Sansa caught him by surprise. Maybe he wasn’t prepared to be called out on his drunken bullshit or maybe he hadn’t expected her to be so frank. No. He hadn’t expected repayment; he hadn’t even figured he’d earned any. That hadn’t been why he’d helped her, although the real reason behind it was far worse to admit than existing under the expectation of not getting something for nothing. It was the same reason he’d not looked the other way and faded into the apathetic role of bystander during her Games as he had for so many years prior. It was who she was, or, rather more accurately, whose daughter she was. Petyr still thought of Catelyn often; very likely he’d thought of her during those moments when he was slicked with sweat and rutting with her daughter.
Sansa wondered how Baelish had been before? Not so clever, at least not in the way she would have appreciated. He’d been small for his age, weak, relegated to simpler, softer duties than hefting axes and carrying bundles of logs. But he’d been a kind boy, friendly, perhaps unusually bright and inquisitive. Truth be told he didn’t remember much of himself or how he existed before the Games, the boy that he had been having long ago faded away. What he did remember was the intensity of his feelings he’d felt for a red-headed girl. Not a Stark, but a Tully. She’d had the same red hair as Sansa, if not a little duller, and the same pale skin. More importantly she’d had the same blue eyes, more brilliantly blue than the streams cutting and weaving their way through Seven’s forests. They were more like the blue of a clear summer sky, and just as warm. Catelyn had been equal parts sweet and cruel to Petyr, teasing him, leading him on, beckoning with one slender finger only to shut the door at the last moment. She’d let him kiss her a few times, on the cheek and on the lips, always laughing in a way that sounded beautiful even in its playful mockery.
Petyr had been besotted. He’d been in love, he was certain, and though the true complexities of love could never be entirely revealed to a boy of his age it did not diminish what he’d felt. He had loved Catelyn so much that even when she’d rejected him after his return and victory from his Hunger Games, he’d never stopped wondering. He’d stood by and watched as she fell into the arms of Eddark Stark, and nursed the ache in his gut when she gave him children. Petyr spent more time in the Capitol than he did in the district, but he never stopped wanting the same things he’d wanted as a boy. Simpleness. Affection. Companionship. Comfort. And so when Sansa Stark’s name had been called out on that fateful morning nearly a year ago, it would have been easy for him to succumb to the spiteful wrath which had filled him for so many years. It was the memory of his affinity for her mother which goaded him into action. He’d saved her because of Catelyn. Both the first time, and the second.
Petyr frowned somewhat, taking abject offense to the notion that he expected her to prostitute herself – for him. But he didn’t care so much as to say anything in his defense. He’d been letting her do it – trade her flesh for favors – since that night in Snow’s mansion. Why should she believe he intended for anything different now? Though his name had not been intricately stamped on some official dossier with detailed instructions on how best to tantalize him, he still let her open her legs and serve as a buffer for the less savory business happenings between them. “Yeah,” he both agreed and deflected in the same syllable.
With less pleasure than he thought he might have, he watched her swallow the alcohol. There was never any certainty about her. Baelish was always left with the distinct impression that she did what she did because of someone else’s expectation, and never her own. He suspected this was a symptom of winning the Games, but he could not be certain, having never known her or spoken to her before them. Why did she have such a need to please? The light glinted copper and red against the amber liquid, and Petyr felt suddenly seedy, as though he’d lured her into his den of iniquity and forced her to dampen her sensibilities with liquor. “For me,” he replied, a sharpness to his tone. He reached across her, curling his fingers about the glass and sliding it from her grasp. “You know. Misery loves company. That sort of thing.” He held up the glass. “Anyway you’re only as drunk as the most sober person in the room.” With a bitingly false smile he emptied the remainder of the alcohol; a hiss through his teeth told her that it burned. With a tap he set the glass back down, rising to his feet, surprisingly steady for the amount of booze he must have consumed over the last few hours, days, weeks.
“I wish you would have called,” he drawled in retort. “I might have penciled in a shower.” A hand lifted to rub over his face, scratching at the thick layer of stubble, hooking idly into the top of his shirt and stretching it down. “You can come back tomorrow.” His hair, messed and untended, seemed inordinately thick and lush, wavy and with a bit of curl to it that caught the light as he stepped into the sun, squinting miserably as though he’d been living in a cave. For a moment he stared across the gravel sea, looking towards Sansa’s house. It seemed empty, but how was he to know? Petyr’s hand settled on the door knob, ready to open the door and usher Sansa on her way. “Or…” he paused, sweeping his gaze back towards her, heavy with drink and a lack of morality. “You can join me.” And then his gaze turned and flicked suggestively up the stairs (his home’s layout the very same as hers), towards his bedroom and the bathroom and the shower.
Yeah.
Why flee the Capitol then, if gratitude dictated Sansa come to him with her body willingly offered? Doubt teased at her, nearly urged the girl to speak, yet finally she let his sentiment stand uncontested. Before that list their encounters had progressed simply, predictably; though everything that ran beneath each meeting — dark undercurrents of memory, need, loneliness — swirled into an unrecognizable miasma, its force seemed easily ignored, never threatening to sweep away impassioned lovers. Now she felt the weight of expectations, unvoiced and unfulfilled, suffocating whatever ease the pair had cultivated before venturing back to Snow’s domain.
Perhaps that faint unbalancing made her so compliant, swallowing down bronzed liquid as though it was the Elixir of Life. Anything to recall how they first coupled, once violent desperation ebbed and familiarity took hold. This…expression of distress, made plain by dirtied glasses, empty bottles, a cloying whiff of rotted food, matched poorly with Baelish’s prior aloofness. She didn’t immediately know how to accommodate it. So fumble Sansa did, unguided by those helpful instructions some lackey had typed up for every other man she was meant to bed, swerving wildly at each suggestion. She couldn’t lose him. Lose him, as though Petyr had once laid in her possession. Was that how she thought of him? Hers? Alcohol billowed through her mind in a thickening fog, making fruitful introspection difficult. Instead she merely sat there, slumped on an overstuffed sofa, tilting her drink this way and that, contemplating how the colors shifted in murky sunlight.
A few droplets threatened to slop over when Baelish snatched it away, though once again all remained miraculously in crystalline prison. Copper brows furrowed, trying to retrace where she must have gone wrong, to earn such censure; drinking between them was not out of place, nor was a bit of repartee before intimate acts. Damn it, why must he make things so difficult. Even the barest motive would have satisfied her curiosity, much less the man’s grave declaration of ruin. Afterwards, spurred by shared guilt, they could rut until it all mattered just a little less. Yet now Sansa wallowed in her own misery, albeit far shallower than his, satisfaction prickling to hear him hiss in protest at an uncooperative swallow.
Confusion deepened when Petyr rose, moving towards the entryway as if in dismissal. Commingling with desire already voiced it wove knots into her belly, made worse by what must have amounted to unintentional preening on his part. No stylist’s mousse or rounded brush could create such curls, nor was he likely to muss it with abandon had they tried. His movements came so naturally, so unguarded, for a moment Sansa found herself wholly distracted from the plain attempt at banishment. That was who she had come to speak with, sit with, rut with. A man unfettered by expectation or convention, antithetical to those crowds amongst whose number Sansa must linger for years. Upon the couch she shifted, barely straightening. If he worried one of her siblings might spot their sister departing from Baelish’s abode and question why she smelled of whiskey, then Petyr’s fears were completely without foundation. Jon reported to the mill daily, taking on new duties each time an elder became too slow or suffered injury; every other Starkling sat woefully in school or, if they played hooky, were not foolish enough to wander back towards home.
Much like every other Tuesday in Seven, this one threatened to pass uneventfully.
Until he extended an invitation. Blue followed green, Sansa looking up along the banister to what tiny sliver of carpeting and wall she could see of the second floor. Showering meant they would both remove their clothes. All of them. Though it had been months since that night in Snow’s mansion, not once had the pair both divested themselves entirely before the act. Sober, she might have hesitated before answering — and no different would the answer be — but with his pilfered liquor coursing warm and sweet through welcoming veins, Sansa moved without delay. “Alright.” From the couch she rose, smile playing at her gaze but not her lips, sullen introspection lost at first mention of reconciliation. “I’d like that.” By the stairs Sansa paused, hand extended to take his, and with fingers tangled began ascending. Every step or two the girl glanced back, scared he might stop or reconsider, grip pulling him closer with each repetition.