps at the stretch, at the fullness of him she’s become so accustomed to. Once their hips are flushed against each other, Jon closes his eyes. His lashes are dark pressed against his cheeks, his jaw clenched so tight Sansa thinks one day he’ll break a tooth. 

She cannot stop thinking he is somewhere else in his mind, thrusting into another body, another face. Yet it is her slick heat that swallows him, her thighs burning as he drags her down harder onto his length. He fills her so deep she swears she can feel him in her belly. Every shift of her hips makes her clutch tighter around him. She rises and sinks, again and again, until her muscles quiver and her body hums. He never kisses her mouth, but the dark blooms across her chest tell of mornings when he’s kissed her breasts with hunger, when he’s driven into her with a need he would never confess in the daylight. 

Jon always, always makes sure she finds her peak first. This time is no different. His thumb circles her with steady pressure as he drives up into her. The sensation makes her shake, her whole body trembling as she clutches at his shoulders and rides him faster. The pleasure rips through her, sharp and overwhelming.

She clamps around him, fluttering tight, and he takes control for a handful of thrusts. They’re harder, rougher. She feels the chain of his control slipping. He buries himself deep and spends, heat pulsing inside her with a strangled sound that makes something awful and pleased in her murmur, good, let it undo you, and she hates it and loves it equally.

He lingers, arms shaking, chest pressed to hers. She wants to hook her legs around him and keep him inside. She wants to kiss his mouth because the only time they kissed was on their wedding day. Instead, the careful man returns to his body. He eases out of her with a soft, wet slide that leaves her open and aching.

She turns on her side immediately and tips her hips with a pillow, doing what the midwife suggested. Stay, she thinks. Take root. The word barren tries to push into the thought. She puts a hand on her lower belly as if that will make a difference. 

Her thighs are wet and slick with both of them. She hates that it leaves her with a fleeting sense of contentment. She does not cover herself yet, too sated and tired to do anything else. 

Jon leaves the bed. In the corner of the room she watches him clean himself in silence, then pull on his clothes without a word, already preparing to leave her behind. He does not kiss her. He does not meet her eyes. 

He returns and has the grace to pull the furs to her waist.

“Are you cold?” Jon asks.

“No.” She is a little cold. 

Everything is exactly as good sense demands: mornings instead of nights, routine instead of want, duty instead of love, his seed spilled where it ought to be. 

When he leaves to start his day, silence is all that remains beside her.