Natural, it was, that some would glamorize the Games. That’s what the Capitol wanted, wasn’t it? To sensationalize their bloodsport? To have it serve as the ultimate form of entertainment all the while serving as a grim reminder that the districts best obey? In some districts the Games were certainly celebrated; that is where you saw the career tributes spring up, training their entire lives for the opportunity to throw themselves into the arena by means of volunteering. It was seen almost as an honor, and there had undoubtedly been some strategy behind that choice, in the beginning. Those districts were granted infinite more Capitol favors, and they therefore had all the reason in the world to continue in wanton servitude. Other districts took far less kindly to the Hunger Games – the ones who went hungry and were forced to sacrifice, year after year, their precious children. It seemed odd that Sansa would play at the Games. Perhaps her privileged upbringing allowed her to separate herself from the brutality, to be desensitized towards it. None of her ilk had ever before been touched, and for what reason did she have to think that would ever change?
Until it had.
Now her life belonged to them. Them. The faceless puppeteers of the Capitol. Petyr wondered if she thought it was half so glamorous as she’d imagined as a child. For even though there was the ever-present shroud of misery draped across her, she could not deny, even now, that it was still glamorous. The world glittered, it flashed, it enchanted and it captivated. Every detail was carved out into some alluring shape, all the better to entice and entrance. A great deal of planning had gone into this gilded facade meant to hide the festering underbelly of the Capitol’s reality, and in that, Snow and the rest were no fools. It was, at times, easy to forget how terrible everything was, even for the survivors who had been at the very center of it.
People like Petyr. People like Sansa.
He’d not had any measure of when he might expect Sansa, though he’d taken a gamble to at least assume that he could. Confirmation came with an unseen smirk when he heard the muted beep and the soft swoosh of the door opening and closing. In good courtesy, he rose to meet her, though it was a far different man than the one she’d last seen at the soiree. Divested of his fine suit and buffed shoes, he greeted her in the most casual of thin white cotton pants and matching tee. He certainly wasn’t going for the seduction angle, then. Not that he’d ever given much thought to his appearance when it came to Sansa; that sort of calculation was given only to social gatherings. A normal girl might be insulted over the idea that he cared not how he looked in front of her, but a smarter one would realize that his lack of care had everything to do with an unspoken level of comfort rather than a true adoption of apathy.
Unlike his interaction with Tatty, Sansa’s greeting of a kiss went unreturned, although she would feel the slide of his fingers along the dip of her waist before she turned to shrug off the monstrosity of her fur coat. Petyr was looking at her. He was looking at her in a way that suggested her concern over him being too tired was entirely unfounded. Sansa peeled away the fluffy overgarment, and gray-green slanted down the powdery iridescence of her gown, settling for a moment at the cinch beneath her breasts. “Not yet,” he murmured, almost absently. The flush of her cheeks he appraised for far longer. It was Sansa’s feminine qualities that Petyr seemed most to enjoy. No doubt it was why he had offhandedly requested she wear skirts or dresses, and why his gaze always lingered on her whenever she was draped in Capitol finery. Oh, he was not immune to those charms. Certainly not. That was the sort of glamour Petyr reveled in, though he wasn’t so foolish as to believe it was real. Petyr had seen the real Sansa, he knew every inch of the real girl hiding beneath layers of fine silk and lace and ribboned sheen.
“Rarely am I too tired to…talk.” An easy smile. Petyr turned away, walking across the room, past the small kitchenette. In his hand he scooped a leather-bound menu. “Did you eat?” Rhetorical. No need to answer; he already knew. The menu unfolded against his palm. “You should eat.” Lazily reading over the hotel’s offerings, he meandered back to her, turning the menu towards her when close enough and letting her have a look. “We’ll get some food into you, then we’ll talk.” It wasn’t firm, but it was still a tone that brooked no argument.
Glamour certainly eased what otherwise would feel like no more than base prostitution. Sequin-spackled gowns, fizzy neon drinks, parties filled to the brim with beautiful forms all created an illusion of choice, one which sponsors gladly indulged. For as much as Victors might wish to forget the loaded pistol at their temple, so too did their admirers enjoy lingering in the fantasy that neither money nor threat of harm compelled a guest’s attention. Both labored under mutual delusion, the system far more fragile than gilded exterior betrayed, its balance threatened by even whispered truth. Certainly her current predicament stood favorable to locked doors and restrained yet lacking practice, Sansa still focused on the seams, edges where reality and act joined, proof of the enslavement granted when crowned a winner of Snow’s game.
In all her imaginings as a child, she arrived in the Capitol by choice, a stunning girl invited to step across those barbed-wire boundaries and grace them with her charm. Though she saw the disparity, the starvation, Sansa believed with puerile faith that it was only passing; surely all the shortages, lengthened hours at the mills came out of necessity, not spite, a misconception furthered by parents’ quiet insistence that their children’s worries remain confined to a single day. Thus, her true flaw lay rooted in a particular sort of naivete: belief in the goodness of others. Too often did Sansa take for granted that their world allowed for such selflessness, surprised — and hurt — time and again when raw survivorship overwhelmed any altruism. Was that what Baelish’s room key represented — charity? Such a thought had not prevented her from coming, moving with the sort of hesitating anticipation often reserved for first meetings. In his home they had settled into a vague routine, the same basic steps followed with little variation. Middling though the room might be by Capitol standards, its effect largely remained one of disconcertion.
Befurred, Sansa felt only a faint pressure from his touch. Turning back however, coat deposited on an obliging chair, she could better take in the casual nature of his dress. In Seven Baelish wore jeans and trousers, nothing so suggestive as the thin material donned now. While grey-green lingered on cinched waist and flushed cheeks, she found herself distracted by the bulge of fabric between his legs. Neither indulged suggestion when in the districts, her change to dresses more a concession to expediency than flirtation. Now silk and ribbons allowed for hints at the girl’s most intimate parts, her dress forever shifting, shimmering back into a semblance of modesty. And Petyr…just like her finery, his lounging fashion seemed an invitation with the faint shadow of hair across his chest, the way his shirt skimmed a lean waist, and how it was quite obvious, yet hardly vulgar, at what rested between his thighs.
Sansa pressed her legs closer together, weight shifting to one hip.
Brows furrowed at talk of food. Ceremony never entered into their ruts. Was that what he wanted, though, a prelude which built gradually into carnal bliss? Sansa preferred such an arrangement — an illusion — despite having swiftly adjusted herself to the spartan, desperate nature of their couplings. Like all the parties which demanded her attention, would they too indulge fantasy? Surely it was harmless, eating a little, taking their time. Smiling more with gaze than lips she took the booklet from outstretched hand, settling primly atop the bed. Beds are so serious. Her stomach flopped pleasantly. Would they, she wondered, do something serious tonight?
“The team will have my head if I can’t fit into tomorrow’s dress,” Sansa murmured. No doubt like the frock would be stitched on, just like the one she wore now; buttons and zippers were so unseemly when used as fastenings alone. Page after page of gourmet offerings spilled across vellum pages, entries in gold ink indicating a guest favorite. One dish alone listed well over a dozen components; little wonder citizens starved, when so much made its way to the Capitol alone. “Maybe just something I could nibble on…fruit? Something easy to share.” Smile turned to playful smirk, menu extended back towards Petyr. “I think its best if you put in the order. Imagine the scandal if someone claimed to have heard Sansa Stark on your phone line after midnight.” A scandal indeed.