I’ve Got A Funny Idea With Damsel In Distress Role Reversal. How About Jon’s A City Boy Who’s Dad

I’ve got a funny idea with damsel in distress role reversal. How about Jon’s a city boy who’s dad just died and the rest of the family cut him off from the money so he takes whatever chuck of $ he had to himself and buys a house in the woods. On the private dirt road to his house his fancy suv (that has no awd) gets stuck in the snow. And then up rolls Sansa (his new and only neighbor for miles) in a big truck with 4x4 wondering who’s driving down her road. She’s completely unimpressed with his brand new carhartt pants (did he iron them??) and name brand flannel that’s too thin but she takes him to her house and explains the house he bought is unlivable, the realtors had showed him a picture that was a decade old. Of course a blizzard happens and he has to stay for a week and learn how to rough it but he’s eager to learn and while a little sheltered not as shallow as she thought. Cupid hits them both. Happily ever after, tada!

a note about prompts in general: I have about 25 of them sitting in my inbox and I'm sorry I haven't done them yet! To be honest, a lot of them are for media I have never consumed, and so I need to at least read the synopses of the movies, TV shows & books. (I might try to watch the movies, but I know I won't watch the shows or read the books... I have a terrible attention span anymore)

a note about this prompt specifically: I always feel guilty when I get a fairly specific prompt and then write something that... well, isn't that. I took the basic premise of this and wrote what came into my head, so I'm sorry it's not the exact thing you asked for! But thank you for the prompt!!

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read it on ao3 here

ephemera: chapter 26

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Sansa hums along to the radio as she drives.

It's getting dark, and she's not the biggest fan of driving these back roads at night, but she's got Lady with her, so she isn't quite so worried. She'd gone over to Greywater to drop off some stuff for her dad, and the Reeds had invited her to stay for dinner, and now she's late getting back.

As she rounds a bend, she slows when she sees a car on the side of the road, it's hazards on, a man standing next to the vehicle, head bowed over a phone that she knows instantly won't have service. They're in the deepest part of the woods here, it's a dead zone.

It isn't tourist season, she thinks. That's what he has to be – no one ventures out this far unless they're a tourist, but usually they only come around in the autumn to ooh and aah at the changing leaves.

She slows down to a crawl and leans over to roll down her passenger side window, the night air sweeping in and making her shiver, even in her coat. It's technically spring, but up here, it still gets cold at night.

“Flat tire?” she calls to the man, who had looked up from his phone the moment he'd noticed her headlights.

“Seems like it,” he says, and she can't quite read the tone in his voice.

He's got tourist clothes on. Expensive looking pants that she thinks he's even ironed, and a flannel that's too thin for this weather. She's seen it before, the richer tourists all dress the same.

“You won't get service out here,” she nods down at his phone, and he sighs.

“Yeah, sort of figured that.” He doesn't put his phone away, though. He keeps it in his hand, clutching at it, and she guesses it's a comfort thing. Tourists like their phones.

Sansa has a phone, but she sometimes forgets about it because service is so spotty out here, it's sometimes useless. When it is working, though, she likes to see what's going on in the outside world. She even downloaded some app called TikTok and when the 5G is working, she likes to scroll through it at night and wonder what her life might be like if she lived somewhere that wasn't Winterfell.

“You got a spare?” she asks.

“I would assume,” he shrugs, and looks towards the trunk of the sedan.

If it weren't for Lady, Sansa would tell the man she'll go and find Jory to come help. The Cassels own a tow service and during tourist season, they troll these back roads looking for people exactly like this – city folk who bring their fancy sedans out here, only to find barely-paved roads and tons of potholes and deer.

But she does have Lady, and so instead, she backs her truck up, then pulls in behind the tourist's sedan so that her headlights illuminate it, and she keeps them on even after she shuts off the engine.

Lady is out first, and Sansa follows.

To his credit, the tourist doesn't flinch back from Lady, like most of them do. Lady's a big dog, and she's scary looking, even if Sansa knows she's got a gentle heart. Well, she has a gentle heart until someone threatens Sansa. Then Lady turns as feral as Shaggydog.

“You don't know if you have a spare?” she asks, trying to keep a tone out of her voice.

The man sighs and runs a hand through his hair, a mop of dark curls that look soft and inviting. That's another thing Sansa doesn't mind about the tourists – their hair always looks so shiny. Last year, she'd even gotten some recommendations from a few, and Sansa had gone online and ordered some products for herself, using her carefully saved money. An unnecessary expense, but every time she uses them, she spends the whole day touching and smelling her own hair, and it makes her happy.

“It's a rental,” the man explains. “So I assume there's a spare.”

“I'm guessing you don't know how to change it?” she asks, once again trying to keep that tone out of her voice, though it doesn't quite work. The tone that says, of course you don't know how. Look at you, pretty boy.

“I live in King's Landing,” the man shrugs again. If he hears the tone, he doesn't seem bothered by it. “I don't drive much.”

She nods, because that makes sense. She remembers visiting King's Landing once, with her parents. It had been a big deal, she'd been so excited to go, except she remembers getting there and everything was just so... much. So many people and the buildings rising like mountains around her and all the noise. And she remembers the Metro, how confusing it had been, how terrifying. She'd been a tourist there, she realizes - wide eyed and frightened and useless out of her element. He might not know how to change a tire, but she bets this man wouldn't blink twice at using the Metro.

“Open the trunk,” she instructs, and he follows her direction without question. Inside, she does find a spare tire, but no jack or tire iron. Useless.

Luckily, she has both in her truck, and so she goes back and retrieves them.

“Here,” she says, placing the jack under the jacking point. “Lift that?”

Again, he follows her direction without question, and it gives her pause. Sansa knows what she looks like, she knows most men don't take her very seriously. Not even in Winterfell, where they know her. She's always been the least useful of her siblings. The Stark who likes pretty things, always daydreaming, her head stuck in the clouds. But the tourist follows her instructions, no hesitation.

She may be the most useless of her siblings, but she does know things. And she certainly knows how to change a tire.

She watches him jack the car up, and that's when she notices the muscles in his arms, in his shoulders, through the thin material of his flimsy flannel, his forearms flexing where he's rolled up his sleeves. She decides to ignore that, and instead goes to haul the spare out of the trunk.

“Here, you use this to loosen the lug nuts,” she says, handing him the tire iron and pointing to where he needs to use them, and he does it. When the flat tire is off, she rolls him the spare and he puts it on, and she decides she doesn't mind this tourist. By now, most of them would be complaining, but he hasn't made a face, he hasn't let out a heavy sigh, he hasn't even frowned at her.

Not what she'd expect from someone with those shoes. Sansa may not be an expert, but she's spent enough time looking longingly at fashion magazines that some of the tourists leave behind (late at night, beneath her covers) to recognize the brand he's wearing. And now that he's rolled up his sleeves, she can see the watch on his wrist that she knows must cost more than anything she owns, or will ever own. He's lucky she's the one who found him. They're mostly good people out here, but there's a few bad seeds who would kill this man for his watch alone.

“This should get you to the next town, at least,” she says. She doesn't tell him the next town is her own home. “They can replace it there.” And then, because he keeps silent as he puts the lug nuts back on, she asks, “where are you headed, anyways?”

“Place called Winterfell,” he says, tightening the last of the lug nuts.

“What business you got in Winterfell?” she asks in surprise, caught off guard. It isn't tourist season, and no one ever has a reason to come to their small town otherwise.

“Oh,” he stands, slipping his flannel off and using it to wipe at his hands, the small bits of grease she can see spotting them. “I uh...” he starts, eyes on his hands as he keeps scrubbing at them, though the grease is long gone. “My mom's from there,” he says finally.

“Your mama?” Sansa asks, surprise making her blurt out another stupid question. “What's her name?”

The man looks up at her, studies her for a moment, before he says, “Lyanna Snow.”

“No way,” she breathes.

“You know her?” he asks, and something flares behind his eyes, something that looks almost... desperate?

“Oh, no, not personally,” she shakes her head. “But my daddy... he used to talk about her. They were friends. Said she ran off to the city, because-” Because she got pregnant by some tourist. Followed him to the city. “Daddy says they lost touch a long time ago, but he still talks about her,” she finishes lamely.

“Yeah,” the man says, shoulders deflating a little. “She died when I was young. I didn't even know she was from there, until I found her birth certificate a few months ago in dad's paperwork. Did some research and I thought... well, maybe I'd come check it out. See if I've still got family out here or something.”

Sansa wishes she hadn't stopped. She wishes she'd continued on and gotten Jory.

She could choose not to say anything. Let him continue on to Winterfell on his own, let him learn the truth that way. But the idea of it... no, she can't do that.

“You won't find much,” she says softly. “The Snows died a few years ago, and Lyanna was their only child. You might have some distant kin in the area, but nothing direct.”

“Oh.”

That's all he says, but it makes something deep in Sansa's chest ache.

“I didn't even catch your name,” she says, because she can't stand the silence, or the way his eyes go distant as he stares off into the dark woods.

“Jon,” he turns back to her, blinking slowly.

“I'm Sansa Stark,” she says, holding out her hand. “It's nice to meet you, Jon Snow.”

He winces as he takes her hand, “it's Targaryen, actually. Mom gave me my dad's last name. I've thought about changing it, but-” he cuts himself off, as if he's decided he's sharing too much information, and takes his hand back. “Will that spare get me back to King's Landing?” he asks, and she feels another pang in her chest, a twisting of her heart. He's going to go back to the city, because he's not going to find the family he was looking for out here.

“Probably shouldn't,” she says truthfully. “Not good for the car, you should stop as soon as you find the nearest shop.” Then, after a slight hesitation, “Winterfell's the closest, and the Cassels will give you a good deal on a new tire, I promise,” she says. “I'll call them up the minute they open and let them know you're comin'.” Before she can think it through, she continues, “the Lodge has vacancies.”

“The Lodge?”

She nods, feeling her face go a bit hot, and she's grateful for the darkness. “It's like a hotel. My family owns it. We've got plenty of openings since it isn't tourist season.”

He nods slowly, as though he isn't going to take her up on the offer, but he doesn't want to offend her.

“And I was thinkin', you know,” she keeps going, “my daddy might want to meet you. He could tell you all sorts of things about your mama.”

Hope flashes in his eyes again, rekindled, and that ache pangs in her chest.

“I don't want to impose,” he says, carefully, and she shakes her head.

“Don't you worry about that,” she says. “I'm sure daddy would love to meet you. He always wondered what happened to her.”

The man, Jon, nods, still cautiously, as if he's trying not to get his hopes up. But she can see the change in him – she knows he's not going back to the city. At least not tonight.

“You can follow me if you want,” she offers.

“Alright,” he agrees.

They get back into their vehicles and she pulls out first and drives slowly, making sure he keeps up, making sure another pothole doesn't waylay him again. He has no reason to trust her, but he still follows, and she might call him naive if she weren't just as stupid for telling a strange man on a dark road to follow her home.

Yet there's something in her that trusts him, that knows he's telling the truth.

She's leading Lyanna's boy home.