Chapter Text
Perched precariously upon a beam in a rather remote barn, Sansa thought not for the first time and with some dark amusement that her life had truly turned into a movie.
“How long is this going to take?” Joffrey Baratheon – or, as he preferred to be professionally known, Hearteater – whined. “I’m starving. If your dad doesn’t respond to our ransom demand in, say, another ten minutes, I’m sending him a finger.”
A terrified squeak left the tied-up hostage’s mouth, and yet his response was shockingly haughty. “My family will never negotiate with kidnapping scum like you,” the young man scoffed. “The police will find us soon enough.”
“But how many fingers will you have left by then, boy?” came a low, rasping voice from the corner. He was tucked away where Sansa couldn’t see him, but she knew well enough who had just spoken. She had never heard anyone else sound quite like The Hound, his grating growls making him sound like a failed rocker who had screamed too much in his youth.
Trystane Martell lowered his head, his breath hitching, and chose not to respond. Smart, Sansa thought, even as she noted Hearteater’s casual sprawl across a very out-of-place couch he had clearly brought in just for the kidnapping. The Gallows was leaning against the stacked hay bales off to the left, his black executioner’s mask plainly visible from above.
And that left only The Shadow unaccounted for, which Sansa didn’t like at all, considering the guy’s propensity for popping up rudely in unexpected places.
Nevertheless, she wasn’t about to wait any longer. No fingers were going to be removed on Nightingale’s watch, not unless they belonged to Hearteater or his cronies.
Leaping off the beam, her wings spread wide with an unfortunate flash that immediately had Hearteater scrambling to his feet. Twirling ballet-like in the air, Sansa slammed the side of her leg into his head, knocking the decidedly unfrightening supervillain out of the fight in seconds. Landing beside a wide-eyed Trystane, her wings vanished as she threw up walls of pure energy around them, silver-grey and buzzing dangerously.
“Relax,” she murmured, grabbing a knife from her thigh holster and beginning to saw at the ropes binding his legs. A grunt of rage sounded behind her, and she flinched minutely at the fists beginning to smash at her walls with unnatural strength. A tactical mistake had been made – The Hound rarely got involved in the villainy unless Hearteater was in danger, and she supposed having Hearteater inside her barriers and The Hound outside certainly constituted danger.
“Nightingale!” Trystane Martell’s shocked cry made her pull back, just in time to realise that her feet were sinking into the earth. With a muttered curse, she tossed an energy projectile at The Gallows, distracting him just long enough to struggle her way free. Slashing the last fraying thread about Trystane’s ankles, she hauled the man to his feet and pushed him towards the barn doors.
“Run,” she snapped, “and try not to fall.” Looking down at his still-bound hands, he swallowed and ran. Sansa immediately shot another bright blast of energy at The Gallows before he could do anything to trip up the escaping hostage, and let the wall between her and The Hound vanish. The big man stumbled forward into the dirt, his swearing muffled by the ugly dog head mask he wore, and Sansa allowed herself the faintest hint of a grin before she too spun and ran.
“Get that bitch!” she heard Hearteater shriek, evidently awake again, but she was already in the air, out of reach of The Hound’s ridiculous height and The Gallows’ hungry earth.
That was when The Shadow dived out of the eaves and slammed bodily into her. Sansa shrieked, one of her wings snapping against the rafters and disappearing, sending the two of them spiraling down into the dirt. She lay gasping and winded, The Shadow’s heavy bulk laying atop her, before the plump man grabbed her by the neck and hauled her upright. With a snarl, she slammed her palm into his nose and felt it break right through the mask.
Naturally, he dropped her, howling, and naturally, she ran, throwing up barriers behind her as Hearteater screeched and flung daggers at her back. She chanced a glance over her shoulder, just in case The Gallows tried to snare her once more, but he was bent over The Shadow. Hearteater, a fantastic bloom of purple spreading across one pale cheek, was still hurling various pointy weapons and a tirade of verbal abuse at her, but The Hound only stood motionless, watching, and she shivered at the calm in his cold glare.
That night, multiple news outlets reported that the vigilante Nightingale had successfully and single-handedly rescued the youngest son of Dornish prince Doran Martell from the clutches of the infamous supervillain Hearteater. The Dornish royal family, currently in Kings Landing for an extended holiday, would be continuing on their trip as planned despite the threatening ransom note received from the former Baratheon heir.
“We would like to thank Nightingale for my son’s safe return. She will always have a friend in Dorne,” the prince said solemnly in a brief statement given on the royal family’s way to dinner.
Trystane Martell, on the other hand, seemed more smitten with his mysterious rescuer than anything. “She’s not called Nightingale for nothing,” he said, his expression just as serious as his father’s as he looked into the waiting cameras. “The kidnappers were going to cut off my fingers one by one, but when she flew to my side, it was as if the angels themselves had descended on me and told me to run. I have never heard a more welcome voice in my life.”
Sansa Stark shut the TV off with a click and snorted out into the darkness of her living room. A prince giving an interview about her – surely nothing else screamed that her life had turned into a movie more than that. The next step would be for her identity to be exposed, whereupon Trystane would propose to her and she would move to Dorne to have his lovely curly-haired Dornish children, all the while conveniently forgetting that half her family was dead and the smarmy blonde asshole who had killed them was still running amok in the city.
If only she could forget. A girl could certainly dream.
She shifted, antsy, and peered out into the cheery winking brightness of the city’s lights. It was almost a year to the day since that disastrous dinner party that had cost her everything she loved, a distinct and unwelcome awareness that sat constantly at the back of her mind. She very desperately wanted – no, needed – a drink.
Today was quiet. Been thinking about you guys. Give everyone my love and a hundred kisses. Sansa sent off the text and set her phone down, glancing back outside.
She’d go somewhere new today – the Kingsguard, perhaps. Somewhere the men didn’t know her, and she didn’t know them. She wanted someone who wouldn’t remind her of the past.
The Kingsguard was something of a gentleman’s club, rather more posh than Sansa was accustomed to frequenting. She didn’t tend to like rich men – there was just as much likelihood of them being nasty as the men she met in Flea Bottom, and those with mean streaks tended towards cruelty as well – but tonight, she felt like she’d welcome nasty. She’d welcome almost anything really.
Sipping on her drink as she sat at the bar, she eyed her company idly, gaze flicking past the boring blend of suits, ties and well-coiffed hair. She was careful not to make eye contact, her expression one of deliberate disinterest. There was a man in the corner, she realised eventually, large and half in shadow, his long legs clad in jeans, of all things. Jeans in the Kingsguard! The corner of her mouth curled up in amusement, taking in the muscles that appeared to be trying to shove their way out against the sleeves of his shirt and the pleasingly broad bulk of his shoulders.
Drifting over to him in a motion that could almost have been accidental, Sansa set her glass down and smiled. “See something you like?” she purred, although as far as she knew, she had been the one doing all the looking. She tilted her head slightly, angling for the light to make her eyes shine that exact shade of irresistible blue, the same as her mother’s.
The man shifted, seeming to notice her for the first time. “You’re the one who approached me,” he rumbled, and something about his voice made Sansa quiver. It felt like thunder rushing through her, a danger that she recognized distantly and yet chose to embrace. He turned, his features catching the light, revealing a hooked nose, dark hair and – her breath caught – a dark, twisted mass of charred flesh across the left side of his face, trailing across his scalp and down beneath the collar of his simple black shirt.
She didn’t know what expression had crossed her face at the unexpected sight, but the man snorted darkly and looked away once more. He didn’t seem angry, just tired, and certainly not in the mood to entertain little girls wanting to play with monsters.
Sansa, of course, was no little girl. Maybe she had been a silly, brainless twit at twenty, or even the magical twenty-one, but there had been very little chance of seeing her brother’s head half-severed from his neck without growing up right quick after that.
His forearm, thickly muscled and covered with coarse hair, rested against the bar, and she laid her hand on it, stroking at the short black strands with vague fascination. “If you’re free tonight, I’ve been feeling a little lonely,” she murmured, lashes sweeping downwards demurely.
He drew his arm away and she glanced up, mouth already halfway into a moue of disappointment, but he was only staring at her with a frown on his face, like he didn’t quite know what to make of her. “Lonely for a man like me?” he said flatly, and his voice seemed to almost scratch its way out of his throat.
Sansa let out a breath, allowing the tiniest hint of a smile to peek through, the glow of genuine relief that he hadn’t said no. “Exactly like you,” she replied. His eyes were very grey, like the veined streaks of a dark marble tabletop, and sharply suspicious, enough to make her chuckle. His frown deepened at that, but he finished off the rest of his drink in one gulp and let her lead him out of the Kingsguard anyway.
The ride back to her apartment was quiet, almost uncomfortably so. Sansa didn’t think she’d ever met a man less inclined to conversation. She was used to attempts at small talk or flirtation, no matter how poor, but he was utterly silent the entire journey. She could feel him watching her though, curiously resolute, as if he was waiting for her to make the first move, and the effort of keeping her expression bland under the heat of his stare was rather more exciting than anything he could have said.
“What’s your name?” she asked at last, glancing over at him, and then, if only because he looked like he wouldn’t give it up without a fight otherwise, she continued, “I’m Sansa.”
“Sandor,” he muttered, and once again the rumble of his voice sent a jolt of something through her. It wasn’t quite the heat of arousal, but excitement perhaps, or familiarity.
She began to strip the moment they entered her apartment, sighing with newfound comfort as she shimmied out of her dress, which she draped over the back of a chair. Turning, brushing loose strands of hair out of her face in readiness, she found Sandor staring at her, still fully clothed and with his single good eyebrow raised. He wasn’t so scary really, Sansa decided after a moment. Despite the horror of his scarred face, nothing else about him made her particularly uneasy – there was no sly cunning or uncaring callousness about him, only a disgruntled air that she found distinctly amusing.
“Don’t tell me you need help getting all that off,” she said with a laugh, making her way over to him and hooking her fingers playfully over the waistband of his jeans. “You’re not even wearing a tie.”
His hands closed firmly over her wrists, surprisingly gentle for such a large man. “You really do just want a fuck,” he said disbelievingly, his gaze boring into hers, digging for the truth. She blinked, softening for just a moment before the smirk returned to her lips and her eyes dropped to his chest.
“You should never have doubted me.” She laughed, tugging her hands free and beginning to unbuckle his belt with deft fingers. Tugging off his shirt and revealing a physique as heavily muscled as his silhouette had promised, Sandor nudged her aside, pushing his jeans down and stepping quickly out of them. Sansa let her eyes linger, drifting from the solid, hairy bulk of his body to the prominent bulge in the front of his boxers, and felt her heart begin to pound with anticipation.
“Quick,” she murmured, grabbing his arm and pulling him closer. “Here, I want you to do it right here.” She pushed her panties down over her thighs, the fabric already gleaming wetly in the light, and kicked it away before either of them could slip on it and break a bone or two. She could hear Sandor’s breaths deepening now, a steady blowing in his chest like that of an impatient bull as he too tossed his boxers carelessly to the side before fumbling clumsily with a condom in his haste.
Crowding her back against the wall, Sansa felt momentarily cowed as he reached out for her, this half-faced man-beast, and her heart did an odd skip of mingled fear and excitement that heated her cheeks. His eyes swept over her face, and then he said roughly, “You can tell me to stop,” before pulling her up against him like she weighed nothing, his hands gripping at her thighs.
His erection bumped hotly against her belly until he hauled her up higher, chest to chest, and she instinctively hooked her ankles against the small of his back, sighing softly as he slid tantalisingly against her folds. She closed her eyes as Sandor dipped his head and began to suck at her right shoulder, teeth scraping against skin, the stubble peppering the good side of his face dragging against her neck and jaw. The blunt head of his cock stretched her steadily as she squirmed, until with a delicious popping sensation he was nestled just inside her entrance.
Lifting her mouth to his ear, Sansa barely even had to try for the hint of angry desperation in her voice when she commanded, “Fuck me hard, Sandor.” She was wet and aching to be filled, and only the sudden stillness of his form told her that he’d heard her perfectly well. His mouth paused, hot and damp against her skin, until all of a sudden he bit down on the junction right above her collarbone and it hurt, and then he thrust into her hard, filling her in a single stroke as she gasped.
He pumped into her quickly, almost violently, supporting her with steady hands and immovable feet. Wrapping her arms tighter about his neck, Sansa tucked her chin against the warmth of his shoulder and whimpered as he drove relentlessly into her, his breaths blowing hot against her back. She felt almost like a doll, clutched tightly in his arms, limp and helpless as he went on and on and on.
It was a long time before she felt him come, his hips spasming against hers before he shuddered bodily and sank to the ground, softening inside her, his chest rising and falling deeply against hers. She felt warm and sated and tired – tired enough to sleep through the night even – but she wasn’t quite done yet. Staggering to her feet and away from him, the quirk of her lips was decidedly warmer than before as she gave him a tiny nod. Come, her eyes said, and he stared at her, pupils huge and dark, mouth half-opening in a silent question before he too stood and trailed after her.
“Needy little thing, aren’t you,” he grunted as he sprawled across her bed, watching her trail a teasing finger across his sticky cock, twitching in interest despite its softness. She glanced at him appraisingly for a moment before taking him in hand, her fingers sliding easily over the velvety skin as he groaned. There was something about his voice that she liked, some element of it that she felt she knew, and there was little enough that was familiar left to her in Kings Landing.
“Come on,” she crooned once he was standing eagerly at attention once more. “Make me come this time.” She giggled at his stormy glare as she relaxed on her back, legs spread wide in invitation. Crawling over her, he buried himself in her immediately, no biting or touching this time, and she sighed, tipping her head back to the soundtrack of his skin slapping against hers. He was pleasingly huge in every way, his chest almost pressing against her face, a monster taking a maiden, and she quivered with enjoyment at the thought.
“You can be rough, you know,” she gasped, fingers digging into his back as she clutched at him, losing herself in the unstoppable stretch and ease of his movements. He hesitated for a heartbeat before continuing his rapid pace, but it was enough for her to know that he didn’t have it in him. Sandor would never be the kind of man who got off on strangling her or hitting her during sex, and she wasn’t quite sure if she was disappointed or relieved.
But after a time, heeding her increasingly breathless moans, he bent and bit her again, nearer to the side of her neck this time, and she shrieked as she came, convulsing around him as she shook at the pleasure-pain. It was only when she came back to herself that she felt him let go, detaching himself from the marks he had surely left behind. Pulling out, leaving a wet and unpleasant mess behind that she decided she simply lacked the energy to care about right then, she felt his abrupt pause in the lack of movement on her bed. She could almost imagine him glancing about awkwardly, wondering whether or not to leave, or if he should help her to clean up.
“You can stay,” she murmured, feeling pleasantly used and perfectly forgiving. “Just go to sleep.”
Just as she had imagined, he was warm and lovely by her side, lying flat on his back as soft snores emanated from his mouth with every exhalation. Sansa inched as close as she dared without touching him, and she fell asleep thinking of the man who had been rough in a manner that she had actually enjoyed. He hadn’t even made her hurt all that much.
Yes, the night had been very nice indeed.
It was the steady drumbeat of an unfamiliar ringtone that woke her, along with a low, feral-sounding growl from her left. Her eyes slitting open, she watched Sandor grumble and groan as he half-slumped off her bed and went in search of, presumably, his jeans and phone. She heard the terse, low growl of quiet conversation before he came back into view, looming in her doorway, seemingly at ease with his nakedness.
“My boss,” he said shortly. “I have to go.” He sounded put out, and Sansa couldn’t help smiling a little at that. Had he been hoping for a round of morning sex, or had he just wanted a little more sleep? The extensive scarring pulled his features into a permanent scowl, and the expression certainly appeared to suit his mood right then as he disappeared back into her living room, muttering to himself all the while with clear annoyance.
Sliding out of bed and pulling on a fresh pair of panties, she padded out of her room and settled on the sofa, watching Sandor dress with a strange sense of calm. “What does your boss want with you so early?” she asked, more for the sake of conversation than out of true curiosity. He was magnificent in the light of day, his ridiculous height and the sheer breadth of his body far more apparent to her than the night before.
“I’m his bodyguard,” he muttered, pulling on his shoes without looking up at her, quite unaware of the fresh surge of desire coursing through her the longer she watched. “He’s a little bastard, but the pay is good.” He finally looked over, and she thought that he might even have smiled if he had been the kind of man who smiled, but as it was he merely gave her a polite nod, as if he hadn’t just fucked her twice less than eight hours ago. His steely gaze rested on her face for a moment, then traveled down to her bare breasts, before he turned and let himself out.
Stifling a sigh, Sansa wished they’d had time for that morning romp after all. She was well aware that it was immensely difficult to find a man as perfect for her needs as Sandor – dangerous but not malicious, a little violent without being sadistic, considerate despite his grouchiness, and of course the act itself had been wonderfully fulfilling.
Slipping off the couch, she settled for pleasuring herself in the shower instead, before grabbing a mop and cleaning up the previous night’s mess. There were two large, rather horrific-looking bite marks adorning her shoulder and the juncture by her neck, mottled blue and purple blooming unevenly across her pale skin. She looked like she had been savaged by some creature going in for the kill, except Sandor hadn’t even broken the skin, she realised after another moment of inspection. Idly, she wondered how many other people he had bitten in his life, to know his own strength so well.
Her days were mundane when Hearteater stayed out of sight, and she typically spent her free hours on embroidery, fulfilling the small market that existed for customised kerchiefs and the like. It was a good pastime for someone who enjoyed brooding, being both brainless and something that she was relatively skilled at.
It was only after lunch that she found her phone, buried under a stack of that day’s mail. Jon had replied in his own laconic way with a simple Come visit soon. We miss you. Arya had texted as well, an irritable demand that Sansa message them all directly instead of constantly going through Jon, and littered her text with a number of colourful swears that made Sansa want to laugh and cry at the same time. Without really thinking about it, she called Arya’s number on impulse, holding the phone to her ear with both hands as if the device was weighing her down.
“Sansa!” her sister exclaimed immediately after half a dozen or so rings. “Why are you calling?”
Her lashes fluttered, the tears already welling in her eyes at the sound of Arya’s voice. “I don’t know. I just saw your message and wanted to call.” It was almost funny how they had never really gotten along before, when she’d give anything to have her sister by her side now. “How are the boys?”
Arya huffed. “Annoying,” she said shortly, and then she lowered her voice slightly. “Jon’s at work all day, and Rickon’s kind of a piece of work, you know? He won’t do his homework, he doesn’t study. Sometimes he doesn’t even come home till late. I mean, he’s worse than I was, and that’s saying something. I swear if I could see I’d beat the shit out of that twerp.”
Sansa rested her head against the side of the couch, smiling faintly. “Is he home now?”
“Nah, he and Bran are at school. I mean, if he didn’t skip class, that is.” She could almost hear Arya’s shrug through the phone. “And before you ask, I’m okay. I don’t know what you’re thinking but I’m not walking into walls or anything when I’m home alone. I can’t wait for you to graduate and get out of that hellhole though. We miss you.”
“I was not imagining you walking into walls,” Sansa protested half-heartedly, but her good mood had faded. She had dropped out of university months ago and she still hated lying to her family about it, but there was really nothing to be done. She couldn’t exactly run off and foil Hearteater’s plans if she was stuck in a lecture, and there was no one else but her, not with the Lannisters still protecting their supposedly-prodigal child.
One day she would prove it. It was a daydream of hers, the day she managed to get Joffrey Baratheon, his pathetic lackeys and his entire extended family thrown into prison for every illegal thing they had ever done. All the rivals they had eliminated, all the threats they had disposed of, all the liabilities they had caused to disappear. She would see justice done, and then she would go home to her family in the north at last.
Finishing her call with a forcibly-extracted promise to visit soon, Sansa set her phone down and stared blankly at the wall before her for a minute, her mind lost in the past. The events of that night no longer haunted her dreams as frequently as before, but they always returned inevitably, as if to keep her on her toes. She could still feel it, the warm spatter of blood on her face as the bomb went off, sending a jagged piece of metal spinning into Robb’s neck right beside her. He hadn’t even had time to look surprised before his head tilted towards her, his throat gaping open, and his body toppled off his seat.
Sighing, Sansa reached for her sewing kit and began to thread a needle. It was another quiet day.
Hearteater reappeared a week later to rob a doughnut shop, an endeavor Sansa suspected was due to his own childish criminal proclivities rather than any scheming on the part of the Lannister empire. The Hound and The Gallows were with him, but much to her pleasure The Shadow was nowhere to be seen. She hoped she’d hit him so hard his nose rotted right off his face.
She didn’t waste any time with small talk. The moment she landed outside the shop, she strode in and blasted Hearteater with twin bolts of energy that secured his wrists to the walls, rendering him quite immobile. As little as she thought of the blonde twit, he was the biggest threat to her, and she didn’t want an endless supply of daggers tossed at her by a ranting maniac. The Gallows was all but useless indoors, unless he wanted to start an earthquake that might kill Hearteater and himself just as much as her, and so she turned her attention to The Hound.
The big man had been slouched against a corner of the shop, hands folded across his chest, but he had straightened at her entrance, his snarling mask turning towards her. Fists clenched by her sides, she stood her ground, but there was very little else she could do. The hapless doughnut store employee was gone, probably escaped out the back at the first sight of trouble, and the police would never be able to take on The Hound. Even she could only restrain his unnatural strength for mere minutes with her energy constructs.
“Kill her!” Hearteater shrieked, thrashing like an angered snake. “If you don’t kill that stupid bird bitch today, I’ll gut you instead, I swear it. Now I can’t even have doughnuts? Kill her!”
The Gallows leaped for her immediately with a quickness she hadn’t expected, and she went down hard beneath him. Gasping and winded, she instinctively threw a barrier up between their bodies and he slid away, cursing. The next moment, The Hound was there, his fist smashing down on her hasty defense with a force that left her breathless. The energy of her barrier flickered, white cracks appearing all along its surface, and she stared up at the man standing above her, already swinging down for another hit.
Just before his punch connected, she vanished her barrier and rolled to the side, scrambling away as his momentum sent him smashing into the tiles, his blow leaving a half-foot deep crater in the ground. Even The Gallows stepped back, seemingly startled, but The Hound swung around in an instant, far quicker than his ungainly size would suggest, and she felt his hand close painfully around her ankle with a grip like iron. Panicked, Sansa twisted in his grasp and flung a sharpened projectile at him, aiming for blood for the first time she could remember. The Hound slapped it away and it embedded itself in the wall instead, before fading into nothingness, but for an instant his fingers loosened, and Sansa pulled free.
Without a single look back, she fled. She knew when she had been beaten.
Deep down, she knew that she shouldn’t even have been there. Her presence had caused far more damage to the immediate vicinity than her absence, but she hadn’t been able to resist Hearteater’s presence. He drew her to him like a drug – every sight of him reminded her of what she was fighting for. On the days he didn’t appear, she felt like a lost kite, drifting aimlessly without focus for her vengeance. He was hers and hers alone to destroy.
She returned to the Flea Bottom pubs that night, restless and out of sorts, but found that she had little inclination to bring anyone home. She did, however, find a man who took her out to a back alley and shoved himself so far down her throat that she choked and cried as he came. Her knees were bruised and littered with tiny cuts when she reached home, but the tension in her had not yet abated.
She found Sandor at the Kingsguard again the next night, ensconced in another corner. He barely looked at her when she slid in beside him, and then did a double-take so violent when he finally noticed who she was that she laughed out loud.
“Have a drink,” he grunted in lieu of a greeting, waving the bartender over. Sansa shrugged, the corners of her lips curving upwards unbidden, enjoying the unconcealed surprise radiating off him despite the neutrality of his expression.
He didn’t speak until she had finished the glass, and even then it was only a gruff, “Lonely again?” that enticed another chuckle out of her. Her chest loosened slightly at his tone – he wasn’t going to say no.
“Very lonely,” she agreed, and his cheek twitched in something that she thought might almost be a smile. The thought of his big hands on her and his cock splitting her open was making her unaccountably warm. Shifting closer to him, angling her back to the rest of the room, she took his hand and brought it to the slit of her dress. The brush of his calloused fingers against the top of her thigh made her shiver, and the muscles of her arms were taut with tension as his touch stopped just above her clit, a low hiss coming from between his teeth when he realised she wasn’t wearing any underwear.
Once again, they didn’t make it to her room. She had barely even shut the front door before his arm was around her waist, hauling her to him and pushing her to the floor. She heard the slide of his zipper and the crinkle of a foil wrapper, and when she looked back over her shoulder his cock was already out, his pants still around his hips. Wiggling her ass in the air and pulling her dress up to give him easier access, she cried out when he drove into her, one of his hands coming around to clutch at her breast through the dress. The sudden stretch and sting hurt, but it wasn’t a bad pain, not with the ache of her skinned knees to contend with, and she pushed back onto him, listening to his low growls with distant satisfaction.
He seemed to come back to himself after a few moments, his thrusts slowing to a less frantic pace as he stroked along her back with a tender sort of indulgence. “I’m going to turn you over,” he said after a while, almost as if he had been mulling about it. “Better to see your pretty face.” He leered at her as he pulled out and she resettled herself on her back, but it felt more like a friendly tease than anything truly dirty. Raising her knees, she pulled him down over her, and she supposed he hadn’t been expecting it, because he had to catch himself with his hands against the ground, and for a moment they were almost nose-to-nose, before he sucked in a startled breath and pulled back.
Pushing himself into her again, his dark gaze trailed down her face to her bare shoulders, settling on the unblemished skin where the marks of his bites had all but faded. There was that twitch in his cheek again, and Sansa decided that it really could be nothing else but a smile. Curling her fingers over the back of his neck, she pulled his head down to her chest, and his teeth immediately closed over the thin skin there. The movement of his hips slowed even more as he nipped his way along her collarbone, until he was rocking against her like an afterthought as he leisurely laved his way up her neck with his tongue.
The curve of her spine was sore against the hard floor, but Sansa felt jelly-like all the same. It wasn’t the harsh, angry coupling she had envisioned, but this slow intimacy was pleasantly filling all the same, if only for its sheer novelty. Baring the left side of her neck invitingly, she waited for Sandor to move his attentions to the other side of her body, but he lifted his mouth from her skin instead and frowned down at her. His hips snapped against hers, picking up the pace once more, and she moaned, fingers winding in his hair.
“Quick,” she gasped, her voice hoarse even though she had hardly used it. “Bite me before – before I…” Her words trailed off into an unintelligible whine at the unbearable tightening within her that accompanied every thrust, and still he hesitated. It was only when she wailed and clenched down hard on him that he too came with a roar and plunged down to catch her shoulder in a bruising bite. Her back arched, arms tightening as she pressed closer to him and sang her pleasure, and in that instant she understood why he had hesitated.
His scars were rough and uneven to the touch, like a dried scab that had never peeled off. Where he pressed against her, his scars chafed much like a beard would, radiating warmth just as the rest of his body did. It was a strange sensation, and hardly pleasant to look at, but Sansa found it very hard to care right then.
He pulled away quicker than she would have liked, shaking his head slightly like an irritated horse. “You little minx,” he rasped, but he didn’t sound upset. He watched her cautiously for a moment before beginning to remove his clothes, and it was only then that Sansa realised she was also still fully dressed. With a giggle sweetened by her post-coital high, she unzipped her dress and unsnapped her bra, tossing both garments onto the sofa before retreating to her bedroom.
Sandor let out a yawn as he crawled onto her bed after her, and Sansa had the oddest urge right then to pull him into a kiss. It felt like it would be right somehow, to have his mouth on hers before they went for a second round, but she kept her hands to herself and watched him lazily as he stretched, muscles rippling. His eyes glimmered hungrily as he settled himself on his knees and looked down at her, one hand trailing along her thigh before he opened her up to his hungry stare.
For a second, Sansa actually thought that he might go down on her, but he froze unexpectedly instead. “What’s this?” he said roughly, one hand wrapping around her ankle where The Hound had grabbed her the day before. She flinched and pulled away, and he let her go without a word. Pushing herself up, they both stared down at her ankle, purple and black in the dim light reaching almost halfway up her calf. She hoped it didn’t look too much like a handprint, for that might have been rather difficult to explain.
“It’s just a bruise,” she said lamely, and wondered why he cared so much. She reached for his hand but found it clenched into a white-knuckled fist against his thigh. A muscle in his jaw was jumping, and this time she suspected it didn’t have anything to do with smiling at all.
“It looks fresh,” he said tersely. There weren’t many words in him, and she rather liked that when he wasn’t interrogating her about injuries she had received while fighting crime. He reminded her very much of Jon in that way, who cared more in actions than with speech.
She shifted uncomfortably, wishing he hadn’t seen the mark, or just elected to ignore it like almost every other man would have. “I fell yesterday,” she sighed, and not wholly untruthfully. “It’s nothing. I –”
She glanced up at him, and the rest of her words dried up in her mouth. He was just kneeling there and looking at her intently with a growing furrow between his brows, like he might be able to scoop her thoughts right out of her head with the force of his stare. He reached out and closed his hand about her ankle again, and this time she didn’t pull away. His hand was large, but it still didn’t quite cover the entire bruise, the splash of redness fading out from the span of his hand like a piece of abstract watercolour. The sight unnerved her, although for what reason she couldn’t say.
“Sansa…you’re Sansa Stark,” he said suddenly, breaking the silence with the harshness of his voice, and her head jerked up at that.
That was all the confirmation he needed. He backed away from her like he had found out she was diseased, and his expression, so often difficult to read, looked very clearly sickened to her eyes. He stumbled away from her and into her living room like he had been stunned by a blow to the head, and she could hear him dressing himself hurriedly, unable to get away from her fast enough.
“What did I do?” she asked, following him and stopping just out of reach, forcing herself to stand straight and proud despite the tremor in her voice. “Sandor?”
“It’s not you,” he said shortly, like a terrible parody of a clichéd break-up, but he sounded pained and furious, and she could only watch silently as he shut the door behind him without even meeting her eyes one last time.
Sansa didn’t go back to the Kingsguard. She had very little desire to find out exactly why learning her name had made Sandor look like he had swallowed a goose egg whole, and he certainly knew where she lived if he suddenly saw the need to apologise, but two months passed with neither sight nor sound of the scarred man.
She interrupted Hearteater thrice more in that time, once for a bank robbery early in the morning with seven hostages. He had seemed far more interested in putting fear into the hearts of the hostages than actually making off with any money, and three people had knife wounds by the time she managed to knock the angry Baratheon out. As expected, The Hound had grabbed the idiot and made off with him, leaving the other two to follow along at their own pace – his entire role seemed to consist of keeping Hearteater alive, and he rarely seemed inclined to do more than that unless directly ordered, which Sansa was only too happy to take advantage of.
Bran called her once on a Sunday, and passed the phone to Rickon halfway through, the younger boy’s shaggy hair and animated movements a far cry from Bran’s tidy appearance and placid smile. Already Rickon seemed taller than when she had last seen him, even through a shaky, grainy video. He was all flailing limbs as he paced through the house like a trapped animal, and the derisive roll of his eyes when she mentioned his schoolwork startled her. It had only been a year, but he was no longer the baby brother she remembered.
“I’ll come and visit soon,” she promised, as she had been promising for months, and she meant it, but there simply never seemed to be a good time to leave.
Rickon’s scoff at that, so quintessentially teenage in its cynicism, cut her to the quick, and she burst into tears of guilt after ending the call. She thought of calling Arya or Jon after that, but she could hardly see any point in it. They would only tell her the same thing – come home, Sansa. That was all they wanted, and she didn’t blame them, but there was just no way for them to understand. Arya was still adapting to her blindness, and Jon no doubt had his hands full supporting two disabled cousins and one increasingly rebellious teenager.
They didn’t share her need for justice because they weren’t in her position, where she could see justice done.
Hearteater struck again a week later, and Sansa felt perversely pleased. Nightingale was still needed in Kings Landing.
All reports placed him outside of the city this time, on a little farm beside the kingswood that led trail riding tours for eager tourists. The view from above was beautiful, an expanse of dark green stretching off into the distance, rivers winding blue and peaceful out of sight. Nevertheless, Sansa circled the area cautiously for a few minutes. Hearteater and his minions were nowhere in sight, and she hadn’t the faintest idea what the villain might be up to in a place like this.
Landing softly in the dirt of an open-air arena, she looked around uncertainly. The ground looked churned up by nothing worse than hooves, and there was no sign of a struggle even around the buildings. Stepping closer to the rustic-looking farmhouse, she peered in through the windows, but the place looked empty. She shivered slightly, more out of nerves than anything else, as she debated the relative stupidity of calling out against the possibility of finding someone who needed help.
Strange, was her first thought as she looked around again, and then, right on its heels the realization – it’s a trap.
Spinning, the heel of her foot leaving a groove in the soil, her wings snapped out into existence, but before she could leap into the air, a hand wrenched her backwards roughly. The Shadow, as good as his name, had slipped out of the darkness beneath the eaves of the farmhouse, and his other hand came flying towards her face. Stumbling backwards, her right wing cracking against the wall of the building and vanishing, only pure instinct had her throwing up a barrier to protect her face. Even flimsy and flickering, The Shadow howled with pain when his fist connected with the thin film of grey energy.
“You’re dead meat,” he spat, flinging her forward and away from him. She sprawled in the dirt, sputtering, and instantly found her limbs encased in crawling soil. It seeped over her hands and up her arms with a horrifying swiftness. Trying to rear back, she slashed at the soil with a series of energy blades, flinging dirt everywhere until her hands were freed, but by then her feet were buried up to her ankles and she lost her balance, falling back with a dull thud.
Blinking rapidly, she pushed herself back upright and tried to orient herself. The Shadow was still some distance away, nursing his right hand, which she sincerely hoped was fractured. The Gallows was surely somewhere nearby considering the little trap he had laid for her, and she twisted about, hands glowing with rage that she longed to unleash. As she turned, she caught sight of a flash of gold in her peripheral vision: Hearteater emerging from the farmhouse.
“Hello, Nightingale,” he said sweetly, but she was already whirling about to face him as quickly as she was able with her feet trapped. She flung one hand out towards him, a bolt of energy leaving her fingers, and at the same moment she felt something thump into her right shoulder. A second knife flew through the air within seconds, sending her construct veering off course before landing quivering at her feet.
Hearteater smiled at her, another blade appearing in his hands with an arrogant flourish. “I should have done this long ago,” he said, pacing slowly before her like he had all the time in the world. “You’ve been such a massive pain in my ass. Lions do not suffer the useless sheep to live.”
Sansa blinked at him, her mind racing. Her right sleeve was starting to feel very wet, and she knew that if she looked down she would see one of Hearteater’s ornate gold hilts sticking out of her shoulder. If she didn’t get out of there immediately, she was fairly certain she wouldn’t be going anywhere in the foreseeable future. The pain was starting to hit, vivid and acute, and she was horribly clear-headed, but she knew the adrenaline rush wouldn’t last for long.
“You haven’t done this before because you’re a useless rich boy who needs other people to clean up his messes,” she sneered.
Hearteater’s eyes flew wide. “Shut up! You’re just a stupid girl,” he screeched, and he flung almost half a dozen daggers at her in quick succession. Throwing up a shimmering dome around her, Sansa ignored him in favour of cutting through the earth beneath her feet and dragging herself free of the loose block of dirt. All the while, she could feel The Gallows at work beneath her, the ground doing its level best to suck her back in, flowing sluggishly over her feet.
With one last twist, she burst out of her shield, wings flaring. She heard Hearteater scream something that sounded like “Dog!” but she was already in the air and out of reach. Another dagger flew past her, and then a line of fire cut through her calf as she jerked to the right. Looking back, she saw Hearteater waving yet another blade at her, and The Hound behind him, looking up at her with his hand shading his eyes from the sun.
She had only just reached the walls of Kings Landing when the dagger in her shoulder vanished with a suddenness that left her light-headed. It felt like there was a constant rush of cold air gusting against her open wound as she flew as swiftly as her wings would carry her, and blackness spotted her vision for such a long time that she thought her heart would pound its way right out of her chest. As quickly as she could, she sealed a thin barrier of energy over the pain pulsing its way up her neck and down her arm, and hoped that it would be enough to keep her lifeblood where it belonged.
She was fairly certain she should be heading for the hospital, but surely Hearteater had been in contact with his family. Surely the Lannisters would already be on the lookout for her, a young woman with a stab wound in her shoulder.
She was wobbling dangerously and losing altitude by the time she landed on the roof of her apartment building, hitting the ground with an utter lack of grace and immediately crumping with a moan of pain. Rolling to her feet before she could decide to lay there on the sun-warmed concrete forever, Sansa was too light-headed to feel any true panic.
Get home, she thought, forcing her leaden legs to move forward step by step. Just get home and you can rest.
It seemed to take her an age to get the front door unlocked, and some part of her mind dimly registered that she was smearing blood all over the handle as she fumbled with the keys. I’ll clean it up later, she told herself, and promptly fell to her knees the moment she pushed the door closed behind her. Tugging at her mask until it slipped over the thick bun she had wound her hair up in, she sucked in a deep breath and lowered herself gingerly to the floor.
She wouldn’t sleep. She’d just – take a break for a moment, and then she would look for some bandages and Google her way out of this mess. She closed her eyes and started to count to twenty. She’d get up once she reached twenty.
Everything would be fine.