#dear jon

Final two chapters of “Dear Jon” are live! Keep reading for a sneak peek... ~Originally for Jonrya Week 2020 Summer Day 3 Prompt: Revelation

Every sleepless night, every moment his enemies sought to break him, every endless day he’d spent fighting his way home, came down to this.

Arya’s soft milky skin, and the way it pebbled beneath his careful and not-so-careful touch.

Her sighs against his ear, and the way her fingers dug into his back as Jon slowly stripped her clothes from her lithe body.

The curves he had felt long ago when it had been forbidden to even think of her like this, he greedily palmed and traced with his lips and tongue.

He had dreamed of this.

In the darkest hells of where he had been after his capture and the mindless drudge of fighting in the streets, Jon could close his eyes and still see her face.

Her silvery-gray eyes, a slight shade darker than his, brimming with joy because of him.

He had barely paused long enough to take her gaze in, as he allowed her to strip his shirt and pants.

As they stood naked before each other for the first time, all Jon could think of was the taste of her on his lips, and how he yearned to bring her to completion again and again.

Dear Jon | post season 8 letter fic

Sansa drops the quill onto the wooden table carved with the leaves of the heart-tree and leans back in her chair, letting out a loud, exasperated sigh. “Why do I struggle to find the words?”

Her sister’s grey eyes study her face attentively for a heartbeat. “Perhaps you don’t know what to say.”

“I do,” Sansa states without hesitation. “I know what to say.”

“But?”

Sansa shrugs, the thick grey furs draped over her shoulders rising and falling. “I don’t know if he’d like to hear from me.”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

[…]

Jon rises from his seat and folds the letter, holding it tight in his hand, and strides towards the exit doors of the common hall. He looks for some parchment and a quill, and when he finds everything he needs, he takes a deep sigh and prays that his words do not fail him. She apologised, but I’m the one who should ask for forgiveness.

***

Post s8 (partially) epistolary fic in which Sansa and Jon begin exchanging letters to find comfort, solace and, eventually, forgiveness.

Dear Jon

Chapter 5

Post s8 epistolary fic

Her eyes trail over the distance between Winterfell and Dorne. They really are worlds away. The North is large and white, and Winterfell lies at its heart, its towers reduced to small dark grey threads. On the very opposite of the map, Dorne stretches from side to side, narrow and long. Overlooking the narrow sea, Sunspear is a little dot the shape of a small orange sun. Sansa’s eyes travel all the way to Winterfell, then down to Sunspear, then up again. How could she ever marry a Dornish Prince?

She saw Prince Nymor herself in King’s Landing. They did not exchange a single word apart from a formal greeting, yet she had the chance to observe him briefly out of the corner of her eye. He looked clean and neat, and certainly easy on the eye. He sat elegantly till the end of the trial, with his hands entwined on his lap and his shoulders relaxed. His curls had been meticulously combed, Sansa could tell, after years spent in King’s Landing surrounded by knights who would not even bother to wash themselves. His hands might even be soft and gentle, but whose curls would she want to caress whenever she would be close to him? Whose dark, tormented eyes would she want to drown into whenever his gaze would meet hers?

There is already a dark, brown-eyed man in her heart, and even though he does not love her, Sansa cannot even fathom the idea of replacing him with someone who looks like him but really does not look like him at all.

How could she ever love someone who smells like saffron and lemons when all she craves is dark ale, leather and pine?

[…]

Jon jumps to his feet and sprints towards her, his heart as loud as a war drum, but she is too far, too far away, and the more he gets closer, the more she slips away. Above him, the sky cracks with thunder, and a rain of fire pours upon her, becoming one with the red in her hair. He runs and runs, faster and faster, but the flames engulf all of her until nothing is left before him but a pile of ash that seeps through his fingers like sand.

Jon jerks upright. He is shuddering, cold sweat dripping from his forehead and into his eyes. He rubs the stinging sweat away and looks around him. The cell is dark, save for the faint light of a candle in one corner. His chest heaves with terror, and it takes him a moment to remember where he is, and that it was just a nightmare.

Just a nightmare. Just a nightmare.

Summary:

Post s8 epistolary fic. Sansa and Jon manage to put their pride aside and begin exchanging letters to find comfort and solace until an accidental confession on Jon’s part changes everything. Then, letters do not prove effective anymore in their quest for mutual forgiveness and understanding.

(Beta’d.)

Dear Jon, chapter 2 | Jonsa epistolary fic

When he finishes writing his letter, he signs it at the end and seals it, ready to send it. Then he watches it being carried away by a raven, and hopes that his words do not betray him, that the dry ink on that parchment does not reveal too much.

He shakes his head. It will not. He wrote her back as a brother, he apologised as a brother, and he loves her as a brother loves his sister. That is all she needs to know.

[…]

She reads Jon’s letter again. He does not resent her, like she had been so sure of, does he? You are the monarch I could never bring myself to be. Oh, Jon. Jon, Jon, Jon! She wishes he were there so she could tell him that he was good at ruling and together they could have made the North prosper. She has never cared about wearing a crown, and she would have been content with him ruling instead of her. But it is pointless now to dwell in the past, for it is long gone, just like the man she loves.

Because she loves him. Sansa loves him…but she can reach him only through words in dry ink and promises lost in the wind.

***

Post s8 (partially) epistolary fic in which Sansa and Jon begin exchanging letters to find comfort, solace and, eventually, forgiveness.

Dear Jon | Jonsa post s8 epistolary fic

Sansa drops the quill onto the wooden table carved with the leaves of the heart-tree and leans back in her chair, letting out a loud, exasperated sigh. “Why do I struggle to find the words?”

Her sister’s grey eyes study her face attentively for a heartbeat. “Perhaps you don’t know what to say.”

“I do,” Sansa states without hesitation. “I know what to say.”

“But?”

Sansa shrugs, the thick grey furs draped over her shoulders rising and falling. “I don’t know if he’d like to hear from me.”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

[…]

Jon rises from his seat and folds the letter, holding it tight in his hand, and strides towards the exit doors of the common hall. He looks for some parchment and a quill, and when he finds everything he needs, he takes a deep sigh and prays that his words do not fail him. She apologised, but I’m the one who should ask for forgiveness.

***

Post s8 epistolary fic. Sansa and Jon manage to put their pride aside and begin exchanging letters to find comfort and solace until an accidental confession on Jon’s part changes everything.

Dear Jon | Jonsa post s8 epistolary fic

She sits on the edge of her bed and buries her face in her hands. Why her? That question keeps tormenting her. It feels as if someone is ripping her heart apart, lacerating its tender flesh with venomous fangs and claws. She sighs, and another question comes to her mind.

Why him?

It is unnatural what she is feeling. Disgusting. Abhorrent. Jon is her brother, he is the son of his father, and he should not be anything else. He cannot be anything else. Yet…

The door flings open.

Her heart stops when Jon’s grey eyes clash against hers.

Why is he here? He never followed me after…

“Why did you leave?”

—

A blow crashes into Jon’s gut. He swallows down the lump that forms in his throat and hopes that his face does not betray him. Sansa is right. Sansa is right. Why did he even try to carry that burden all on his own? Were his shoulders strong enough for the Night King, Daenerys, all of that? No, they were not. He thought that by leaving Sansa out of it he could have protected her from Daenerys, but he never stopped to consider her opinion. He never took a moment to acknowledge her thoughts, her feelings. She must have felt ignored, he knows. He let her down, it is undeniable. Because it is disappointment he reads in her letter. It is disappointment her words scream at him. And he can almost feel her resentful gaze on him, even from miles away. How could I be so stupid? How could I be so blind?

***

Post s8 epistolary fic. Sansa and Jon manage to put their pride aside and begin exchanging letters to find comfort and solace until an accidental confession on Jon’s part changes everything. Then, letters do not prove effective anymore in their quest for mutual forgiveness.

Dear Jon, chapter 4 | post s8 epistolary fic

Her stinging, half-whispered question still lingers in his mind. Did you bend the knee to save the North or because you love her?

Once the letter is finished, he seals it with some wax and reaches the rookery, where the ravens start shrieking as soon as he enters. He tightly binds the letter to a raven’s leg and follows the raven as it heads south, where Winterfell sits with its swaying direwolves atop its ancient towers.

Will it be enough, though? Jon cannot help but wonder, Sansa’s unforgiving eyes still carved in the stone of his memory.

[…]

She stares at the parchment and an odd idea blossoms in her mind like a buttercup sprouting from the ground. She rises and steps out of her solar before her common sense brings her back to her chair.

No servants roam the corridor. Arya must be outside, riding or training, and Lord Royce must sit in his office doing his paperwork. She is glad to be alone, the clicking of her soles against the stone floor the only sound to be heard. She forgets how to breathe as she rounds the corner that leads to her bedchambers and, also, someone else’s.

Jon’s.

***

Post s8 epistolary fic. Sansa and Jon manage to put their pride aside and begin exchanging letters to find comfort and solace until an accidental confession on Jon’s part changes everything. Then, letters do not prove effective anymore in their quest for mutual forgiveness and understanding.