Love is a Battlefield (a Game of Thrones fanfic)

The Offer

Margaery laughs then, throwing her head back on Sansa's pillow, her hair spilling out around her head like a halo of brown against stark white.  She’s so beautiful in that moment that Sansa’s breath catches and she finds herself staring, quite unable to look away from Margaery’s smiling face and the warm feeling that surges up within her as she looks at Margaery and catches herself thinking: I did that. I made her laugh like that.

Still, it’s probably not the best way to transition away from hysterical giggles, so Sansa pretends to pout; nudging Margaery in the side with her elbow.  It just makes Margaery laugh harder.  "Can you imagine?" Sansa adds.  She’s unable to resist it now that she’s got Margaery going.  She straightens, trying to look serious and putting on a poor imitation of Professor Lannister's Casterly Rock accent.  "Why, Miss Stark, I had no idea you were even interested in men after your unfortunate entanglement with my nephew.  Goodness knows, I would swear off men if I ever had to date him."

Giggling, Margaery nudges Sansa back.  Her eyebrows are furrowed together, when Sansa looks up at her face and her expression seems suddenly serious. "You don't have to say things like that, Sansa. I know that it can be hard..." Her lips turn down and her fingers gather in Sansa's thin nightshirt.  The nights have turned warm now and if Margaery wasn’t here, Sansa probably would forgo a shirt altogether. .  "To figure yourself out. I don't want you to rush into something just because you think it will make me happy."

Rolling onto her side, Sansa props herself up on her elbow and regards Margaery.  "I've already had that freak out, Marg."

"Oh yes, the Dornish girl from first year," Margaery sighs and pulls her hand back, running distracted fingers through her hair.  She seems uncomfortable with the way that the conversation’s turned, but she was the one who turned it.  As Arya would surely point out in such a situation, it’s her fault she’s uncomfortable and feeling awkward. "I just... I don't want you to say you're something that you're not."

"I'm not saying I am anything," Sansa replies, shaking her head at the thought that she was trying to box herself in for Margaery.  She would never willingly do something like that unless she was sure, damn sure.  And she’d thought Margaery knew that.  "But I'm pretty sure I'm not as keen on boys as I liked to tell myself at age seventeen."

"Men have two purposes," Margaery says.  Her elbow is up in the air, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on Sansa's ceiling through the shield of her fingers.  She looks like one of the great masterworks at the National Gallery, laid out like she's about to have a fainting spell.  Sansa wants to kiss her. "To keep up appearances and making babies, but with the way technology is advancing, I'm sure that their role in reproduction will be minimized soon enough."  She turns, a smile pulling at her lips. "You, darling, can be whomever you want to be.  But know that you're a good writer and you don't owe the Internet trolls anything."

They lapse into a silence for a few minutes, Margaery's fingers buried in Sansa's hair and Sansa's breathing slow, steady, coming in even pulls, her fingers curled up in the fabric of Margaery’s shirt.  She could fall asleep like this and a part of her wants to.  They haven’t slept together yet, but there’s been a lot of this: dozing on Sansa’s bed when they bother had other, pressing matters to attend to.  Neither of them, it seemed, wanted to let the other go.

"Did I tell you that Renly and Loras are opening for Dany Targaryen when she plays here?"  Margaery asks, apparently apropos of nothing.  She's braiding a few strands of Sansa's hair, distractedly humming to herself.  "He mentioned something about a surprise, too, are you going to the show?"

Sansa sighs, turning to stare up at the ceiling.  Margaery's fingers don't leave her hair, but she makes an annoyed noise at the back of her throat and adjusts herself so she can keep the braid going.  This is harder than Sansa had initially thought, and her confession is sort of a bad one.  She feels her ears start to burn as she tries to articulate her point.  She swallows. "This is really embarrassing."