Sandor.

Her white fingers looked like slow rivers of ice trailing through the black hair on his chest, and felt just as cold. The red of her mouth hung just above him, ripe like a cluster of cherries, waiting to fall. His hand rose slowly to touch them, and his thumb ran along the thickness of her bottom lip carefully. He could sense the wetness there, just beyond the red, where her mouth waited. Just a little push, and he would be inside of her. Smiling, he could see she had read his mind and watched silently as she opened her mouth for him. Her teeth bit down gently, and he felt her tongue slip slowly over the hard flesh of his thumb. Her eyes were wild, set alight. He had never seen something burn so fiercely or so green.

When he woke up, he couldn't remember anything else except that green and a hard, uncomfortable sense of dissatisfaction centred in the front of his jeans. Painfully, with eyes still closed, he rolled over on to his stomach. A small groan escaped in to the pillow as his belt buckle dug in to his stomach, but he was too heavy with a hangover to move again so soon. The back of his throat tasted like vomit and every nerve felt as if it had been ripped out of his skin and sown back in with a rusty needle. He opened his eye a crack and tried to make sense of the world that was spread out before him. The sunlight was streaming in through the open blinds, bathing everything in harsh, unforgiving light. It made his eye water. He closed it and buried his face back in the pillow.

He guessed it was noon, or near enough to it so that it made no different. Even with a skin full, he never slept much later than that. He wished he could. Sleeping the day away would be preferable to actually having to live through it.

He groped around blindly by the side of the bed, his hand knocking against things in its lurching, causing things to fall. The sound of clinking glass told him he had scattered some beer bottled across the floor. The smell of spilt hops and alcohol rose up to meet him and made him want to vomit again. He swallowed dryly and cursed, conceding to at last open his eyes properly and look at what he was doing.

The bedsit was a mess of overturned furniture and broken things. He couldn't remember how most of it happened, only that every time he opened his eyes recently, something else was in pierces across his floor. Over every surface, too many bottles to count lay drained and useless. Some of them had been broken too. Sandor recalled with painful clarity the cut to the underside of his foot, still sore even after three days. The air was thick, full of ash and smoke and terrible breath. He ran his tongue over his teeth and felt the roughness there, tasting nothing good. Casting back to the floor, he found was he was looking for amongst the dead beer bottles and half drunk glasses of Jack. The water was stale and had sat there for over a week but it was like sweet nectar compared to the taste already in his mouth. He guzzled it down greedily, getting a fair amount on the pillow, before sinking back down in to the damp fabric and groaning again.

Was it five days now? Or maybe four? He couldn't tell. Days bled in to nights quickly enough, and as soon as he had the stomach to drink again, he could make the transition even quicker. Sometimes the booze was enough to blot out the dreams. Other times, he wasn't so lucky.

He must have fallen asleep again because he remembered being in the hallway, with the rain of bullets all around him and the never-ending roar echoing in his ears. It must have been a dream because when they came crashing in through the door way, Gregor was with them. His brother was like a monolith, a demon, a wrecking ball. His hands were on fire, like two blazing torches, and he swept everyone aside with just one smash of his blistering fists. Sandor tried to shout but his mouth wouldn't open. He could only watch in mute terror as those fists came down on to the girls face. Her name was Esther. He remembered the curl in her hair.

When he came to this time, the feeling of sickness had moved from his mouth to his belly and he had to stumble, half blind, towards the bathroom where he could wretch up the rest of last nights indulgence in to the toilet bowl. Sweaty and hot, he pulled himself in to the shower and stood there, fully clothed, while the water rushed over him. It was tortuously slow getting his clothes off, especially now they were wet, but he managed it somehow. He emerged cleaner but feeling no more fresh. He left the wet clothes in a heap on the floor and dressed again in slightly less dirty jeans and another crumpled tshirt before picking his way carefully through the bottles and broken glass to the bed.

Just as he was about to collapse there again, his cell phone rang. The name on the screen brought the bile back up in to his throat, but he answered the call all the same. He would always answer.

The clipped voice at the other end sounded stern.

'Clegane? Bring yourself to the hotel tonight. I have need of you.'

Tywin Lannister hung up without waiting to hear Sandors' reply. He rubbed his hands across his still-damp face and tried to shake the cloudy feeling from his brain, but knew it would hang around for a few hours more yet. The only options he had were to drink some more or try and sleep it off, and now he couldn't drink. He lay back, closed his eyes and hoped the dreams would be kinder to him this time round.

In the blood red cocoon that was the office of his employer, Sandor found himself having to lean against the wall a little in order to stop the room from spinning. The aspirin he had managed to force down his throat earlier in an effort to stop the headaches had done nothing for him and the air in the room felt tight and thin. He had not wanted to think about why he had been summoned; he had not seen or spoken with anyone that remotely resembled a Lannister for days now. His company had been the bottom of the bottle and little else, apart from maybe that sour faced man in the 7/11 that sold it to him without asking for ID. Now, being made to wait in this airless office with a head that felt like a lead weight, he had hardly any energy left to care. He would suffer whatever punishment they wanted to throw at him, he knew he deserved it. When Tywin came in, he just about managed to stand up straight but could do no more.

The man did not say a word until he had taken his seat behind the desk, checked his cellphone, adjusted the knot in his tie and made sure the neat stack of papers on his desk were correctly ordered. Only then did he even so much as look at Sandor.

'I see you have been using your free time constructively' he said with a tone that was thick with contempt. Sandor, acutely aware of every slept-in wrinkle in his clothes, could only uncomfortably shift his weight from one foot to the other. Tywin regarded him quietly for a moment, his eyes travelling from up the length of him. There was a slow intake of breath that resembled a sigh.

'Nevertheless. I cannot over look the loyalty you have shown to my family recently. You were given a job and you carried it out to the letter. If ever I had a doubt about your intentions, it has been utterly erased. Will you sit.'

He gestured to the leather coach beside him and Sandor did as he was told, feeling a little more secure now he was no longer required to hold up his own body weight. Tywin continued.

'Your brother has proved equally useful' he said, looking back to his papers casually so that he was unable to see the way Sandor 's hands clenched involuntarily.

'Although, admittedly I will be using him in a somewhat different manner form now on. I find it best to play to ones strengths.'

Sandor had known that Gregor was not going anywhere. Had known it for days. The confirmation still stung him though, even through the fog of his hangover. There was only two reasons as to why that had happened; one, that Tywin was unaware of the type of creature Gregor was. Two, that he was choosing to ignore it. Tywin was the sharpest judge of character Sandor had ever met. The end of that thought hung somewhere off in the dark and Sandor had no wish to follow it.

'So, this being the case, I find I am able to offer you a similar position' Tywin was saying, still looking through his papers.

'My daughter will marry that boy before the month is out. She does not want a long engagement and neither do I. Knowing Robert, it will be as tasteless and as tacky as everything else he does, but it will happen all the same and I suppose it will be expected that she live with him in order to at least attempt a happy marriage.'

He looked up then, setting the papers aside. When Sandor looked back, he was surprised to find him holding his eye. The intensity of his gaze was unsettling.

'You know the kind of man he is' said Tywin, carefully. 'As do I. Cersei will need someone…close, that she can rely on if things become difficult. I do not want to be indelicate Clegane, you know what I mean. Her brother will be Roberts' man. He will go where Robert tells him. I cannot watch her every day. You have already proven your worth in this regard. I would like you to continue in that post indefinitely.'

Sandor could do nothing expect nod silently. His mouth was too dry to say anything else, despite the words that screamed from inside his head. Ask me anything but that. Anything. Give me the blood, give me the shit, the piss and stink of the world and the all the horrible people in it. I don't care. Anything.

But of course, he said none of it. Tywin nodded sharply and returned to his papers, taking a slim golden pen from the inside of his jacket and beginning to mark his signature across the pages.

'We will talk again about your remuneration. Your accommodation will be upgraded, naturally. Perhaps a sum for some more suitable clothes. In the meantime, you can get to work tonight. Her car should be outside by now. You will see her safely home after her dinner.'

In a daze, Sandor stood and moved from the office, to the corridor, to the lobby beyond. The car looked sleek and smooth under the street lights, slick with a fine sheen of rain. He remembered the coolness of the drops on his face as he stepped outside but little else.

The inside of the car was vast, enough so that they did not have to be remotely near one another. She sat opposite him, facing backwards as they drove in silence, and looked his way only once. She was dressed in green, with a huge diamond necklace around her neck and her hands crossed delicately across her lap. As the streetlights passed by the tinted windows, the ring on her finger flashed brilliant white and red with each pulse of light. A heavy ruby sat encased in diamonds and gold, looking far too big for her slender finger. Sandor didn't realise he was starring until he felt her eyes on him again, and they regarded each other for a long minute. Her face was half in shadow, briefly illuminated each time the streetlight passed, like a steady heart beat. She had covered her bruise with makeup, so well it was hardly visible now. Still, he saw the shadow under her eye. The slight swelling to her cheek.

'I love him' she said then, matter-of-factly; a statement to the air it seemed although she was looking directly at him. She moved her thumb against the ring, making it twist and glitter some more. He nodded, and she seemed satisfied with that, turning that burning gaze away from him at last, back towards the window. So much like her father.

Except she was a liar now. They had made a liar of her and for that, he could never forgive them.