It wasn’t quick, that aloofness. It had taken years for him to harden into the man he was now. After his victory, Baelish had been almost optimistic. Returning home he foolishly believed he was to receive something of a heroes welcome. Oh, yes, he’d killed his fellow tribute, but what of it? Only one was ever meant to survive, and if he hadn’t done it, someone else would have. No one would ever understand the fear, the desperation, the uncertainty someone felt in the arena – especially someone so young as Baelish had been. Too young to realize what he’d done and why it was so unacceptable. Too young, certainly, to be punished for it. Too young to understand why they hated him for it. She, among them: Catelyn. A girl he’d been too young to love – for what was love? Far too complicated an emotion for a boy! – but whatever he’d felt towards her had been something like love. So much so that he’d been excited to return, to see her smiling face welcoming him back. So confident he’d been that she would return his feelings that when she had done the opposite, when she’d shunned him, he’d been utterly unprepared. One would think that such swift recompense of his treachery would learn a boy well to adapt to his new station, but Baelish, inherently, was not an evil creature. He had taken no pleasure in what he’d done, and he’d lost everything for it.
Natural, that he turned to the Capitol, who celebrated him and welcomed him with the same wide-open arms he’d hoped for from Seven. It was the Capitol where he’d thrived, learning, adapting, growing. Was it any wonder he blended so seamlessly with their world now? Sansa would either do the same, or she would withdraw into herself like others did. There was no middle ground, no normalcy, no happy cottage life with smiling, giggling faces. That was not the sort of life she was destined for. Not anymore.
She was destined for a lifetime-long masquerade of swooping hands and tired palaver, of luxurious nights paid for by monsters she could not stand, of decadent drinks and desserts and dresses. Like the one she wore now. It kept beckoning his stare throughout the night, shades of champagne, ivory, and silver swishing in and out of his peripheral vision as she worked the room. Baelish was well-versed in the art of subtlety. For hours he could watch someone without ever giving it away. With Sansa, Petyr exercised no such caution. Perhaps it was as much about strategy – she was supposed to be fresh, young, beautiful, desirable, after all – as it was about personal appreciation, but his gaze, like pyrite, and dangerously close to a leer, latched onto milky skin and auburn curls, following her about the room like a well-practiced sycophant. But they all were, weren’t they? Every eye in the room was focused on Sansa. She’d been gone long enough for her appearance that evening to be seen as new again, novel and unpolluted. She glinted like a diamond, pale silk clinging to equally pale curves, the tumble of red down her back making her look like some sort of virgin ready to be sacrificed, and certainly that’s exactly what her prep team had envisioned. They were priming her, whetting the palates of those Capitol citizens who’d not yet paid the price to book Panem’s newest darling. Their success relied upon Sansa being spoken of, thought of, paid for as much as possible. In this, they had not failed her.
Around the gala she was passed, from man to woman, host to hostess, guest after guest being introduced to her in a flurry of names, colors, and fragrances. Each one of them were besotted, proclaiming to have been her most ardent supporter throughout the Games. Sansa did well, Baelish thought, as she had during her victory tour. The more you do it the less it matters. Such advice applied to most everything. With enough experience, everything became easy. By the time she drifted towards the bar, however, he could tell that it was beginning to wear on her. The brush of hand to hand was felt; immediately, he knew it was intentional. A sidelong glance was given, so brief as to ascertain her proximity before it was gone. Baelish finished his conversation, and made his way to the bar, sidling up beside Sansa, the cloth of his suit sliding against her arm.
“Not tonight,” he replied, low enough to be heard through the clamoring current of conversation surrounding them. “Tomorrow, maybe.” Though had Lapworth indeed been at the soiree, he almost certainly would have insisted on bringing the siren back with him to hear her songs. At her next comment his brows knitted together. With a tilt of his head he regarded her, a flush high on her cheeks, a fizzy drink pinched between two fingers. His gaze grew more narrow, discerning, as it shifted over her face. Was she accosting him? “How many of those have you had?” The brush of the hand hadn’t been merely to get his attention, then. Incorrectly, he’d assumed that their conversation on the train would have changed things. A distraction was needed even more, he supposed, when up to your knees in rancid Capitol slime.
But she was being sloppy.
“You’ll have your pick of them,” he stated, speaking to the distraction he thought of in his head. She didn’t need context to know what he meant. “If you see someone you like, I can help you arrange it. Or I can introduce you to some of your own ilk.” Not everyone in the Capitol was a leech. Only most. There were younger gentlemen, and ladies too, who would be happy to show Sansa around, give her an extended tour of the clubs and gatherings that were more suited to someone her age. Sex need not even be involved – merely distraction, in the many chemical forms in which it came, and even some of the organic sort.
In that regard, Sansa profited and suffered in equal measure. Though still a child, she was one of the oldest tossed into that year’s arena — beyond Careers, there were few who could intimidate her by size alone, and her team could intimate at a burgeoning womanhood beneath that innocent exterior. It not only earned her sponsors, like Lapworth; many younger tributes also avoided her from the moment they began running. Johanna Mason had won not long ago, deceit fresh despite her eschewing all contact with those beyond District Seven following the victory. Red hair and gentle eyes might conceal a similar threat, and by the time such a possibility seemed remote, many of her competitors had already perished. Yet age combined with a family to whom she might return had rendered Sansa more immovable than her mentor. What cause had she to find solace in the Capitol, when already an appealing life seemed to lie in wait amongst the pines? The illusion died slowly, its decay impeded by the buffer of grateful siblings, of routine, making an inevitable collapse all the more bone-rattling in its impact.
For tonight, however, she had recovered. In the car one of her team slipped over a nondescript pill, followed by promises of more, which cleared head and vision alike. Drowsiness banished, Sansa navigated the crowd with ease, if not pleasure, fielding compliments and questions with variations on the same laugh, the same bat of lashes, the same coy touch to a guest’s arm. Several times she looked for Petyr in the crush, a black stiletto rising out of iridian waves, but he never appeared. Tatty rendered him practicably unnecessary, facilitating dozens of introductions, though she offered none of the intangible comfort Sansa might draw from his presence. Instead he seemed to have meant his offer on the train: suggestions, instructions, those he would offer. Not support, nor friendship, nor the wordless sympathy of one who understood the injustices visited upon her.
Distance, however, did nothing to dampen her desire. Sparked by the day’s stresses, the revelation of dapper grooming forgone since that missed train southward, unceasing attention to her gown only stoked Sansa’s hunger. Had he not once opined the benefits of wearing a dress? Layers of silk and ribbon a great deal finer than the cotton worn in Seven accentuated her figure, swirling bodice stitched precisely so as to draw attention to her bosom without veering into vulgarity. Shades pale and paler allowed copper locks to shine under the sweeping, flashing lights, bringing out interspersed threads of gold and bronze. More than once she felt hands toy with the hem of her skirt, oftentimes accompanied by crooning remarks as to the craftsmanship, though Sansa knew such compliments only masked a desire to go further, to be invited to explore how well the garment was made. It only called to mind Petyr’s hands, broad and strong, sweeping up a thigh to clutch possessively at her bottom. Each recollection led to a discomforted wriggle, the scrap of lace deemed her underthings sullied; imagination raced far ahead of reality, so that when Sansa’s fingers brushed his she had convinced herself Baelish would abscond away with no protest.
A hum, noncommittal, answered him. By now her things would have been transferred to the hotel Tatty booked, papers neatly stack and unread on a desk, closet stuffed with the fashions her team had gathered, bathroom lined with all manner of potions; on the bed her suitcase would sit, open but otherwise undisturbed, the room’s impeccable design leaving no space for her familial trinkets. If ever she were curious Sansa could return to the packet he turned over, learn precisely who she would be meeting, the manner of acquaintance they expected. Now she wished only for an excuse to talk. To more than talk. “I— I don’t know.” Brows wrinkled down at the faceted crystal. Sansa didn’t think she was drunk. Was she? Tempting as numbness sounded, such a state endangered her far more than it helped. She took a sip, smiling a compliment at its creator, yet when the glass came back to the bar it remained as full as before.
“No.” Had they come to the Capitol a week earlier, or when Baelish first meant to, his suggestion would have rung as an insult. Now, Sansa heard it as she did the words in his letter: an offer of as much safety and comfort as he could provide. Dismayed but not entirely deterred, the girl’s arm remained close against him in a faint press that perhaps even Petyr would fail to notice. “I’ll have my fill of strangers; I don’t want another one to entertain tonight.” Besides, a line needed to exist. If the agenda lurking at her hotel comprised a set of demands, parties and gowns an expensive diversion, then pleasurable distractions would have to come from an entirely different source. Nothing in the Capitol could touch her life in Seven, a resolution which, coupled with her proposition, seemed to plant Baelish firmly in the latter’s realm.