Author's note:
Thanks to all my reviewers for your support!
This chapter especially is dedicated to Magnus374, for being awesomely supportive and for a very particular suggestion. :)
Chapter 13: Talking
Sansa fought her tiredness as she lay in his embrace afterwards, busying herself with trying to memorize the feel of his skin under her fingertips, to identify ever ridge and bump and scar.
After what had just happened, the thought of letting him go was abhorrent to her.
She never again wanted to wake to find the bed empty. She wanted to sink her nails into him and hold him here; bar the windows and doors and tell the world outside to mind its own business.
Her life, her everything was here in this bed, a world newly discovered, so rich and rewarding she wondered if she might be the first woman ever to have made this discovery, for surely everyone would only ever stay in bed if they knew.
She giggled at imagining what state the world would be in if this were to be the case.
Still, it seemed way better than waging wars all the time.
On second thought, surely they did know, because what Sandor had just done with her, Sibyl had told her about. While back then it had only incited horrified disgust in her, later, after she had already been treated to the pleasures of Sandor's curious, gentle mouth and his wickedly mobile tongue, she had wondered at times how what Sibyl had mentioned would feel.
If you are lucky, indeed, she thought, giggling again.
"What are you tittering about?" Sandor inquired sleepily.
She turned to rest her chin on her hands she had folded on his chest. Too bad it was too dark to see him. The ache to do so when they were in bed like this had only grown more pronounced over the last days.
"Just imagined how it would be if everyone knew about how much… joy this is and all people would be…," she balked a bit at using the word both Sibyl and Sandor used for what they had done.
"…fucking all the time?" he finished for her.
A quiet chuckle vibrated through is chest.
"Do you have to call it that?" she asked, somewhat miffed.
A hand softly skimmed her shoulder.
"I don't think I've another word for it," he said, then chuckled again. "At least nothing more appropriate. Bloody singers call it 'making love', but…"
She contemplated the expression for a while. It certainly seemed more fitting. She had felt cherished just then, revered and yes, maybe even loved.
"I'll call it that, then," she said with determination, expecting him to scoff.
"If you think it fits," he said surprisingly softly, his fingertips still ghosting over her back.
"I do," she said.
He kept caressing her, the lazy movements soothing her towards sleep which had almost reached her when his chest rumbled under her ear again.
"How did you know?"
"Know what?"
"Where you needed me to touch you."
The question was asked in a curious tone, as if it wasn't just motivated by curiosity, but by equal parts of dread and hope.
"Sibyl told me."
He let out a deep breath he seemed to have held.
Suspicion had her raise her head from where it was resting.
"What were you thinking?"
"Nothing, I just…"
She couldn't believe her own ears.
"Did you think… have you truly believed I would have let anyone else touch me like this?"
Turning her back to him, she fought the tears rising to her eyes. She knew she had no reason to be offended. She had gone above and beyond what he suspected her of by taking lessons from a whore.
"I didn't believe it," he offered quietly and again it was the gentle touch of his hands that soothed her almost as much as his words did, "but it gets me into the mood to kill just considering it a possibility."
"Was this why you were so angry… that one time?" she asked, remembering the night when she had first practiced Sibyl's teachings.
"Aye."
It was oddly satisfying to think that his outburst back then had been motivated by nothing more than… what was it? Possessiveness? Jealousy? The former would only mean that he considered her his property. Although she knew he did, in a way, had even openly declared "she's mine" in front of the council, she knew she was more than a commodity for him. If nothing else, the last hour should've proven as much.
But if it was jealousy, if even back then it had been jealousy, wouldn't it mean…? Her heart stuttered almost to a stop and her mind forcefully turned away from where that thought might have led.
"You should've known better," she said sulkily but without heat.
"How?" he asked, quite rightly. "You were so good at that, there was no way you figured it out all by yourself."
She almost laughed out loud at that. Of all the things she had expected, of all the hurtful, dreadful things she had imagined, that had been his chief concern?
"I guess Sibyl was a really good choice as a teacher then," she said, smiling into the darkness.
He shifted and leaned over her, then gave her a kiss.
"I do not know the woman," he said, punctuating the words with tiny kisses, "but I am getting the feeling I ought to thank her."
"Maybe you should," she said chuckling at the thought of how that particular conversation might go down. Then again, she'd rather not imagining him back in that street at all. Although maybe Sibyl should know about the success of her lessons. "I know I will."
"Don't forget to take Eric with you when you go," he cautioned and drew her closer. "I'd much prefer you to stay here, but…"
She pressed a kiss to his chest to express her gratefulness.
"I know," she whispered. "I am glad you're not imprisoning me."
They settled back into a comfortable position, but this time, the alertness she still sensed in him kept her from growing drowsy again.
"What else did she teach you?" he asked after a while.
Sansa felt her cheeks heat up at the memory. Sure that Sandor wasn't asking for the more mundane parts of her "education", like preventing pregnancies and assorted illnesses, his question brought things to her memory she wasn't sure she could tell him about, even if she wanted to. For once thing because she lacked even the vocabulary for most of it, for another... well, Sibyl had shown her some things she was sure she would not want to try even if Sandor should want to.
"She showed me a few etchings," she said at last and then decided to be as honest as possible. So far, it seemed to be the best strategy with him. "Some of them very disturbing, which I hope you'll never want me to try. Some that seemed… interesting. She told me there were different... positions in which to... do that. And that most men prefer one over the other."
He gave a non-committal grunt to that, which told her nothing.
"Which one is your favourite?" she asked, warming to her topic.
Under her, he shifted a bit, as if uncomfortable all of a sudden.
"I... don't know."
"You're lying."
A deep, put-upon sigh almost lifted her off his expanding chest.
"I am not lying," he said. "It's like that food thing. I never really thought about it, left the choice to the women, usually. Most of them didn't want to see my face anyway, so that was that."
Sansa bit back a gasp at the hurt that squeezed her heart at hearing his overly casual words. Not so much because the thought of him with other women was always a hurtful one, but because there was such a depth of painful, desperate loneliness to his words, she couldn't even fathom how someone could manage to cope with this while still staying sane.
An act that should have brought him nothing but joy, should've brought him respite from the world's contempt had only served to ostracize him even more. Even those whose job should have been to please him had managed to make him feel inadequate and barely human.
"Are you crying?" he asked with alarm in his voice, his fingers seeking and finding the wetness on her face she hadn't even realized was there.
"No," she said, wiping at the wet streaks on her face. She knew he would not appreciate her feeling sorry for him.
"Look who's lying now," he said, but there was a smile in his voice.
"You're changing the topic," she accused him in turn to distract him.
His wandering hand turned to her back and shoulders again and she relaxed against him, not really expecting him to say anything, but content to just enjoy his touch.
"It's strange," he said, "thinking about what I like. Stranger still to think someone wants to know."
"So what is it you like?" she insisted.
His body tensed and suddenly sprang into action, surprising her. Rolling on top of her, he pressed her deep into the mattress with the weight of his body and brought his mouth to her ear, his breath hot.
"I like to have my tongue as deep in your mouth as my cock is in your cunt when I fuck you," he rasped and she recognized his need to somehow intimidate her with this bluntness, get her to back off, to stop asking questions he felt uncomfortable answering. But then his body moved against hers, naked skin touching everywhere they were pressed together, and he seemed to soften, to change. "I... I still cannot believe how great it felt to hear you moan and scream my name as you came," he continued and then paused for a long while, something unsaid hanging in the air around them. "I wish I knew how to make you come with my cock inside you," he continued almost inaudibly, as if afraid of being heard.
Sansa swallowed, more overwhelmed by the fact that he had actually said "I wish" than by what he had wished for. She might have told him that Sibyl had said what he wished for was not possible for most women, that she still barely believed she'd experienced that sort of pleasure just a few minutes before, but another thought was prevalent in her mind.
"I wish I knew that, too." She wound he arms around his shoulders, relishing their hard strength.
He froze for a moment, then found her mouth for a thorough, none too gentle kiss that left her mouth feeling bruised and swollen but her body heated and ready. By now she knew he did that when not knowing how to express himself otherwise, so she basked in his passion and opened her legs for him when she felt him push against her with impatience.
It was short and intense and not the first time he had taken her twice in one night, which sometimes made her wonder how much sleep he had gotten lately. She herself was grateful she could laze about in bed until very late in the morning to sleep off her nightly activities.
"So, tell me," he said after his breath had calmed again. "Which of those etchings she showed you did you find… interesting?"
She laughed quietly, secretly entertained at the question and at her own wonderings if he would insist on trying right now if she told him of her... interest.
"I'll tell you tomorrow," she said, pressing a kiss to his chest. "Good night, Sandor."
…
The morning air was warm and the streets wet from last night's rain as Sansa made her way to the Street of Silk, Eric trailing a ways behind her.
She had packed a couple of freshly baked buns, courtesy of Betsy, although the girl only knew that Sansa was visiting "a friend".
With her cap deeply in her face, she carefully observed the streets around her in case she'd see more of those men who had once stood outside her home, but could detect nothing out of the ordinary.
As expected, the door to Sibyl's establishment was locked, but to Sansa's growing disappointment, didn't open even after she had knocked a couple of times. She hammered her fist against the door for good measure, but even that wasn't met with success.
"The place is closed up," someone said behind her.
Sansa whirled around to find none other than Old Mag standing on the street, a basket on her arm filled with various flagons and jars, probably having made a round of her customers.
"Dragged her away, they did," the old woman continued, eyeing Sansa as if she was somehow to blame. "A white knight and a couple of lads in black. Two days ago it was and she hasn't been back yet, probably dead, I wager."
Without even waiting for an answer, the old woman turned and walked away with hasty steps.
Thought had not fully formed in her head, when Sansa felt a large hand on her arm, tugging at her insistently.
"My lady, we've been made," Eric whispered to her, dragging her along towards a gap between two houses, no more than three feet wide and looking unsavoury to say the least. "We've to vanish quickly."
She followed Eric blindly, her thoughts stumbling around in her head as much as she was stumbling along behind Eric. He'd made her leave her basket at some corner, helped her climb fences, directed her to step through back doors and hurry through houses, then climb again, but this time down into a mace of cellars and sewers until they miraculously appeared in front of her house, bedraggled and dirty and foul smelling, but mostly still in one piece.
"I've to let the master know what happened," Eric explained breathlessly. "You're not to leave the house until he says so."
With that, he turned to go, but she grabbed his jacket before he could.
"What happened?" she asked.
"They must have learned about your visits to your... friend," he said and looked at her as if that was blindingly obvious. "Probably took her for questioning her about your whereabouts and thought they'd just lay in wait for you to come back again."
Horror welled up in her as she slowly understood what Eric was saying.
Her nerveless fingers let go of him and she slowly sank to the floor, covering her face with her hands.
"Get him," she said tonelessly. "Get him as fast as you can."
…
Sandor hurried home as soon as he could after having received Eric's report on how nearly Sansa had escaped Littlefinger's lackeys today.
While he knew her to be safe for now, he imagined her to be upset and he proved to be right. He had barely closed the door behind him, when she flew into his arms, clinging to him as if for dear life.
"They've taken her away," she sobbed. "Some men came and took her away, one of them Kingsguard."
"Who was taken?" he asked, worried at the thought something might have happened to Betsy.
"Hasn't Eric told you?"
"He just told me you were nearly caught by Littlefinger's men today, but that he got you safely away just in time."
"They nearly caught us because they knew where to wait for me," she said, voice wavering. "They've taken Sibyl."
"The whore?"
Sansa took a step back from him and sniffed while wiping at her eyes.
"She is the proprietor of an establishment for... for... entertainment," she said as if that somehow made a difference. He decided that now was not the time to discuss semantics.
"What happened?"
"I don't know anything more than I've already told you," she said sadly, sitting down on a chair. "They said she was led away two days ago by three men, one of them in Kingsguard armour. A 'white knight'."
As far as he knew, the description fitted only a few suspects.
"Probably Littlefinger's men and Kettleblack, trying to get her to tell him where you are."
"But she doesn't know!" Sansa exclaimed, jumping from her chair. "I've never told her and she never even asked."
"Let's hope he believes her," Sandor said only to see her become motionless at that, her face white as a sheet.
"You think he might... have her tortured?"
He gaped at her and then clenched his jaw, averting his eyes. Not too long ago, he would've laughed at her question, told her how clueless she was to not even have considered that a possibility when for him it was a clear certainty that the woman had not only been tortured, but quite probably killed once she proved to be worthless to Littlefinger. He could not leave witnesses, after all.
He might have told her once, but now something held him back.
"It's... possible," he said, but when she just closed her eyes and fresh tears rolled down her cheeks, he knew he might as well have told her the truth as he saw it. He could not more successfully lie to her than she could lie to him.
Truth was the only option between them, no matter how sharp-edged, painful or brutal it got.
But still she did not seem to fault him for his trying to omit the truth, because she came into his arms once again, pressing her face against his chest.
"Can you please go and find her?" she begged him. "Maybe he just holds her somewhere, maybe you can get Kettleblack to talk, maybe..."
Should he tell her that her desperate hope was useless, that it was a fool's errant she sent him on? That after her being gone for two days the chances were slim to none he'd find the woman alive? Or at least alive enough so it would serve any purpose to bring her back?
On the other hand, how could he say no?
He stroked her hair with one hand and uselessly tried to wipe away her tears with the other, biting back the remark that she shouldn't cry for a woman so far beneath her. But he didn't because he understood in this moment that this was what made her the woman he would walk into fire for. The fact that she cared, be it for a common whore or a maimed killer. So he nodded his wordless assent and found himself truly hoping despite himself that he would find Sibyl still alive.
…
Sansa had wrapped herself into a scratchy blanket and huddled on a chair in front of the fireplace in the living room, waiting for Sandor's return.
She'd not heard from him during the day and with every hour that went by, her feeble hope that Sibyl was still alive somewhere slowly turned to ashes just like the logs in the fire in front of her eyes. It had been stupid to hope for that in the first place and she had seen in Sandor's eyes that he had only gone to humour her, not because he had any expectation to be successful in his search.
Her tears had run dry a few hours ago when she had realized it wasn't Sibyl she cried for, but once again herself. Because if Sibyl was dead, it would be her fault.
Her allies always died.
The door creaked in its hinges and she slowly turned to see him walking towards her with a lowered head. Wordlessly, he reached a closed fist towards her and she held out her hand. With a faint tinkling sound, a necklace fell into her hand, a sturdy silver chain with a gaudy pendant of coloured glass. Sansa's hand began to shake as she remembered that Sibyl used to wear it.
"That's all that was left," he said quietly. "Once I found out from Kettleback where they'd taken her, they had already burned her clothes and gotten rid of...," he shook his head and sat down heavily on another chair, resting his elbows on his thighs. "The man who had this... let's say he won't be torturing anyone anymore."
Sickness crawled up inside her, choking her. It was one thing to convince herself of the truth, it was another to have it undeniably stated, to hold the proof in her own hand.
A fleeting caress grazed her shoulder.
"I am sorry about your… friend," he offered tentatively. The gesture brought new tears to her eyes. He hadn't even known Sibyl, had gone to look for her only at her behest and still he tried to console her. If only she could adequately express to him how much his compassion meant to her, how it helped her to know she wasn't left alone with her grief. Her guilt.
"She wasn't my friend, I barely knew her," she said, shaking her head. "But she didn't deserve to be tortured and killed just because she knew me. Because she helped me." Spoken aloud like this, the glaring truth about her own guilt became even more obvious. "It was me who killed her. Just like I killed my father."
"Stop it," he rasped, anger blazing at her from his eyes. "You never killed anyone in all your life and you know it. You neither put a sword to your father's neck nor did you command Sibyl's murder. You mock everyone's death if you blame yourself and it won't get justice for you or any of those who are dead."
Embracing the numbness that slowly crawled into her, she shook her head, letting his anger wash over her as something she deserved.
"What does it help to nurse hatred for Littlefinger when I will never have the power to take revenge?"
He reached for her then, took her chin in his hand and forced her to face him.
"Never say never, little bird," he said insistently, his eyes boring into hers. "I got my revenge eventually, you will get yours, too."
As always, her mind quickly shied away from the event he alluded to.
But even that glimpse brought a memory of a feeling, an understanding, a kiss and a touch and it slammed into her so brutally, she could barely breathe.
A feeling that made her suddenly long for him with an overwhelming intensity. Maybe to drown her sorrows in passion and ecstasy, maybe to just forget or maybe because she could not really deal with all of this without being in his arms.
And despite her constant wish to finally see him, all of him, she was glad that tonight the bedroom would once again be shrouded in darkness. Right now, she couldn't cope with the harsh, honest warrior in front of her, who looked at her expecting her to be strong and angry and vengeful. Tonight she wanted to be weak, wanted to be held, caressed and pleasured by the gentle, passionate lover he was when she couldn't see him.
Tonight she couldn't bear being reminded of the blood he had on his hands and the scars he bore from violence and pain endured. She wanted darkness that meant peace, safety and intimacy, wanted to feel pleasure brought only by touch and taste. Darkness was close to pleasant dreams and refreshing sleep and she longed for that, too.
She stood and let the blanket fall to the floor, reaching out her hand in invitation.
"I've more bad news, I am afraid," he said, remaining seated.
She sat down again, numbly waiting for the next cruel blow.
Sandor sighed and rubbed his forehead.
"Might not be bad for you... or at least I hope so."
She shook her head at that puzzling statement that didn't tell her anything at all.
"Joffrey might have started a new war," he continued. "Last night, Margery kept pestering him about some street fair or something she wanted to host, with bread and treats given to the poor. Joff didn't want to hear about it and tried to forbid her doing it. It went back and forth for a while and then suddenly he turned and punched her."
"Punched her?" she echoed, aghast.
It was one thing to mistreat a traitor's daughter nobody cared about, but for Joffrey to forget himself so completely as to hit his wife... Sandor might be right, this might very well start a war.
"Yes, it wasn't a slap or anything, he had balled his fist and straight up punched her in the face. She spurted blood from her nose and I think her lips was split as well. Loras went for his throat, Kettleblack and I had quite a fight on our hands to separate them. We've thrown Loras into the black cells on Joff's orders and Trant brought the queen to Joffrey's private chambers later because he needed to 'teach her how to honour and obey her husband'. She still had only that split lip from before when I next saw her, but she seemed… not herself somehow."
Sansa closed her eyes while a wave of compassion went through her. It wasn't only the visibly wounds Joffrey inflicted that could nearly break you in two.
"I know," she said quietly.
"Mace Tyrell came up to me then, demanded of me to free Loras and to protect Margery and… "
He shook his head, taking a deep breath.
"And what?"
"He said it's all my fault for taking you away. That Joffrey was much better able to control himself as long as you were around."
Sansa's jaw dropped.
"So it's my fault Joff beats his own wife for not being there anymore to take the beatings in her stead?"
"Very nearly punched him, too, just for this," Sandor growled. "Told him to act like a man for once and stand up for his own daughter if she meant anything to him."
The longing she felt for him came back as she pondered his words, because she had once been just as much in need of someone to help her as Margery was now.
"Like you stood up for me and saved me, because I meant something to you?"
She didn't know the source of her bravery to ask him that question, when she still didn't know if she could handle his answer.
"I didn't save you, little bird," he said with a terse finality to his words that forbid any further argument.
She had no strength left for a discussion anyway, so she just stood again and extended her hand. This time, he took it and followed her upstairs.
…
He was strangely hesitant about touching her after they had both undressed in the darkness and it took her a while to understand that he thought to give her space to grieve.
But it was guilt she felt, not grief, despite what Sandor had said and she felt she owed Sibyl to at least honour her memory by reminding herself what knowing her had meant to her, what the two hours spent with her had taught her.
Curiously obedient, he let himself being shoved toward the bed and sat down when she lightly pushed at his chest. Then she started to kiss his neck just like she had back after her first visit with Sibyl.
"Sansa...what...," he started to ask, but she silenced him by lightly nipping at his skin, eliciting a hissing gasp.
"Sibyl told me to think about what I like about you," she murmured against his skin. "And not to focus on what I don't." She kissed down his neck, then let her lips wander down the bulge of his shoulder, explored his collarbone and then had the soft hairs on his chest tickle her mouth and lips as she sought out one flat nipple, maimed by a slash about which she meant to ask him some day. When she went further down with her caresses, he put his hands on her shoulders as if meaning to stop her.
He'd done so a few times before, never letting her kiss him anywhere south of his breastbone.
She swatted his hands away decisively.
So much for being weak. Then again, it wasn't her weak self that had decided to seek help from a professional woman. Not a weak girl who had applied her newly acquired knowledge the next chance she got no matter her nervousness. She wouldn't do Sibyl's memory justice by being weak.
Curiously enough, Sandor didn't protest.
"But I found," she continued when she had reached his belly, his erection resting against her naked breasts, "that there isn't anything I do not like about you."
He made some unarticulated sound deep in his throat which might have been an attempt at speech.
His manhood was hot and rock-hard already when she took it in her hand to rub her cheek against it for a loving caress, much like a cat would rub against a beloved owner. "Even this," she said and smiled into the darkness. "Especially this." He groaned loudly when she turned her head to press an open mouthed kiss to the tip of his cock. But she didn't take him into her mouth, not yet anyway.
Straightening up on her knees, she took her breasts in her hands and carefully enveloped his hardness with them, rubbing up and down as Sibyl had told her men might find stirring.
"Gods, I'd kill to see you right now," Sandor groaned, his whole body trembling. The bed behind him creaked and his upper body leaned away from her, so she surmised he'd found it necessary to support himself on his hands.
She tried to picture him, head thrown back with pleasure while imagining how she looked with his manhood between her breasts. Committing his reaction to memory for further use, she kept pleasuring him, enjoying his reactions as much as the curious sensation of his hot flesh sliding along her softness, so different than when he was inside of her.
After a while, when his moans and curses spoke of mounting urgency, she bent down to take him into her mouth and he came almost as soon as her lips wrapped fully around him. Unlike last time, his pleasure was audible. This time, he didn't stop her from swallowing his seed, allowed her to experience his release with him to the last spurt, the last twitch of his manhood, the last sobbing groan.
As she settled against him afterwards, when trembling hands caressed her and a broken whisper gave the answer to a question she had not asked; she gave a silent thank you and bade a silent farewell to a woman of whom she knew nothing more than the name and profession.
But she vowed to her memory, silently as well, that should she ever get the chance for revenge - as Sandor was sure she would - her name would not be forgotten, would be part of the list of crimes Littlefinger had to answer for.
...
tbc