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Tyrion has to have Sansa sleeping next to his right.
It isn’t how it started. In the beginning when they start sharing the same bed, she is on his left side. Sansa likes to fall asleep on her right side and Tyrion likes to face her when falling asleep. When she is on his left, he turns to the left and they are facing each other as the night falls and it works great at first. Except for his Eyrie nightmares. Some nights Tyrion dreams of being back in a sky cell, rolling over in his sleep and falling to his death. He screams so loud, it always wakes up Sansa. She notices that on those nights his little body rolls away from her to the right, towards the edge of the bed. It makes sense, since he also prefers to sleep on his right side, just like she does.
So, one night Sansa suggests that they switch places, with her sleeping on his right. Tyrion isn’t too happy about it, because now, even if he turns to the right and faces his lovely wife, he can only see her back. But he hasn’t had sky cell nightmares ever again. When he moves too far to the right, his body bumps against Sansa and stays there till the morning. He jokes that she is his Wall protecting him from all the nightmares.
Sansa has to have some space around her when she falls asleep.
It’s unfortunate, because Tyrion likes to fall asleep feeling his wife next to him. Maybe because he was deprived of a tender loving touch most of his life, he yearns to have someone right next to him at night, but for some reason she can’t fall asleep if his body touches hers. It’s not really about him. It could be her whole being insisting on independence from anything and anyone, it could be her weariness of another person too close to her - a painful reminder of her second not-really-husband, it could be the long years of being alone and not trusting anybody, Sansa doesn’t really know. So much for her skin supposedly turning to steel. She feels guilty about it and at first she doesn’t protest when her husband hugs her as he drifts off to sleep. But sleep evades her for most of the night. She keeps turning and tossing, feeling tired all day. Taking a nap by herself during the day helps somewhat.
Eventually Tyrion realizes the problem and stops insisting on embracing Sansa as she falls asleep. Now every night, after kissing his beautiful wife goodnight, he rolls onto his back, leaving some space between himself and Sansa, and stares at the bed canopy waiting for her breathing to signal that she is in a deep sleep. Then he carefully turns towards her, extends his arm and gently puts his hand on her side. It never wakes her up and is enough for him to feel someone close by.
In the morning usually they wake up spooning each other. Some mornings Tyrion wakes up holding onto Sansa’s back - the sign of Sansa’s body transforming into that Wall which prevented Tyrion’s sky cell nightmare from pulling him over the edge of the bed the night before. Other mornings Tyrion wakes up encircled by Sansa, her arm wrapped around his chest - as if after initially enjoying her autonomy and self sufficiency she later started missing him and subconsciously reached out to him. Their joke is that on those nights she relieves their journey towards each other - from her looking to get away from him to later seeking him out and refusing to let go.
