Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Balancing her pile of files took so much concentration that as she walked in the elevator Sansa didn't even look up. She didn't need her eyes to find the right button.

For someone who had forgone all sleep last night to attend a surprise bachelorette party Maergery had thrown for Megga, Sansa was still functional. But not by much.
When she had glanced at the clock on her way to the elevator, what she had seen had stopped her in her tracks. 10:30PM?
She had to stop taking the workload off others… Even if they seemed swamped, even if she felt terrible. Somehow the day had turned to evening without her, and now to night, and Sansa felt closer and closer to falling asleep on her feet.

She didn't even have a good time last night. At all. Maergery was always putting a drink in her hand, always raising her phone to take another picture. Sansa’s protestations were lost in the music and the cheers or they fell into deaf ears. Megga had not seem to know why Sansa was invited, why she had chosen to wear that, why she had offered that gift.
Stop following Maergery when she invites me, another advice Sansa would not follow.

Sansa sighed. After dropping up those files, she could finally leave, sink herself into a bath and sleep the weekend away. Maybe she could surprise Bran with a cake. He was renting his first apartment with Jojen, and neither of them could cook as much as an egg. It was nice to have someone from home close by after years alone in the capital. 

Deep in thoughts, she didn't know what happened first, the shaking or the darkness.

She stood there shaken like a rag doll and feeling like one, before sinking to the ground. All safety procedures gone from her mind.

It went on and on and she finally understood. An earthquake! The metal screech of the cables were getting louder, terrifying and deafening and multiplying with echo. She had nothing to grab. Nowhere to hide.

The shaking stopped as abruptly as it had began. The stillness was equally terrifying now that she was the one trembling like a leaf.

How long Sansa stayed on the ground, she couldn’t tell. She stared at the ceiling so long her eyes started to sting and water. She rose to her feet, leaving her papers on the ground and feeling like a newborn fawn. Her ears were full of cotton. She had no idea what to do.
Get out. I have to get out.

She turned on herself, looking for the blue glow where the buttons should be. Seeing nothing, she took a long breath to calm down before trying again. She turned slowly, hit the side rail and found the panel with her fingers. Completely dark.

I’m stuck!, she realized with sobering clarity. Deep in the bowels of the elevator shaft, the mechanics gave a last long plaintive groan and all of a sudden Sansa was plunged in the dark and the silence.

Her aching brain abruptly switched to overdrive as the implications trickled in. What would she do? She rummaged in her bag for her phone before she remembered she had left it under her desk, quietly recharging. Did anybody saw her take the elevator? She hadn't seen anyone. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen a soul for a while. At 10:30 PM on a friday she might well have been the last person in the building.
How long would it take for someone to notice she was missing? She lived alone, nobody would worry for a very long time. How long could she hold without food, without water, without bathroom?

“Alarm is the bottom right button.”, someone spoke up behind her and she whirled around shrieking, her heart beating madly.
“The hell?”, came a deep man’s voice, tinged with amusement.
“I’m sorry!”, she cried out, collapsed against the door. “I didn’t see you!”
He simply chuckled.  “That's a first.”
He didn’t attack her, no nothing of the sort. The man must be standing against the back of the cabin and mercifully staying there. There could have been a bear in the elevator, she wouldn't have seen anything with her wall of files.
“Need help?”
“No no. I'm good, thank you.”
All alone in the dark with a man she didn't know, stuck in there for who knew how long. Just what she had planned tonight.
“Bottom right button, you said?”
“Yes. Here.” If the walls of the cabin had shrank around them, it would feel the same as having this stranger so close. She wanted to pull on her skirt that inched up her thighs, to adjust her blouse. Looking proper was a requirement embedded too deep for the dark to free her. Judging from where his voice was coming, he must be tall, nearly a giant. He inched closer, colliding with her in the dark and fumbled for the alarm.
Nothing.

He tried the alarm again, more forcefully.
“Do you think the breakdown affects the alarm system?”, she asked.
“No idea how this was built.”, he muttered between his teeth. “Got a phone?”
“Yes, it’s in my office. You?”
“Dead.”
They sighed. Where hers was a little tired huff, his was an unending intake of breath followed by the longest expiration she'd ever heard. The smug mirth in his tone, gone. They might very well stay there a while.
“What do we do now? We wait?”
“I guess. Fuck!”
He pressed the alarm, again and again, each time a little harder. Would he get angry and scream?... Or turn violent?
She couldn't let the situation take this turn, not alone in a small closed space with a man with a short fuse.
“If you break it, we’ll never get out of here.”, she said tentatively. “I don't think there's anything we can do in here that will change the outcome.”
He took a series of big breaths through the nose, held them, blew them out through the mouth. When that was done he started counting slowly from 1 to 10 several times.
Sansa’s heart beat a worried rhythm, louder still in the silence that followed his counting. Who was this man? She didn't recognize the voice.

“Sorry. I’ve had a long day, and a very long week and I really wanted to get home.”, he finally said. “I wasn't planning on a fucking earthquake.”
She smiled. He was more articulate than she had realized. Just a little panic. Good.
“Neither did I. I haven't slept last night.”, she continued to stir the conversation away.
“No?”
“Not a minute. I had my whole evening tonight planned, pick up some food, take a scolding bath, and then sleep ‘til monday.”
“Sounds nice. I had planned something like that.”
They stood there in silence. He was calmer, whatever anger had overpowered him was as quick to go as it had been to come. But she kept on talking. If he could lose his temper so easily, she didn't want him to succumb to his fears again.  
“So you work here?”, she continued.
“No, I run a security firm. I went around after hours to assess the needs.”
She grabbed his arm.
“Oh the security guard!”
“… There is none… Which is why I'm needed. Frankly it's a miracle you guys never got robbed.”
“Oh… That makes sense…”
“What about you? You work nights?”
“No. I had some things to finish. Nobody knows I was still there.”
And nobody waited for her at home. Not since she had kicked Joffrey out of her life.
“So… Now what?”
She waited for another angry outburst but it didn't come.
“I don't know… I was supposed to pick up my dog from the vet.”, he told her like it was more of a confession than it seemed. “He's not gonna know why I'm not there.”
“If it was an earthquake, they’ll know you’ll probably come as soon as possible… But we might be stuck a while.”
He huffed.
“Let's get comfortable then.”
The man sat down, taking up all the space from one corner to the other one across.
“Sorry.”, he said, “Too tall to sit another way.”
She had guessed right.
“That's alright.”, she protested nervously, “But I'll have to…”
“Sit on my lap?”
She froze. Was he serious? How was she to judge that in total darkness?
“Huh…”
“I’m joking, miss. Take the other corner. Rest your legs on mine, it's ok.”
Ok… but not awkward at all.

The little protests from the machinery pulled on her nerves like out of tune strings. Could they still drop to the ground below? She shook her head to get rid of the thought. I’m not going to feel sorry for myself when people might be dead.
Studying the dark ceiling intently was all she had left to do. That, and overthink. It would be a long night, but at least she wasn’t alone.

Sansa didn't want to fall asleep, but despite herself, she did.

Chapter Text

The aftershock hit them when they were both dozing off.

Sansa woke in terror. She folded on herself, her hands clamped over her head to silence the roars. The man reached for her and suddenly his body covered hers. Too heavy, too tight, but mercifully enveloping. The chaos kept shaking them like they were the prisoners of a snowball. The first quake couldn't have been this terrible, this nerve wrecking.
Sansa braced herself for the drop down the shaft, for the pain but there were only her screams and the weight of that man.
She'd never thought she could die so young, so stupidly.

The quake stopped suddenly, done with its tantrum. The cabin swayed gently back into place, the cables groaning loudly.

“You're ok?”, the man asked after letting her go. “You never considered a career in ‘Girl That Runs Away From A Serial Killer in a horror movie? Cause you have the voice for it.”
“How can you be so calm?”, she ignored the question, her voice a desperate shrill. She couldn’t bear to sat back in her corner, she felt so much safer close to someone, forgetting she had been the one trying to calm him down.
“If this thing crashes, there's not a goddamn thing I can do about it from here.”
The lump in Sansa’s throat grew bigger.
“It won't.”, he added after she was too tongue-tied to respond. “Those things are designed to shut down in events like this, so far it's working. Accidents are rare. They happen, make no mistake, and they're bloody affairs too. But not too often.”
“I feel sooo much better.”
“Someone will find us.”, she heard him smirk, “Probably in two days. But if neither of us panic, there's no reason we should die in here.”
She took a deep breath. He was right. She couldn't climb out and parkour her way out. There was nothing to do but wait. 
“Thank you… I do feel better. I'm glad you're here. I couldn't stand to be alone.”
“Me neither.”
His huge hand wiped her tears. She raised her face as if to study him, even if there still was complete darkness around them.
“Really?”
“Yeah… I have… I had… I have anger management issues.”
“Yes, I saw…”
His flare of anger had changed the very air around him.
“Sorry about that. It's better now… Not that you have any reason to believe that.”
“Well… I can understand the frustration. And you still calmed down.”
“Thanks to you.”
She blushed, even if she didn't agree.
“You didn't have to help me. Thanks.”
She blinked, surprised.
“Normally I’d leave unfit situations.”, he continued. “Or call my therapist, or pet my dog. He's sort of an unofficial service dog.”
“And since you can't walk away from this…”
“Exactly.”
Sansa knew a thing or two about being betrayed by her emotions. But maybe her problem was the opposite of losing control.
“Well, you're holding on better than me.”, she smiled.
“I'm used to stress. Chances are, you aren't.”
“No. Not like this.”
He might be a victim to his own moods but out of all the people she worked with, nobody would have made her feel safer than him right now. Confessions and bear hugs had that side effect.
She almost burst out laughing when she realized she had forgotten something… rather important.
“Hm... what's your name?”
He laughed too then, a loud and raucous thing that send thrills up her spine to the back of her head.
“Shit, I’m Sandor.”
“Well, thank you Sandor. I’m Sansa.”
One of his arm snaked around her waist. The weirdest thing was, she didn’t mind the proximity one bit, not natural like this. She shivered all over and it might even have been the cold.
He pressed the alarm again.
“Sansa, looks like it's you and me until monday morn…”

There was a crackle of static and then a child spoke to them.
“Hello?... Hello? What do I do? Oooh no…”
“Yes!”, they both cried out, standing up as if they would be able to walk out any minute now.
“Hello! We're stuck in the elevator at Baelor Inc.”, Sansa started.
“I see that!”, he said as if this wasn't a given at all.
“Can you send someone? We've been here since last night.”
“Uh… Well, you see… Uh…”
“See what? You know where the problem is, don't you?”, the man, Sandor, growled.
The tech, who sounded like he was 16 if he was a day, let go a mirthless stressed out laugh that meant no, he absolutely did not.
She searched for Sandor’s arm.  
“I… I just started my training. My instructor didn't come today.”
“When did you start?”, she asked. Sandor was muttering curses.
“9 AM.”
“No I mean when did you start your training?”
“9 AM.”
“We’ll die in here before he even reaches puberty ”, Sandor grumbled.
“I heard that.”, the kid protested.
“Good!”
“What's your name?”, Sansa took over again.  
“Podrick.”
“Ok Podrick. What’s going to happen to us?”
“...Every team is out already. The fire department is swamped. Since there's no emergency… we'll wait for another technician to arrive.”
“No, Podrick. WE will wait for another technician. And when did you ask if there was an emergency?”
“I... didn’t…”, Podrick realized.
“You didn’t. She could be on the brink of childbirth in here.”
“Oh please, please no…”, the boy’s faked professionalism crumbled.
“I'm not!”, she swatted Sandor’s arm. “I’m fine. We’re both fine. How long before someone gets here?”
“...”
“Podrick?”
“...”
“Podrick? Can you hear me?”
A mournful whine came through the speaker.
“What? Your instructor is coming, right? You're going to find him?”
“Everyone is out.”
“And?”
“And… I don't know his last name.”, Podrick confessed.
“Oh my god…”, Sandor sighed and sank back to his corner, counting from 1 to 10 and back.
“Podrick? Was there a lot of damage?”, Sansa asked.
“No. The quake and the aftershock were relatively small. A few fires and one or two collapsed roofs. But so far there are no casualties.”
“Yeah, ‘so far’.”, Sandor sneered.
“Thank you, Podrick.”, Sansa ignored Sandor. “I needed to hear that.”
“Miss? I’m sorry but I have to go.”
“That's ok but please don't forget about us.”
“I won't, miss. I'm doing all I can.”
“That changes everything!”, Sandor called from the ground.

Sansa sat back down next to him. There was not more she could do now.
“You didn't have to be so hard on him.”, she scolded Sandor.
“Yes, I did. Next time, he's going to remember and hopefully he’ll chose his employers better.”
They had left a teenager in charge. In the middle of the night. Sandor had a point.
He started laughing.
“...What?”, Sansa frowned.
“He didn't even ask our names.”
She started giggling uncontrollably.
“We are stuck until monday, aren't we?”, she realized, bursting into laughter.  
He kept on laughing even harder and for the first time since the elevator stopped, Sansa didn't feel so scared.

Chapter Text

The cold was a torture. The temperature had dropped over the last hours, too slowly at first to realize, but now her teeth were starting to chatter. The man, Sandor, was still alert.
“The power must not be back yet.”, she broke the silence.
It was the dead of winter after all. Lovely frozen landscapes outside, but death in here if they stayed prisoners too long.
“On the plus side, we might freeze to death before we starve.”, he answered.
She whimpered. Would they be rescued before it was too late?
“Here.”, he drew her in his arms again. “Better?”
“A little.”, she lied. He was incredibly warm.
She tucked her legs under her to try to keep the little warmth she had left.
After screaming in his arms, this was mild, and he didn't seem to mind.
“I want my bed.”, she complained. She felt a variety of emotions but this one was the loudest.
“Tell me about it. I was looking forward to doing nothing… Not what I had in mind.”
What time was it? Judging by the cold, it must be the middle of the night. How long had they been stuck?
“At least someone knows where we are now.”
“...Not sure if that’ll help.”
“Don't be so mean.”
“It's my nature.”, he shrugged.
“Is that your excuse for...” The question was out before she could think better of it. She could have slapped herself.
“I’m stuck. I thought you'd understand the feeling.”
Her sleepy brain could not have made a worst blunder. She stayed silent in the hope he would leave it at that. But that was what made him realize what she had actually meant. He stiffened. This was the farthest thing from an innocent question.
“You mean why I needed anger management?”, his voice cut through the silence like a knife.
“Yes… but forget it. I’m sorry. I didn't…”
The silence made a knot in her stomach.  
“Please, I'm sorry…”
He didn’t let her finish and turned her around, pulling her closer still, and raised her hand to his face. When she made contact with his skin, Sansa was so shocked she almost cried out.

She raised both her hands to his face.
The right side seemed normal enough. The skin was pulled tight on his cheek. His nose seemed rather big and sharply hooked. His brow was furrowed, but she knew without a doubt that it was the moment, the memory of whatever had happened that transformed his expression.
Because the other side… She mapped the remains of his features. The scars started on his neck and reached every end of this side. Those were extensive scars, thick and uneven, probably untouched by corrective surgery.
She found a knot of flesh on the side of his skull that she couldn't place and it was only when she realized it was what remained of an ear, that she broke down and her eyes watered.
He fidgeted, probably because of awkwardness, or anger at her, she couldn't tell, but she didn't let him get away. She straddled him to prevent him from turning away, but this was hardly sexual.
“How did it happen?”, she asked as softly as she could.
He turned to the side, as if the knowledge was more terrible than the darkness, and she supposed it was. As if her attentions were suddenly too much now that the bravado had run out.
“If you don't want to talk about it, I understand.”, she relented her questioning. “I’m sorry for asking.”
“It was my brother.”
“An accident?”, she gasped, horrified.
He laughed bitterly.
“It was wanted and thoroughly executed.”
“I don't understand… Why would your brother do this?”
“Because I took his toy. That's the terrible thing I did to deserve this. I know what you’re thinking, how could a kid do that for a toy? He was twelve and too old to play with it anymore but I took it. That was enough. He saw me and he dragged me to the fireplace like I weighed nothing.”
She thought of her brothers. Not one of them were capable of such cruelty, no matter the circumstances.
He grabbed the hand that she had resting on her stomach, trying to alleviate the nausea she felt. He put it flat on his ruined cheek again, spreading her fingers forcefully.
“My father's friends they heard me scream like a pig but I can tell you they hesitated.”, he rasped. “Three grown men against one teenager. Gregor didn't stop and it took them too long to help me.”
Overwhelmed, she let her hand go all the way to the back of his skull and stay there.
He was still hurting.
“How old were you?”
“Seven.”
Her heart wrung a little more and she started crying for good.
“Don't cry, you wanted to know.” His voice took a meaner turn. “You think he got to jail for it? You think I got justice? Think again. Do you know what it feels like to smell your face burning away? That your father is disgusted at the sight of you? Do you know what it's like to not be able to leave your home without making everyone stare and think ‘THANK GOD THAT’S NOT ME’?”
She ached in sorrow at the rumble of anger under her fingers. She had to help somehow. She had to make this better.
She took his hand, entwining her fingers in his, and started counting like he had done yesterday.
“1… 2… 3… 4…”, she started, squeezing to encourage him to count along.
“You know what life is like when you look like me?”
She started again, and again, until his anger finally broke out like a storm cloud bursting into rain.
He calmed down, slowly, and when his breathing got even, she was crying but then that man, formidable, hulking and defeated, so was he.
“It's terrible. No one deserves that.”, she murmured.
“Does that satisfies your morbid fascination?”, he snarled like a scared dog.
“No.”, she answered, frowning. She had gone too far, there was no denying that, but she had not meant to taunt him. “Don't accuse me of mocking you with something I didn't even know.”
He stayed quiet for a terrifying moment, and she feared he wouldn’t ever speak to her again. She stayed on his lap, unable to tear herself away. He shouldn't be alone, and she thought he probably had always been so. It transpired in his every word.
“I don't feel anything anymore on that side.”, he said. “Nerve damage.”
“That makes it worse, doesn't it?”
He huffed bitterly.
“No, that’s not the worst. When my father died, foster services outdid themselves to keep us together. I ran away as soon as they brought me back. But I lived with him for five more years. I’ll tell you what the very worst part of it is. He never cared. He looked at me with total indifference. I spent every minute of every day wondering when he would finish the job. And he didn't care.”
“Wait… he never…”
“Went to jail? Oh yes, he did. But not for me. My father protected Gregor. Said I fell into the fireplace. The court don't even know how many rapes, how many murders would have been prevented if my father had told the truth that day. Gregor died in jail four years ago. Now he’s rotting in hell like he deserves.”
He said it like it had not solved anything.
“That's why I’m like that.”
“I don't understand.”
“No more daydream of bashing his skull in. I just lost it.”
“Oh.”
He drew his head back, toward a ceiling he couldn't see.
“You would have? If given the opportunity?”
“I had the opportunity.”, he muttered.
Fresh tears fell from her eyes.
“You get more out of me than my therapist.” He said after a long while. His hands went to her hips. “Though I prefer your style.”
She let that slip, she could indulge a little macho posturing after all that just happened.
“So you see why I'm not the best at finding sound ways of dealing with anger?”
“Yes… I'm sorry for asking. It was rude of me.”
“That was foolish of you, going around, asking people about their traumas... I’m not here to entertain you.” She wanted to apologize again but he spoke. “But it's ok. I can think of worst people to be stuck in elevators with.”
She hugged him, hard. She was shaken to her core, so deep it would probably never leave her. She had known there was misery in the world, of course, but to hear it from the mouth of someone who had suffered so much, made it present, made it alive. 

Time passed. Long minutes or long hours. They stayed entwined like lovers, tied together like castaways. He held her tight enough to crack ribs. 
“So what's your secret?”, he finally asked.
“Is this payback?”, she tried to laugh.
“No. Since we're still stuck here and you're literally the first person I've been this close to in a long time.” He fidgeted, making her remember she was still straddling a stranger in a closed dark space. “So if there's something you want to talk about, I really want to know.”
She could give him some of her hidden truths, that man full of doubts and pains could understand.
Secrets were not as heavy in darkness.
“I have... anti-anger issues? I guess.”, she drew the words from somewhere deep inside her where they hid.
“Hhm?”
“I don't get angry when I should. I think, real life don't live up to my expectations and I never know how to deal with that.”
“I know the feeling. So if you don't throw my kind of tantrum, what do you do?”
“...”
“Sansa?”
He touched her cheek.
I let Joffrey do what he wanted. Because I was afraid.
“I let things happen. I endure.”
“...Whatever happens?”
“Yes.”
“Shit!” He tried to get her off his lap, picking her up like she weighed nothing, and given the muscles she had felt, she probably didn't. “I didn't…”
“No!”, she protested, holding him tighter to stay in place, “I'm ok. Really. I don't mind!”
“...”
Sandor’s embrace was about solace. Joffrey and his encroaching hands had searched for his own release.
“...You're sure?”
“Yes. I want to stay like that with you.”
Just the fact that he asked meant everything.  
“You want to learn to be angry?”, he breathed in her ear.
Goosebumps covered her arms.
Good thing she was not on her feet, that rasp made her weak at the knees.
“Not to blow your fuse to a point you’d get court-ordered therapy sessions.”, he continued. “Believe me, you don't want that, but to say ‘fuck no’, when ‘fuck no’ is needed.”
She smiled. What a guy.
“Yes.”
He sat up straighter, putting them in the most compromising position yet. If that wasn't his penis she felt, then he really had a weird phone and an unusually located pocket.
“So let’s say, you’re always the one making coffee.”
“…”
“I knew it!”, he exulted. “People you work with dump their work on you all the time.”
“...I want to help.”
“You were still working at 10:30 PM on a friday because you’re so nice?”
“I am so nice! And what about you? You were still working too.”
“Yeah but I'm the boss. I can't ask my guys to do overtime if I don't myself.”
“I just want to help.”
“And do they want to help you? Or is it as one sided as I'm 100% sure it is?”
“Don't be so insightful.”
He laughed.
“If you had asked me ten years ago, I’d have told you it was stupid to be polite.”
“...but now?”
“It's not stupid. But you can't keep on giving if you never receive. Try to say ‘no’, sometimes. Even if you can help. Then you'll see if they really value you.”
She could try that much.
“What else?”
“Last night… at the party. I felt used.”
“How?”
She heard his frown.
She had rarely felt as out of place as she had last night. There was no real friendship between them, no connection.
“My family is a major actor in politics up north. So is Maergery’s in the Reach. I didn't know her until a few months ago. And she only invites me to public events... I feel like an accessory with her. She took a lot of pictures of us.”
“Like it was a PR stunt?”
“Yes! But it's pointless, I'm not involved in my parent's campaigns.”
“You wouldn't have brothers who do?”
Oh of course! Jon, Robb and Rickon!
“Yes! Most of them!”
“Most? How many?”
“Four. And one sister.”
“You have five siblings?... Must be cold nights up north.”
She swatted his arms.
It was a cold night now.
“I have another one.”, he pulled her out of the vivid daydream she was starting to sink in.
“Go ahead.”
“So you're in an elevator. It's what some people call the dead of night and you're still working for some reason. You're tired because you haven’t slept in two days. You have a pile of files taller than you and suddenly there's an earthquake! You're stuck in the dark.”
“This is very dramatic but completely unrealistic.”
He laughed.
“Wait, there's worse. You're not stuck alone. You're actually with a renowned asshole.”
“Oh I know him. There’s been a poster campaign to warn us. He's the worst. What does he do?”
“Well, he starts by losing it. Right away. Doesn't even wait 10 minutes. That scares you and forces you to calm him down.”
He squeezed her waist.
“I know you I scared you.”
“...A little. But when I understood what happened, I just wanted to help.”
“You didn't have to.”
She shrugged. “You were not angry at me. It’s not the same.”
“Don't make excuses. I know what I'm like... You're telling me I'm not scary?”, he asked way closer to her ear than he was a minute before. “What about my reputation?”
Sansa shivered uncontrollably.
“Oh, I'm terrified. I'm trembling really.”
“You are trembling. How could you leave without your coat?”

He draped his coat around her and Sansa was grateful for the dark, it hid well the bright pink spreading on her cheeks.
They kept on talking, and all the while nestled against him, she wondered if, -no how-, she could ask to see him again.

Chapter Text

At first when she woke, her cheek prickled by stubble, the ground gently rocking, she didn't quite remember where she was or what had happened.  
She pulled herself back, just a little, startled by the cold air outside the embrace. She had never slept into such a tight tangle. Her skirt had ridden up all the way up to her thighs and didn’t cover anything anymore. But it was the erection against her that made her remember everything.

She hadn't decided to do anything, but her name breaking out of his lips in a sleepy slur changed everything.

She felt it then, the unreasonableness of attraction as she kissed him awake. It was something she had waited for and never understood. The easiness of conversation. Of telling him he was wrong. Or admitting she was lying to herself. The frenzy in her veins when she felt him growing harder still.

He bit her neck, her ear, his fingers tracing soft lines under her blouse. Everything was a whirlwind of sensations. Being pulled under him. The hair curling under her fingers when she opened his shirt. His jaw hard under her lips. She felt his scars too, on the side of his mouth. It didn't even slow her down. It was just a part of him.
The easiness with which he moved her, the untapped strength that coursed through his veins, she felt it all. That weight between her legs, just a fraction that he actually let her bear. The muscles everywhere, absolutely everywhere.

It excited her too, the unlikely pair they were. She kept making pictures of him in her mind and the ripples of electric sensations wiped it clean anew every time he touched someplace new.
Oh what a great mix of foolishness and surety, whatever this was.

His hand went up her thighs. She couldn't get enough, fast enough.
“Wait!” She tore herself from his mouth.
“Don't worry, I won't…”
“I have a condom. In my bag.”, she panted, “From the bachelorette party.”
“Bachelorette?”, he pulled further away from her.
“Not me!”, she laughed. “The party I was at last night.”
“You're sure?”
What she would give to see him right now.
“Yes, you have no idea...”
He arched up to retrieve the bag behind him so fast her hands did not leave his chest. The skin and muscles and cords tightened under her fingers and she didn't think she'd ever been this wet.
She scattered the content of her bag to find the condom. There were no seconds to lose.

That was what lust was, she thought as he pulled her panties down, as he took off his trousers. Unaltered, uncoerced. He opened the buttons of her blouse, one by one.
She was more and more dizzy from hunger and thirst but her want was like a beacon in her thoughts.
“You do it.”, he said when she put the condom in his hand.
How only three words could make her shiver so much, Sansa had no idea. She caressed the smooth head slowly, full of blood coursing under the skin. Sandor shuddered in her neck.

She had always thought herself condemned to meek, tepid relations. If she pursued them at all. Or of being overpowered by someone who wanted to take always a little more of her. Maybe she felt safest in the confines of four walls like a cat taking refuge in a box. Or there was simply something about him.

She rolled the condom down all the way down his length. It was tight she could feel it, but he didn't complain, his kisses on the side of her neck moved to her throat, tracing the curve of her chin between erratic breaths.
His hand caressed slowly between her thighs, she was ready.

And then the light came back on.

But she didn't realize right away. Only when he stopped moving abruptly and pushed away from her, did she opened her eyes to find him already looking at her, glaring in shock. The image she'd made of him, forgotten, wiped from her mind in an instant. She frowned, just for a second, not understanding what was happening. Then it dawned on her. She was seeing him!
Oh his scars! They were terrible, it would be a lie to say otherwise. The skin was ragged and it was plain he only had the minimum of corrective surgery. But the rest of his features were more striking than she had imagined. Grey eyes the color of steel. Hair black as coal. A hard mouth made to be kissed again.
He touched her hair softly, murmuring her name, and she was ready to have him without waiting a single second more.

“WE GOT YOU DOWN! WE JUST NEED TO GET THE DOOR OPEN!”, someone yelled right from behind the door.
Podrick! They jumped to their feet in a panic.
“Fuck fuck fuck.”, Sandor repeated while pulling up his pants, handing Sansa her blouse, her shoes.
The door started to open but Sandor’s hand shot out with lighting speed, pressing the close button while she worked her way up the buttons of her blouse.

She was utterly fascinated by the man before her. This was him, she had trouble fathoming. Finally. A giant, even more impressive from below when she bent to retrieve the scattered content of her bag.
Outside Podrick shouted encouragements. “HANG IN THERE!”
“So?”, he asked in carefully crafted casualness. She could tell he meant to say something, something important, but it hang there between them, unspoken.
“So?”, she echoed, suddenly shy. He really was impressive and she had explored quite a lot of him to know that it wasn’t enough.
“That’s not how you planned to spend your weekend.”
The door opened and Sandor slammed it close again.  
“WHY??? WHY DON'T YOU OPEN? OH MY GOD!”, Podrick wailed a few feet from them.
“Could have been worse.”, she smiled. “Still have to pick up your dog?”
“Eventually.”
“And…?”
He studied her face with impatient disbelief. The left side was a ruin. There were no other word for it. The corner of the mouth was pulled slightly and there was stubble only on one side of his face. But his right side, that’s what fascinated her. The piercing grey of his eyes. The sharp curve of his nose. He was not handsome, no, but there was such character in his features. Bold angles and a bearing that couldn't be faked. He hanged in balance between disappointed and expectation.
She smiled.
“After that... you're busy?”
“I guess that depends on what you have in mind.”
“I don't like not finishing what I start.”

The doors finally opened, bursting the darkness open with burning light, and when the firemen and a teenager that had to be Podrick rushed in, they were no longer alone.

* * *


Sansa forced herself to eat and drink what the paramedics gave her. Podrick had worked all night to get a team to free them. He was so happy to have succeeded, his earnestness was the most heartwarming thing Sansa had seen in a long while. He deserved better than to be exploited by his boss. 
She kept an eye on Sandor when they were examined but since she was done before him, she took the time to get her phone back from under her desk. But as Sansa came back down, he was nowhere to be seen.
She stepped out to cold morning frost, and caught up with him on the parking lot, anxiousness back to torment her.

“Sandor?”
He turned. Reluctantly.
“I don't want that.”
“You don’t want what?”
What had happened between the elevator doors opening and now?
“I don't want to be your secret boy toy.”
“My b… what?”
She had never thought she'd hear a man in his thirties use the words boy toy.
“That's... not what I want. I gave you that impression?”
She couldn't believe it.
“That's what happens when a woman has seen my face and has yet to start running. I don't want that. I thought I could... but not with you.”

He looked away, hiding his bad side. A few meters away, the paramedics were taking as long as they could manage to pack their equipment. They couldn't have been more obviously eavesdropping if they tried. 
He was too tall to kiss so she dropped her bag on the floor and stepped on it to bridge the gap between their lips. She put her whole self in that kiss. I'm not afraid. I'm not disgusted. Trust me.
He held her again like the world was ending.
“I want you.”, she panted when the need for air couldn’t be ignored. She had never imagined she could think, yet alone say something like that aloud. But he mattered too much to keep silent. She sensed that if she let him go now, she'd never see him again. “I don't want 'someone', I want you. If you want me too, we can start from there. I don't know where this is going, but I want to see. Don't you?"
He nodded.
"Trust me I don't want to use you... I know what it feels like.”
She stepped down and broke out of his arms.
“If you don't want me then I’d like to be your friend anyway.” She tried to smile reassuringly but he looked at her as if a million thoughts were racing through his mind. “It’s your choice, Sandor.”
It broke her heart to think of the years of loneliness he had been through. All the doubts she knew well. The disappointment. The heartaches.
“Why are you doing this?”, he asked.
“I don't know.”, she confessed with more confidence than she had. “Let's call a cab and find out.”

Chapter Text

Sansa was a ball of nerves, the embodiment of a neverending static shock. She had never been this bold in her entire life. First in the elevator and then in the parking lot. That man was barely more than a stranger.

Snuggling in the cab, exhaustion was a heaviness that dragged her down and everything in her was fighting not to give in. Sandor’s big fingers on her back, she searched for traces of catastrophe, and found none. King’s Landing had survived the quakes. Perhaps they hadn't been that terrible after all.  

She made the cab stop at the drugstore on the corner, assuring Sandor this would take only a minute.

Finally home, she opened her door, the midday sun flooding her apartment in long gilded filaments. She turned to face him, catching her breath as best she could. Sandor filled her doorway, dark and huge and enticing.
“You're really fucking gorgeous.”, he murmured, his eyes devouring with hunger. Her hair warmed by the sun spilled between his fingers. “Did you blush like that last night?”, he teased. “It's lovely.”

On the answering machine waited a dozen worried messages she couldn't ignore. She called her parents, lest they would make the long drive to have news.
Yes, she was fine. Yes, she had still been working. No, she wouldn't do that again. No, they didn't need to come over.

Sandor was already done with his own call when she hang up. He pulled her on his lap, in the part of the sofa the sun didn't reach.
“How is your dog?”
“Acting like I’ve been gone three years and treated like a prince by the staff at the vet clinic.”
“So, normal?”
He laughed and his huge hand brought her head close and she thought he meant to kiss her.
“Take a good look, Sansa. It doesn’t get any prettier.”
She owed him as much so she made herself see more.

Besides what his features were, on his face were more clues of the man he was. The dark circles under his eyes betrayed many late, short nights. The easiness with which his thoughts took a dark turn showed in his furrowed brow. The hard jaw was about reliving the hurt, unbidden and overpowering. The long hair meant he still could not stand to be stared at, not with having grown through the tumults of adolescence with only half a face.
She kissed it all, the bitterness, the shy hope, the open pain. None of this scared her.
“This can wait.”, he panted in a strangled whisper.
“I know.”
She kissed him like she wanted to be kissed. Boldly. Shamelessly. Like he had kissed her in the dark of that elevator.
“I don't want to wait.”, she confessed.
“We can take this slow.”, he offered, biting her lower lip softly. And she realized then that it was what he wanted but didn't say in so many words. She should respect his wish, neither of them were used to this.
There was a difference, she understood, between sex and intimacy.
“I’d like that.”
She tried to keep her eyes open but his hand under her blouse gave her no choice.
She kissed his eyes, his cheeks, his brow, his jaw, his open palm, rough and warm.
What incredible luck it was, to have met him.
“I'm so tired.”, she confessed.
“I should go. You need to sleep.”
“You can stay.”, she clung to that courage that she could barely believe was hers. “You're a great pillow.”
He laughed. She wouldn't push him past where he wanted to go, but the same nagging fear stayed, rooted deep inside.
“Where's your room?”, he asked with a little more of that assertiveness that had given her shivers.

He carried her to the bed easily, closed the door and turned off the light. She had never felt at ease when she could see herself but he probably thought it was him she preferred not to look at. However it didn’t matter, her room was full of the shy light that was left when the door was closed on a bright sunny day. The kind of light that, in time, faded seamlessly into night.
Outside the snow melted quickly, but the cold was sharp, insidious even under the covers.
“You first.”, she murmured, tugging at his sweater.
He obliged, removing what she asked and asking in turn like they were happy losers of strip poker. Soon, they were down to their underwears.
“You're frozen.”, he realized, frowning. Before she could utter a protest, he picked her up again and brought her to the bathroom. “Go take a shower.”, he ordered.
The tiles were ice under her feet.
“You're cold too.”, she countered before pulling him inside the cabin. There had been strangest things lately than showering in their underwear.
The water was blessedly hot. She wondered briefly if the hot water would hurt his scars but she remembered. Nerve damage.
She looked up at him, smiling while he rubbed her fingers to stimulate the blood flow. That was what it was supposed to feel like. He looked nothing like any of her exes, nothing like any man she had fantasized about. Intense, caring, so tall that she would have to take a few steps back to take his full measure. But in the cabin there was no space. Only enough room for them both and the water beating down mercilessly on them. Around them the steam grew dense, rising fast like a morning fog.
Sandor stole glances at her nipples, hard against the soaked fabric of her bra, so she took his hand and brought it there. The roughness of the hand, his hardness against her belly and the gentleness of the touch mixed well with the scalding water.
She was more awake than ever.
“Unless you got more of that stock from the party, it'd be wiser to calm down.”, he rasped in her neck with all the control he could muster.
She looked up at him with a touch of mischief. “Why do you think I stopped at the drugstore?”
There were no other words to describe his gaze than smoldering, the likes of which she had never seen before. He reached behind her to turn the water off.

With nothing to interrupt the pull of naked skin, two touch starved people were powerless and unwilling to stop. The wet clothes clung to the skin and they had to go. They dried between kisses, fast and clumsily, the roughness of the towel on her breasts made her nipples grow harder still.
Standing naked in front of a man she hadn’t even met at the same time the night before, Sansa realized there were more rewards in taking chances than there were in neverending doubts.
His hands wrapped around her waist to lift her on the bed, and he laid down next to her, his hand between her legs. He traced lines and circles in the small patch of hair where he legs joined, on the inside of her thighs, on the curve of her hips, taking his time to reach where she craved it. He murmured something, but all she caught was ‘soft’.
None of the guys she had dated had ever taken the time to pleasure her, only her, not if it took more than a minute, not if she was not a display for them to see.
He traced her entrance softly, going between caressing her clit and sliding the length of his finger. Her hips started to roll to follow his rhythm. Sansa was more than wet and he seemed to like his name mixed with moans.
Once inside, he curled his finger, his thumb rubbing her clit, and her moans turned wordless. Her fingers slid in his wet hair. He added a finger and his mouth on her breast and her hand curled into a fist. She wanted to reciprocate, to reach for his cock, but the peak came so fast, it surprised even her. She searched for his eyes, letting him see how undone she was. An orgasm, in all its vulnerable and unruly glory. She simply let him look, he deserved to know.
He watched it play with surprise. Like he didn't believe it could be real until it happened.

Sansa laid sprawled and disheveled, only when it was completely over, did she curled on her side against him.
“Where is your bag?”, he asked in between kisses on her neck, her temple.
“Living room.”, she managed, breathing hard, still reeling from the pleasure she had discovered came from trust.  
He disappeared, only long enough to get her bag and he was back with all his warmth in a matter of seconds. He laid down, back beside her. “You're sure?”
“Yes.” She smiled. “Are you? This can wait if you want to.”, she added.
"It can.", he agreed, his eyes glinting like polished steel, "But right now, waiting is the last thing I want."
How divine were kisses when her sex was still flushed from climax. He moved over her, exhilaratingly huge. Remembering the elevator, she took the condom to roll it on, slowly, seizing him in her hand. She stroked him like she had longed to do. He was so solid in her hand, hard and pulsing with blood and eager for more.

When Sandor pushed inside her, Sansa tightened her hold on his arms, rolling her hips in small circles to take his full measure. God, he felt gloriously good. Coming once before made every sensation more intense, more sharp. He gripped the headboard with one arm, low groans rumbling from his throat and she kissed him there.
Above her, he shuddered slightly, the muscles of his arms taught. To make such a big man shiver only added to her pleasure.
Her hands on his broad back, her legs locked around his waist, she held on like below her awaited a dark and endless drop. He kissed her mouth, her breasts, the dip of her collarbone with desperation that could have passed for fervor.

No one came to pull them apart now, another quake could strike and Sansa would not let it stop them. His thrusts came harder, closer together. He picked up a hard pace, a breathless rhythm that Sansa would have been sure she could not follow. But the sweat, the panting, the offering, every last blessed inch of him. She wanted it all.

When he felt himself too close to come he stopped and pulled out entirely and she could have whimpered at the emptiness. As bare as he would ever be, she pushed the hair out of his face and he looked straight into her eyes. It must have taken a lot out of him to manage as much. Her palm still on his scarred cheek, she kissed him again. He sheathed himself slowly, entirely, and she moaned desperately into his mouth. She writhed at the feeling, a prickling rippling to the tip of her fingers.

She could feel her muscles clenching faster and harder, and groaning with pain-like pleasure, Sandor could too. It came then, unstoppable, an orgasm rolling over her like a wave. Seeing her unraveling under him, crying out with complete abandon, Sandor let his took him too, and for a few seconds, she could not have said where her own body stopped and his began.

Panting beneath his smothering weight, he kissed her hard, still reeling from his own release, his mouth wet with tears. Sansa had no idea if they were his or hers. She didn't care. She cared that he was still inside her. Still holding her.

“You were right.”, he murmured with a hoarse voice, when he could speak again. He rolled next to her, locking his arms around her.
She didn't ask what he meant, she knew.
“I'm glad it was you stuck with me.”, she confessed against his chest.
Only then, as the night draped over the city, did she let sleep finally take her.

It had begun, and wherever the fear was gone, it stayed away. 

* * * 

EPILOGUE

Sansa had been studying him for at least an hour, when he slept his features transformed and she was fascinated. She was wondering if he'd call in sick on monday, like she wanted to do, when her stomach growling woke him from peaceful sleep.
“I’m sorry.”, she laughed at his confused look. 
“That won’t do.” He rubbed his eyes and frowned in mock irritation. “You need to keep up your strength, Sansa. We're not done.”
“I might have food somewhere.” She turned in his arms to reach for the alarm. He lifted her hair to leave a trail of kisses between her shoulder blades, drawing his thigh over hers. “...Or the drugstore closes in fifteen minutes.”
"I'll get supplies, you sleep some more."
He got up and she started to regret talking. 
She watched him dress from the bed, a shadow against the half-light, naked and magnificent. He looked more peaceful than he did this morning. 
Sansa was willing to bet that this was probably the best outcome any earthquake ever had. She couldn't wait for all the unknown that laid ahead. 

"The key is on the dresser... And Sandor?”
He turned.
“Yeah?”, he smiled. 
“Take the stairs.”