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Not for the first time, the same thought ran through Sansa's mind as she stood against the bar, her hands wringing together as her palms became clammy and the music from the speakers made her teeth rattle: what the fuck am I doing here?“Can you imagine dancing like this on the main floor?” Gendry asked with a light laugh. “Along with the family foxtrot?” He scoffed and lifted the beer bottle to his lips, pausing before taking a swig. “They’d have to shut the place down first.”Right on cue a couple swept past them, one of the woman’s legs wrapped so highly and tightly around her partner’s hip that almost her entire bare leg was visible, a leg he was rhythmically squeezing and caressing, as their hips pumped shamelessly against one another in time to the music.Sansa’s face instantly heated as second hand embarrassment shocked through her.No, she thought, as her mouth ran dry and she quickly looked away from something which, to her innocent mind, seemed far too intimate for the eyes of strangers.
She couldn’t imagine it at all.As her eyes swept restlessly across the sweaty throng of gyrating bodies, Sansa’s gaze caught on a couple in the middle of the floor. A space had been carved out for them, as if they were the main attraction and everybody else was simply content, and lucky, enough to merely lurk on the periphery of their spectacle. Which, Sansa thought, as she strained her neck and pushed up onto her tiptoes to get a better look, seemed like an appropriate response.The man was short and stocky, but was moving his arms and legs and hips as if he was made of water, fluid and free, and entirely without artifice. Rhythm pumped through him like blood, Sansa could sense it from where she stood pressed up against the bar. And the statuesque blonde in his arms was spinning and twisting as if she weighed no more than a feather. Her movements were light and agile, like she was a creature from another realm – a fairy or sprite, whose body wasn’t limited like those of mere mortals.The man was throwing her about the floor, swinging her around his own body, and catching her with flawless skill, all while holding and handling her as if there was no safer place for her than his arms. He was both pushing her body to extremes, completely confident in her ability to go where he needed her, while treasuring her as if she were made of glass.It was a fascinating contradiction, a mesmerizing exhibition, and Sansa couldn’t help but push up higher onto her toes as a new song thrummed to life over the speakers, and they momentarily disappeared from her view.
All of the couples were like that, she realised with surprised fascination. Their moves were raw and intimate and completely unrestrained, the music pumping through them as if it were as natural as breathing, as if they were merely vessels for the beats and baseline. But it wasn’t sloppy or unrefined. Not messy or barbaric. It was
beautiful.
They held one another as if it would kill them to be parted, cherishing their partner’s bodies almost as an extension of their own. They were like one being, one organism which couldn’t survive without the touch and embrace of the other’s skin.
Gendry was right. It was a million miles away from the structured waltzes she was used to, where the participants held themselves as far away from each other as possible, their arms, legs and bodies stiff and straight, where the slightest crook of an elbow could produce a chorus of disapproving titters and shakes of the head.It was all such a heady, intoxicating sight, sensation lighting her up as the music thumped around her and the sweat scented air filtered through her nostrils - not entirely unpleasant either.So lost was she in the sights, sounds and smells of the room, that Gendry’s voice from beside her felt like a sudden bucket of cold water to her face, an unwelcome hand seizing her arm in a vice-like grip and pulling her back to reality, where everything was loud and messy and jarring.“That’s my cousin,’ he was saying, and she squinted up into his face, trying to realign her senses as if she had just surfaced after being held underwater for hours.At her confused silence, Gendry merely smiled, his warm eyes knowing and amused as his lips fought a twitch. He nodded his head back out to the floor in answer. “Jon Snow,’ he said, and she followed his eyes to the man she had been staring at before. He had momentarily been separated from his dance partner, falling back into a group of friends and shamelessly pumping his hips at the blonde to raucous hoots and cheers.Sansa’s stomach dipped and she felt hot all over. She had never seen such a brazen display of sexuality from a man. The gentlemen she was used to conversing with were stuffy and stunted, every single word out of their mouths so obviously planned and practiced, and no doubt instructed beforehand as falling under the umbrella of ‘appropriate and acceptable discourse.’ She was admired and petted like a bird in a cage. It was so…mundane. And formal. Impersonal. Just like the waltzes she had spent her life dancing: lifeless and calculated and entirely without energy or feeling.Nobody ever took her hand or mouth in a passionate outburst of desire. They would never dare disrespect her father like that. Either that…or they found her entirely and utterly undesirable. Perhaps she simply didn’t inspire that kind of rabid passion. Even her fiance, Joffrey, had never gotten further than a soft peck on the lips, a clinical, perfunctory act which he almost always performed with his eye wide open...much to Sansa's horror the first time she had briefly opened her own to discover him staring back at her.
Nope. Never had she known the sensation of her heart beating wildly inside her chest as another face lingered a breath away from hers, the heady anticipation of knowing she was going to be kissed, and then taken and touched like she was the air he needed to survive. Never had she been drank from in the way she had read about...nothing so raw or elemental had ever happened to her nor anybody she knew. It was a mystical, mythological fantasy, hovering on the periphery of her world...forever out of her grasp no matter how high and hard she reached....which, to be honest, she didn't do much of anymore.
And so the presence of it here, on full display from the windows to the walls, every inch of the place dripping in sex…it was utterly fascinating…irresistible….and Sansa found herself unwilling to look away, unable to keep her eyes off of the man on the dance floor, his hips continuously pumping as a sinful smirk graced his lips, his dark eyes shone seductively and sweat plastered his dark curls to the sides of his head.She heard Gendry laugh again and she looked away from the man once more – this Jon Snow – embarrassed and blushing.“He got me the job here,” Gendry said, leaning closer so that she could hear him over the music. Sansa could detect the clear amusement in his voice and she tried not to glance back at the dance floor. She simply nodded at this new information, trying her hardest to summon a semblance of nonchalance as she lowered her eyes and forced her gaze to stay firmly put on the ground.
It was a battle she was destined to lose, however. And no more than 6 seconds had passed before she glanced up again, her eyes instantly seeking him out.He was back with his partner now, their arms enveloped around each other, their smiles and eyes blazing as they leaned in close and shared a secret joke.“They look great together,” Sansa found herself saying because…well…it was the truth, but also because she didn’t want Gendry to think she had some kind of design on Jon. He was clearly spoken for. Not to mention that there wasn’t a universe in the world in which she and a man like him would make sense. Or even come close to being in one another’s sphere of existence. It just wasn’t done. Or natural. And she wouldn’t be condescended to or laughed at like a school girl with a crush. She was a grown woman. A grown woman who knew what was good for her…who knew the life she would lead, and the people she would lead it with. She wasn’t a fool and she wouldn’t be thought of as one.“Yeah,” Gendry answered her proudly, as he glanced over at Jon. It was obvious that he felt great fondness for both his cousin and the girl he was embracing. “You’d think they were a couple, wouldn’t you?”Gendry turned back to the bar to grab his beer and Sansa did a double take, his words ringing around her head like a bell. “They’re not?” Her voice sounded distant and distorted even to her own ears.Gendry took a swig of his beer and shook his head. “Nah,’ he said, as he swallowed a big gulp. “Not since we were kids.”Kids?
Well that certainly explained Gendry’s obvious affection for the girl too, if they had all grown up together. But still, Sansa thought, as she turned back to Jon and his partner. How did they dance like that, wrap themselves so intimately around one another, display the kind of raw, sexual chemistry that they did when their bodies moved as one…and there not be
something else
behind it? It seemed impossible for it all to be an act, nothing more than the performance of the dance, of the moment.Sansa felt different as she looked at them then, a dangerous kind of awareness trickling down through her veins…and she couldn’t seem to stop it from gaining speed and momentum as it planted itself inside her brain. Somehow her assumption that Jon and his partner were an actual item kept her from conceiving of other possibilities before, standing between her and her more inane fantasies like an immovable wall. But now…as she looked at him moving his hips and handling his partner with a gentle kind of roughness…Sansa couldn’t help but wonder…what would it feel like?
Somehow the possibility seemed closer than before, breathing down the back of her neck like a tantalizing whisper.Her thoughts were cut off suddenly as the song came to an end and hoots and cheers erupted around the room, followed by even more as yet another one came on and everyone got right back to it. Jon disappeared from sight again as he separated once more from his partner and began to move around the room, chatting to friends and joining in their dances as he made his way around the perimeter.“You want a drink?” Gendry asked her, and Sansa breathed a sigh of relief, turning to him eagerly and bobbing her head. Yes, a drink. A drink was exactly what she needed.As Gendry ordered her something “fruity, I promise”, he distracted Sansa by regaling her with some tale about how he used to work behind the bar, and how he even invented a few cocktails that turned out to be quite the hit and were still popular with the customers to this day.Before Sansa could ask if the drink he had ordered for her was one of these infamous creations, she became aware of a body behind her, a tingling at the base of her skull that made her stomach dip and her throat run dry.
“Hey, cuz!” A masculine voice shouted over the music, and even though she knew without a doubt who it was, Sansa looked to Gendry for confirmation. Or reassurance, she wasn’t sure which.Seeing him turn to face the newcomer, his face lighting up with a blazing smile, Sansa received her answer and was instantly hit with a perplexing mixture of excitement and dread.Swallowing, she turned slowly, her eyes flickering quickly over Jon, appraising him as nonchalantly and unsuspectingly as she could manage when he was right there in front of her, causing her heart to drop into the bottom of her stomach with a sickly thud. Everything about him was bigger and brighter and better now that he was so close. She could smell the sweat on his skin, see the grey of his eyes, the indentation of a scar on one cheek. He wasn’t just the brilliant dancing stranger from across the dance floor now. He was real, he was here. And he was suddenly staring at her with narrowed eyes.She shied away from his scrutiny, ducking her chin as his gaze continued to scald her in a slow perusal. She could practically
feel
his eyes as they dragged down her body in small degrees…from her head, right down to her toes, their examination like a lover’s caress. And her entire body felt as if it might erupt into flames.“Who’s this?” He asked his cousin, his tone none too friendly. Sansa couldn’t exactly blame him. In her pristine summer dress and comfortable fitted cardigan, she didn’t exactly look like she belonged. There was a sense of ‘otherness’ to Jon that struck Sansa’s ordered, borderline tedious, existence like an electrical charge. And it was probably the same way he felt about her. Without the attraction, of course. Judging by the unimpressed glare he was currently giving her anyway.
She stuck out like a sore thumb, her presence loaded and questioning.“Oh!” Gendry said, putting his arm around Sansa and pulling her close. “She’s with me. She came here with me!”
Sansa could practically hear the smug smile in his voice and she instantly shrank backwards, trying to dislodge his arm to no avail. Gendry was a nice enough guy. He’d rescued her earlier from a night of mind-numbing boredom and invited her there when he didn’t have to, and judging by Jon’s glare, probably shouldn’t have. But she wasn’t here with him in
that
way. She had no interest in him like
that.
And she didn’t want him to think she did. What’s more…she didn’t want
Jon
to think she did. But she didn’t allow herself to contemplate that perplexing fact in that moment.
Looking up at Jon, she realised he was still looking at her, not taking his intense gaze off of her for one minute, not even while his cousin was speaking. His blazing stare was speculative and interrogative, and she wondered what on earth he was looking for or trying to figure out.“I -” she started, desperate to say something and distract him from whatever he found so intriguing about her face. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I carried a watermelon.”Jon just continued to stare at her, his eyes narrowing even more at her inane comment, and she suddenly felt as if she wanted to die as embarrassment exploded inside her chest.I carried a watermelon?!
What a thing to say!Finally, with one last indistinguishable perusal of her entire body, Jon turned away and dragged Gendry by the arm until they were standing a few feet away. Sansa couldn’t hear what they were saying, but judging by the tense set of Jon’s shoulders and the way Gendry kept looking back at her awkwardly, the point of discussion was
her.With a final angry word Jon stalked off, not even sparing another glance in her direction, and Gendry quietly sidled back up to Sansa like a scolded child.“Everything ok?” She asked, desperate to know what exactly had been said about her, fascination lighting her up at the thought that Jon had spoken of her, that discussion of her had been on his lips, in his mouth. Maybe it was stupid, and she would probably chastise herself later for such silly musings, but it made her feel warm inside. Again, however, she stopped herself from examining that fact too closely right then, and tried to school her features and voice into a level mask of indifference.Gendry shrugged and picked up his fresh beer from the bar.
“Jon doesn’t think I should have brought you here.” He glanced down at her apologetically. “Says its not a good idea for guests and staff to mix.”“Oh.”So he was angry she was here. Would he be angry if Gendry had brought
anybody?
Or was it something about
her
in particular that he took issue with and had gotten him so vexed? The lengthy stare he had given her had been so fervent and loaded that Sansa couldn’t help but feel it was entirely personal, and that he had found her lacking in some way.“Yeah,” Gendry replied glumly, turning back to the bar to fetch Sansa’s drink – a pink concoction with an umbrella sticking out the top and a wedge of lemon hanging off the rim. “And…uh…he’s probably right. So we should really get you back after this.”She took the drink and nodded, perplexed at the disappointment that sank to the bottom of her gut at the thought of not only leaving this place, but Jon specifically ordering her away.As Sansa sipped slowly from her straw, purposely taking her time in order to prolong her stay, Gendry starting talking to a girl on his other side, and she lazily surveyed the dancing bodies. She had quickly given up looking for Jon, no longer wanting to be caught staring now that she knew how unfavorable he found her presence.So she sipped from her drink and focused on one particular couple in front of her, mesmerized by the way they moved against each other,
into
each other, as if they wanted to devour one another whole, consume the other like battling flames.And that’s what it was like. Like looking into fire, that hypnotic kind of way you simply couldn’t drag your eyes away. And they seemed lost in it too. They could probably feel her stare and yet didn’t seem to care, so spellbound and captivated by one another as they were.Sansa couldn’t help but wonder what that was like. Not only to be so enchanted by another person, but for another to be as enthralled by her - caught in her web as she weaved her sinful spell over them. She feared she would never know. And that sad, painful truth made her want to take advantage of these few moments, these tiny seconds of liberty and release where she could be free and live a life that was not fated to her, that she would never be apart of.The shamelessness of the other dancers was making her feel bold, and she felt herself begin to sway. Not with any kind of rhythm, she was sure, but she couldn’t seem to stop her body from moving, from mimicking the dips and curves and bends she had never tried before, the kind that were foreign to her own body.After a minute or two of this, her eyes began to wander from the couple in front of her, the sweet, pink liquid making her limbs feel loose and hot and brave. It was making her want to consume other couples and other poses, other possibilities for sweet rebellion.She felt wicked. And free.As her eyes swept over the dance floor, searching and seeking with a hungry gaze, she saw him again. Jon Snow. Dancing with two other women this time, their hands and legs caressing him all over, as he stood sandwiched between them and pumped his hips.And yet when her eyes, braver now with the alcohol flowing through her, crept up his body to his face, she realised with a jolt of surprise that he wasn’t looking at them at all. His eyes, grey and piercing and hot, were latched firmly on her. His gaze rolling over her gently moving hips and dipping shoulders.Sansa instantly stopped dancing, sputtering and spitting the straw free. Wiping a hand over her mouth as fruity liquid coated her lips and trickled towards her chin, she felt her belly dip once again and her face turned hot with nervous awareness.
His stare was sharp and intense as he glanced at her, and if she wasn’t mistaken, there was a hint of
something else
there too, a slither and flicker of something different from before, something which looked a lot like…interest, or amusement…or…Sansa didn’t know, but she didn’t have much time to think about it…because suddenly he was moving out from between the two girls, leaving them to cling to one another as they continued their sensual dance.Sansa stilled, her eyes locked on his as he stopped several paces from her on the dance floor, a clear spot having opened up around him.And then…as if in a dream, Sansa watched him raise his hand and make a gesture which had her heart slamming inside her chest and all coherent thought fleeing from her like rats abandoning a sinking ship.
Come here.