Chapter Text
With his hands on his hips, Sandor eyed the run-down old farmhouse wearily. He turned back to Brienne, his good eyebrow raised and asked, “Are you sure about this place? Looks like it could fall over at the slightest breeze.”
“Do you have a better option? The sun is about to go down so we don’t have a choice. Unless you want to sleep in the rain again,” Brienne told him in a clipped tone as she was gearing up. She was giving him a look that suggested she didn’t want to be argued with and even as annoyed as he was, he kept his mouth shut. The blonde giantess was just as stubborn as he was, so there was no use trying to convince her of something different once her mind was made up.
Instead, he only sighed and headed towards the front door, still eyeing up the farmhouse. The building looked like it was in bad condition, as though no one had managed its upkeep in ages, so it was hard to say what they would find inside. At best, it would be empty, and they’d be able to settle into the living room with their sleeping bags. At worst, it would be filled with black mold, collapsed floors, and a nest of living corpses who were looking for their next meal. Sandor hated these old buildings nowadays, with all their narrow hallways and choke points. It was too easy for someone to become trapped, cornered by a set of gnashing teeth. When he’d been traveling alone, he almost never took a chance on a place like this for fear of losing his life.
Once he reached it, Sandor tentatively stepped up onto the porch and heard it groan under his weight, not a good sign. He tested the door knob, and found it was rusty, but unlocked, eventually turning and allowing the door to creak open. The sound felt loud as a gunshot in the otherwise quiet countryside, and he winced, hoping that it wouldn’t attract unwanted attention. Standing still, he listened for any scrapes or moans, signaling the presence of the dead inside. However, after a beat, it seemed the coast was clear—for now—and he stepped across the threshold.
The first room he entered appeared to be the living room, based on the couch, loveseat, and recliner that sat organized around a coffee table to face a TV stand. On it sat an old, tube-style television, and it appeared to be covered in dust which had gone undisturbed for some time, a good sign that there was no one here. Sandor’s eyes scanned the room, looking for spatters of blood or anything else that might indicate a struggle, but everything seemed to be in order. Maybe Brienne had made a good choice after all, though he’d never tell her so. Still, he moved cautiously through the entrance to the dining room, where a table and chairs sat neatly in the center. On the table was a floral arrangement which had long withered, its dried petals and leaves littering the wooden surface, along with more dust.
The only room that appeared to be disturbed on the ground level was the kitchen, which had clearly been picked over by various scavengers. All the cupboards had been flung open and were empty of any food that might have been left over. The fridge sat open as well, and from it emanated the foul stench of rotting produce and meat. Sandor shut the door quietly, shaking his head. The least whoever was here before could have done was shut it so that no one else had to suffer. He looked around and took note of the peeling floral wallpaper and the cracked windows, but found nothing else out of order. In another life, he would have seen this home as an opportunity to make some money, as its spacious interior made it appear to be easily flippable. But those days were behind him, and he returned his focus to clearing the house for entry.
It was time now to go upstairs, and each step creaked as he set foot onto it. He tried to keep his breathing quiet so as to hear any activity on the upper level that his footfalls might have aroused. When he made it to the landing, he stood still, and listened once again, waiting for the inevitable groan of a hungry corpse. Experience taught him that he couldn’t let his guard down, no matter how long it took them to react. Yet still, there was no noise, and so he started checking through the bedrooms, of which there were three.
He found nothing of note until he entered the master bedroom which was at the end of the hallway. There was a large, king-sized bed adjacent to the door, on which sat the bodies of a man and his teenaged daughter. They looked emaciated, and from all the blood, Sandor could only surmise that the father had opted to mercy kill his daughter before killing himself. He wasn’t new to these sorts of tragedies, having seen many after the apocalypse struck, and even before then he’d become numb to these sorts of things. So, rather than taking a moment to mourn their loss, he simply went over to the bed to see what kind of weapons or other useful items they had on them.
At this point, it seemed safe to let his guard down now, a decision he would come to find out shortly was a mistake.
As soon as he reached for the body of the girl, she sprung to life—unlife? Sandor didn’t know the right word—and reached her desiccated hands towards him, grabbing onto his arm. Even though he pulled back, she held on, leaning forward to take a chunk out of him. While he tried to reach for his knife quickly, her teeth sank down, thankfully into the faded white leather of his coat, and not into his actual flesh. It seemed she couldn’t tell the difference, as she tried to rip that part of his jacket off, and he used the distraction to plunge the knife right into her skull. The moment he made contact with her brain, she fell slack, her mouth releasing his jacket, although the damage had already been done.
As she slumped down, he heard quick footsteps on the stairs, and a moment later, a diminutive, angry ball of energy appeared in the doorway. She took in the scene and said, “What the fuck, Hound?”
“Calm the fuck down, wolf-bitch. I handled it. You shouldn’t even be in here,” Sandor said, giving her a glare. Something about Arya had awakened a protective instinct in him, perhaps because she was so young, only nineteen, and he never let her inside a dwelling until after he and Brienne had cleared it.
“Well, it’s a good thing I was. What if there had been more of them? What if that one was still alive, huh? You’d be zombie chow, and we’d be down a man,” Arya scolded with her arms folded across her chest. Though she’d made it sound like she’d have been mad about the inconvenience of his death, he had a sneaking suspicion she cared about him as a person and didn’t want anything to happen to him. However, she’d never actually come out and say it, which was just fine with him.
Sandor wiped his knife off on the bedspread, sheathed it, and said, “Yeah, well, he’s not undead, there aren’t more of them, and if I ever wind up zombie chow, you’ve probably been dead for weeks. Go tell the others the house is clear.”
As she stalked off, he looked back down at the corpses that were ruining a perfectly good bed and sighed. This would have been just the right size for him. Why couldn’t they have killed themselves on the floor instead? Or in the bathtub? Gods know they weren’t using those anymore, since there hadn’t been running water in months. The only way this could be usable is if he flipped the mattress over. But first, he’d need Brienne’s help to clean up the bodies.
Sandor hurried outside and found her scowling at him. She wasted no time in admonishing him, saying, “Why didn’t you wait for me?”
“You were taking too long. You always do with those ridiculous hockey pads you call ‘armor.’ Why can’t you just wear them all the time?,” Sandor said, rolling his eyes at her.
“You know I hate wearing them in the car. They’re too bulky,” Brienne growled back with a scowl, “Besides, with how many times they’ve saved my skin, I don’t care how long they take to put on.”
Sandor still didn’t feel like arguing with her, and switched subjects, saying, “There’s some dead bodies upstairs that need to be burned or buried. Help me get them out of the house, would you?”
“I could help with that, if you wanted,” Podrick Payne tittered as he stepped around the vehicle, still holding onto his pack.
“No,” Brienne said sternly, though not unkindly, “You’ll finish unpacking the supplies, as you were told.”
He nodded, and immediately went back to unloading the trunk while the two of them went inside to clean up the mess.
Brienne’s reaction to the bodies was much different from his own, her expression twisted with sadness as she came to the realization of how these two people’s lives had ended. Sandor rolled his eyes again, thinking that the woman was far too sentimental for her own good. These people were dead, it didn’t really matter how, and wasting time being upset over it was pointless. When he said as much, she frowned at him, asking, “How can you say that, Sandor? They used to be real people, just like you and me. You really don’t feel anything when you look at them?”
“I feel annoyed that they couldn’t have killed themselves outside and saved us the trouble of having to drag their bodies downstairs, but that’s about it,” he shot back, not in the mood to defend himself to her.
“You should really have more respect for the dead,” Brienne said, shaking her head as she moved to wrap the girl up in a sheet.
“Yeah, well, that one didn’t have very much respect for me when she tried to take a chunk out of my arm, so you’ll have to forgive me for not giving a shit,” Sandor replied, holding up the newest hole in his jacket.
She only made a disgusted noise, and continued with her task, pausing to close the young woman’s eyes before folding the sheet over her face. Yes, the two of them were like oil and water, and if she wasn’t strong and capable, he probably would have parted ways with her weeks ago. Unfortunately, along with her strength and battle-prowess came her outdated ideas about chivalry, loyalty, and the value of human life. Sandor assumed she considered herself the moral compass of their group, as she often took on the role of their nagging conscience when she felt they were being too cavalier towards the zombies they were killing, or towards other survivors. Truth be told, if it were up to him, he’d just dump these people’s remains in some bushes and call it a day. However, Brienne would never stand for that, insisting on some sort of proper ceremony, be it through creating marked graves or burning their bodies to ash. Every time, she said a prayer for them, and every time, he mocked her for it.
As far as Sandor was concerned, this apocalypse was proof the Seven didn’t exist, and if they did, they certainly weren’t listening to anyone down here.
Once they were outside, Brienne barked at Pod to get them some shovels, so they could dig a grave for the deceased. Sandor groaned: the last thing he wanted to do was to dig a hole in the fucking dirt. But with the sun almost down, he knew a fire would attract too much notice from both the living and the dead. If they wanted one night of relative peace, they’d have to bury the fuckers instead of burn them. With a heavy sigh, he snatched the shovel out of Pod’s hand and set to work, digging the shallowest grave possible.
As soon as it was deep enough, he grabbed the body nearest to him and dumped it in unceremoniously, not bothering to figure out which one it was. Sandor heard Brienne make a noise of protest, but he ignored her, opting to start throwing dirt back in the hole instead. He was ready to stretch out on the bed upstairs and get some rest before taking the late night watch, and he wasn’t going to let anything stand in his way anymore than it already was.
After the corpse was covered, he stalked over to his pickup truck, pulling back the tarp that covered their supplies to throw the shovel into the bed. Grabbing his pack out, he slung it over his shoulder and put the cover back in place so no one wandering by would be able to get a peek. Not that he expected anyone to be traveling through here especially with the rain, but one could never be too careful. Wordlessly, he walked by Brienne, through the house and into the master bedroom upstairs, ignoring Arya who was sitting far too close to Pod on the couch when she told him she’d be making dinner. At this point, his exhaustion outweighed his hunger, and he decided he’d just eat something later when he’d gotten a little rest.
Getting the bed to usable condition took less time than he thought, and soon enough he was settled in against the only pillow that had managed to escape the fucking moron’s suicide. He’d also had to crack the windows in the room to air out the smell of decay, which was aided by the scent of rain that had now permeated the space. They’d noticed the storm brewing, another reason they’d made this their camp for the evening, and soon the pregnant sky would unleash its torrents upon them. Arya had insisted they find a place with a roof because she was tired of waking up “practically drowning” in the half-inch of water that wound up in her tent somehow with how often it rained in the Riverlands.
If it had been anyone else, Sandor would have told them to fuck off and get over it, but with all the time they’d been traveling together, he’d developed a soft spot for the little wolf-bitch. She was fierce and wild, far from the soft debutante he’d expected her to be when he’d heard she was a Stark. They were an old family in Westeros, traditional, noble, and wealthy, and Sandor had never in his life expected to meet one of them, let alone be escorting one of them all over the place. She’d been captured by some gang—The Brotherhood they’d called themselves—and after he’d rescued her she insisted on heading off on her own to her grandfather’s home in the Riverlands. Apparently her mother had sent her a message to head there, and that was the last communication she’d heard.
With nowhere to go and nothing better to do, he’d followed her, hoping to find a safe place to stay. He had more than enough to offer in the way of survival skills, and he expected to be welcomed with open arms if he’d had a hand in getting Arya back to her family safely. It had seemed the perfect plan, until they’d actually arrived at the mansion, just in time to see it get engulfed by a hoard. She’d tried to run in to save her family, and Sandor had had to knock her out in order to get her away without catching the attention of the zombies.
She’d been furious with him at first, refusing to speak to him and insisting that it was his fault her family died. Eventually, though, she forgave him, and suggested they head to the Vale next to see if her Aunt Lysa was still alive. Apparently, her home was located in a particularly defensible location, and they could try to make a permanent settlement there. It was better than nothing, and since he hadn’t been able to come up with a better plan, they’d set off for the Eyrie, as Arya had called it.
It had been en route that they’d run into Brienne and Pod, who were traveling that way as well. Of course, the enormous woman had suggested they all travel together. When he told her she’d only weigh them down, she’d put him in a headlock, proving her strength and capability in a fight. Pod, on the other hand, wasn’t quite as skilled, but Arya appeared taken with him and so the four of them had become a little group, much to Sandor’s chagrin. The only upside to having more people was having more eyes to look out for potential danger, and so he tolerated the extra company.
Eventually, Sandor drifted off and woke only when Brienne shook him awake to let him know it was his turn to take watch. He could hear the rain falling softly against the window pane, and knew that it would likely be an uneventful evening for him.
As he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, she said, “I was checking the map, and there’s a town only a few miles from here. We should check it out in the morning for supplies before we set out again.”
“A supply run? Really?” Sandor asked, irritated. Brienne had gotten it into her head that she was the leader of the group, and he hated the way she always seemed to have another order for him.
“You can never have enough supplies,” she replied tersely, a brow cocked in his direction, “If it’s the dead you’re worried about, don’t be. It’s a small town, likely deserted. We’ll leave as soon as the sun comes up.” She shut the door before he had a chance to reply, and he flipped it off in lieu of being able to give her the middle finger.
When he made it downstairs, he found an overturned bowl on the coffee table that had a scrap of paper with his name on it on top. Underneath was whatever dinner Arya had made (baked beans and canned chili apparently), now cold. Still, food was food, and he wolfed it down while he kicked back in the recliner, waiting for sunrise so he could get the stupid supply run over with. Hopefully it would be quick and easy, though nothing ever was anymore.