The Mockingbird's Song
DISCLAIMER: I don't own a thing, everything is with their rightful owners.
*A/N* This was actually meant to be part of a larger text but that sort of didn't go anywhere, so I'll post it on its own now, because I'm just too proud of these two snippets to delete them and I guess they make a decent story on their own.
This is a companion piece to "Liar, Liar", you should read that one first if you haven't already.
"You're like one of those birds from the Summer Isles, aren't you? A pretty little talking bird, repeating all the pretty little words they taught you to recite."- Sandor Clegane in "A Game of Thrones"
His dagger was out, poised at her throat. "Sing, little bird. Sing for your little life." -Sandor Clegane in "A Clash of Kings"
He had lost track of how long he'd stood there in front of the huge glass pane, staring out onto the city. At night, when it was dark and the only thing you could see were the lights in the windows of the skyscrapers and the pale blotch on the sky that was probably the moon, the whole place looked less dirty. He liked that about the night.
The only colourful things were the screamingly bright ugly neon lights of the advertisements, the red lights in the brothel's shop windows and the blue shadows racing across the walls whenever a police car dared to come out this far into the legal vacuum.
But the living things had no colour. All cats were grey by night. And this was Petyr's world – a faceless mass of pawns, and him at the top, looking down on them.
He owned the red light streaming across the streets, he had his fingers in the affairs of the men who owned the advertisements and he had bought every second policeman in town.
And if he felt like it, he would have to do nothing more than make a call to put out every single light out there, cut the power.
He loved the night for that – it made his power visible. He owned the colours of this world, he, the poor boy from overseas who'd had to grow up in a foster family because his good-for-nothing of a father had had the habit of drinking himself senseless before noon.
He'd come far, and every now and then, he allowed himself to be proud of that.
"Mr Baelish?"
He turned around and looked at the man in the plain suit. "Yes?"
"We found her."
He threw him a quick, lazy smile the way the rich people used to toss him a coin when he was a kid. "Bring her inside," he replied softly, put down the wineglass and followed the man into the hall.
A second man walked her inside. She clutched his arm and he practically had to carry her. Her red hair was greasy, tousled and sticky with clotted blood and dirt and her bright eyes were blank.
She wore bloody red high heels, or rather what was left of them – they were torn, the heel splintered and the leather stained with blood and dirt and vomit and all the other shit covering the streets. One of her feet was held at an odd angle and her lower lip was bleeding.
The worst thing, however, was the summer dress she was wearing. It was a white, lacy little thing, and it was covered in stains. He was no stranger to dried blood, and her dress was full of it. The heavy leather jacket around her shoulders must have once belonged to Clegane, he guessed. It was black leather, so you almost couldn't see the blood, but the holes in it were hard to miss.
He wore that thing when he died, Petyr thought and sighed softly.
"Thank you," he said, handing both man a hundred-dollar note. "You don't know who you've brought here and tomorrow, you won't even remember what you were doing tonight in the first place."
While they showed themselves out, he gently took hold of her frail shoulders and led her to the guest room. "Through that door you'll find a bathroom. Clean yourself up, I'll get you some food and then you have to try to sleep a little. Tomorrow, I'll call a doctor for your foot."
Slowly, she raised her head to look at him. "Why?" Her voice was hoarse and frail.
"Why what?"
Her clear blue eyes were too bright, too shiny, and the hand that was clasped around his forearm looked like a claw, she was so meagre.
"Why do you care?"
He stared at her and wanted to say because you look so much like your mother, but instead he just smiled and said: "Have a shower, sweetling. There are clothes in the wardrobe, help yourself."
When he returned with a tray and a pot of tea, she sat on the bed in a light blue pyjama that was several sizes too big for her, hugging her legs. Her red hair was wet and tangled, drenching her shirt. She looked tiny on the huge bed.
"Eat," he said softly. "All of it. And the tea."
"Are you gonna sell me to them, Littlefinger?" she asked, her voice as empty as her eyes.
"No."
"I hope they pay you well. I'm still worth half a fortune, you know? Don't let them fuck you over."
He was almost shocked by how disillusioned she was – almost. But his composure had not wavered for years and it didn't waver now. "Eat, Sansa. You have to."
.
She was fast asleep half an hour later. The tray wasn't quite empty. For a moment he wanted to wake her and force her to finish it, but then his eyes returned to her face and the thick damp red hair that framed her head like a halo, and he thought better of it.
So much like her, he thought and felt a bitter smile tug at his lips.
"Look at me," he told the pale moon outside the window with a derisive little laugh. "Acting like a fucking saint. I hope you're pleased, Cat. I hope at least you care."
.
(Time passes for everyone, you see, liars and saints alike.
It matters not who you are.
It matters not what you have seen.
It matters not what you do.Time passes, for everyone.)
.
She could only sleep if the door was locked, one of the less astonishing souvenirs from her time with the Lannisters. But she just entered her room, dropped shoes and jacket to the floor and collapsed on the huge bed, stretching out on the silk sheets.
She was having trouble to blame Littlefinger for whatever it was they had, though she desperately wanted to believe it was all his doing, every kiss, every night spent together – but didn't she just have to turn the key in the lock?
He had kept away from her, had he not, made his comments and thrown her his looks, but he'd kept his hands to himself until…
.
"Sansa?"
She sat in a corner of the dark room, hugging her legs tightly. She was shivering with cold and somehow there seemed to be too little oxygen in the room to draw regular breaths.
His silhouette was stark black against the light from the hallway. His voice was too soft, didn't match the sharp features and the keen, calculating mind of the Lannister's financial counsellor.
"Hey. Hey, Sansa." He crouched in front of her, eying her sharply. "Look at me."
Reluctantly, she raised her head and met his eyes, black as ink in the dim light.
"It's alright. You're safe."
"You've told me better lies," she breathed, backing away from him against the wall.
"I'm the best liar you'll ever know, sweetling," he replied gently. "What are the chances of me telling you an unconvincing lie? I will not harm you."
"They'll find me," she whispered, tears filling her eyes. "And then… all that blood… and the smell, it never goes away, it's still there, everything smells of it, everything-"
"I can't smell anything." His voice was still so quiet, so gentle.
"It doesn't come off," she gasped out between soft sobs, shaking her head vigorously. "It's all over me, no matter what I do, it doesn't come off…"
"Sansa," he said very softly, kneeling down in front of her. "Take a deep breath." He slowly extended a hand and placed it on her shoulder. "No one will come near you."
"They'll kill me, they will-"
"I don't believe that," he murmured, his hand warm on her arm. "I don't believe they're smarter than me, sweetling, and if I don't want them to find you, I don't think they will."
She looked into his eyes, too dark and the steel in them molten for a moment there in the quiet room, and the next moment, she found herself wrapped up in his arms, her face hidden in his shirt.
And somehow, the tears stopped. Suddenly, she was calm and composed.
She pushed her fingers in his hair and crushed her lips against his, certain it was the only thing that could save her.
.
When she heard the bolts of the front door (four bolts, solid steel, adding up to the metal reinforcing the door itself and the lock with a six-digit code – she couldn't see at all why people called Littlefinger paranoid), it was late, well past midnight. It wasn't unusual.
She would have called him a workaholic, if he had been a little more serious about what he did. But he mocked everything that had bought him his wealth and his power, not even stopping at mocking himself. The mockingbird on his tie pin was damn well chosen.
He came in without a word just like most nights, didn't turn on the light. He closed the door gently and turned the key in the lock, glancing at her over his shoulder with a hint of a mocking smile.
"A good girl would be sleeping."
Sansa smiled faintly. She knew the answer to that. "And a decent man would have knocked."
"The door was open."
"A decent man still would have knocked. I might have been asleep. Indisposed."
There was a mirthful spark in his grey-green eyes, mocking, a little dirty, too. "Naked?"
"You're such a child."
"Yes, but God knows what people might do if they found out how immature I am deep down," he replied with a shrug and loosened his tie. "So please keep your pretty mouth shut."
"Or what?"
"Or I might have to get you killed, sweetling," he replied, his voice tender and earnest. His sharp eyes stripping her bare.
"And here I was, thinking I could get through just one day without someone threatening to kill me," she muttered, shaking her head and slipped off the bed. There was only one way to elude Petyr's relentless eyes.
She untied the plum-coloured tie and put it down on the drawer. A lazy smile tugged at the corner of his lips and he shoved the strap of her dress down her shoulder with a slow and deliberate movement, this chilling, strangely cold hunger smouldering in his eyes.
She trembled at his gentle touch, even after all this time, and for just a moment she couldn't help thinking of Sandor and of how drunk he'd always been, how often his love had left bruises. His huge hands had always been hot as if he had a fever, rough and hard as boiled leather.
Petyr had the lithe hands of a pianist, always cool and smooth as if he'd just washed them with cold water. His touch was always self-assured, always perfectly calculated, never harsh or violent. He had far better ways to hurt people than physical violence.
.
The loft was perfectly empty and quiet before her scream cut through the cold air, waking her with a start. Breathing heavily, she hugged her legs tightly to her body and rested her forehead on her knees, waiting for the panic to ease off.
"You're getting better." His grey-green eyes were like steel, sharp, clear and cold; yet when it was late or when she was a little drunk, she sometimes thought they were eyes like coals, dark and glowing with some deeply buried heat – Sandor's eyes.
"Wow. I wake up screaming in the middle of the night and you think that's a sign of healing?" she muttered without raising her head, not daring to see what colour his eyes might have now.
"You woke up screaming ever since you got here, but you used to scream his name," he gave back coolly.
"It's bad for you, isn't it?" Sansa asked wryly. "I mean, the more of a wreck I am, the easier it is to control me."
"Just because I'm using you, sweetling," he murmured, lifted her chin gently and kissed her, "that doesn't mean that I enjoy seeing you cry."
She turned her head away and squeezed her eyes shut, fighting back tears. She dropped back onto the pillow and pressed her face into the soft black silk.
"Sansa…"
She turned her back on him and thought of Sandor and the way he used to whisper her name at night, over and over, like a prayer. How it had always sounded so hushed, a little disbelieving, a little doubtful, and a little too reverent for such a godless man.
Petyr said her name just like it belonged there on his lips, as if it had been made to be formed by his mouth, the way everything he said fell from his lips in casual, almost perverted perfection. He had the most beautiful voice she'd ever heard. A voice born to lie.
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