YELLOWJACKETS 309. How The Story Ends

before it kills me || jon snow

"Are you jealous?"

"Maybe. Or maybe I'm afraid. I don't know."

you're jealous of the dragon queen, and it's tearing you up. fem!reader. takes place s8.

Thank you so much for the request! Sorry it took so long!Hope you like it!

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You'd always been the jealous type. Not just with lovers, but with friends, and with things, and with luck. When you were a child, you'd stare at the highborn whenever they passed through your village, dressed in silk and plate armor, on shining, well-bred horses. Why them? You would think. Why them, and not me?

At the Wall, you'd been jealous of Jon at first. He was stronger, and faster, and better trained than you-- that is to say, trained in the first place. You'd been jealous of Sam, who could read, and Grenn, who could ride, and Pyp, who could sing. It had faded, of course, and you hadn't let it stop you making friends for too long, but still, it was your first instinct. It always had been.

Now, at Winterfell, after years of fighting, and bleeding, and freezing your ass off on the edge of the world, you found yourself jealous again. Not of someone's skill, or weapon, or training, like would be even marginally acceptable for someone of your age. No, you were jealous of a pretty woman, and how much time she spent with Jon Snow. And it was bad.

That fucking Dragon Queen had you pacing. Pacing, and brooding, and biting your nails, and cursing yourself for all of it. You had more important things to be worried about than the affections of Jon Snow, who wasn't yours to be jealous for in the first place. Gods, when did you even start loving him? Maybe you always had. Either way, this was what you got for dancing around him for years-- you hadn't made him yours when you could've, and now, someone better had shown up to whisk him off on dragonback.

Daenerys Stormborn-- First of Her Name, Breaker of Chains, Mother of Dragons. The Unburnt, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Queen of the Andals and the First Men. How could you ever compete with that?

Did you even want to try?

What could you possibly give him that she couldn't? She was inspiring, powerful, and unmatched in beauty. A Targaryen. A gods-damned dragon rider. And you were a bastard girl who cut her hair and became a man of the Watch. Not even a bastard of someone noble and important, like Jon was. Just a Flowers of some Redwyne or Fossoway who's name your mother forgot. Rough, weary, dressed in old black ringmail and scars.

Daenerys dressed in furs and silver.

Didn't he deserve her?

You should have just talked to him. You knew that. But jealousy was an old friend, a familiar pain. It was easy to sink back into. So you let it claw at you for hours, for days, alternatingly ferocious and grieving. It ate you from the inside out and the outside in, made you irritable and anxious and guilty. Distracted. You slipped up on the sparring field. Battle plans went in one ear and out the other. No sleeping position was comfortable anymore, and your jaw ached from constant clenching and grinding your teeth.

Your friends had grown worried. You hadn't let even Davos coax out what was wrong, though you suspected he already knew. You were growing worried too. Fighting the dead would need you at your strongest, and the dull ache in your chest was taking its toll.

You grit your teeth again, and got out of bed. This has got to end. Fuck it if he loved her, if you had been wrong, and all the glances, the stray touches, the so-nearly-kisses that always seemed to get interrupted had all meant nothing to him. At least you'd know, and you'd move on. Or you'd die fighting Walkers, and none of it would matter. Either way, it'll be better than this.

The castle was sleeping, and nobody but a few wandering soldiers were there to pay you any mind. Poor bastards probably can't sleep either. Some bowed their heads respectfully when you walked past, mumbling "M'lady," or sometimes "Ser," though you were not a knight, and lady of nothing but your sword. You quickened your pace.

When you reached Jon's room, you didn't let yourself think twice. You didn't steel yourself, didn't take a breath, just rapped on the door before you had a chance to go craven and leave.

Jon opened the door. Disheveled, in nothing but a plain shirt and trousers, though clearly awake. Your breath hitched. It felt intimate, seeing him this way, out of his capes and his leather, without Longclaw on his hip. His eyes widened, and you remembered your own appearance. Your bare feet, your undone hair, your dressing gown. At least we're even, then.

Jon ran a hand through his hair. "You need something, Flowers?" He mumbled, not unkindly, a tired smile ghosting his lips.

"Do you love me?"

"What?"

You pushed your way into the room. Jon's eyes flared again, but he didn't stop you. "You heard me, Snow. Do you love me? All those times we sat on watch together. All those times you held my hand, and came to greet me at the tunnel when I came back from a ranging, and fussed over me when I got hurt. How you called for me when the fighting ended at Castle Black, and after the Boltons, and how I called for you. Did all of that mean something to you, or did I imagine it?"

His brow furrowed, and for a moment, he just looked at you. Then, his face softened. He took your hand in his, warm and rough and familiar, and threaded his fingers through yours.

"Are you jealous?"

Damn him.

"Maybe." Your voice came out a tremble. "Or maybe I'm afraid. I don't know."

"Come here." He tugged you into his arms, and you found yourself clinging. It had all been so much so fast. All the fighting, the dying, the red woman, the free folk. Ramsay, and Cersei, and the threat of the dead, and the beautiful Daenerys with her dragons. Jon held you as you cried about nothing and everything for a while, rubbing your back and carding his fingers through your hair, murmuring reassuring things that you couldn't hear.

You could've stayed there forever.

But I need to know before it kills me.

With an effort, you stepped back, feeling a little empty without his arms around you, and a little guilty about the damp spot you'd left on his shirt. You took a shaky breath.

"I need to know if you love me, or--" you pushed a sob down, before it could break. Jon opened his mouth, but you didn't let him get a word in. "It's okay if you don't, really-- I just," you offered him a watery smile. "I need to know now. If you love me, or if you love the Queen. Please, Jon. Before it kills me."

You bit your trembling lip for dear life. You would not cry if he said loved her, you swore it to every god you knew. You would not ruin it for him, more than you already had. If he said he loved her, you would smile, and thank him for his honesty, and be done with it.

But Jon Snow didn't say anything. Instead, he sat on the edge of his bed, and took your hand, and kissed your knuckles. He kissed your palm, and your wrist, inviting you to sit beside him with a gentle pull. You nearly fell into place. Something about his touch always made you lean into him without thinking. He wasn't magnetic, exactly-- it was something softer than that. More akin to the gentle urge of gravity on a feather.

He held your face in his hands, and brushed away a tear, and kissed you softer than any fur or silk in the world.

"Of course I love you," he said, voice wavering. Tears had made a home in his eyes, just as they had in yours, and the look on his face sent a wave of guilt crashing over you. "I'm sorry you ever thought I didn't. Please, forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive, Jon. You know how I get, I--" you paused, trying to find the words. "I'm sorry. I'm a jealous woman, a scarred woman. I have no dragons, and no crown, and no beautiful silver hair or perfect face. I have no name of my own. I have nothing to give you but my sword and my love, and Daenerys has seven kingdoms. Well, she will, I mean. Just-- I felt like you'd abandoned me for someone better. Which is stupid, because you're not even mine to think about that way--"

"And who says I don't want to be?" Jon interrupted. He took your hand, took your scarred knuckles to his lips again. The way he was fixing those beautiful eyes on you, with such perfect sincerity, took every word you'd ever known right out of your mouth. Whatever he was going to say next, he meant it.

"I want to be yours, and I want you to be mine, and I don't want it because of power, or money, or dragons. I just want to love you. Is that so hard to believe, Flowers?"

"You would love a jealous woman?"

Jon laughed. "You would love a jealous man? I can be just as bad as you, you know. Remember when you got to be a ranger, and I didn't?"

That was true, and you chuckled at the memory. "Gods, you're right, Snow. You had on the most sullen look I've ever seen when you watched me and Grenn ride off for the first time."

"And that was me trying to hide it."

Jon Snow took you in his arms again, smiling now, and kissed your brow. When you buried your face in his shoulder, he smelled of linen, and smoke, and something that was just him. Familiar, safe, and gentle.

"Stay with me tonight. I want to hold you." His whisper fluttered over your ear, tone almost desperate, almost yearning. Your heart skipped about ten beats at once, and you shuddered. He's going to be the death of me, you thought, pulling back to look in those deep, dark eyes. He is going to be the death of me, and I don't mind at all. Gently, you pressed his shoulder, pushing him down to lie on his back, with you settled in the pocket of his arm.

He held you, and you held him, and for the first time in many days, you slept comfortably.

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