
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1051087.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M, F/F, Multi
  Fandom:
      Game_of_Thrones_(TV), A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire_-_George_R._R._Martin
  Relationship:
      Tyrion_Lannister/Sansa_Stark, Sansa/Shae/Tyrion
  Character:
      Tyrion_Lannister, Sansa_Stark, Shae
  Additional Tags:
      Sansa-centric, Sansa_takes_control, Sansa_realizes_she_isn't_powerless,
      First_Time, Minor_Threesome, Threesome_-_F/F/M
  Stats:
      Published: 2013-11-19 Words: 4540
****** The Protection Family Brings ******
by orphan_account
Summary
     Sansa realizes that there is a way to help ensure she will not be
     bartered ever again after wedding Tyrion Lannister. She hopes to
     live, to find peace someday, but no longer does she hope that her
     family will rescue her from King's Landing. She is far beyond their
     protection now, but there IS a family she can find refuge in now--she
     only has to reach out for it.
Notes
     ...um...mostly because I wanted smut and there wasn't any smut so I
     wrote some smut. I'm a bad person.
Sansa was oddly proud of herself for realizing that Shae had been Tyrion’s wife
by commoner’s marriage—I am your man, and you are my woman, or something along
those lines—before she’d herself become Lady Sansa Lannister. She was even more
proud of herself for confronting both of them in a tactful, helpful manner.
Shae cared for her when few others had, while Tyrion swore and made good on his
promise to protect her from the other Lannisters.
He refused to have her keep a separate bedroom, not after Joffrey’s threats,
and had changed his rooms accordingly to suit her moving in. She had felt
safer, curled up beside Tyrion at night. For whatever reason, the young mad
king had a bone of fear in him concerning her husband. The young, mad, king
feared her husband. Tyrion had taken her on a ride outside of the city a few
weeks after their marriage and had murmured to her that that was what Joffrey
was and they should think of him as such.
They were laid out in the middle of a freshly threshed field, their heads
beside each other—her feet pointed North and his towards the South. His hand
was reached backwards to twist his fingers through her hair.
She’d grown quiet when he said it and had been rewarded with an affectionate
scoff. “Call me your dwarf, Sansa, just as I call you my wife. It is what we
are, and what others think of us. My nephew the king is as mad as a Targaryen.”
They had sat out in the field for a long time after that, listening to the wind
over the stubble of the wheat.
“I don’t think of you as my dwarf, my lord,” she whispered, bringing a hand up
to his cheek blindly. His skin was warm, barely roughened by afternoon stubble.
Southerners had such an aversion to beards, it was always a little startling to
feel a dusting of hair on a cheek. Not that Sansa touched many men’s cheeks.
“Oh?” the lilt of his voice was pleasant, teasing. Always waiting for the blow
to follow his curiosity. He had lived with lions far longer than she had, and
knew their cruelty.
“I call you my lord husband, I call you Tyrion.”
The wind nipped at the hem of her dress while he thought of his answer. Sansa
listened to the birds—as it had grown colder in the North, fewer and fewer
birds had sung in the godswood but they were still loud here—and let her eyes
drift shut. Tyrion’s cheek slipped away from her hand and then a shadow fell
over her face. The red of sunlight through skin turned into a swirl of
iridescent blackness before she opened her eyes.
Though he was backlit she could make out the wonder on his face and it made her
smile as she teased him.
“Of course, Tyrion feels more honest as my lord husband has not yet taken me to
wife.” And then she held her breath, keeping her eyes on his. She blinked the
sun out of her eyes as he shifted around to lean over her properly, no longer
looking at her upside down. A delicate fluttering of her hair where he swept it
behind her ear had her biting her lip slightly.
“Someday, my lady, but you shall be given better than a field in broad daylight
I think.”
She had had to say it then, to let him know what she knew. That she wasn’t
upset with him—she’d heard enough of Cersei’s talk to know that married people
took lovers sometimes, and then there had been her brother Jon. She would of
course offer to raise Shae’s child as her own—and love the babe as completely
as her mother should have loved Jon. She would raise Tyrion’s children to love
their sibling as she should have been raised to love Jon.
“If—if it would upset Shae less, I don’t need better than a field, my lord.”
Though he’d been leaning in to kiss her, his blinked and moved back from her
just slightly. He had been trying to keep her from knowing about Shae because
he feared it would hurt her to think he loved another. It had hurt, but Sansa
could think of worse things than knowing her husband could love and empathize.
She was also relieved that the ‘needs’ the Queen spoke of men having were being
taken care of in her husband’s case.
“She’s told me that you are perfect for us, and I can only look at you in awe
for it.” He cupped her cheek with one hand, rubbing his thumb across the skin
there. He leaned down to kiss her then before laying down again, one hand
twined with hers as they let the warm breeze wash over them.
Sansa had thought the strange conversation settled, her husband once more
avoiding giving her the one protection she had against being married off to
some other person Tywin Lannister wanted to control. She didn’t want to share
her body with Tyrion, but doing so would bind her to him—and she felt safe with
him. Something else whispered to her that should Robb fail in his rebellion,
she would be able to return North and live out her days in Winterfell giving
the Lannisters sons to take up the Northern titles left bare by the war.
She did not wish for her brother’s death, but his success would only mean she
was once again bartered for power against her will. Queen Cersei and Margaery
Tyrell had taught her something else recently: women could barter themselves
for power too. A marriage to whichever Northern lord had a son who wished to
marry the Princess of the North and be of the same blood as the King in the
North tasted sour in Sansa’s mouth. Tyrion did not touch her out of respect to
her, but because he was also aware that she might be someday rescued. It spoke
that he’d at least once had some hope of her rescue—hope she had herself given
up long ago. She was married to a good man it seemed, despite all odds against
it.
“If you are willing, Sansa, we can have one another tonight.”
This shook her out of her thoughts and she swallowed quickly, suddenly
hyperaware of every inch of her skin. She could wait and remain in some amount
of uncertain peril, or she could let him take her to bed and know for certain
the peril she was in. Sansa found she much preferred knowing her situation, and
though she didn’t say anything she did clutch her husband’s hand a little
tighter.
They would discuss it later, of course, but it was enough for now to know he
believed her decision.
Podrick and Shae had supper waiting for them when they returned from their
afternoon riding, joined by Bronn who teased Podrick’s clumsiness by saying he
was intimidated by Lord Tyrion’s lovely wife. It was true she had been dining
at strange hours during the day, and Tyrion had lately been required in the
evenings to dine and talk strategies with his father, so the squire saw little
of Sansa—and of course Podrick blushed redder than Lannister sigils when he
glanced at Sansa or Shae.
The meal passed in pleasant conversation after Podrick was allowed to retire to
his own supper, though eventually Bronn seemed to grow bored with the peaceful
evening and showed himself out. Sansa thought she heard him whistling the
Lannister song as he walked down the hall but she couldn’t be sure. Her husband
had his face scrunched up in thought while Shae cleared the table. They tried
to minimize Sansa being alone by having food delivered in the middle of the day
that would hold them over until the next morning—whatever Shae saved would make
breakfast tomorrow.
Sansa quietly went to get her needlework and started on the delicate embroidery
for the inside of a cuff. She had, two mornings after her wedding, decided that
this was her life and she would make the most of it. Her servants would wear
good clothing, and she started first on a dress for Shae. The older woman was
good to her, and deeply protective of her more to the point. She might at least
look like she was the handmaiden of a highborn lady.
“Shae, I wonder if you might come sit with us,” Tyrion’s voice was his usual
mix of cajoling and slightly caustic. Out of the three of them, he had endured
Lannisters the longest and had been the most affected by them. At least it
meant that he was good at dealing with Lannisters.
“I know you would’ve liked to keep certain things hidden, but I fear our lady
Wolf has figured us out.” Sansa dearly wanted to keep her eyes on her needle,
right then, but looked up at the two people responsible for so much of her
safety. Shae was staring at Tyrion with a grim set to her mouth, wordlessly
conversing with him in the way Sansa remembered her parents doing when she was
in Winterfell.
“Then I must leave?” Shae’s voice was surprisingly even given the circumstance.
“No!” Sansa blurted out before even Tyrion could form a response to the
question. Looking around at the walls, painted with happy fluttering birds,
Sansa could think of nowhere Shae was more suited to be. She would get her own
rooms once again before she forced Shae to leave. Her two companions remained
silent after her outburst and she set her sewing on the table rather than
accidentally prick herself with the needle.
“I’ve known I would have to choose a side eventually, and,” she paused to calm
her voice to say what she needed to, “if Lord Tyrion beds me as his wife I will
at least know the full extent of my position and protections. I—I know that he
was yours long before me, Shae, and I won’t keep you from him. But the safest I
see myself being is tied to him—I do not want to be bartered from man to man,
and if I am his then it cannot happen. At—at least not so easily.”
The silence following her words was deafening and she swallowed back the fear
that she’d overstepped some boundary. Just because she was the lady in the room
didn’t mean that Shae would respect that. Shae did what she liked, a fact that
Sansa knew well and had relied on in the past.
“Would that I could make them scream who’ve made you learn to speak such sad
words, my lady,” Shae whispered, flopping farther back into the chair she’d
settled herself in. Sansa didn’t twitch a smile at that, knowing that King
Robert was at the root of her horrible stay in King’s Landing and that he was
as dead as Lannister gold could make him.
Thinking they were done, Sansa picked her sewing up once more. The design was
one of her own, an idea of a secret sigil having been planted in her mind after
the Battle of the Blackwater. Sewn on the inside of loose cuffs, revealed when
the cloth was flipped back, would be an embroidered symbol. She hoped to use it
to indicate safety in confidence—initially she’d only planned to give one to
Shae, but now reconsidered to perhaps giving one to Podrick.
After several weeks, she’d settled on a godtree face. Her mother had anointed
and raised her in the light of the seven, but the godtree represented a
religion much older than that—and closer to an understanding of the realities
of life, she’d always thought when her father spoke of it.
“Shae, I am going to read out on the balcony. Let me know when Lady Sansa is
prepared for bed—do not leave her side until I tell you to.” He pushed himself
out of his chair and snatched a book and lantern up from the desk he passed by.
In the gentle night breezes, the curtains in the archway billowed and gave tiny
glimpses of her husband as he settled down into his chair.  His lantern he hung
on a peg in the wall next to him, his face turned attentively towards his book.
“Come my lady,” Shae said with a little trepidation. No matter who Sansa
married, she knew Shae would have prepared her for bed on the night she took
her husband’s seed under her own cloak of protection. She knew that it was on
this brave and outspoken woman that she would have relied when that seed
quickened and grew—who helped her through all aspects of her pregnancy. Shae
would have found the wet-nurse for the babe and much more.
Looking at her companion and only confidant, Sansa suddenly wished she’d
married any other man than Tyrion Lannister. Why must her safety always come at
the expense of others’ happiness? To be sure, her marriage was none of Tyrion’s
will, but he slept in the same room as her every night, while Shae was with her
every moment of every day. They’d been irrevocably parted by this.
“Shae,” Tyrion called out from the balcony, a last lingering instruction in his
tone, “we are going to teach her. We are the only people in the world she can
trust, let us affirm that in her mind.”
Every dress and underskirt was removed carefully, Shae having learned over the
last few weeks how such clothing was constructed and fastened. Sansa smiled
softly as she watched her handmaiden tut over the emerald overdress and a bit
of loose embroidery. The other woman would never mend such defects, but would
of course show them to Sansa so that she might mend them. It worked well enough
for both young women.
“You used to be,” she murmured softly as Shae unlaced the last chemise and
tugged it over her head, “well, but now you’re—“
“I might have been his for a night, but now I am his forever. Just as you are,
my lady,” Shae replied with a quick smile. It didn’t reach her eyes, but it did
not unsettle Sansa as Lord Baelish’s smiles did. Whereas she did not know
Baelish’s mind, she did know Shae’s and forgave her.
The bed was slightly cold on Sansa’s bare skin, but her handmaiden quickly
climbed in after her and sat behind her. Shae’s arms wrapped gently around her
lady’s waist, her cheek pressed to Sansa’s shoulder. From this position, Shae
spoke in a whisper of what Tyrion liked and how Sansa might get him to please
her in turn. Feather light touches beneath the covers educated her on what
would light with pleasure and what would hurt, and Sansa tried to control her
breathing so as not to hum or cry out. All that the Queen had said, all that
her mother had spoken of her first nights with Father, all that Joffrey had
ever spoken about the act had led her to believe no pleasure could so early be
derived from the marriage bed.
She didn’t know her eyes had slipped closed until Tyrion spoke, a laugh in his
voice.
“Are you to take her maidenhead or am I?”
“You are my lion, I was merely helping my lady relax for you,” Shae said, her
own voice surprisingly even given what her hands were doing to Sansa, one
cupping a breast and the other gently fingering a tiny pearl of nerves between
her legs. Her eyes opened to see Tyrion standing on the steps that let him
access such a tall bed, surveying the tiny movements beneath the sheets. Her
belly quivered as she met his gaze, her cheeks probably spilling red.
Her husband’s movements were deliberate and slow as he crawled over to them,
keeping the bed linens between them as he settled down to kneel between Sansa’s
thighs. The pull of fabric over her skin had Sansa letting out a tiny whine—it
was about to be too much, but not enough. But then her husband was leaning over
her, as he had earlier in the day but this time pressing his weight down on her
body as he did so. With Shae behind her and Tyrion ahead, Sansa knew that this
was the safest path, so though his face was no less scarred than it had been
hours ago Sansa was glad to take his kiss.
He was in his nightshirt, she realized as she figured out that her husband’s
weight on her—solid between her legs—made her blood burn and drew a soft gasp
from her as Shae’s fingers pressed more firmly because of it. His lips were
soft, full and warm and as teasingly coaxing as the man they belonged to. Sansa
peeped out a tiny sound of surprise and pleasure when one of his hands came up
to cover her other breast, kneading the tender flesh as Shae mouthed along the
shell of her ear.
“My Lady, may I—?” His free hand toyed with the sheets which covered her body.
Sansa opened her eyes, staring at Tyrion briefly before she nodded and helped
him tug the fabric down to expose her chest. And then all she saw were his
golden curls as he bent to kiss and nip where his hand had so lately been.
“Remember what I told you,” Shae’s voice was as teasing as Tyrion’s was, the
sliding Lorathi accent warming Sansa’s ear, “about our lion’s mane. I cannot
learn these things for you, my lady, as I already know them. And,” a huff of a
laugh had chills going up Sansa’s arms as Tyrion’s mouth closed over as much of
her breast as he could fit, his tongue swirling over a nipple, “I am busy.”
Sansa yelped then as her handmaiden’s fingers, until now delicately circling
and rubbing the pearl of nerves that were making Sansa feel so so good, slipped
further down and curled into Sansa’s entrance just barely. She arched into
Tyrion’s mouth as well as tried to pull Shae’s fingers closer, harder—her head
fell back on Shae’s naked shoulder, lips parted as she gasped in air.
To her utter frustration, Shae’s fingers stopped and Sansa moaned until she
realized: his hair. Tyrion’s hair—he liked it to be tugged softly, and everyone
else’s hands were busy. If she saw her fingers shaking before they sank into
her husband’s curly mop, Sansa ignored it. Her belly felt tightly coiled, ready
to fly apart—but at what trigger she didn’t yet know, trying to keep her legs
from seizing around Tyrion. Every muscle was quivering, and only wound tighter
when Shae’s two fingers slipped deeper into Sansa’s body—a steady rhythm, made
intense by Tyrion’s hand coming down to knead the flesh just above Sansa’s
thatch of coppery curls.
A murmured, “yes, you learn fast my lady,” and something like a blessing from
Tyrion went to her head and she realized she was going to die or fly apart or
see forever. She didn’t care—what—it—was—and then Shae twisted her nipple,
Tyrion bit the side of her breast, and the fingers in her cunt scissored open
and closed nearly at once. Sansa’s muscles spasmed as she came, whimpering as
her body crested a wave of pleasure.
She sniffled when Tyrion withdrew his weight on her, only then realizing that
tears had leaked from her eyes. Shae’s hands remained anchored where they were,
one clutching her breast tightly and the other gently pressed as deep as the
handmaiden’s fingers could reach but otherwise still.
“My lady are you well?” There was no jape or jest in Tyrion’s tone now,
kneeling next to her and reaching to wipe away her tears. Sansa nodded, not
trusting her voice not to waver. Her husband had a tender smile on his face as
he took off the last of his clothes and threw the sheets away from her body at
last. She shivered in the sudden chill, quivering when Shae removed her fingers
and trailed them up Sansa’s torso to slip around over the breast Tyrion had
mouthed against.
“I’ll be okay if it hurts, I—I know that it hurts,” she started babbling as her
husband moved to kneel once again between her knees, stopping when he braced
his hands on her hips and bent forward to kiss her stomach. His eyes, cold
Lannister blue, were heated as he looked up at her through his fringe.
“I cannot promise it will not hurt, Sansa, but I will stop at any time. Say…”
he trailed off, kissing up her stomach to just beneath her breasts as he
thought, “say…” it wasn’t coming to him and Shae giggled in Sansa’s ear.
“Lioness, my lion, she will say lioness if she needs you to give way.” Tyrion’s
face lit up and twisted his scars into macabre patterns that Sansa couldn’t
find it in herself to flinch from. “Don’t worry,” Shae now said to Sansa, “he
will stop if you utter the word, or he will never again take a woman to bed as
he does now. I will see to it.”
“Ah, the inevitable betrayal,” there was a laugh in her husband’s tone as he
reached down to touch her as Shae had just recently done. “Rather sudden, but
not unexpected. Sansa you are just soaked, I hope this will go easy on you
because of it.”
“My lord?” Was she in trouble? She might have started to panic and shut down,
but Tyrion was leaning back just a little and she saw him rub his slick fingers
along his manhood. As it was she felt her face heat with embarrassed
nervousness. Was this some perversion that her husband had so far managed to
keep from common knowledge?
“Only a cruel man dares take a woman with a dry cock, my lady,” he said as he
leaned forward over her as he’d done at first. Sansa awkwardly widened her hips
to accommodate him and gasped when she felt him nudging against her. He was
hot, and it felt all wrong—Shae’s fingers and Tyrion’s fingers had slipped
easily inside her, the entrance seemingly made perfect for their size. He would
not fit, there was no way, he couldn’t fit—but he would, she suddenly
understood with a shuddering intake of air.
“My lady, please don’t rush me now—if I rush, you will be in more pain than you
need to be,” he murmured, reaching down to align himself better with her
entrance and then pressing slowly into her. Tears sprang to Sansa’s eyes, and
her nose felt hot as she tried to hold them back as well as her whimper of
pain. It stung, and ached, and she wanted more than anything for him to stop.
If he would just—
“Lione—lioness, please, it hurts, please,” she begged and true to his word
Tyrion stilled immediately. When he made a move to remove himself though, she
sobbed out another soft no, please. There was a curious wetness running from
where they were joined, it felt almost like her moonblood but not so thick.
Shae murmured quiet comforts in her ear, Tyrion rubbing circles on her belly
and ribs. His eyes were rapt on her face, never wavering.
Gradually the aching lessened, became less intense and more like an old bruise
and Sansa was well used to those. The sting remained, but mostly just at her
entrance. It was bearable.
“You—you can start again, I’m better, I’m better,” she managed to say, her body
still grappling with the intrusion. Tyrion’s mouth ticked up in the most minute
smile before he withdrew a little before pushing deeper into her. Shae moved
slightly beneath her, urging Sansa to learn the rhythm her husband was setting
for her with his hips. Through the flickering pain—an angry mix of stinging and
aching—Sansa could feel a bit of pleasure rising once again.
Shae slid her hand down and rubbed the pearl of nerves in time with their
bodies, twisting Sansa’s nipple with the fingertips of her other hand. It
occurred, without preamble or reason, to Sansa that this woman was the one who
would help her raise her children. She would be a mother soon now that Tyrion
would take her to bed, and she would be able to lose herself from all this
meanness. Tyrion would keep the King and his cronies at bay, and Shae would
keep gossips and spiteful tongues at arm’s length—and she would raise Tyrion’s
golden babies, or babies born Tully red.
Her husband—truly, lawfully, fully—was getting erratic in his pacing, faster
but without the previous grace, and he grunted with the effort he put behind
every stroke into her body. Sansa bit her lip but then couldn’t keep her soft
cries in, and those cries she hoped carried to the Mother’s ear and ensured
that Tyrion’s seed took to her womb and grew there. She didn’t love him, but if
she could love the baby in her belly she might sooner see his virtues.
It was a curious feeling when he finally spilled his seed inside her, warm,
almost hot, and she could feel him softening inside her even as the coils in
her muscles seemed only halfway primed to spring. She wanted to feel that
intense cresting once again, but for now her companions seemed inclined to lay
still. Shae stroked gentle patterns over her breast, fingers toying with the
nipple and nails scraping over soft skin. Tyrion lay, sprawled over her, his
manhood still buried deep inside her.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had a girl who prayed to the gods during sex, though
perhaps they’ll find the smell of fucking pleasing and bless us with a child?”
Sansa wanted to tear herself from their arms and hide then, but she was stuck.
“He means he’s flattered, but he’s shy about it so he chooses to tease,” Shae
said, and Sansa could hear the warm smile in her handmaiden’s voice. Tyrion’s
smile was sleepy but warm, his eyes lazily flicking between Shae and Sansa as
he basked like a cat in the sun. She might be happy here, she realized,
threading her fingers through her husband’s hair and scratching his scalp
lightly. These people, against everything that King’s Landing taught every man,
woman, and child, were good people who wanted her safe and happy. Even if her
father might not have recognized them as good people, Sansa knew it in her
heart that they would be good to her.
When months later she and Shae realized she’d missed two of her moon bloods,
Sansa had chosen to wait for Tyrion in his solar. He greeted her with his usual
dose of affection, goosing her as he passed by to sit on his chaise. When he
patted the space next to him, Sansa crossed but remained standing. She reached
for his hand and laid it across her belly.
“My lord husband, you are soon to become someone’s lord father.”
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