Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or any of Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire, unfortunately, and I'm not trying to step on anyone's toes. No copyright infringement or other bad stuff intended, this story is purely for your enjoyment and nothing else!
Author's Note: Although I've been reading fanfics for many years now and playing around with writing my own, this is my first to actually get finished and published, so please be nice. This is the sweet beginning of a Sansa/Littlefinger pairing, meant to be series-verse/AU (because that makes the age thing a little less disturbing), so you know the saying - don't like, don't read! Rated M for sexual references, some mention of gore, and in advance for a second chapter, which I will write if you like this one.
Although it was almost bedtime, he had her called to him in a haste that evening. "Alayne," he said, when she arrived, "close the door behind you; lock it." She was surprised; he was pacing his bedroom and seemed anxious. Despite his best efforts to hide it and be Littlefinger, in that moment he was mostly Petyr, she sensed. She did as she was bid, then moved closer warily. "Uncle Petyr, what is wrong?" He made himself stop pacing, even though he still felt just as restless. His eyes glanced furtively around the room for a moment, as if to ensure they were actually alone, before he said in a hushed tone "Sansa, sweetling, I'm afraid I may have been poisoned." "Poisoned?" she looked at him doubtingly. She knew he was a smart man and that he was mostly right in his assumptions and assertions, but – albeit a little pale – he did not look to be dying or even ill.
"Uncle Petyr, are you sure? Do you feel unwell?" He started pacing in front of his bed again. "I have had a stomach ache for the past few hours and it's been getting worse. I have taken antidotes to all the prevalent poisons, but nothing has helped." He felt himself getting more nauseous as he was talking about it, although he could not have said, whether it was due to the poison that was supposedly killing him, or just due to fear. "Are you feeling alright, my dear?" he suddenly said, walking over to her now, examining her face. "Yes, I feel fine, Uncle Petyr." she truthfully told, strangely enough starting to feel slightly amused, rather than alarmed. "Are you sure? No aches, pains, no nausea?" "No, I assure you, Uncle Petyr, I am feeling very well." She fought back a smile. It was not like him to be fretting like this, for all she had learned about Petyr 'Littlefinger' Baelish. But then, she supposed, marrying her late aunt Lysa, killing her and then being accused of and very nearly executed for that murder had to be getting to everyone's nerves at some point, even his.
She distrusted and at times even feared Littlefinger, as every sane person should. But this in front of her right now was just Petyr, looking like a frightened little boy, eyes wide and pale around the nose, and she felt sympathy for him spreading in her. Gently, she took one of his hands in hers. For all the times he had held her hand, this was the first time she found his cold and clammy. "Uncle Petyr, who should have poisoned you? How? Who would have access to such a poison you do not have an antidote to?" He dropped his gaze from her face. "I… don't know." he admitted. "Wouldn't it be possible that you just ate something that didn't agree with you?" Sansa continued to ask, patiently, still calmingly cradling his hand in both of hers. "I suppose so." he said, feeling more and more foolish by the moment.
"Sometimes a stomach ache is just a stomach ache, Petyr." she now said, reassuringly putting one hand on his right shoulder. As she could feel his fine bone structure, his elegant lean muscles under her palms, she also felt a warm, tingling sensation inside of her. She had felt it before, the strongest only a few days ago, when he had kissed her in the snow, before the whole dilemma with her aunt had unfolded. "You should rest and try to relax a bit." she suggested, and in a bold move went to open the buttons of his frock, starting at the top. He flinched for a moment in surprise and tensed up visibly, but did not pull away. "Should I send for the maester to see to your stomach?" she asked, half anticipating the answer that followed. "No, I don't trust the maester." "Would you like me to stay with you for a while then, until you feel better, just in case?" she tried, a somewhat playful undertone in her voice. "That would be very kind of you."
He seemed slightly nervous in a different way now, than he had been just minutes ago. Sansa had finished unbuttoning his frock and helped him out of it, hanging it over a nearby chair. It revealed matching dark breeches and a white shirt tunic, which too was buttoned up to the top. She reached for the topmost of those buttons, but was gently halted by his hands. His eyes met hers, slightly confused and incredulous at her actions. "I just want you to rest comfortably, Uncle Petyr." she said gently, and after a moment he let go of her hands and let her continue unbuttoning his tunic. She broke his gaze and went on with her task, wondering if he could tell she'd just lied to him. She told herself she was doing this out of pure curiosity, because she wanted to get to know Petyr better, as opposed to the Littlefinger she knew so well already; even that was only half the truth, she knew, but she did not care to think about that too much in that moment.
As she reached about the middle of his chest, he started shifting uncomfortably and halted her again, this time pulling the fabric closed over his chest abashedly. "It's alright, Uncle Petyr," she said, meeting his eyes with a gentle and friendly expression, "I – I've heard the story." His lips tightened and he seemed to have taken a sudden interest in the floor next to her feet, but his hands clutching the fabric to his chest loosened up a bit, and Sansa could easily remove them. He let her carry on, until his shirt was fully unbuttoned and she tugged it lightly out of his breeches.
She curiously inspected his naked chest. Clearly visible between a light cover of dark, curly hair – courtesy of his Braavosi heritage – was a scar, welted and pale, that ran from his left collarbone to just beside his navel in one straight, gruesome line. This was where her late uncle Brandon, her father's elder brother she had never met, had cut him in the duel for her mother's hand. She reached out a hand and softly traced the scar with two fingers. It is just curiosity, she kept telling herself. She could feel his chest heaving under her fingers as he took a deep shivery breath, and the warm, tingling feeling inside her intensifying, as her fingers caressed his naked skin. Suddenly he sharply pulled in another breath and clutched his lower abdomen with a pained expression.
"You should probably best lie down." Sansa said, snapping out of her daze. He just nodded and made his way over to the bed, with her at his heels. As he sat down, still rubbing at his aching stomach, she bent down to remove his boots. Her hair shimmered in the light of the candles. Would that she didn't have to colour it black, he thought, trying to distract himself from the clenching of his guts; he so loved her natural auburn colour. Once she had finished taking off his boots, he eased back into the pillows against the heavy wooden headboard.
Sansa carefully sat down at the edge of the bed. "When we were children and one of us – well, it was mostly the boys, but anyway – when they had eaten too many candied fruits or too much cake, my mother often used to sit at their beds and rub their bellies and sing to them." she recalled, smiling sadly. "Yes, I remember." he said, to her surprise. "She did that once for me, too, when I was growing up with her and your aunt and uncle at Riverrun. You see, she and Lysa had tricked me into eating something that also didn't agree very well with me, and I got terribly sick. Your mother felt guilty for what they'd done and sat by my bedside and rubbed my belly and sang to me, too." he explained, smiling as well. "Do you think you could do that for me?" he asked, hopeful. Sansa hesitated for a second, then nodded. Gently, slowly, she placed her hand on his lower abdomen; it felt incredibly daring to her. Her hands were warm and delicate, and her touch was soothing to his pain, as was her soft singing to his ragged nerves. She started rubbing his stomach in small circles, careful to apply just the right amount of pressure.
She found quickly, however, that her fingers kept catching on the waistband of his breeches and she could reach only half of the area she knew pained him. In a bout of slight frustration and courage, she therefore deftly yanked his breeches open and pulled them down just enough to still cover him, but grant access to the rest of his stomach. He had had his eyes closed, enjoying her touch and not least the alleviation of the pain in his guts, but at this he opened them startled. Was this still the shy young Sansa he had rescued from King's Landing?
This was the most state of undress she had ever seen a man in up close, she mused. She tried to ignore the tingling warmth inside of her, which had started out in her chest, but seemed to slip lower and lower, at that very moment warming her own stomach from inside, like a happy little fire, but with no intention to pause there for too long. She was just curious, she told herself again. And she was sitting on the wrong side, she realised, as her body started to ache from the twisted position she'd assumed. Never missing a beat, she slipped off her own shoes now and slid onto the bed on his other side. He was her uncle now, and she was just being a good niece by caring for him, right?
Petyr Baelish felt more surprise and excitement with his young 'niece' by the minute. Just days ago she had pulled away shocked when he had kissed her, albeit only after a long blissful moment. What had happened since? Where did this boldness come from? Was it something he had woken inside of her? He tried to distract his mind as best as he could from this topic, or the way it made him feel how she was lying next to him, propped up on her left elbow, still gently humming a tune and massaging his abdomen, all absorbed in her task. Her hand was so close to his manhood, she was bound to notice, if he would let himself get too excited. And an erect penis usually scared a virgin in the best of situations. Despite the fact she was lying next to him in his bed, or maybe exactly because of that, he was still feeling like he was walking on thin ice; more excited and tense than in the toughest matches of wits he'd ever had. Maybe it was this that made his bowels painfully seize up suddenly and caused him to unwittingly let out a low groan.
Sansa looked up somewhat startled, as he had been completely quiet until now. Nonetheless, she carried on, putting extra effort into smoothing out the cramps and soon was rewarded with a small moan and sigh of relief as the pain subsided. The sounds he made intrigued her and spurred her on. They seemed almost sensual, and like small glimpses of what was really inside him. Glimpses of Petyr without any taint of Littlefinger, just like the genuine, un-faked smiles, laughs and looks she sometimes managed to coax out of him these days; she was drinking in those moments and by now was entirely addicted to them.
She put her head down on his shoulder. She didn't know how he did it, but he always smelled clean and pleasant, like citrus-y soap and mint, mostly mint. His heart was racing in his chest and he wondered how she couldn't feel or even hear it. Or maybe she could, and she was enjoying what she was doing to him? If she was, could she be trusted? Sure, nobody could be trusted completely, but Sansa, she was so pure, she almost belonged on a pedestal. Maybe he was getting careless around her and letting down his guard too much; or maybe it was just because he felt weary and drained at that moment; closing his eyes again, he decided to put aside such concerns for now.
He had started to feel an urge to move his bowels a while ago, but having her next to him like this, closely, intimately, had been too good to interrupt. Now however, the urge intensified, and his stomach made an unmistakable sound, like a beat dog or a dying whale, with a painful pinch in the lowest part to match it. Sansa lifted her head from his shoulder, where she had been resting comfortably for a while. She understood the implications of the pitiful noise his stomach had just given off, and was in a rush to give him some privacy now. "I should let you rest on your own now." she said, straightening up and brushing her open hair back out of her face dignified. And rising from his bed, while slipping back into her shoes in one smooth motion, "I will come to check on you in the morning, but you may of course send for me at any time, if you need me, Uncle Petyr." She pressed a quick kiss on his lips and made for the door. "Thank you,… Alayne." he said confused, as she nodded goodbye to him and closed the door behind her. He slipped into his boots arduously, and as soon as her steps had faded away in the distance, he rushed for the door himself, now somewhat in a hurry to make it to the privy on the other end of the hallway.
Whatever it was that he had eaten, it had clearly very much disagreed with his bowels. Bending forward, still seated on the privy about ten minutes later, he rested one forearm and his forehead against the wooden door in front of him and let out a soft groan once again. Or could it be that the stresses of the past weeks had finally taken their toll? He held his breath and clenched his jaws as yet another bout of what felt like pure lava burst out of him, panting slightly when it was over and the pain in his stomach eased again.
He had always enjoyed the thrill and uncertainty of the game, of the chaos around him, had gotten his kicks not out of wine or women, but out of manipulating people in the way he wanted. But lately the stakes had been high, too high maybe. He'd seen himself faced with the almost certain prospect of his life ending with a step out of the Moon Door, and a splatter, probably right on top of the remains of his 'beloved' late wife. He swallowed hard – that was a thought too gruesome even for him, and he was used to a good deal of grisliness and gore. But what had happened? Was he becoming too old for this, for the life on the edge of the knife? Was his body letting him down in this way, protesting thrills with digestive upset? Sansa had saved him from a disgusting death a few days ago by lying for him, and she had in a way saved him today, too. Quite apart from making this horrendous bout of diarrhoea and the cramps that came with it more bearable, it was mostly his mind she had previously soothed. And hadn't that felt nice? To be at ease, letting his guard down and entrusting himself to another human being, if only for a couple of minutes? Letting his nerves settle for a while, while lying next to her, had perhaps been the best feeling – thrills and all included – that he'd had in a long time.
When he was certain, that his bowels had finished their rage against him for the time being, he cleaned himself thoroughly, buttoned up his breeches and stumbled into the hallway. He couldn't wait to get into bed at this point. His body felt weary, his thoughts muddled up, darting this way and that every other minute, not making sense like they usually did, as if he was drunk. He opened the door to his chambers, and suddenly he felt wide awake again. Under the furs of his bed lay Sansa, propped up on one elbow like before, a glass of wine in her hand. Judging by her dressing gown and night gown lying on the foot end of the bed, and by her naked shoulders he could see, she must have been perfectly nude under the blankets. She smiled at him innocently, but ever so playfully as he entered and said, "I'm sorry, Lord Baelish, I just got too curious, I could not wait for the morrow." "Petyr." he corrected her, lost for anything else to say, although he had a notion she had done it on purpose this time, to tease him. On a table nearby the door he found a flagon of the fine red and another cup, already poured for him. He stopped for a moment, then with a slight smile – a true one, though more to himself – he downed the whole cup in large gulps and refilled it, taking it with him as he walked slowly towards his bed. If this was indeed going to happen tonight, he would need all the strength and courage he could get.