sleeping seven

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hiya! i was making an edit.... which lead to making a caption... which lead to writing a oneshot, lol

concept is: a bunch of show & book canon smashed together, a reunion scene set in winterfell after years of seperation due to forces outside their control, and also perhaps childhood friends?? dont think too deeply about the how and when, just roll with it idk

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The muffled din of unceasing rainfall mingled with the soft crackle of dying embers in the hearth. She threw a couple logs atop the charred remains of fire, a small plume of ash protesting the abrupt roughness of it, before the flames were gradually revived.

Aemond sat slumped in a chair beside the table they’d once used for taking tea, pouring over histories, or studying new battle strategies. A film of dust had settled atop its smooth, oaken surface — the mark of a few years worth of disuse; the mark of several more arduous months, blatantly ignoring the few years of disuse, refusing to cling to memories that now seemed an unreachable dream. As if in silent protest, Sansa scrubbed the soaking fabric of her cloak-sleeve across its surface. Dust motes swirled in the warming air (it was the first time she wondered if she had a particular knack for disrupting the natural order of things, or perhaps she just rejected the world as it was instead of what it ought to be), and she left behind a streaked mess. She supposed it needed proper care to restore it back to some semblance of its former use, but it was a start.

A cold, tentative hand came to rest over her own, and Sansa blinked away her blurred vision. Odd, she thought, that the rain could reach indoors like this. She glanced at Aemond from beneath her lashes, an apologetic smile ghosting her lips as she realized he’d been watching her most closely. As if after pushing her away all this time, he’d realized he couldn’t let her out of his narrow line of sight. 

Not again. Never again.

Though there was something in the way his gaze, pronounced by a thin rheumy film and deep purple bruises just below, fixed upon her alone, that made her stomach flutter with something she couldn’t quite name. It seemed an unpleasant thought, to choke on butterfly’s wings, and a bitterly nostalgic feeling took hold of her then. She swallowed thickly before rounding the table to help unfasten Aemond’s cloak, if only to escape his unwavering eye.

They were silent as she deftly unclasped his traveling cloak, dripping heavy from the deluge. Though she’d aimed for his blind side, Aemond turned his head to watch Sansa most closely. Her eyes flickered up for only a breath, finding muted surprise and something not ungentle reflected back at her before she looked back to her hands.

“This is something I used to do for my father.” she finally spoke, the gentle lilt of her voice cutting the quiet. Drenched in rainwater, his furs were heavier than she imagined. She remained silent about their weight, reasoning that the dead he carried on his back, that gripped and clawed at his throat like a vise, like an albatross, were far heavier than piles of fabric and the rain to wash him clean. Sansa draped his cloak upon an empty chair in front of the hearth to dry, before returning to Aemond’s side to unfasten a pauldron from his shoulder.

“He and I understood each other without having to say too much.” the silence threatening to swallow her voice was punctuated with each dull thud of his leather armor pieces as she placed them on the floor. “Part of me knew it hurt him, that I wasn’t so open about my true feelings. But he knew I helped to care for him because I loved him.”

He remained deathly still despite the momentary twitching of his hands, his breath shallow as his gaze remained fixed upon a pile of worn books atop her writing desk. Focused; looking, but unseeing. Like cornered prey planning an escape, like a predator thrilled by the chase; she couldn’t discern which role was his, she couldn’t discern which role was hers.

Somehow, the thought compelled her to keep talking, “ — So please, let me do this for you, My Prince.”

His hand found hers again, catching her deft fingers just as she’d moved in front of him and finished removing his chest plate. Lightly, as if she were something fragile (with his touch alone, she was) he pressed her palm flat against his chest, over his own heart. The erratic rhythm was foreign to her, and her cheeks lit aflame as if she were intruding on something private, intimate; something altogether not meant for her.

“It’s rare to hear you talk at length like this nowadays, My Lady.” he said, his gaze piercing, despite his voice hoarse and colored with a tremor (of yearning? excitement? fear?), “We're both aware I tend to be stubborn... and at times single-minded, especially when it counts.” in spite of his assessment, the corners of his lips quirked up, not quite a smile, “But I won’t catch your meaning if you don’t speak it plainly.”

Moments passed, their breaths caught in their throats, fire crackled in the hearth, Aemond’s heartbeat thundered in her ears, butterflies threatened to choke her, and despite still drenched from the unceasing downpour, the room became almost impossibly too warm to bear. Sansa swallowed again, her mouth dry. Her lips moved, but it was another few seconds before the words took form.

“You... most certainly will, My Prince.” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. Her fingers clenched against his chest, twisting in the fabric of his tunic, and she was emboldened by the way his hand pressed securely over her own, as if to encourage her. Her free hand came up to his cheek, fingertips brushing against his jawline, as if to return the way he’d held her in place with just a touch. Her thumb grazed the scar on his cheek, tender against his angry flesh.

A part of her realized she was leaning closer over him, that her forehead pressed against his. Sansa looked into the violet of his exposed eye, unflinching despite the shadows of darkness lurking beneath its depths. Aemond, in turn, looked back into the impossible blue of her gaze, and their blessed light. Like heaven and earth meeting to kiss upon the skyline, their colors mingled; like one another’s mirror, until they became their own reflections of refracted light and encroaching shadow.