Thanks much, TopShelfCrazy, for a beta read.
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A Christmas drink in the premises of an imaginary humanitarian aid agency.
Secret Santa
It was 19.00 and the Christmas drink was well under way, with quite a few empty bottles of sparkling wine on one of the desks.
Finishing the last sip from her second glass, Sansa remembered being used to real champagne in the past, before the accident that had killed her parents and Robert; her father's best friend. She bowed her head under the invisible pressure of the memory, struggling to return to the present.
Now she was a project manager, responsible for budgeting and monitoring the delivery of aid to the most deprived regions of the world. Food and medication saved lives in many conflict-torn areas. Her work was her life.
She was about to excuse herself and head home when the damn alarm went off again.
Brienne, the agency director, immediately turned to leave the small circle of potential new donors in order to silence it.
"I'll go," Sansa offered. She was the only other employee given access to the secure room for the time being, though she had yet to test it. There had been no time before the party with the busy work schedule at the end of the year. Only a portion of the new equipment had been installed, mere days ago, and the door alarm occasionally rang for no apparent reason.
"Thank you so much, Sansa," Brienne was always genuinely grateful for all Sansa's efforts, and it was a pleasure to work with her. "The technician should have come today, but I guess that something unforeseeable has come up."
Christmas. How much more foreseeable can it be?
"Most likely," Sansa agreed placidly, left her plastic champagne glass on the improvised counter and sauntered down the corridor.
Brienne had a gift for raising funds. She was so passionate in promoting solidarity with those who suffered that donors felt the preservation of their honour depended on making generous transfers. Whereas Sansa had a talent for verifying that projects proposed by the aid workers in the field were sound and no mismanagement occurred.
Together, Brienne and Sansa made an excellent team.
Sansa had to remind herself of all that when she reached the door of the secure room and all the lights went out.
Her coworkers at the party whooped cheerfully, believing the effect was purposeful; a staged moment of fear in an otherwise funny celebration.
It wasn't.
Sansa would know if it was. Her position was senior enough.
So the other rumour had to be true. They were in danger. That was why they needed the secure room - to store sensitive information about the agency's ongoing activities in the developing world. The consultant who sold the idea to Brienne argued that the agency data, collected with the intention to do good, could be abused by armed groups for their military actions.
Sansa thought this to be an elaborate delusion, just like Robb's theory that their parents were murdered. For god's sake, the agency fed and vaccinated children; it didn't trade in weapons. What information could it possibly have that should be secured? It was all a huge exaggeration.
Yet Brienne found merit in the consultant's proposal to install the special IT system in a protected room, so Sansa agreed to it. How could she not? The costs were modest. The agency received a significant discount for being the first entity to test the latest version of the equipment.
And finally, Brienne had been so nice to Sansa when she needed a purpose in her life, other than pondering Robb's conspiracy theories and spending time on Skype with her brothers and Arya. The Stark children scattered around the world when they were orphaned, each facing the tragedy on their own. Sansa had faith that one day they might all reunite for Christmas.
Not this year.
Right now, Brienne was sweet talking Jaime Lannister while Sansa stood in the dark.
Judging by his golden looks and family name, the rich man was a close relative of Cersei Lannister. Sansa didn't want to know how close. Cersei was Robert's widow and Robb blamed her for the accident, calling it murder. Sansa thought this was far-fetched. Cersei was very rich, and didn't need her late husband's money. She and Robert had seemed as attached to each other as any long-time married couple Sansa had seen.
Fighting a tide of strong, irrational fear of the dark and of being abandoned by Brienne, her superior and friend, Sansa took her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans with sweaty hands. Very nervously, she launched the app necessary to switch the damn thing off. When the little numerical pad on her phone was appropriately lit, she typed in her six digit code. A long beep indicated that her first try was successful. She could enter if she dared.
Scared and shivery, she pushed the new, heavy, secured door open.
The alarm continued. On all other occasions, when it was Brienne who opened it, it had stopped immediately.
But nothing came easy for Sansa since her parents' death, and now it was her in front of the damn door.
Even the darkness seemed thicker behind it.
The small room was previously a storage place for the cleaning company and their materials because it had no windows. Some spare bottles of detergents were still there in one of the corners. The absence of windows was one of the preconditions put forward by the consultant.
As a result, the street light that partially illuminated the corridor never reached it.
Sansa's frightened brain struggled to determine her next step. Swiftly she remembered that there was obviously no threat. The agency was as safe as any other company. It was just her childish dislike of being alone in the dark. This was just a malfunction that could be expected before the new system was fully deployed. She recalled reading about it in the user's manual. The recommended procedure in case of problems with the power supply was to disarm the alarm, enter the room and close the door fully while staying in.
Sansa obeyed the instructions, closing the door behind her much slower than usual. She thought she could hear the cheering of the party crowd when the lights came back on for them, just before the lock clicked ominously, leaving her in absolute darkness.
There is no one here, she told herself to alleviate her galloping panic, making miniature steps to her right, searching for the familiar shape of the light switch on the wall. The light in the room should be turned back on manually, according to the procedures.
Toppling over a huge body sprawled on the floor right in front of her, Sansa screamed.
Who is murdered? Her head swirled with paranoid thoughts. Jory? Rodrik? Jeyne? How did the killer come in? We have security guards at the reception desk, don't we?
The agency rented a floor of a prestigious office building. It should have been safe!
"Are you mad?" What Sansa thought to be a corpse rasped deeply and vividly from the floor, seizing her right hand in an iron grip.
While the voice sounded a little demonic, the large body it belonged to was quite humanly warm. Her bum was comfortably resting on it.
"Who are you?" She asked, standing up and wrenching her hand free, hating the tone of her own voice; sweet and feminine instead of confident and strong - an unwilling adjustment to the pleasantly rough rumble of the man under her feet.
Or rather, her behind, seconds ago. The recollection stayed with her and it shouldn't.
Deep voices and tall men were her undoing. She tried dating a few in the past, unsuccessfully.
"It's none of your business girl. You can clean up when I'm done here," the man also straightened himself, insulting her.
"Shall I bring you a cup of coffee while I'm waiting?" she asked in her best professional tone, to compound her joke.
"Yes, that would be great," he replied very seriously, not hearing her mockery.
Not paying any attention to her.
"Yes, please, that would be great, thank you," she corrected him.
He approached too closely for her liking.
Or not close enough, Sansa mused stupidly.
She could feel his presence though she couldn't see him, looming over her in the darkness. "Who are you and what the hell are you doing here?" he asked angrily. His intriguing voice turned suspicious and awful. "Stealing, are we?"
Fearing an assault, Sansa backed to the door and opened it, running into to the corridor.
Another strident alarm immediately went off, causing a blackout on the rest of the floor.
Sansa had no choice but to turn back, if she wanted Brienne's first Christmas party as the head of the agency to be a success. Brienne deserved to have time to talk to those donors, even if Sansa hated their last name.
"You're the technician," she blurted against the shrill sound of the alarm gone haywire. She had to verify her assumption before returning to share the narrow space with a potentially dangerous assailant.
Only the man's silhouette was now visible behind the doorframe, revealed by the dim street light from the far end of the corridor, but not his face, nor any details of his hulking, monstrously tall figure. Sansa liked tall men, but this was beyond standard. He was probably half a foot taller than an average basketball player. And much more muscled.
His hair was very lank and possibly longer than Sansa's
And on his head, he had horns.
A demon.
Or rather, he wore antlers, judging by their wavy shape.
A stag.
Cersei called Robert her stag. Sansa thought of it as fake and awfully sappy.
"And you must be Brienne the world saviour," the man muttered cynically, insulting her friend and benefactor. "The dwarf said you were rather tall. Do you think that a little food will change anything? Are you as stupid as you're pretty?"
"I'm Sansa," Sansa introduced herself bravely. "Brienne is with our guests. She's taller than me." She would ignore for the moment his poor opinion of her intelligence. She didn't want to be angry and bitter for Christmas, just because there were so many mean people.
"Even taller?" The man measured her figure. "No wonder that midget was impressed."
Brienne never mentioned that the lead consultant of the cyber-security company was short of stature, and much less a dwarf. Maybe she didn't even notice it. Brienne was extremely tolerant of all differences between people and the least judgmental person Sansa knew. She wished to occupy naturally the moral high ground like Brienne, despite knowing that, like most people, she had to work on the correct attitude.
And in this case the right thing to do was to ensure that the damn alarm stopped.
So Sansa dared step back into the room with the devil. Closing the damn door behind her, she chastised herself for the continued sequence of damnations in her mind.
It must be the sparkling wine.
Sansa argued with herself that if this man was the technician, it perfectly explained his presence in here and why the security desk had let him in. He must have proper accreditation as the agency subcontractor; it was only that Sansa hadn't yet met any of their new consultants.
"Er… Sansa. Sounds like a name."
What else?
The devil backed off, as if her presence in the space in which they were now locked up frightened him.
Strangely, this made her feel more at ease than any rational explanation for his appearance she could think of.
Oh no.
She recalled how she looked and blushed in the dark. He must have seen her much better than she could see him when she stood in the corridor.
Sansa's Secret Santa in the office decided to bestow on her a strange hat shaped like an ugly bird head; a must of this year's Christmas costume selection in many shops. She put it on not to offend the unknown colleague, despite the effort required undoing her elaborate bun and letting her long auburn hair loose under the synthetic bird wings. She disliked this very much; it made her look like a schoolgirl despite that she was twenty-four and worked full time.
The technician made no effort to present himself.
Rude are we?
Her hand finally calmed down fully and found the damn light switch. They didn't have to remain in the dark.
No response.
"Fuck," the demon technician said. "Did you have to press that without asking?"
"The recommended procedure is-"
"Fuck the recommended procedure."
A hairy paw skirted her hand by chance, proceeding to punch the switch with an entirely unnecessary amount of aggression.
No response.
As it could be expected.
Sansa wasn't stupid, no matter what he thought. If the switch didn't work, it didn't work. Caressing it or hitting it would have the same effect.
None.
"Fuck," he repeated as if she didn't hear him before.
"I'm not deaf," she informed the devil.
"Right," he retorted in a more amiable tone, his voice delving into that depth where it was damn pleasant to hear.
"Can't you do anything?" She asked girlishly, hating herself, wishing him to continue speaking. "As a technician, I mean."
What else could she or the alcohol vapours in her brain possibly mean?
"Come here," he said and shut up, much to her displeasure. A set of paws landed on her waist, after first ending up uncomfortably high, near her breasts. He didn't say sorry, as he should, but he didn't leave an impression he was groping her.
Maybe he didn't realise she had teats in the dark.
This was good, in a way. At least he couldn't stare at her cleavage before saying that her eyes were so beautiful. She hated that approach from men and always hoped for something a bit more inventive.
He was keen on moving her from place to place for some practical, unknown purpose he didn't see fit to share.
Against her better judgement, she let him.
He made her sit on the desk, the only one in the room, next to the keyboard and screen of the new, secure computer.
"Hold this," he instructed her further, after picking quite some items from the floor.
Sansa found herself holding an open casing with several mechanic keys, screwdrivers and some other tools she couldn't recognise by touch. He must have dropped it and tried to reassemble it in the dark when she stepped on him. Well, sat on him.
So he's that kind of technician.
The man doing the manual work who got all greasy and dirty, not the sophisticated high-tech one. She was suddenly sorry he didn't have a better employment, and had to remind herself that men with very high profile jobs were often not nice.
It doesn't matter. I don't even know him.
But position did matter, on a daily basis. People thought of technicians as lower beings, despite that a plumber made much more money than a young man in his first office job. If she dated a mechanic, some of her female colleagues would roll their eyes. And while it truly didn't matter, she would be hurt by those reactions and possibly unhappy in the long run; for his and her sake. And then she could… make suggestions to him, about possibilities for improvement in his career. She wondered if he wanted to do physical work for the rest of his life.
As one of her previous short-lived boyfriends kindly pointed out, Sansa was very pretty as long as she stayed quiet. Topics like making food and clothing were of no interest to men. Her work was too technical and boring, and if she made any serious suggestions in a relationship, she always turned overly demanding.
Sansa blinked her thoughts away and opened her eyes. She still couldn't see a thing. She could nonetheless tell by the sound and warmth he emanated that the tall technician was busy with fixing the damn light switch.
Sansa! She admonished herself for the continued bad habit of cursing, and for dating this unknown mechanic in her imagination.
She should have had only one glass of that poor wine. The amount her father would have allowed her for Christmas when she was a little girl.
The technician puffed and grunted, unsuccessful and frustrated with whatever he was doing.
"Shit," he finally concluded, punching the switch again for good measure.
No response.
"How important is that party?" he rasped, annoyed.
"It's a Christmas party," Sansa explained patiently as if she was dealing with a five year old. "It's a very special time of the year. The colleagues are having a good time."
Yet she had been about to head home surreptitiously, without feeling special at all. Christmas without her family made her terribly sad. She'd probably talk to Arya on Skype. Or to Bran.
"Alright, girl," the devil almost snarled, "the only way to fix this without crushing the bloody sensor is for us to go to the ground floor and solve it from there. The power supply to this room has to be cut off until this mess can be duly sorted out after New Year."
Down was twenty floors, plus the walk to the elevator.
"And all that time-" Sansa began.
"The alarm will keep ringing like crazy, yes," the damn technician affirmed. "And once we cut off the power, your party may have to continue in the dark. If this room can't be isolated from the rest."
Sansa wondered if he would carry her out if she fainted now. There wasn't that much air in the former broom cupboard. A girl could turn sick, right? It wouldn't look suspicious. Then she could ask him to drive her home and maybe he would tell her his name. But Brienne's party would turn into a disaster by the inexorable metallic sound. Or blackout. Or both. Or Brienne would have to lock herself in here while the others partied, until this damn, incompetent technician resolved the problem.
If there was an immediate solution to it.
Since her parent's death, Sansa harboured profound suspicions towards any easy outcomes.
Sansa sighed loudly, resigning herself to her fate. "So I guess it's better if we stay in here until the end of the party and sort this out afterwards," she concluded flatly; fakely. It wasn't what she wanted.
"If that's what you wish for, girl, to hang around with the likes of me," he almost barked and retired to one of the corners of the small secured place where he leaned against the wall in all probability, though she couldn't really see what he was doing. Her polite, neutral tone was apparently the biggest insult she could give.
This rude, ruthless man should be subject to the Dangerous Dogs Act rather than to any rules governing people.
Sansa returned his sullen silence with her own.
She had tried dating a few tall, deep-voiced young men in the past, but they ultimately wanted only occasional sex. Which was probably normal and not so bad, but she would become tired of it after a while and wished for something more, if it could be found. When she realised it could not, she moved on.
Sansa was far from being the only one in that situation. Most of her friends were single and had to answer annoying questions from benevolent older relatives about when they would found families. It was the expected next step after getting a degree and a job.
Sansa was spared the inquiries because she had no older relatives left.
"The little bird is offended," the technician rasped from his corner. She'd almost forgotten he was there.
"No, why?" She replied instantly. She wasn't, was she? She should be, because he just called her a damn bird, but the truth was that she wasn't. And yet he didn't even present himself.
"Do you have a name? Or only antlers?" She giggled, not knowing where that came from. Normally she wasn't that bold in her speech with perfect strangers.
"Rdr.." he muttered, his voice descending lower than the limits of her hearing, touching some dormant strings in her soul.
For god's sake, I don't even know him.
It was just like the old Sansa to fantasise about falling in love with a perfect stranger, knowing that the best she could have out of this encounter was a one night stand of dubious quality and she really wasn't into that. She had to at least go out on a few dates with a new boyfriend before sleeping with him, right?
And why? If it all comes to the same in the end?
Love was probably something from the past, when her parents were young. It didn't exist anymore, like old modems or big televisions.
"What did you say your name was?" she had to ask again, feeling stupid and relaxed about it at the same time. "Mr Reindeer?"
Canine associations set aside, that would go with the antlers. And if his real name was a bit similar, then it might explain, logically, the horns, as either his idea of Christmas fun or a clever present of his coworkers.
It wasn't as if they would go anywhere for a while so they might talk.
She checked the time on her phone.
19.30.
Already.
In another half an hour, forty-five minute maximum, the party would be over and the strange Rdr with an intriguing voice out of her life.
"Sandor," he finally said, putting some effort into being heard.
"Okay, Sandor," she repeated mechanically, staring at her phone which beeped and lit from an unimportant email coming in. She swiped the impertinent notification and looked towards the portion of the darkness with the sulking reindeer. Whose name was Sandor.
"Nice to meet you," she said, meaning it.
"You should not be using your phone in here once the system is operational," he barked again. "You can compromise the security."
Sansa vaguely remembered an instruction in this regard from the manual.
"Didn't you just say f-" she couldn't say it, "to go to hell with the recommended procedures?" She managed something.
"Not to that one," he underlined.
"Do we even need all this?" she questioned and her voice finally had some steel in it and not only faked calm, or womanly interest that escaped her control.
"You probably don't," he judged, "but you're paying for it instead of buying more food and meds for the little children."
"That's not a very nice thing to say," she reacted instinctively. "We use the biggest part of our budget for meaningful projects. All our administrative expenditure is minimal in percentage."
"Have you ever worked in the field?"
Sansa remained silent. It was her biggest weakness. She was terribly afraid of traveling to any dangerous place, and she sincerely believed she'd never be able to cope with the unsafe and dirty conditions most humanitarian workers faced in war zones. But she could and would help make a difference for those people from a distance.
"I didn't think so. What you give is peanuts. And you have no idea what happens on the ground when the killing begins and the people flee-"
"Does it look any better when they don't have any food after they fled?" Sansa rebelled.
"No, but-"
"I manage aid, I'm not a damn soldier," she interrupted. Did she just say damn? Is he chuckling? The bass vibration that came from his throat was a delicacy. "I can't stop the killing. I'm not ready to die to help others. But I do what I can from here. Because I want to do something."
"There is nothing that can be done," he stated darkly. "It goes on and on. Do you think you know what's happening? That they show it on TV? That the real people post the truths about it on Facebook or Twitter? It all sucks and it never ends."
His disillusion sounded very genuine. Who are you?
"You were in the military?" She guessed, hesitantly. "I'm sorry-"
"Don't be," he interrupted. "It was my choice. The people there, they had none."
Deep, passionate voice.
She wasn't taking the pill. There was no need to do so and maybe mess up with her hormones while being single. She wondered if he was the kind of man who carried condoms with him, or if he expected the woman to have those in her purse; stuck somewhere between the hygiene towels and paper hankies.
Sansa, stop.
Why?
It'll never be anything more than that so why pay attention to decency?
Somehow, she began to believe that a one night stand with this man would be good for her if she truly brought herself that low.
Or that high.
She went for a year without.
She should have had another glass of that wine, do whatever she wanted and at least have something to regret the day after.
She edged nearer to him, to his voice. "I'm nonetheless sorry," she said melodiously, not trying to hide her interest anymore. He might just as well get the hint. Because it wasn't as if she was going to begin this.
That would be too low.
"It wasn't my intention to remind you of anything you'd rather forget." She couldn't recognise her own voice anymore.
If the man barked, Sansa almost… purred.
Fortunately, he didn't need a lot of encouragement. When she was so near that she could feel his breath just above her forehead, his hands touched her waist, and it was exactly what she wanted. They sneaked under her shirt and decidedly found her breasts.
Her breath hitched audibly.
She had never been more turned on. She raised her chin up, expecting a kiss that never came.
Instead, he stretched out one of his enormously long arms and pressed the damn switch.
The light went on; white and merciless.
Sansa had to blink.
So he could have switched it on earlier!
He deceived her that they had to stay in the dark. Maybe he also lied that they had to wait in the damn room, and there was another way to get rid of the alarm.
"This is where you stop," he stated matter-of-factly in his singular voice.
Causing her to look at him and see.
The ugliest face she'd ever seen; burned, monstrous, ruined, twisted. For a moment she thought he lacked an eye, than concluded he had both; it was only a part of his lips and maybe an ear that was missing.
Long black hair hung over his face, almost hiding it. He wore only black; black jeans, black long-sleeved shirt.
And on his head he had the funniest, childlike, red reindeer antlers, broad and velvety, mounted on a tiny green tiara that looked lost in the blackness of his hair.
"Secret Santa?" Sansa guessed, laughing softly.
"Yours as well?" He allowed himself to pull one of her fake bird wings.
"Yes," her eyes almost teared from laughter. "The same game every year. It's not very creative, is it?"
"No, it isn't," he agreed, grabbing his damn antlers to pull them off. "I left our party in a hurry when your boss called so-"
She stayed his hand, avoiding to look at his face. "Leave them on," she argued. "It's Christmas."
She was almost sad when she turned away from him to open the door.
"The alarm will go off unless we go down to fix the problem," he warned her.
"Will it?" Sansa asked dryly. "And why would I believe you after your little stunt with the light switch? I suppose I was too damn scared to press it properly."
She should leave, but she didn't, waiting for his reply that wasn't forthcoming.
"I thought I had more chances with you in the dark," he tossed at her after a while. "It's only fair, don't you think?" he added, turning his burns towards her on purpose. "That I get the same opportunity to buy you a drink after the bloody party as if I was any other man?"
More chances? But he didn't suggest anything of the kind, did he? Not until she approached him. "Then why did you just… hide in that corner?" Sansa was very puzzled now.
"I wasn't going to hide, believe me. But you said you'd stay before I could propose anything. And you exhaled as if you were making a huge sacrifice… like you might let me fuck you despite me calling you stupid... So that your friend can have her little party… I hated your holy attitude. I couldn't bring myself to use it for my benefit. I'm fucking ugly, not pathetic."
Deep and passionate voice.
Sansa realised she had closed her eyes during his speech to better enjoy its sound.
When she reopened them, his gaze was clouded with anger, not directed specifically at her.
At the world, perhaps.
He was ugly, but…
Looks didn't matter, right?
And there were those antlers. He couldn't be such a bad person if he accepted putting those on. Maybe he could take a joke at his own expense… None of Sansa's previous boyfriends would ever wear anything so… unmanly… and risk being ridiculed. Well, unlike them, Sandor would probably look manly even in a pink skirt, though she hoped he wouldn't wear that though. Reindeer antlers for Christmas were still within the limits of cool.
"You also said I was pretty," she reminded him. "I suppose you didn't mean it."
"Didn't I?" He grabbed her chin, forcing her to look in his eyes.
He meant it. He was looking at her with frightening intensity. As if she mattered to him despite that they just met.
"And then…" Sansa's voice trembled and her heart beat faster from an important realisation that he had been honest with her in a way. "Then you showed yourself to me, knowing you'd ruin your chances. Because it was fair?"
"Did I ruin them?" He provoked her, studying her intently.
On an impulse, Sansa switched off the light.
"Are you crazy?" he rumbled.
"You've already asked me that," she complained and came closer to him one more time. "Can't you think of something else to say?"
"How old are you? Eleven?"
"Twelve," she countered his evil joke with her own. "Does it matter?"
She hoped he was in his late thirties and not sixty-five.
Here's your chance, Mr Ugly Reindeer.
Her voice was fluid darkness; her lips were dry and lonely.
There was no doubt as to what she wanted.
And it was easier when she couldn't see him, ugly and prejudiced as that attitude might be.
But she wouldn't take that first step.
He pulled her T-shirt over her head, tossing it into the dark.
"This is where I don't stop," he warned her.
She was unable to speak.
He put her back on that desk and never kissed her lips, only her neck and shoulders; fumbling with his jeans and with what she hoped was a condom or this would be really crazy. It would be truly better if she went to die in some war than if she perished uselessly from a disease she contracted out of her own stupidity.
She found the courage to act, if not to speak, putting her hands down, checking him out. To her utmost relief, the condom was where it should be.
"Better like that, right?" he rasped against her throat, realising what she was doing.
"Better like this," she grabbed his face blindly with both hands, remembering too late the reason they were doing this in the dark, exploring the ruin she had seen. It was… it was like the lizard Robb and Jon forced her to touch when she was five. It didn't feel as repulsive as it looked, just harsh and quite dry.
He whined when she kissed him, sounding as helpless as she sometimes felt.
Not a dangerous dog, she thought, feeling strong. A mangled little overgrown puppy.
Later, she didn't remember when or how he removed her jeans nor when exactly he made her sit on him in a very different, most fulfilling way.
She continued kissing him all the while and knew that she wasn't going to regret this, even if they never did it again, even if she never saw him again…
It was too good.
And it made her want to know where he lived, what he did in his free time… if he had a pet… If he was single… He probably was, what with that face. Though one never knew.
It was so good and so tender that it made her overly demanding before there was even a relationship.
"Sansa," he murmured when they were done, "I think… I think that all your friends are gone."
He was right.
So they opened the door and let the alarm ring at will. It took them quite some time to locate all their belongings; their clothing, their coats (his obviously black and hers beige, almost white), her phone, his tools and her purse. Being busy was good; there was no need to engage in any awkward conversation.
Finally, they took the elevator to go down.
"A barrel bomb?" She asked cautiously, waving at his face.
"No."
Sansa swallowed remembering the worst war stories she'd heard. "Chemical weapons?" She asked in a whisper.
"I'll tell you one day."
One day? As if… in the future?
They didn't talk anymore, but they exchanged glances (as much as she dared). When the elevator door opened, they were holding hands.
But, as soon as they were at the reception, Mr Reindeer busied himself talking to the janitor about the power supply and did whatever a technician should be doing. Sansa sighed knowingly and asked the receptionist to call her a taxi.
The party was well and truly over.
Ten minutes later, she was still standing out in the cold and the taxi had not yet arrived. She didn't live far and it wasn't that late so she decided to walk. She was in a good mood and very sober. She could not lie to herself that she just slept with a perfect stranger because she was drunk, though the sparkling wine may have lowered her initial inhibitions...
She made twenty steps and turned around the corner when she heard someone following her. She searched for the self-defence spray in her purse and recognised her stalker before she could find it.
"You would be dead or worse if I was someone else," he informed her, with that arrogant air she hated from the beginning.
"But it's you," she continued walking and he followed.
She was probably crazy for letting him stalk her like this; normal men didn't do that. It was obsessive and dangerous.
Then again, normal men only wanted to see her for sex every second weekend. It was her life and her risk. She could do what she wanted.
He still had those damn antlers and caught her looking at them, rather than at his face.
"I fixed what I could for your Brienne," he informed dryly. "Joffrey will have to do the rest when he's back from skiing after the holidays. Alarms are his thing, not mine."
Joffrey?
"The son of Cersei Lannister?" Sansa asked. She was in love with him years ago, but he told her she was ugly and stupid at her parents' funeral, so her affection abruptly ended.
"Yes, the little shit," Sandor confirmed. "The dwarf's nephew. His big brother Jaime begged him to employ Joff for a year. To make the boy get his shit together away from Cersei. The midget hates his sister. He never sees her."
The latter sounded good, but the dwarf was also a Lannister. Regrettably, Sansa never looked up the ownership of the consultancy. Only their offer and references. She trusted Brienne that the lead consultant was reliable and capable.
She was surrounded by murderous Lannisters and their employees.
Maybe Jaime was killing Brienne or- Sansa blushed furiously.
She had to stop thinking about sex. Before she kissed Sandor in the street with closed eyes and possibly offended him.
"So what do you do if you are not fixing malfunctioning alarms?" she asked him, bracing herself to hear that he was the plumber or the cleaner. It would explain his initial incompetence in dealing with the problem.
"I design encryption and decryption software," he replied casually. "I'll install my stuff later, when the rest of your shit works. If it ever works."
"Oh," Sansa exhaled, laughing nervously. "I thought you were-"
A mechanic. A milkman.
"-A paid killer?" he interrupted decisively. "Not anymore."
He sounded dead serious about both his previous profession and the fact that it ended.
"The taxi that never came," she realised.
"I may have accidentally disabled the phone at the reception," he immediately confessed. "You scared me like hell when you left on foot. I thought you'd just wait. I worked as fast as I could to finish my shit and return to you."
"Oh," she whispered lamely as he continued stalking her and the apartment block where she lived rose high in front of her eyes.
Now he knows your address. You are crazy.
Crazy, crazy, crazy…
"Anything else in your CV I should know about?" She whispered.
"Like what?" He snarled, but only a little.
"Do you also carry a toothbrush in your pocket?" Or only condoms?
Miraculously, he understood, so she didn't have to be more direct.
"I brush my teeth much more often than having sex, if that's what you're asking," he rearranged the fluffy red antlers nervously and rasped on. "My teeth won't fall out by the time I go home and brush them in the evening. But if I'm not prepared when there is a chance for sex, it will be gone."
She loved his voice better than the champagne.
And she could live with this explanation.
Almost.
"Don't…" she stuttered. "Don't you dare take your chances elsewhere as long as you're stalking me. I would hate it. I would hate you."
Overly demanding.
"I'm not crazy," he replied very seriously. "You are."
She probably was.
Because she let him into her apartment building with her, and into the elevator, all the way to her door, wondering if she had a spare toothbrush. She didn't think he would need pyjamas despite the sharp December cold.
"I could kill for a cup of coffee," he announced lazily when she unlocked the door. He made no move to come in, but he looked as if he could actually do what he just said.
"Not me I hope," she said and smiled. "Please come in and let me see what I can find."
He had to bow slightly to enter, she noticed. The antlers slid off his head after colliding with the doorframe. He put them back on clumsily and made a painfully ugly grimace in her direction.
His smile.
"Make yourself at home," she said, turning on the TV.
The familiar rattling of lies spiced with some information people called news permeated her living room.
"I thought you'd have a proper tree," he said, examining the seasonal arrangement on her dining table. She'd made it herself from pine branches and fruits, adding a red ribbon and a few shiny crystal bowls.
"It seemed too much for myself," she explained.
"I'll get us a tree tomorrow," he announced.
Us? Tomorrow?
"Unless you'd hate me for it," he said mockingly, but his eyes were uncertain.
"By all means," she reassured him. "Get us one if you wish." Or two. And a turkey. "I have more decorations somewhere."
The question was where.
"Right," he said.
He kicked his shoes off (relatively neatly and not so far from the door).
Imposing his monumental presence on her small couch, he began watching the news with interest, despite allegedly having a much worse opinion about their veracity than Sansa.
Sandor would soon discover that Sansa was a lousy housekeeper.
If there wasn't any coffee, her new reindeer boyfriend would have to drink tea.
Somehow, she didn't think he would mind.