Should I be starting another story? Probably not. But catching up on Game of Thrones has been my past time lately and with that all of the plot bunnies run wild.
Enjoy.
Summary: Sansa the Uber driver expects a pretty hefty tip from the early morning stranger who stumbled into her clean car smelling like a bar. He was foul-mouthed, rude and then she noticed the scars. And the dried blood. And the dull shine of the glock 19 handgun. And realized dimly that she probably should stop giving rides at 2 in the morning no matter how nice the extra cash was.
Disclaimer: I do not own Game of Thrones or these characters in this story. Also I do not own Uber nor am I an Uber driver so forgive my lack of knowledge but be aware I am not correcting it due to laziness and spite.
Saturday Night's Alright (For Fighting)
Sansa's car door was wrenched open rather roughly, which was kind of rude in her opinion but she supposed that anyone that needed to be picked up from a hole-in-the-wall bar at 2 in the morning on a Tuesday wasn't going to be very interested in sharing niceties.
She wrinkles her nose at the newcomer.
Apparently they weren't interested in smelling too great either.
The man, she's pretty sure the person is male at least because if the grumbling and deeply slurred voice isn't enough of an indication then the sheer size of the person in front of her is, struggles to stop his drunken swaying long enough to get into the car.
Sansa's pretty sure that he was the largest man she's ever seen and she eyes the modest seat of her car with trepidation.
"Oh you've got to be fucking kidding me." The man slurs out a couple of creative insults about her car and (if she hears right) her person as he folds one leg in at a time and tries to shoves his torso in.
He has to sit hunched in the passenger seat.
His head hits the ceiling.
She eyes where his lanky hair is crushed against the beige interior of her car and bites her lip.
She bites it very hard.
It's too early in the morning, she has class tomorrow, she'll be lucky to get a good five hours of sleep if she makes it home before 3, and a veritable giant has just drunkenly stumbled into her car. A giant that barely fits.
Sansa feels the very real and hysterical urge bubble up behind her lips to let loose a nervous laugh.
However, the grumpy cursing and the strong stench of alcohol and well, his general uh- presentation at the present moment dissuades any giggles that try to escape.
She really just wants to go home.
He settles back into the seat with a grunt and brings up a hand to scratch at the rather scruffy beard that he's sporting.
He makes no attempt to fasten his seatbelt. Which, okay that's kind of a big thing for her. Nobody is allowed in her car if they're not going to put a seatbelt on. It was one of the many rules that was imposed upon within her car, battling for the number one spot with no food or drink that wasn't properly stored in containers. Her sister loudly protested these rules and always made a point to attempt to bring open soda pop cans and crumbly foods out of their packages whenever they took trips together. The battle of wills that would ensue were often long and drawn out affairs and they've kept score. The current standing came out to Sansa: 25 and Arya: 22.
She was winning, thank you very much.
Sansa nervously runs her tongue over her teeth while eyeing her newest problem. She wonders at the best way to inform her rather intimidating guest that this car was definitely not moving until he was properly strapped in.
Luckily, she wouldn't need to work up the courage to speak up because the man seemed to notice the lack of well, anything happening and sighed impatiently before twisting to face her.
There's a well placed street light on the road next to the little bar and the light gives her the first real glimpse of his face
This morning continues to spiral into something that her sleep deprived mind is working pretty hard to handle.
Sansa would have to have been blind to miss the mass of scar tissue that decorates a whole side of his face. All mottled and twisted and oddly smooth with a look of wetness like an oil painting that's halfway done drying. The scars trail down to the shadowed column of his throat, disappearing below the collar of his duster.
She distantly wonders how much farther they go.
A faint whistle is pushed through her teeth at the damage.
It's pretty extensive, they look like burns. Probably hurt.
Sansa's eyes roam the tangled flesh.
Probably hurt a lot.
Her passenger lets out a snort and she looks into a steel-flecked gaze.
It's a little intense. A bit mean, and if she's being honest with herself, she's a tad bit intimidated.
Her mouth feels dry as that gaze roams her face.
"Drink your fill in now girl, I'm not in the mood to be gawked at."
She supposes it was pretty rude of her to stare, although from the unperturbed expression on the intact half of his face, he was plenty used to it by now. Sansa gathers that he's probably had the scars for years.
Long enough to get used to the stares, long enough to be indifferent to them.
He has a rather strong jaw, an angular kind of face that is neither handsome nor particularly unattractive with a wide bridged nose that was rather crooked from one too many breaks perhaps and thin lips that seemed to be pulled into a permanent grimace, surrounded by that coarse, dark facial hair, sparse on the side with the burns.
And the eyes. Couldn't forget those gunmetal eyes, they shone and if it weren't for the film of inebriation she's sure they would be as sharp as a brand new set of kitchen knives.
Sharp enough to cut her.
He narrows those keen eyes at her. She feels a little threatened. A little cowed, like she needed to back down, turn tail and run. Which was a bit ridiculous if she was being honest because this was her tiny car and he paid her to drive him home from this shithole bar at 2 in the morning on a Tuesday.
He wets his lips for a moment as he regards her, nose scrunched, eyes steel.
Sansa tilts her head slightly and clears her throat a bit,
"Sorry about the-" she waves vaguely around the passenger side of the cab, at his head that's hitting the ceiling.
He lets a harsh breath of air escape from his nose and licks at his teeth, "You drive a shit car."
Sansa is pretty unsure on how to respond to that since she loved her Prius and it has served her faithfully for close to three years now. She pats her steering wheel nervously and prays that she won't end up in the shop anytime soon because of the slight against her car. She's kind of superstitious about stuff like that and the drive to Uni is made way easier by her little car. She would really rather not have to take the bus.
"Right." Sansa mumbles for the lack of anything better to say.
Her guest lets out a rather wet sounding snort.
"Right, do you think you could-" Her fingers flutter absently in the direction of the seat belt.
He looks at her flatly.
She grimaces at him in return but very deliberately settles her hands back in her lap. She's not going anywhere until he buckles up.
He heaves a great put-upon sigh, like this is all a big inconvenience for him but reaches over his shoulder to retrieve the seat belt and clicks it into place.
Sansa is pretty relieved that she's not going to have to argue with him.
She's uh-well she's not sure that would end in her favor.
Sansa: 1 and Stranger: 0.
It's easy enough to focus on the motions of shifting her car into drive and try to avoid uh, looking or even just shifting in the general vicinity of her passenger. The roads are pretty much deserted at this time, many of the stoplights blinking amber warnings. The windows are slightly glazed over from the warmth of the heater, protection from the damp chill of the outside.
The ride is quiet except for his occasional succinct directions. It's not exactly uncomfortable but it certainly isn't welcoming either. She has given plenty of rides before, has sat in silence while three strangers fiddled with their phones to avoid conversing with anyone, has played audience to chatty teenagers willing to talk about anything and everything. But she's never had to deal with such a quiet where her fingers flexing on the steering wheel and the shifting of clothing is immediately recognizable.
It's strange. Not terrible, but strange.
He shifts, "Right, here."
She pulls up to the steady blinking of the stoplight and taps her fingers impatiently against the steering wheel as she waits for literally the only car on the road at this time to pass by so that she can turn.
The driver is going remarkably slow on a 40 mph road.
Sansa's eyes feel heavy and stinging. She tries to decide if her exhaustion outweighs her irritation.
She settles on passively aggressively sighing and continuing her slow tapping on the steering wheel.
Her passenger isn't as patient and lets out a low, rumbling curse as he shifts in the seat to readjust the angle of his head where it was still uncomfortably pressed against her ceiling. She eyes him and decides that yes, he was astonishingly rude and kind of, well, huge and scary, but she felt- maybe- the tiniest of sympathies for him. Her car was pretty small, big enough for most people but he was just, you know, large. His knees were rather scrunched up, arms crossed and tense looking and yeah, he did not look particularly happy to be there but at least he wasn't vomiting all over her dashboard, as drunk as he was.
That was a definite plus in her book.
Sansa was just finishing her quick perusal of his person and patting herself on the back for deciding that he wasn't terrible company and she could live with his general bad attitude for another ten minutes because hey, she was getting paid, when the dull shine of metal reflecting the glaring red of the blinking stoplight caught her attention. His bulky overcoat had fallen open somewhere in between squeezing himself in the car and settling into the seat.
He wore a light grey, loosely knit sweater that had seen some better days as it had strange dark stains liberally splattered down the front of it, but what really caught her attention was the strange shape of the dark, perhaps leather belt slung around his waist. In the dim light of a streetlamp that was far enough from the road to shine just enough light into the passenger side window to make out the general features of his person and with the steady flashing of red from the stop light, it-well, it almost looked like it was a holster. She furrowed her brows and leaned in slightly for a better look, it almost looked like there was something gleaming in that holster.
She blinked as another lazy red flash reflected off of metal.
That was. Well. That was definitely what looked like a gun. On his person. In her car. While he was drunk.
Oh god.
And well, he was certainly dangerous looking enough to know possibly how to use it.
And the stains, she jerked her eyes back up as silent understanding dawned in her, the stains looked almost tacky like drying blood.
She wondered dimly if he might be some kind of affiliate of organized crime or something. Holy shit there might be some kind of gang member in her car.
Sansa so totally did not get paid enough for this.
The fingers that were idly tapping had frozen and she tore her gaze away from his-uh- gun and bloody clothes to stare resolutely out onto the road. But she didn't move, found that she couldn't move. Her foot was pressed against the brake pedal and although her brain was making a valiant effort to just go with it dammit and turn and drive him home and act like nothing was wrong and that she hadn't seen the gun or the blood so she could go home and sleep dammit because she had class tomorrow. But her body would not respond. No matter how hard she willed it to.
And the threshold of time until her guest noticed that she was not, in fact, being obnoxiously careful about pulling out behind the slow moving driver had officially been stepped over.
The other car takes a left and then is out of sight. She almost wishes they had gone slower, because now the road was completely deserted and she was stuck alone with someone who was probably a very dangerous man. A very dangerous man who she hears turn his head her way before (if by the general grunt of confusion and shifting are anything to go by) looking for the source of the problem. He realizes why exactly the car was not moving in less time than she thinks is fair for someone who's drunk and her rapidly panicking lizard brain begins to flash her all sorts of signals that basically sum up to, run, leave, police.
Her body is itching to pull open the door and do just that and to her relief she manages to force her hand out of its frozen fear and slide it off of the steering wheel, along the side paneling, feeling for the handle and trying not to give herself away by launching herself out into the frigid night like she wants to.
She wants a lot of things actually. Like to go home and sleep and forget that this whole thing happened.
Unfortunately her guest has other plans.
One very large and very calloused hand encloses around one of hers (the one that's desperately sliding around trying to locate the damn handle) and grips it rather hard. Her fingers flex.
"Don't do anything stupid girl." Warm breath, sour with alcohol washes over the right side of her face and there's just enough growl and menace in the words to stir up goosebumps and a fine tremoring in her body.
She swallows thickly.
Sansa attempts to stutter out a reply, something suitable to perhaps convince him that this is all some big misunderstanding and that it was all fine and that she hadn't actually already convinced herself he was some kind of mafia hitman, but all that came out was, "I wasn't- I mean. Oh god."
She feels kind of like the world went sideways.
Sansa: 1 and Stranger, well Stranger just got about 100 points.
There's a dark snort that is accompanied by a rush of heated air and she hears him lick his teeth. She feels the sharp burn of his gaze as he regards her and can almost picture that heavy lidded perusal of her features.
It is silent for what seems like a long, long time.
Her wrist burns where he holds it in a vice.
His other hand slides it's way up her throat, pausing momentarily just below her jaw, before those rough fingers bite into her left cheek, prying her face away from where it was smashed against the window, trying to get away. He mumbles a bit to himself and slides her chin between his thumb and forefinger, squeezing with just enough meanness to make her wince and finally look at him.
The slick, thickly burned side of his face shimmers oddly in the flickering stoplight and the the narrow eyed glare he's shooting her, teeth bared in threat and everything makes the tremors wracking her body worse.
"You just had to have a tiny fucking car didn't you. You just had to fucking go and notice things," He sneers out a deep laugh and clenches her jaw tighter, drawing out a little gasp of pain from her. She starts to pant shallowly from adrenaline and fear and just a bit frantically brings her other hand to grasp at the huge one currently encasing her jaw. She tries to tug it away. It's uh-well it doesn't exactly work. He tightens his grip even more. She digs her nails into his hand in retaliation.
They sit like that.
Her jaw is aching fiercely.
His face is set in a curious sort of expression, mouth pulled into deep grimace, eyes set on her but focused on his own thoughts.
The stoplight continues to blink red.
She wonders when he'll decide to go for his gun, that's probably her best shot of somehow managing to scramble out of his hold. When he's only grasping her with one hand and his attention is somewhat diverted, enough that he wouldn't be able to deal with a biting and scratching, uncooperative captive and she can hopefully have enough time to dive for the handle, stumble out of the car and run like hell. The car was still in drive, the only thing preventing it from rolling forward being her foot on the break. The extra time it would take him to switch into the driver's seat and put it in park and then even try to come after her should be enough time to be long gone.
Or he could decide that he didn't really need a gun to put an end to this.
His fingers were going to bruise her face with how hard they were gripping. He would just have to slide his hand a little bit lower and squeeze. She's certain he's strong enough to be able to do it.
None of these thoughts are exactly comforting.
Her mouth feels dry and her shallow panting echoes in the car. The idling of the engine sounds like it's coming from somewhere far away, there's blood roaring in her ears, taking up too much space. She feels clammy and vaguely hopes that she doesn't vomit on him.
She's not sure that would make the situation better.
Sansa tries not to start as he crowds impossibly closer. His shoulders box her in, there's nothing else to look at except his marred visage.
His voice is far off thunder when he finally speaks, "I want you to listen to me, and I want you to listen good, girl."
She swallows dryly. Manages a quick jerk of her head to signal he's most definitely got her attention.
"You're gonna make this turn. You're gonna look both ways and all that shit, do all the little bullshit safety things you usually do, and then you're gonna turn, calm like and drive a little ways down the road. It's not far. You're part is easy," He drawls this, tongue slipping over teeth and fingers tightening in warning on her chin.
"There's gonna be this little access road splitting off a couple of miles to the west. You're going to follow this road, but only for a minute or two. You gettin' this so far, girl?"
Sansa lets out a shuddering breath and wills her heart to slow down.
He seems to take this as confirmation because he leans in, closer and closer, until his nose is touching hers.
"Now this, this is where you could spin this story one of two ways. There's one version, this one isn't so nice, in this one you decide to drop me off and make the damned fool mistake of calling the police and then well, it gets personal. This version Does. Not. End. Well. For. You," He makes sure to enunciate each pointed word, driving the message home.
"But then. Then there's the second version. In this one, you drop me off when I say so, you listen to every little thing that I'm tellin' you and you drive away. You go home, you sleep, you do whatever the fuck it is you do and you move on. You forget you ever saw me. I don't exist after this night." His eyes bore into hers, they're so close she can see flecks of steel blue mixing with thunder clouds. "Choice is yours girl. I want you to know I'm fine with either version."
She, well she feels like her options are fairly limited really.
Living is quite adequate.
"O-option 2 is…...yeah option 2." Her voice comes out in a low whine.
It's kind of weak and pathetic.
"Well what do you know, caged little bird has some self preservation instincts after all." Breath washes across her face one last time, as if confirming her choice before moving back.
Her jaw aches something fierce when it's released. The hand that he held in a vice grip is deposited onto the steering wheel. It hangs rather limply as she tries to get her body to reboot.
He leans back into his seat with a grunt, jerking his overcoat closed, gun and bloody clothes hidden again from view.
She turns to face the windshield.
What a night. Morning?
What a morning.
Her fingers flex against the steering wheel and she tries to decides how to deal with the crippling ball of churning anxiety and fear building in her gut.
A panic attack would not be ideal at this point.
Sansa settles for shoving it back until she can go home and hide under the bed or something and let it out. Not the most solid plan. It would have to do at the moment.
Right.
She could do this. A calming breath or two and she looks left and then right, slides her foot off of the brake pedal.
The car jolts into motion.
She turns and heads straight, the speed limit is obeyed, there's no frantic driving, nothing shaky or out of the ordinary, she slows at all of the amber blinking lights like she should.
She discreetly looks for other cars.
There are none.
Not 8 minutes later she spies the access road and pulls into it, there's a sign planted on the lone, rather pitiful looking, rusted fence post that reads "Private Property. Keep out." She glances over at him, his face remains impassive and his fingers toy with his beard. He appears to be thinking.
She wonders if there were actually two options and if she was really the one that got to choose.
It's close to 10 minutes before her passenger gives a grunt that she takes as an order to stop. The access road is narrow and roughly paved, there are large, squat warehouses stretching out for blocks around her little car. There is little light to illuminate, many of the street lights appear to be burned out or flickering, casting a sickly pallor along the aluminum roofs, but from what little she could see she spies graffitied walls in a general state of disrepair.
She puts the car in park.
And waits.
Her hands clench in her lap. She studies them intently and refuses to look over at her passenger.
"Little bird I am only going to say this once so I would listen closely if I were you," she nods stiffly, it appears she has a hangnail.
"Forget about this. It didn't happen. Nothing fucking happened."
She mulls this over and swallows. She should probably cut her nails soon, they're getting too long.
The door opens.
A damp chill rushes in and she shivers. Her hands clench.
There's a rather loud shifting of clothing and grunted curses as her passenger forces himself out of her car.
He pauses, as if to say some more parting words, she can feel his gaze on her and it burns.
A long moment of silence stretches between them, she notices a small cut on her left ring finger that has scabbed over.
The door slams.
Silence returns.
Sansa's heart thuds and the breath that she hadn't known she was holding is released in a great puff of air.
She chances a look up.
There's no one in sight.
Mystery passenger with his gun and bloody clothes was gone.
Her car smelled faintly like tangy copper and alcohol and despite his parting words she thinks it's just going to be a little hard to forget that this had happened.
Pretty hard actually.
Sansa: 1 and Stranger: 101.
She raises a shaky hand to her mouth and finally lets out that hysterical laugh she's been keeping in at the thought that popped into her mind.
She drove him much farther than originally promised, it's now 3 in the morning, she has class tomorrow and she knows that there will be no sleep to be had tonight.
He never even tipped her.
Author's notes:
I'm not sure if this will be turned into anything more than a oneshot. I have plans and ideas for it but nothing brought into fruition yet. Vaguely I have some concepts featuring a lot more characters and organized crime and a second meeting between Sansa and Sandor but nothing is concrete right now.
Also life if busy at this very moment so if I do write anything it will very much depend on the response to this and my schedule.
Let me know if you enjoyed it and would like me to write some more for it.
Please leave me a review!
Also if you want to talk fandom and my stories or just drop me a question I have a Tumblr: Arbitrarilystupid