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Chapter Text

Detective Inspector Clegane is a simple man, of simple tastes and needs.

He is of a rank in the King’s Landing Metropolitan Police - lovingly nicknamed KLaMP by the people the Force pays to think this shit up, and the bastard pigfuckers by most of the ne’er-do-wells in Flea Bottom - that uniform isn’t a problem. He wears casual trousers, and shirts with the sleeves rolled to his elbow, and usually no tie unless DCI Selmy gets on his arse about presenting a smart front to the public. Police issue boots, though. Always them. He’s found that spending more than half his life as a copper means his feet like being tortured by the cardboard-style leather, the meanly thin soles. They feel...like home.

Sometimes  Detective Inspector Clegane goes out for a post work drink with his detective colleagues; Selmy, Dondarrion, and Snow. He drinks pints of black stout with a whisky chaser, and walks home in the rain.

He works too hard, and doesn’t play at all. Clegane is the type of policeman that never switches off, is always ready and alert and wanting to trudge through mountains of circumstantial evidence, or re-read cold case files in case he discovers an angle never before seen. They call him, on the streets and in Red Keep Yard, Selmy’s Dog. He comes to work at seven in the morning, and usually leaves after a thirteen hour stint, grim and gritty-eyed, red-raw around the edges; he goes home, eats shit takeaway food, and passes out. This repeats daily.

He does not take holidays.

There are reasons for this.

Sandor, the man and not the policeman, lives alone. He is approaching forty, and he definitely looks it because policing is never a healthy career for anyone. Good strong boys join aged eighteen, fit and bright-eyed. Five years later they are as battered and cynical as the rest of the poor fuckers who wear the badge of Red Keep Yard and try and keep this teeming city of over two hundred thousand in some semblance of order. Sandor is estranged from his family, and has few friends. He listens to very loud, very angry music that sounds like someone strangling a passel of screaming guitars, and attributes slight hearing loss to going to gigs in his youth. Sometimes he reads the newspaper and attempts to fill in crosswords, but Dondarrion usually gets to them first. He drinks too much black coffee, and is overly-angry and honest at the entire fucking world, because the world has never given a shit about him.

He is the same as any middling aged man of his rank and profession, in a hundred police stations across Westeros. He is, above all, his job.

Which makes interacting with someone who is a) not a criminal, b) female, and c) not a member of the police force but is employed as administrative staff for Selmy’s band of warrior detectives, really fucking difficult.

Especially if d) she is beautiful e) she smells like lemons and f) her voice is like the song of a linnet over the ruin of Fang Tower on a warm and dreaming summer’s day.

Sansa Stark is an enigma, and he enjoys that about her.

She is, above all, a very good looking woman. Far too bloody young, sure, and she’s related to Snow - cousin or something like that - and she has an annoying/sweet habit of humming to herself when she’s typing, but she is possibly the most beautiful girl DI Clegane has ever seen in his long, tiresome, rather dog-eared and moth-eaten life.

The rest of them, the four of them, are just blokes. Snow’s a pretty bugger, and one of the northern sergeants says the Detective Sergeant is better looking than both his daughters. How he gets away with his tumbling curls, and propensity for all black clothing all the damned time, no one knows. Dondarrion, his fellow DI, is knackered in the sort of way that women describe as ruggedly craggy. He has a prescription eyepatch, surprisingly exuberant red-gold hair, and talks in the sort of hippy shit way that all R’hllor worshippers do these days. Selmy is a good man. Geriatric, sure, but sharp as a razorblade and incredibly fair-minded. Yes, he’s punched a few suspects in the past, because, hell, the ‘70s was a different era of policing, but considering he caught several high-profile murderers and brought them to justice, people tend to hero worship him a bit.

Clegane is quite sure that their section of the force is where everyone else sends the weird people who don’t quite fit in.

Sometimes they have hanger’s on, when they go for a drink. Tarly the medic, and Bolton the creepy fuck who enjoys cutting open dead bodies. Sometimes even Lannister and Tarth from the fraud squad, who are definitely fucking, but pretend they loathe each other to try and deny they’ve been at it for years. Dayne, who enjoys his firearms job just that little bit too much.

Sansa Stark.

She is pretty. No. More than that. Beautiful. She has a lovely smile that tends towards the wistful. When she was twenty one, and he remembers this because it was a complete fuck-up on several sides by members of the force who turned out to be in the pay of the creepy cunt that she had the restraining order against, Sansa turned up with a black eye and strangulation marks. Walked straight into the station, head held high, back straight, and reported her ex-boyfriend for domestic violence, various grades of assault, and grievous bodily harm.

The cunt filmed every little bit of what he did to her, and the prick made copies on his computer because there are some fucked up shits in this world. It took the jury twenty minutes to lock him up for seven years; then the murders got linked in, of the hookers down in the west and the docks, and his DNA was all over the evidence, and Joffrey Baratheon is in Harrenhal for life.

Clegane wonders, idly sometimes because this is personal in a way since he got to know Sansa, if Gregor is making the little blond cunt his prison bitch. Hopes. He should feel guilty, sure, because wishing that on anyone is really shitty, but Baratheon deserves everything he gets.

Sansa is pretty. She’s clever. Diplomatic. Charming. Sometimes it seems a little bit of a facade with her, as if she glazes just a tad when she talks politely and eloquently to others in the force, with outside agencies. Clegane knows her, and he’s looked out for her for the last two years, since she walked back into the station not as a victim but a survivor, and, even more impressively, a survivor working for the very police who freed her from the shackles of fear.

Pretty. Clever. Charming. Innocent, in a way, and still, even now, quite private of herself. Everyone else mentions wives or girlfriends. Sometimes boyfriends. Often pets. She speaks of her part-husky who lives with her parents in the north, and a little of her family, and nothing about lovers because she doesn’t want one. Snow teases her as if they are brother and sister, and apparently they did grow up together, but there is a gentle care to what he says and does. As if there is a line that can never be crossed. They are quite close, he and Sansa.

It is from Snow he gets a lot of the information about Sansa - not that he pries. Just, if Snow wants to talk about his family, and Sandor’s lurking about, then he does listen. He hears of how her parents think she should start dating again, and how sometimes Cat, and Jon makes a face when he says that name, rolling his grey eyes, tries to set her up with eligible bachelors. How everyone else in the family has a partner - even her little brother who is shacked up with Commissioner Baratheon’s daughter, and they’re only, what, fifteen and underage or something? Fuck, kids grow up too quick these days.

So what happens is sort of a shock, and it isn’t in some respects, but in others really, it is.

“Sandor?”

Sansa is the only person allowed to call the lads by their first names, outside of their close-knit group. Selmy treats her as a beloved granddaughter, and dotes on their redheaded admin assistant. They all bring her little treats, though only Clegane knows where to get what she once described as the ‘perfect lemon cake.’ No one else knows that he makes them himself, sweating and sweating at the fuckers to rise, before stabbing them viciously with a skewer and pouring drizzle into the light fluffy sponge.

Clegane never baked before Sansa. Now he can bake nothing but lemon cakes. All sorts. Drizzle, upside down, sponge, cupcakes with poppy seeds and sweet yellow icing, and others. He puts them in cardboard boxes he buys from the internet, pretends they are bakery items, and lives to see her freckled face glow with pleasure as she bites into the offering he brings.

He’s a fucking sap.

“Yeah?” Looking up from paperwork. When he first joined, way back aged eighteen, Clegane never had to bother about all this paper shit. Now, almost twenty years later, they are buried in red tape and bureaucracy. Hence Selmy holding out for an office assistant, for Sansa. She makes their lives infinitely easier, and even more bright.

“Can I ask you something?” She hovers, hopefully, at his side, and Sandor reaches out, snags Dondarrion’s extra padded super comfortable computer chair for her. Apart from his fellow DI, Sansa is the only one allowed to park herself in the insanely expensive proto-throne.

It has in-built massaging systems, and when Dondarrion is out of office, they all have a secret vibrate.

“Go ahead.”

She holds something in her long fingers; her nails are painted pale peach, with white tips. Neat and short and not showy like a lot of the women working in the Yard. Sansa is never gaudy, or over the top, because she has no need to be. She is classy, and pretty, and wearing a yellow halter neck sundress with a little crocheted cardi thing over the top. Her collarbones swoop, and he wonders if he kissed them she’d taste of lemon.

“This is a bit out of left field,” she explains. “And I understand completely if you don’t want to, and that’s fine, just...I didn’t know who else to ask.”

“Go on.”

“I’ve been invited to a wedding-”

“I’ll cover the paperwork, yeah.” Of course he will. Anything for her.

Sansa’s smiles are like sunshine sometimes, and Sandor pretends to himself that those ones are kept especially for him. “That’s very sweet of you, but I was going to ask something else.”

For a moment she looks at his large hands, resting lightly over the scrawl of an autopsy report written by that mad bastard Bolton from his lair in the depths of the Keep. Ramsay writes exclusively in blood red pen, and is the sort of man who, if he came across someone still alive on the slab, would bump them off just so he can cut them open and play with their innards. For some reason he and Dondarrion get on quite well, but Dondarrion spends fifty percent of his life concussed and has technically died six times, and that probably explains it.

“I’ve been invited to a wedding.”

“You said that, little bird.” The nickname makes a dimple dance in her left cheek. It is an indicator of where kisses should be placed, over and over.

“Sorry, Sandor. But. This is quite difficult,” she says, before launching onward. “I was wondering if you would like to accompany me?”

Time stands still as Clegane tries to process, but his inner CPU stutters to a halt, whines, and explodes behind his eyeballs.

“You want me to go to a fucking wedding with you?” Rougher than he’d like to sound, all scratchy and rumbly-deepness, and the pink across Sansa’s cheeks makes him realise he might have fucked up, just a bit. “Uh. Right.”

“They say I can take a plus one, and i-if I don’t, my mother will be on at me about getting a boyfriend again.”

Cloudiness drifts across her face, and Sandor hates frigging Cat Stark. Can’t she see that Sansa still hurts over what happened with the cunt Baratheon? Sure, it was what, five years ago now, but shit. That takes time. He’s still screwed up about Gregor and his face, and he was a kid when that happened. Five years is nothing, considering what that bastard did to her. It’s like the fucking Stark bitch wants her daughter knocked-up, married off, producing ugly fat grandchildren with some chinless cretin from Riverrun or some shit like that.

“Someone should fucking clout your mother.”

“She means well.”

“...right.” She’s a bitch who doesn’t deserve a daughter like Sansa. Especially if she’s so obsessed about getting her paired off. Sansa’s what? Twenty four? Something like that. She’s got years ahead of her. And what’s so great about having a partner? Sandor doesn’t, and he’s fucking alright, isn’t he? Women. So desperate for their babies to have babies, and since Sansa’s sister ran off to fucking Braavos with some artisan blacksmith and a chubby computer tech with weird eyebrows - yeah, that must have blown Mummy Stark’s tiny little brain, Arya having two boyfriends for the price of one - she’s projecting all her own desires onto her good, normal, sensible daughter rather than her two-cock owning harlot tomboy loudmouthed one.

“Just, I know you’d not take advantage.” Sansa’s voice is so small, and so soft, and Clegane is just thankful she doesn’t realise he goes home and wanks occasionally over the scent of her citrus shampoo and the glimpse of her freckled thigh.

“So. This a ‘be your plus one’ thing as a friend, or a ‘pretend to be your boyfriend thing to get your mother off your back’?”

“You’d do that for me, Sandor?” Eyes the colour of the warm seas off Myr widen, all soft and hopeful. “Really? You’d pretend to be my boyfriend so my mother doesn’t nag me?”

Shit. What’s he got into this time?

“If you want.” Clegane shrugs. “This a suit thing?”

“It’s quite posh.” Handing over the invitation.

The card is very heavy and glossily expensive, the wording not even inked but embossed and carved with gold. It is the poshest wedding invite he has ever seen.

Mostly because this isn’t just a little wedding in a country church somewhere. No.

“Fuck’s sake, little bird. This is-”

“Can you see why I need you? There will be all these boys there, rich ones, with titles, and Mother will be trying to matchmake, and she just doesn’t understand, Sandor. Not like you do.”

Society wedding of the decade, let alone year. Clegane wonders what the hell he’s going to have to wear, dread dripping like bile into his belly with every passing thought. He looks shit in a tuxedo, like a half-dead dog dressed up like a penguin. Morning suits are a bit better, but no top hat.

The dress code is not stated.

“What the fuck do I have to wear?”

“Formal.”

Why is he doing this? Clegane knows, of course he does. Because Sansa is beautiful, and kind, and doesn’t flinch at his scars, personal habits, horrific workaholic tendencies, strange tempers, and filthy mouth. She seems to like him, as a friend, and for a man who has very few of those things in his life, that is precious. He wants to protect the girl, make sure the world doesn’t damage her even more than it already has; wrap her in a blanket and tell life to piss off and leave Sansa well alone.

Because DI Clegane has been in love with Sansa Stark for a year now, in like with her for eighteen months, and wanted to shag her the very moment he first set his eyes on her two years previously.

“Kilt? I got a kilt.” Wilding blood runs in his veins, and Sandor has worn the damned thing to every one of Gregor’s several marriages. How his bastard of a brother gets women to wed him, he has no frigging clue. Intimidation and threats, probably.

Her lips pop open with an audible noise - she looks misty for a moment, cheeks redder - before softening into a smile. “I think that would be suitable, yes.”

As befitting their ruse, they travel south together. Clegane, ashamed of the shit heap he usually drives, and knowing that it won’t be him judged by the Stark clan but Sansa if they turn up in his own car, shows up outside her tiny but well-situated block of Targaryen-era townhouse flats in something that isn’t stuck together with duct tape, rust, and bloody-mindedness. The rental company took one look at the menacing form of Sandor and tried to make him pay an excess before even looking at a hire car, but a quick flash of his police ID allowed him to choose something tasteful, comfortable, sporty, and reassuringly like an Essosi Mafia staff car.

It is black, and very shiny, and has the number plate canted off to one side. He tries not to speed, but it’s really hard.

For Sansa’s sanity and hearing, Clegane lays off the death metal and puts on some low-level inoffensive classic rock. He’s made an effort, considering they are ‘meeting the parents;’ black dress shirt unbuttoned at his throat and sleeves rolled to his elbows, his best pair of black jeans. Hair clean, pulled back into a ponytail, but pieces still escape, falling annoyingly over his forehead and temples. Sometimes he just wants it buzzed but would look like a right thug with his face. The expensive watch, the only thing his Dad left him in the will. They need to change into their wedding gear when they get there, but it is a good idea to look presentable in case Cat Stark pounces the moment they park.

Clegane almost puts cologne on, but tells himself he isn’t that much of a ponce.

Boots, yes, but ones that aren’t handed out by the Met. They make him an inch taller, and this is always an advantage when dealing with people he is supposed to impress but in all reality wants to intimidate into respecting him.

Of course, that usually works.

He scrubs up as much as any man with a massive facial scar can do. There’s nothing he can do about his cheek, so he ignores it as much as he can.

Sansa puts him to shame; dark green flare-y dress, her hair long and loose apart from a plait across the crown of her head - how girls do that, Clegane has no idea. She looks incredible, as always, but even more so. As if being out of the office and in the actual world gives her a lightness of being, an inner glow that makes her skin more porcelain, and her hair fire, and her eyes so very very blue.

“You look nice.” The inadequacy of the words is really quite shit. Lemon cakes look nice. A pint of stout at the end of a long frustrating day looks like. Sansa is exquisite, perfect, wonderful, gorgeous, divine, a million other words that are infinitely better than describing someone like her as looking nice.

“So do you.” She climbs in, elegant, like a film starlet, arranging her skirts. “I like your shirt.”

“Got everything?” He’d put Sansa’s bag in the boot. Compared to her smart red leather pully case, Clegane’s old battered hiking rucksack and suit hanger looks meagre and student-y.

“I think so. This isn’t your car, is it?”

“Thought it best we turned up looking less like a fucking pile of rust held together with tape. So your Mum can’t bitch about that.”

There is a curious softness to Sansa’s expression. She reaches out, almost shyly, and touches his bare forearm. Under her fingers, he cannot help the muscle rolling, the groove deep and carved.

Clegane was in the pub once when a drunk woman weaved over, slapped him on the arse, and told him he was a male butterface. Snow explained because Selmy and Dondarrion delegated the task by dint of being senior. Gorgeous body, Jon said it meant, but the face-

Of the three women he’s had sex with, he never screwed any of them with the light on.

“Thank you, Sandor.”

“S’alright.”

Getting out of King’s Landing proves an ordeal, and Clegane, embarrassed when he comes out of his road rage at idiotic drivers and pootling old women in hybrid cars, realises he’s been swearing non-stop for the last forty-five minutes.

“Shit, didn’t mean for you to-”

“It’s been quite educational,” Sansa offers, a hand across her mouth. Her eyes are bright, amused, and watch him rather too much. It makes Clegane squirm and sweat a little, trickles of moisture tickling his spine. In retaliation, he whacks the air conditioning on, directs it at his face and neck. “I’ve never heard such a range of cursing, really, even from you.”

“Least I can teach you something, eh?” When Clegane smiles, which is rarely, the side of his face destroyed by fire isn’t mobile. His lips tend towards limp, a certain slackness of muscle at the right side next to his eye. Crooked. He has, however, realised that his warmer expressions are mostly directed at Sansa.

Because, shit. It’s Sansa.

“We need to talk about how we’re going to do this relationship.”

“You say, I’ll do what you want.”

“You have to agree. I mean, I don’t want you being uncomfortable.” Gods, she is the sweetest frigging thing he’s ever met. “I don’t want to put you in a compromising position.”

“No, little bird. You say, I do. It’s what dogs do, right?”

“You’re not a dog. You’re Sandor.” Sansa still hasn’t taken her hand from his arm, fingers splayed over corded muscle and tattoos of stylised ancient art taken from the carvings of the First Men. The black/blue ink swirls from wrist to shoulder, onto his chest and back, almost onto his neck. It is as large a canvas as can be painted without showing past the edges of his old uniform; Clegane had the piece done when he was still a normal police constable, before the promotions. He loves it. It’s him, more than the face, height, and personality.

“I-I think we should be as if we are a couple. A proper couple,” she ventures, warily. “I said in the RSVP that we were, so now I’m your girlfriend.”

Clegane reminds himself that she doesn’t mean it like that, she’s just getting into character. Fuck.

“How long we been together?”

“About eight months?”

“Fucking precise. What about Snow, won’t he tell on us?”

Sansa takes her hand away, and Clegane almost swears at the lack of contact, lacing her fingers into her lap. “Jon knows what we’re doing. It’s fine, he’s fine. He understands. He knows what happened, and read the files. He’s never really seen eye-to-eye with Mother.”

“Only sane one in your bloody family, and he’s just your cousin. Tell me what you’ve come up with then. You’ve obviously been thinking.” His mouth dry, Clegane wets his lips with a slightly sandpapery tongue. He reins in eagerness, wanting to hear her little fantasy. Maybe it’ll become his, as well, when he has time for the occasional daydream.

“Okay. We met at work, obviously, and you were always so nice to me. You brought me lemon cakes - where do you get them, anyway? Nowhere sells cakes like those, so you must have a secret bakery - and stayed behind to help me if I was horribly busy. You were nice, and kind, and protective, and I felt safe with you. You weren’t like other men, who always wanted one thing. You were just nice because you are a nice person. Even if you scared me at first, because you’re so big. Intimidating.”

“Fucked up in the face.”

“I didn’t say that,” she admonishes. “But you were just always there, and a good person, possibly the best person I’d ever met. Finally, something happened; we had a case, and you were in the office late as we tried to get evidence processed, and you just asked out of the blue if I wanted to go and get something to eat at the local pub. That was our first date, though neither of us knew it then. It became a weekly tradition, on a Tuesday. We worked a little late, we had something to eat, then you walked me home, like the gentleman you are. You always look after me.”

Clegane, fascinated, manages not to scoff at that. He is no gentleman. She weaves in little pieces of fact to make the entire deal sound more plausible. The meals at the pub are usually takeaway cartons from local restaurants crowded around his messy desk. He does help Sansa when needed, because he is a methodical worker and the act assists his own lines of enquiry. Cakes, and walking her home a few times after a rough day, or when the buses aren’t running due to lateness, strike, or because they leave work after the last one? Just stuff he does. It’s not like it means anything, is it? Sansa isn’t saying these things for real, however much Clegane wants her to.

It is both dizzying and galling in equal measure how much he wants this to be the real story of how they got together. Get together. Whatever.

“We got to my door, you bade me good night, and I kissed you. Not properly, just a little kiss to your cheek, or at least I attempted to, but you moved and I caught your mouth. A-and you kissed me back. And it’s gone from there, very slowly, very carefully, because we are colleagues and don’t want to make everything awkward. What do you think?”

Her voice is honey, and hypnotic, and Sandor can only nod and mourn that this has not happened.

Fucking hell. It never will, either.

They are greeted by a spectacularly handsome man in a spectacularly well-fitting suit, who swoops in and kisses Sansa on both cheeks. Clegane manages to not punch the bastard in his gorgeous face. The man accompanying him, who has clever merry eyes and a dark beard, nods a greeting in his general direction.

“Oh my Gods, Willas might have to reconsider who he’s marrying. You look insane, Sansa. Wow!” The bastard with the breakable face twirls her around, and she laughs, as bright as silver. She’s got a great laugh, all warm and without her usual shyness. “And who is this? Is this him? Tell me this is him?”

Sansa draws herself up, glances shyly at Clegane which makes his chest clench. “This is Sandor, my boyfriend.” How she looks so proud, he doesn’t quite know, but the acting is impressive indeed.

“We’ve met him before your Mum has.” Sexy Fuckface grins, perfect teethed. “That’s a win for team Tyrell.”

“Loras, you’re an insufferable prick sometimes.” Bearded Fuckface wraps an arm around the this Loras’ waist. Fuckface is obviously their married name, and Clegane hates them for existing and daring to touch Sansa. “Nice to meet you, Sandor. Clegane, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Loras looks as if he might piss himself with excitement at his voice, for some weird reason. Gays are an enigma. Like women and how they get cream into the middle of profiteroles.

“I don’t know how King’s Landing is going to operate without all the sexy policemen there. Have you seen that Snow boy’s arse, Renly? And that man with the eyepatch?”

“You’re still in insufferable prick mode, babe.” Renly. Yeah. The youngest of the Baratheon brothers - he looks like Bobby though, and not the Commissioner, but lacks Robert’s raging alcoholism, beer-related obesity, and mad wife - pokes his lover good-naturedly. “Anyway, we’re here to direct you where to go. To your right is the Water Garden, to your left is the manor where your allocated room is.”

“You’d make such a good steward on an aeroplane. Exits are here, here and he-”

“Babe, your mouth is so pretty when you keep it shut. Where was I? Yes, Water Gardens, the manor. The wedding is slated to start at two, so you’ve got about an hour to go and change.” For some reason Renly stares at Sandor’s forearms.

“Sandor is wearing a kilt.”

Loras explodes. Or at least gets excited. It’s hard to tell. Renly just grins so wide it almost turns into a leer.

“This is your room,” the dark-skinned man with the perfectly unreadable face announces. “If there is anything you require, please make your need known to myself or the chamber maids.” Hotah is inscrutable, built like a brick shithouse, and Clegane thinks he could probably take down one of Oberyn Martell’s thoroughbred racehorses with a karate chop to the windpipe. “The guests shall be seated in approximately forty minutes, so when you are ready, please make your way to the Water Gardens where the ushers will show you to your seats.” He withdraws, neatly, closing the door behind them.

Lovely room. High ceilings, and pale duck egg walls, light oak dressing tables and wardrobes. A door leads to an en suite, which is really bloody handy considering Clegane hates tramping through uncertain darkness to have a piss, and the long double doors lead onto a balcony covered in sweet-smelling honeysuckle. Girly as shit, but romantic, in a way, which makes everything just that bit more painful.

It’s possibly the nicest bedroom he’s ever seen, and Clegane sits at the foot of the bed, eases his boots off, realises that Sansa seems to have turned to stone.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s only one bed.”

Shit. He checks, in case another is hiding somewhere sneakily, like in the wardrobe.

There really is only one bed.

It is vast, and plush, and has light drifting voile over the wooden four poster frame. It is the sort of bed where beautiful virgins are made love to by handsome muscular men in those frigging awful romance novels Tarth enjoys reading on her lunch break. It is the sort of bed he’d make love to Sansa in, all blue and gold, her hair trailing like forest fire over the pillows as he uses his mouth for her pleasure, like a great big human sex toy.

“I’ll sleep on the floor.” The chaise is too short for either of them, and he’s buggered in he’d make Sansa curl up on the wooden floorboards. 

“It’s a large bed. W-we could probably both fit in there?”

She has no idea what that does to his cock. The way Sansa suggests they just climb into bed together. Innocent suggestion, but really, that doesn’t matter when it comes to random hard ons. No, his body hears a beautiful girl saying ‘let’s go to bed together, Sandor.’ and he is half-erect in moments.

“We’ll talk about it later.”

Yeah. Best ignore this for now.

Fuck.

Chapter Text

Of course she looks amazing. The green has given way to silvery grey, not too pale just in case one of the grooms decides to wear white, long and floaty in the skirt and cap-sleeved in a chiffony softness through which he can see those freckles. It is both charmingly modest and filled with promise when she moves and the fabric frames her thighs, to the point where Clegane is seriously pleased to be wearing a black furry sporran with his kilt because it’ll hide any obvious interest on his behalf. Sansa, Sandor decides for definite, though he has known this for months and months, could make sackcloth and ashes look a fashionable style choice. Her silver heels make her taller, almost intimidatingly so, because Sansa’s mouth is rather nearer his.

“Do I kiss you?” He runs his fingers through his hair, forgetting it is tied back, and almost getting tangled in the black covered elastic holding the ponytail in place. “Are we doing that? Just so I know and don’t fuck this up.”

It is seriously, incredibly, massively important that Sandor doesn’t fuck anything up. He promised.

Clegane wants to kiss her. He wants to take her hand, kiss her fingertips, her wrist, trail his rough lips up her slender pale arm, nuzzle his perma-stubbled jaw into the neat curve of Sansa’s long throat. He wants to catch her in his arms, pull her close so they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle of hips and stomachs and chests. He wants to watch Sansa’s expression sharpen with wanting to kiss him back. He wants. He wants so much that it could burst from his lungs, his heart. She shines, innocence and purity, in a world that is neither, and sure Sandor is aware he is sticking her on some pedestal, but, fuck’s sake, the girl deserves someone who thinks she is more than a pretty face and lovely body.

Or at least appreciates them as well as the rest of her.

Because she is the sexiest girl in the whole of Westeros. Seriously. His head, heart, and cock agree on this point.

“I think so. When appropriate. And maybe hold hands? We could do that?” She looks nervously at him, fingers tucking into her palms, as if she really doesn’t want to do the whole hand holding thing. It strikes him that Sansa is almost as clueless as he is, due to her past relationship. Shit. Baratheon probably didn’t even fucking hold her hand because he is a mad fucking cunt. A jealousy threatens, and is pushed back, because who in their right fucking mind would be fucking jealous of that fucking fucker Joffrey fucking Baratheon.

Fucker. How dare he touch Sansa, who is world’s better than that slimy shit stain on the arse of humanity?

“Did he,” and the stress on the word makes it perfectly clear which ‘he’ Clegane means, “hold your hand?” He needs to know. It is important. Sansa winces, looks at the floor, and Sandor berates himself for mentioning the little shit.

“Sometimes, but only when he wanted to direct me, or squeeze. He liked making things hurt.”

Sandor licks his lips, dry-mouthed yet again. He needs the biggest bucket of beer in Dorne, in his face, right about now.

“Take my arm, if it feels better. Just whatever’s alright with you.” His voice, gruff and soft, seems to calm the worry that causes gooseflesh on her shoulder.

She does. Instead of holding his hand, Sansa slips her arm into the crook of his. Like this they are close, intimately so, with hips brushing. Her scent is light and citrus, with an underlying blue rose sweetness, and it is a warming thing.

“I like your kilt. It suits you.”

It isn’t much as they go. The proper one, the one Sandor thinks about pissing on and setting on fire, but it cost a shitload of dragons and he’ll probably just throw it out one day, is Clegane gold and black. This one, the one he likes and feels, well, alright, he’s wearing a skirt but as skirts go, it’s fucking hardcore, is the same black as his hair and his tattoos. So is his shirt, and the tight-fitting jacket with horn buttons that’ll come off the moment the wedding is done. Black boots rather than those poncy patent leather. Of course he has the massive dagger strapped to his calf, in the old way.

“You look like someone from one of those bands you like. One of the shouty ones. Just more north of the Wall”

“You look. Nice. Shit. Fucking hell. I am shit at complements. You look stunning.”

The colour rises in her cheeks, and Sandor almost punches the air. Yes. He gave a complement, Sansa accepted it and liked it. Go Team Hound. If he were not with her, and trying not to look like a complete dickhead, he’d do a tiny Clegane victory dance.

It is suspiciously like Dad dancing, but involves more headbutting of inanimate objects.

Sansa bites her lip thoughtfully, examining his face, then makes him take out his hair tie.

“Better?”

“I like it when you wear it down.”

“All the better to hide my bloody face,” he says, only partially joking, but is stopped dead by Sansa smacking him very lightly on the wrist with the wedding invitation.

Dondarrion has saved them seats, and seems suspiciously unperturbed to see him and Sansa together. His fellow DI cleans up well; very navy suit, matching dark blue shirt and tie, and he has even colour co-ordinated his eyepatch. Military ribbons lay surreptitiously along his breast pocket. He’s even ironed the pocket square.

“Nice one, Beric.”

“Not a problem.”

There is another seat empty next to Dondarrion, but that probably belongs to Snow. Selmy’s nearer the front, hob-nobbing with the Illuminati. Or Commissioner Baratheon. Whichever one is the lesser of the two evils.

“You look positively angelic, Sansa. That dress is gorgeous on you.” Clegane fights the jealousy. Again. Beric is a smooth cunt, and a good looking one if you like men with scarred faces, and considering who Sansa is currently arm-in-arm with, that is really a fucking shit thing. Sandor ended up with the melted horrible ugly sort of burn scars. Dondarrion has masculine silver wounds that don’t cause his mouth and eyelid to droop. He looks noble, and the sort of wounded war hero that women swoon over. Thankfully, since he’s ginger, the vivid hair puts most people off.

“Thank you, Beric.” She smiles, radiant. “You look very handsome.”

“We waiting on Jon?” He shifts in his seat, all self-conscious tension. It has a white stretchy shroud over it, and a very dark red gauzy ribbon tied neatly about the back. All of the chairs are arranged in bisected semi circles, clustered around one of the more ornate water features. Indeed, the setting is not bad whatsoever; Dornish weather proves thankfully predictable, and the day is warm and sunny but not overly so. Comfortable. No one in their fancy gear sweats like a pig, at least. Around them the fountains of the Water Gardens sparkle rainbows, and everything is a riot of dark red, gold, and green.

Someone seems to have imported every fucking rose in the Reach for this. A young girl with scarring on her face - all hail the mighty brotherhood of the fucked up cheek, which has a new member - sneezes surreptitiously into a hankie while a rather feral boy with dark hair rubs her back. A red haired woman, who is an older Sansa and not half as adorable - she has a straight-lipped sharpness to her that makes Clegane think of lemons and not in a Sansa way - fumbles in her ridiculously tiny handbag and hands over a small bottle of water and a packet of antihistamine.

“Jon? No, he’s with his Dad.” Dondarrion indicates with a nod. Rhaegar stands out, not only because he has the most impressive head of silver hair - far better than that of Daenerys Targaryen who plays something vaguely menacing on the harp that reminds him of dragons and war - but he’s resplendent in an amethyst waistcoat and matching trousers. If aliens beamed down to Westeros and asked the congregation to point out the gayest person in the entire place, many fingers would wave at Rhaegar. Even if he is incredibly straight, incredibly in love with his lifelong partner, and incredibly likely to start sobbing the moment the ceremony starts. He’s a man who is perfectly comfortable with his masculinity, to the point where he gets emotional over kittens.

Clegane also gets emotional over small animals, especially puppies, but he’s not going to fucking admit that, is he?

“Who then?”

“Move your fucking massive feet, skirt boy,” hisses a horribly familiar voice.

“Fuck’s sake, Beric! Of all the fuckers you could invite-”

“You look alright, Sansa,” Ramsay bites out. He looks bizarre in something that isn’t leather or a white paper overall. Not normal. More menacing. “Nice to see the two lovebirds being so loved up, isn’t it, Dondarrion?”

To the entire surprise of everyone, apart from Beric and Bolton, Dondarrion swats the creepy little fuck with his hand, on the thigh. “Arse down.”

Clegane leans into Dondarrion, hissing, panicking, because the two men know what’s going on, and shit, that’s a bad fucking thing. “What the fuck? How the hells do you know?”

“Jon told us. About,” and Beric arches a red eyebrow towards the bitch Cat Stark, “her. Ramsay goes through the same with his father, so I’m always his plus one at these events - he was the one invited, by the way, not me. I’m not posh enough to come to these do’s normally. Drives Roose Bolton absolutely spare, thinking his precious heir is having it off with a maimed ex-soldier policeman with a death wish.”

“Shit.” Makes sense. At least they are in similar company. Even if that company is a man who’s been shot in the face and someone who if he wasn’t a mortician would definitely be a serial killer.

“One day we’ll actually fuck, Dondarrion.” Bolton grins, creepily. “To really screw Daddy Dearest’s head up. We’ll film it and accidentally send him a GIF.”

“Of course we will, Ramsay. And pigs will fly, you will find yourself out of corpses, and Roose will leave you alone to be yourself.” His hand squeezes a suspiciously muscular thigh, lingers, before Beric leans over and kisses the mortician on his curling, leering mouth.

Sansa just stares, blinks. “Should we do that?”

“What? Kiss Bolton? Shit, no!”

She sighs, takes matters into her own hands as he tries to recover from the horror of sticking his tongue down the throat of a man who prefers dead people to the living.

Sansa kisses him.

Her lips are soft, like gossamer web; just a brush across the corner of his mouth. The scarred corner of his mouth, because Sansa sits on his right. For a moment Clegane forgets to breathe; she looks deep into his eyes as her lips caress his, and there is nothing. No Dondarrion idly pretend-groping a psychopath. No gay grooms getting married. No Cat Stark and her mission to get Sansa knocked up and married off by the age of twenty five so her fertility isn’t compromised. No nothing, just wide blue eyes the colour of lagoons and ancient pressurised ice and the Dornish skies, and her strawberry gloss flavoured mouth on his.

“Why isn’t Oberyn in a dress?” Bolton bitches. Clegane might hate the fucked-up little psycho, but the running commentary by him and Dondarrion is more amusing than the droning on of the septon.

“He’s probably in full wedding lingerie.”

“Not Willas?”

“Too vanilla. Oberyn’s far more kinky. Willas is too adorable.”

“Have you fucked him? Oberyn, not Willas. Obviously. Tyrell’s just this untouchable force of innocence, even if he fucks Martell. How the hells does he maintain that when he’s screwing Martell probably three times a day?”

“Possibly when I was younger. I’m sure I had sex with a Dornishman when in full camo, and he asked me to keep my boots and helmet on. Probably was Oberyn. Or was it two Dornishmen?”

“You’re such a whore, babe.”

“That sounds so wrong coming from your mouth, Ramsay.”

“The gay Baratheon with the shit beard says it. Thought it might add to the subversion.”

“If you call me babe, Ramsay, I will retaliate.”

“Like fuck you will, you bitch.”

“Sugar plum. Angel wings. Squidgy.”

“...hate you.”

“You love me. You screamed it at Roosey, and therefore it must be true.”

“Shit, Rhaegar’s off, sobbing on his bastard’s shoulder like every wedding we go to. You had him?”

“You seem very interested with whom I have slept.”

“Blackmail. Obviously.”

“Rhaegar is straight, which, given how handsome he is, is a waste. Jon Connington was after him for years.”

“Connington? Done him?”

“Everyone’s had Connington. And the Blackfish. That was an interesting evening for my nineteen year old self.”

“You’re so gay.”

“Yep.”

“I’m not gay. Unless Roose is around. Is he looking?”

“He’s staring at your stepmother with a calculating expression. You are gay, by the way. You have an inordinate fascination with homosexuality which indicates, at some level, you want to have intercourse with a man.”

“I’m not gay!”

“And you’re short.”

“...fuck off!”

“Tiny. Small. Diminutive. Hobbit-like”

“...”

“You’re growling, Frodo.”

“Fuck you!”

“No, my precious, you’re not gay. You just told me.”

Bolton attempts to murder Dondarrion with a Volanti Army Knife. It takes him too long to find an actual blade, so he tries the next best thing and goes in with the tweezers.

The ceremony is surprisingly sweet given Oberyn Martell can cause a commotion in a crowded room just by standing quietly in a corner. Black suits for both him and Willas, who looks a little overwhelmed by it all; Martell’s waistcoat is red and bronze, Tyrell’s the same but green and gold. Oberyn has no tie, and his shirt is unbuttoned to his sternum, which is normal. Neither of them cries, and they keep looking at each other as if they can’t quite believe they are doing this, and to be honest neither can most of the congregation, many of whom have slept with Oberyn.

It is probable that so many people turned up because they wanted to see Martell willingly chain himself to one person, though Clegane has a slight suspicion about that. Seeing things through a detective’s eyes means he is quite intrigued by the grooms’ relationship with a lean man with red and white hair, who moves like a murderer, and was one of the ushers. The strange one who speaks as if he exists in the third person or some shit like that.

People keep mentioning Willas Tyrell’s cheekbones in the same awestruck manner as they talk of Oberyn’s chest hair, which is on full display and gleams manfully in the sunlight, or his seriously magnificent moustache.

Loras keeps kicking Renly, meaningfully, in plain sight of everyone, probably trying to get the bugger to propose. All the Tyrells are present and correct, apart from Mace. To a person they wear black; Sandor isn’t sure if it’s a choice, like him, or they are in mourning. Olenna glowers behind one of those veils that covers her face, and if looks could kill, Martell would be dead on the floor in a pile of bloody limbs. She is the Black Widow of the Reach, and seems seriously peeved at the entire marriage affair. At her side, stiff-backed and jaw set, sits Tywin Lannister. They are, obviously, together. One of the old crone’s lace-gloved hands is tucked into Lannister’s liver-spotted clutches.

The amount of Dornish in attendance is disturbingly high. According to intel - Beric, who is a gossip - many of them are the fruits of Oberyn’s overactive loins. Doran seems thrilled that his brother is happy, as does Martell’s ex, Ellaria. Who is now with Doran. But gave Oberyn daughters. And looks pregnant.

Dorne is fucked up.

Cat Stark steals a tissue from Rhaegar, and dabs at her eyes. She is a notorious wedding sobber, mostly because, Clegane thinks, she feels like she’s missing out. None of her brood are married off. Robb and Theon just can’t be arsed, and spend most of their time outside of their university lecturer jobs stoned and drunk. Jon doesn’t count, and is possibly not interested, though he has an internet friend from beyond the Wall. Redhead, apparently. Arya has her two gentleman friends. Bran, in his wheelchair, seems very intent on staring at a boy with very green eyes and sandy blond hair who looks on another planet. He’s probably been too near Greyjoy and is stoned by osmosis.

“I know pronounce you husband and-” The septon hesitates, rabbit in headlights because he should say wife there, obviously struggling for what to say. Oberyn grins, all white teeth and flashy good looks, the cunt, and whispers something.

“I know pronounce you life partners. You may now kiss your-?”

Another whisper, the Septon arguing back softly, before sighing, losing the war and giving in.

“You may now kiss your love.”

Someone starts wailing, most probably Rhaegar, as Willas is swept into the sort of kiss that they have in romantic films, complete with dipping and soppy expressions and giggling being cut off with lots of enthusiastic tongue. Not really a church sort of kiss, that. More a porn sort of kiss, but Oberyn Martell is a porn sort of man rather than a church type. Finally they surface, Willas swaying and flushed, hands in Martell’s artfully rumpled hair.

As is customary in these events, everyone throws grain at them as the happy couple as they wander, dazed and beaming, down the aisle. The recessional is Pachelbel’s Canon in D , but the Dornish guitar version; Oberyn, exuding smugness, is obviously the guitarist. He’s fucking good, but a bit too hung up on the twiddly bits rather than just letting the music just flow. Perhaps that’s why he’s apparently so good at sex; likes playing with all the parts, rather than just the main event?

Sansa won’t let go of his arm, so Sandor holds the biodegradable paper cone as she flings. Some of the Tyrells, because rice isn’t good enough for them, the miserable twats, half-heartedly throw rose petals. Snobs. Bolton has a wicked snapping right hand and goes for the eyes until he is smacked across the backside by Dondarrion, who looks a little emotional. For some reason that quashes the vicious nature, and Clegane doesn’t want to know how that works.

“I told them I should have officiated,” someone says. Stannis Baratheon marches past, head held high. He wears his Commissioner uniform, polished and brushed within an inch of its life.  “Septons still live in the dark ages in regards to gay marriage.”

“Love, would you want you marrying you?” Next to him Davos pads like he has done for the last umpteen years, just that slightest bit scruffy, a little chaotic like the sea. Good bloke, Davos, even if Selmy arrested him five times during the strikes in the ‘80s. Apparently it was all very relaxed, and plenty of tea was involved. “You’d make them repeat the vows if they aren’t to your exacting standards.”

“At least someone in this mad world maintains decorum.”

“Daft bugger that you are, Stannis.”

“That was lovely.” The arm in his tightens, and Sansa’s eyes are bright and damp. “So romantic, to go against the wishes of his family, Sandor. Only Margaery really supports it, and Loras is horribly jealous since he’s been with Renly so long.”

Who’d think shagging Oberyn Martell could give a man a spine with which to stand up for himself? Power of the cock compels Willas, obviously.

“Is that Blackwater?” Nodding towards the Tyrell girl who seems very enraptured by a tuxedo-clad man who looks suspiciously like their MI5 contact. Or, at least, as much as can be seen as they seem to be eating each other.

“The Tyrells don’t like that, either. Or Renly. Olenna is quite picky, I think?”

Radiance, thy name is Sansa. Shit, He’s going poetic at her. Clegane clears his throat, squares his shoulders. It has been a nice wedding, as these things go. Usual ones he attends involve mass brawls, lots of drunk people who bring weapons because of the aforementioned fighting, and the bride shagging the best man/men/father of the groom whilst the groom himself gets paralytic and sobs about the mythical ‘girl who got away’. Or married the groom’s brother, to really rub it in.

Their little reverie is broken by the softest of coughs.

“Sansa?” A woman’s voice, Riverlands inflection.

Sansa’s eyes grow huge. Behind her, for Sansa is facing him, Cat and Ned Stark stand patiently. As do the rest of the Starks. And their various hangers on. And Rhaegar, who looks sympathetic, most probably because Snow, who can’t keep his cocksucking fucking pretty gob shut, tells Daddy everything.

“Popcorn?” he hears Bolton whisper in Dondarrion’s ear, or at least as near five foot seven can get to six feet five.

“Don’t be a bitch, Gollum.” Beric is flying with his Lord of the Rings comparisons. Thankfully he manhandles the mortician away by the scruff of his neck, getting in a sneaky snog when Roose Bolton lurks past, fizzing with disgust.

Still creepy as fuck, those two.

“This must be Sandor?”

Cat Stark is Sansa, and yet not. Shorter, stouter after bearing five children, her hair more copper than the true rich auburn of Sansa’s. A handsome woman, sure, but not beautiful. She has a certain strong-jawed determination that sets Clegane’s teeth on edge, a direct blue gaze that is possibly intimidating because he is, in her head, deflowering her beloved precious and overall good daughter on a nightly basis.

If only.

“Mother, Father. This is Sandor, yes. My boyfriend.” She emphasises that, squeezes his arm in hers.

Ned Stark manages a smile, and Clegane is painfully aware of what the family before him sees. Huge, scarred, sullen, tattooed, and almost wilfully not wearing acceptable clothing. Hulking. Brutish. Dog-like. Maimed. Twisted. Burned. He swallows, staring at Catelyn and then Ned, and the fear rises.

When he was small, and Gregor decided that he should melt, Sandor developed a not unexpected hatred of fire. Even now it sets him on edge. Not that he sees it much, in this age of electricity, technology, and a dearth of open fires, but bonfires still occur. Forest fires. Parts of King’s Landing burning randomly or when that bloody Thoros gets antsy and sets the Temple of R’hllor alight again in whatever fire priest rapture takes him. Even just seeing decimation by flames on the TV sends a sick horror into his gut and chest, a coldness at odds with the destructive heat. This is a fear that has haunted him for almost thirty years.

That is nothing - nothing - compared to being sized up by Cat Stark.

“It is nice to meet you,” the woman says, carefully, and Sansa’s arm tightens even more, bless the girl. The little bird protects him, reminds him that she’s there, for him, like he is for her.

“And you, Mrs. Stark. Mr. Stark.”

“Shall we go and see the fountains, Sansa?” Catelyn’s tone is one that cannot be disobeyed. “I’m sure that Ned and the others will look after Sandor for you.” The unmentioned although he looks like he can look after himself, the enormous brute, remains unsaid.

She gives him a piteous look, but does as she is told without question. Clegane hates that. No wonder Sansa moved to King’s Landing if this is the effect her parent has on her; reducing her from an almost confident woman in her early mid twenties to a little girl with a glare. Of course Cat loves her, and that is obvious to see, but for fuck’s sake, woman, give her some breathing space. Give her that life she tries to live.

“I won’t be long.”

He bends over, brushes her lips with his own. The sweetness of strawberry still lingers, and this time Clegane finds his eyes closed, breath tightening. “Be careful, little bird.”

“I will.”

Ned Stark is a mild sort of man, with an honourable selflessness and a warm northern accent. Sandor finds himself trying to get the man to say bastard, just because of the way he pronounces it.

“Policeman, aye?”

“Detective Inspector in the same department Sansa works.”

They lapse into companionable silence, elbows on a balustrade, and both he and Ned watch Cat and Sansa across the other side of the fountains.

“She’s a good woman, my Cat, but a bit protective. What happened with that bastard,” and Sandor rejoices, “Joffrey shook her.”

“It happened to Sansa,” Clegane emphasises, “and she’s fucking strong.”

“You look after her?” It is the most gentle interrogation he has ever undergone.

“Yeah. S’what I’m here for.”

“Tisn’t me you got to impress, lad. It’s the missus. Sansa’s her favourite, the one most like her. The one that doesn’t break her heart. She loves them all, but Sansa’s special, aye?”

“She is that.”

“People who matter say you’re a good lad. Selmy. Stannis Baratheon, for all his sins. They say you’re rough, but that’s nothing if you’re looking after my girl. Just don’t hurt her. She’s strong, bloody strong, more than Cat or me give her credit for, but I prefer if she doesn’t have to show it. She’s the North, she is.” The more he talks with honourable Ned Stark, who believes that Sansa and he are in this relationship for real, the more conflicted Clegane feels. He’s lying to a good man, who cares for his daughter, for something Ned’s wife caused. If this were different, he could even see himself being friends with the quietly-spoken northerner who seems unlike any other posh person he’s ever met. Down-to-earth and slightly abashed at all this wedding shit, a bit out of place like Clegane himself.

“She just needs to decide shit for herself, not get pushed into decisions. Reason I think she likes me is because I’m an alright bloke. I’m not good looking, but I’m safe. I keep her safe. Look out for her. Make sure she’s got lemon cakes.”

“She went through bastard lemon cakes,” and there’s another internal cheer from Sandor, “like nothing else when she were little. She always thought she were going to be Queen of somewhere, and when Joffrey came along, she was impressed. Good looking, rich, powerful, good family. But it isn’t that what matters. It’s being a good man that is the important thing. Aye, I wouldn’t have chosen you for her, Sandor. You’re too bloody old, and that’s a scar you got there, and by the Gods you’re an enormous tall bastard,” strike three, ”but you’re good with her. She looks at you like she proper cares for you, and that’s something. All I want is my girl to be happy and loved.”

“I love her.” Clegane’s never told anyone that before, and it is painfully, achingly, heartrendingly true.

“Good lad. Come and have a drink. We’ll get the girls when they come in.

“Psst, kiltman!”

He pauses, mid piss, a lean stoned Greyjoy lounging against the bathroom wall. The suit he wears is obviously custom, and very slim fit. Theon looks like one of those gaunt cheekboned models in high class men’s fashion magazines - the type that you can’t work out whether they’re ugly, quirky, or what Loras Tyrell would refer to as ‘insanely hot,’ or all three at the same time. “What?”

“You traditional under there, dude?”

He fixes Theon with a black-eyed stare, the one that seems to terrify suspects into admitting anything. It is ineffectual to the extreme.

“Fuck off.”

“Want any shit? I’ve, like, got good stuff.”

He shakes off, tucks himself away in the manner that means Theon is thwarted in his desire to see if Sandor wears pants or not under his kilt.

“Piss off. I don’t want to arrest you for dealing at a wedding.”

Theon turns paler than ever. “Shit. Fuck. Copper.”

“Yeah. Copper. The Commissioner for the Met is here, you fucking doughnut. Now take your weed, and go and get rid of it. Smoke it all with Robb Stark or something. Don’t give a fuck. Just don’t deal in this wedding because if I catch you again, Greyjoy, you’ll have not just me, but some other police on your bony arse. Some of us aren’t so fucking nice as me.” He almost adds a capisce at the end because Sandor feels quite like Don Vito for a moment there, and he always loves growing his Godfather fantasies. It is probably due to being a beacon of law and order that he is fascinated with the Essosi Mafia. He has a thing for organisations with guns, concrete boots, and a weird sort of honour.

“Uh. Yeah. Quick question, man. Who’s the short guy with the eyes?”

“That fucking narrows it down. Fuck’s sake.”

“Muscular. Looks, I dunno, murderous. Hot.” Oh. Shit.

“Bolton. He’s a cunt. Aren’t you fucking Robb Stark or some shit?”

Theon’s expression sparkles and he saunters away with a wink and a whistle.

It would be nice to warn Bolton of impending Greyjoy-fuelled doom.

Clegane, however, isn’t a nice man. Sometimes he wants to watch morticians burn. Especially ones that write in red pen and send him candid photographs of things he finds in dead people for shits and giggles.

Especially dildos. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear Bolton is planting them on corpses, just to see what’ll happen when the police - him, Dondarrion, and Snow, because of course Selmy delegates - have to tell the families of the deceased.

“You alright?”

Sansa clings to his arm, and he has kissed her a third time. This one lingered, tenderly, because she looks upset. Her lips aren’t sweet, but salt, and those blue eyes tearfully red-rimmed.

“I will be fine.”

“You don’t look fucking fine, girl.” She looks distraught. It makes Sandor want to wreck things. Nothing should make her pretty mouth tug downwards at the corners, turn her eyebrows straight and woeful, cause her eyes a soreness that must sting. Part of him wants to march right up to Cat Stark and give the woman a piece of his mind, but that’d make things even worse.

“Mother said things, and we had an argument. She said that you weren’t. Weren’t.” For a moment her anger is righteous and blazing. “She said you weren’t good enough! I pointed out she thought Joffrey was a nice boy. We got rather agitated after that, and now she’s not speaking to me.”

“Fuck, Sansa.” Clegane wraps the girl into a tight embrace because it is the right thing to do. It isn’t planned, unlike the kisses. It isn’t stage managed for the ‘good’ of her family. The reaction is purely organic, made of wanting to protect and reassure and let Sansa know that she isn’t alone.

She’s got Clegane. Even if this is all play, and after tomorrow they’ll be heading back to King’s Landing, and in a month or two he and Sansa will ‘break up’ having achieved what needed to be done. It aches, already, the thought of not being with her, even if this is fake. Even if this is just to get her Mum off her back, for a little while. Even if Sandor loves her and she doesn’t love him back. All of this is genuine to him, from first to last, and just smelling her citrus-y hair and feeling her slim arms tighten around his waist makes this terrible heavy weariness loom over Clegane’s head. This. Is not real.

He grits his teeth, takes a breath, mans the fuck up.

“D’you need to wash your face or anything?”

Sansa manages a watery smile. “My make up will come off. The mascara is waterproof, but the rest of it’d just go.”

“You look pretty whatever you’ve got on your face.”

Her hands flatten on the small of his back, as he stares hopefully reassuringly into her wide damp eyes, before Sansa buries her cheek into his jacket. It leaves a slight powdery smear, and a warmth across Clegane’s belly.

“Need a hankie?”

“I’ve not got a tissue or anything.”

Detective Inspector Clegane isn’t the sort to carry bits of cloth on which to wipe his nose. Sandor Clegane is though, just in case Sansa needed something for her eyes if she got emotional over the wedding, and he fishes the crumpled piece of linen from his sporran. It means rummaging over his crotch, and mumbling apologies as his hand runs down the length of her torso, and it could look seriously dodgy if anyone sees, but Clegane pushes the handkerchief into Sansa’s hand. The fabric is, as everything else in his wardrobe, from socks and pants to t-shirts and boots, black.

“It’s not ironed, but-”

“Thank you.”

“Keep it, if you need.”

Sansa nods, that soft wistful smile a little stronger now, a little less limp like a dead fish. Not that she is anything like a fish, but...eh. Fuck it.

“You’re so kind to me.”

Due to the fact the event involves Oberyn Martell, this is not a normal sit-down wedding breakfast sort of thing. It is obvious that their Dornish host is in this to try and get Olenna Tyrell to have a heart attack at the lack of decorum and tradition because he, like everyone else apart from certain Tyrells and for some reason Tywin Lannister, is not fond of his new grandmother-in-law.

Understatement of the fucking year.

There is a buffet, and copious amounts of Arbour Gold and Dornish wine; no paid bar, everything is laid on. In one corner of a courtyard a hog drips on a spit, much to the fascination of various small children, most of whom have never seen a dead boar let alone one impaled over a great big pit of flaming charcoal. Another has a table laden with many desserts, for Willas adores sweet things. His influence is obvious in the treacle tarts, and fluffy syllabub laden with sugared edible flowers, and an array of lemon puddings and cakes that brings Sansa’s smile back in HD.

Sandor steps over the rope keeping everyone from charging headlong towards the food, stomps across to the sweets, takes a chunk of lemon cake even as catering staff panic because the food isn’t available yet but who’d have the bollocks to stop a man on a mission, and brings it back as a prize.

“Eat it. You need the sugar.”

“I asked them for a beer for you. Swap?” The pint in her hand seems huge, and black, and welcoming above everything.

“Bloody hell, little bird. You know me.”

“I’m lemons, you’re hops. Thank you. Oh, and you brought a fork.”

Part of Clegane wishes he hadn’t. Part of him wants to watch Sansa Stark lick her sticky fingers clean, suck on finger pads with a delighted, dazed expression.

She takes a delicate forkful, slips it between lips that should be on his, and considers.

“No. It isn’t like the ones you bring to work. It’s very nice, but not like yours. Yours are the best.”

If possible, Clegane falls in love with her a little bit more.

“I can’t quite believe it.” Willas shakes his head, curls dancing. He looks about twelve when he grins, all bashful and nervous and excited in turn. “Me. Married. To Oberyn. Isn’t that mad? I’m just. Wow. Oh Gods! I’m a married man. Look, I’m wearing a ring, and we had them engraved, and it’s so mad, Sansa! I can’t believe it!”

“You look so happy, Willas.” She squeezes the groom’s arm, expression tender.

Clegane had no idea that Tyrell and Sansa had a little thing about eight years before. She was sixteen, Willas...wasn’t. Cat Stark and Olenna have a lot to answer for, pushing the two together. They look good, sure, with her beauty and colouring and his elegant good looks, but they are almost brother and sister in manner. Unsuited, even if they’d have gorgeous well-bred babies and both matriarchs seem obsessed with that. Apparently, with Robb being away in university, and Bran and Rickon being younger, and Arya being Arya, there was a dearth of those who understood Sansa, and she gravitated to chatting with Willas, who may be a lot older than her - not as much as you, Hound , his subconscious reminds him - but has a certain bookish naivete from being treated as an invalid by his family for much of his life.

Sansa was the first person Willas came out to. It’s that sort of closeness.

“I am. I really am.”

“I’m so happy for you!”

Willas blushes. “I hope we have enough lemon cake for you. I had them bake it especially for you, you see? I’ve got posset, as well. There’s pudding. Will you run out of it? I can ask them to make more?” He flails, gently.

“You’re too sweet,” she laughs, kissing his cheek. When she talks to Willas, her eyes are warm and loving, and she seems relaxed in the man’s presence. If he wasn’t as gay as a bag full of rainbow glittered unicorns Clegane might have punched him. It would, however, be like beating up a puppy. He can’t be jealous of a girl with her gay friend, not when Sansa needs someone who she doesn’t associate with what happened to her. He supposes, like himself, Willas is a safe person. He’s always been there, always supported from afar, always been a decent sort of bloke.

“Ah, he is here. Willas, you must not run away from your husband when he is facing your grandmother. Most naughty of you.” The voice is low, and purring, and richly tinted Dornish. “Especially with such pretty company. Sansa, you are beautiful. This must be the enigmatic Sandor, I presume?”

Oberyn has lost the jacket, and is even more obviously half-shirtless. He exudes the sort of sensuality that should put Clegane on edge, but he does it in an honest devil-may-care manner that isn’t intimidating. Martell is unashamed of shagging around, of enjoying sex, of eyeing Sandor’s muscled calves in his black socks and waxed boots. He is as he is, just as Clegane is, and Willas, and Sansa.

An arm wraps around Tyrell’s waist, that smiling mouth burying into the man’s pale nape.

“Alright?” Clegane nods a greeting.

Martell’s gaze slides, like a razor, assessing the scars, the height, the sheer enormousness of Clegane, though it feels quite clinical and not judgmental. Curious, perhaps. “I must say this before we continue, for my sweet boy will not - if you hurt our little Sansa, I shall personally slaughter you, Clegane. She who is my husband’s friend is afforded the protection of my family. I am fond of her.”

“Sandor will never hurt me, Oberyn. You don’t have to give him the talk.

Dark velvet eyes scan her face, analysing, before Oberyn runs a long calloused finger across her cheek. Punching ends up being an option, because fuck people touching Sansa. She doesn’t seem to mind though, and that’s a good thing. She’d normally try and avoid touch, so perhaps Martell isn’t a cunt. “You are most fond of him, yes?”

“He is the best person I’ve ever known.”

“Even better than my Willas?” Archly, though he grins, wide and white and disarming. “What a man this one must be. So tall, and strong, and fiercely scarred, yet he brings you lemon cake before the buffet is open and risks the wrath of my pastry chef.”

“She needed cake,” Clegane says.

“Sansa always needs cake.” Willas looks very fond. “Do you want us to keep your mother away for a little while? I can go and talk to her about, oh, I don’t know. Weddings and things?”

“Ah, taking one for the team? You should be taking one from me.” The arm about Willas’ lean waist shifts, fingers trailing. “Why do you not let me take you away to the bedroom and allow me to ravish you, husband of mine? Why must we be sociable when it is our day, and I wish to take you?”

“Because people came all this way, and have been terribly kind with presents, and Grandmother would go absolutely crazy if-”

Both men pause, grin; Willas warm and perky, Oberyn darker, lustier.

“Maybe we could hide in the Water Gardens for a few minutes, and kiss?”

”Just kiss? Perhaps I shall remind you of my powers of persuasion, my speed of movement, the very suction power of my-”

Sansa claps her hand across her mouth, alight and amused.

“The Water Gardens are a lovely place to hide. Just in case you need some privacy, or your mother is like my Grandmother and, well, it can be quite awful, can’t it, when they get upset?” Willas dreamily tangles his fingers into Oberyn’s, and his knuckles are kissed. Licked, lasciviously, by a randy Martell. Not that there is any other type, of course. Several of the Dornish clan are steaming drunk and well into getting off with various visitors. Bronn and Margaery disappeared with a rather masculine looking woman with tattoos up her arms even before the buffet opened. Jon Snow has the unfortunate ability to attract very good-looking women who trail after him like puppies, even if he mentions his Wilding loudly, shakily, and desperately.

“If we don’t see you later, Sansa, have fun. Ever so nice to meet you finally, Sandor. Super putting a face to the name and what Sansa’s told us about you”

As Willas is dragged away by Martell, determination in every line of Oberyn’s body, he wonders what that was about. Name to face, and talking about him? To the point where the two men who seem incredibly fond of Sansa seem to welcome him?

What the fuck?

Chapter Text

The policemen always end up in the same corner - the one near the bar. Selmy pops by, arm-in-arm with his partner, Ashara, who is the sister of Arthur the Gun Nut in the firearms division. She is rather gorgeous in a delicate older woman sort of way, in what is apparently called a pants suit in very dark purple, her hair knotted elegantly at the back of her head. Selmy looks smug as fuck to be with her, but they both seem to worship the ground the other walks on. It’s nice to see the geriatric bastard smiling, rather than heroically and nobly stressed about work.

Dondarrion, who knows all sorts of shit, lets slip that Ned Stark and Ashara had a Thing once, then he apologises to Sansa about waving dirty linen. She shakes her head, fascinated, chin resting on her palm as she asks more about the woman who her Dad was in love with once.

Jon Snow hides behind them, wild-eyed, desperately texting his Wildling.

“Got a picture, Jon?” Beric, stretched out, is about nine feet tall with those legs, which keep getting in the way. Every so often Bolton stalks over - he stalks everywhere, no walking for him since it is not intimidating enough - and settles on a well built thigh. It is always, they all know, when Roose goes to the bar to fill up on mineral water and get a gin and tonic for Mrs. Bolton.

“Is she nice, your stepmother?” Sansa ventures one time Ramsay slumps in the chair no one touches because he has claimed it. He’s lost his tie and jacket, has rolled his sleeves up, and, fuck it, he does look like a hobbit in his waistcoat. He’s even got a watch on a chain, and seems to know how to wear it correctly.

Bolton is a posh cunt. Hilarious.

“She’s a fat bitch.” He rolls his shoulders, pale eyes sharp and hating as always. Bolton really is a bothersome little shit. “She sends me money. Food. It’s almost like she wants me to like her, which is suspicious as fuck.”

“Maybe, Ramsay, because she’s actually a really nice person?” Beric shakes his head, closes his eyes, humming along to music.

“Suspicious,” he repeats, before he catches sight of his father and climbs atop Dondarrion’s torso, curling sneeringly into the man’s chest. Idly, he is cuddled up, but every part of him seethes.

“Wish she’d send me her biscuits. Gods, those are amazing biscuits. You should share them with me more often.” It is odd how Dondarrion doesn’t seem to care that he’s huddled up with a man who says the living are boring and the dead are where the fun is at. He seems quite comfortable, a hand resting on Ramsay’s hip, breathing into the dark slightly gelled hair.

A phone is waved in front of the two men’s face, and as one both sets of eyebrows raise.

“I wasn’t expecting your Wilding to be so…” Beric searches, as he is, in essence, quite diplomatic. “Redhaired?

“Ginger,” Bolton adds, helpfully.

“Ramsay-” Dondarrion looks resigned to his fate.

“Soulless.” Almost cheerfully, but with a dagger edge of malice. “No wonder you gingers don’t die. It’s why you’re still alive, bitch. Your lack of soul means you’re immortal.”

“She’s a policeman, too.” Jon scratches at his face, deflecting the rampant redheaded hate. If he wasn’t so pale and bloodless, he would be blushing. He’s a bit vampiric, is Snow. “Police dog handler. I asked about Ghost because he was having separation anxiety, and we got talking. We’re going hiking Beyond the Wall at some point.”

“Everyone’s fucking gay, apart from me and Snow.”

“Ramsay, you’re cuddling a man who you share saliva with on a regular basis,” Beric points out, his yellowy eyes glittering with a certain amusement. If it was anyone else, they’d not mention that, but Dondarrion has a death wish. No wonder he almost dies so often. “You walk around wearing so much leather that you’re basically a gay convention. I’ve been to leather bars that would think you a little overdressed. You have a fascination with homosexual sex. You think everyone else is gay, and you’re the only straight one in the village. Ramsay, I think the lady doth protest too much.”

The Volanti Army Knife makes another appearance, and this time, once the requisite five minute search for the blade is up, Dondarrion is attacked with the thing used to get the stones out of horses’ hooves.

Dancing. There is a shitload of dancing. The DJ keeps the music on the slightly avant garde side of pretentious, cut with pure disco and ‘80s cheese, but takes requests. He’s not played any Iron Maiden yet. Unforgiveable, since Clegane asked about forty minutes before.

Couple and groups knot and twine upon the dance floor. No coloured lights here, because that is far too mainstream. Blacklight, and lots of accidental flashes of white bra straps, and the most annoying strobe lighting known to man when appropriate. Dornish techno is an experience he wishes to forget. Right now. From his vantage point, when his head isn’t being buzzed and tormented by those fucking flickering lights, Clegane just watches. He likes this; he gets to know movements, and people, and how they tick. How they think. The few times that Detective Inspector Clegane has been undercover, because the rest of the office is too clean cut to pass as someone criminal, it’s saved his life.

Some people shouldn’t be allowed to dance.

Everything takes a turn for the eerie when Daenerys takes to the floor, white gown - she’s that sort of woman, making everything about her, like she’s the queen of fucking Westeros or something - and silvery hair glowing brilliantly with the blacklight. Her girlfriend, who is her antithesis in colouring, and clad in layers and layers of black chiffon that expose her belly with that glitteringly ornate dragon-shaped navel piercing, follows her, pulling the harpist into a what seems in his eyes a passable Dothraki paso doble . Not that Clegane has any idea about ballroom dancing. It looks fussy, and unnecessarily dramatic, and all a bit pretentious.

Suits this wedding, really.

Ned Stark and Cat waltz past, looking vaguely traumatised, as a crowd gathers.

Once the song, some mournful up-to-the-minute caterwaul with yodeling or some sort of desert-based shit, is thankfully over, the dance floor fills up once more as the DJ, knowing the audience, puts on It’s Raining Men .

Hallefuckinglujah. No more shit techno.

The girlfriend wafts past to the bar before pausing, eyes fixed on Clegane. She is small, and dark haired, with brilliant black eyes. Dothraki women tend to be tough, capable, and utterly terrifying. They are, after all, the Wildlings of Essos, just with a governmentally and culturally protected taste for eating the still beating hearts of horses, and rather less clothing.

“You dance with your girlfriend?” She looks about the table, calculating, steals someone’s abandoned glass of champagne. 

“No.”

“You must. You good together. You make very handsome couple. Striking, that is word, yes?” She grins, and is suddenly her high-boned stern face softens and she is the second prettiest girl in the room after Sansa; outshining her silver-haired Targaryen harp molester. “Most striking with hair, and face. Face of brave man - in Vaes Dothrak, you be hailed as hero warrior. Here they most fools with seeing face and not prowess. Drogo, who is brother, he see you as brother also in blood and pain.”

“...right.”

“He fight MMA. You maybe fight MMA? You big man, you make much hurt for enemy. Showered with gold and glory. Make very big name for big Hound of man?”

“I’m a fucking policeman, not a fucking ninja,” he points out, lost in the thickness of Irri’s accent and her bizarre need for Clegane to hit things. Not that he minds that, but, shit, he’s not supposed to enjoy punching. Selmy says. “Are you seriously here to recruit people to some fucking martial art fighting ring? Has anyone said yes?”

Clegane has no idea why he’s being made small talk at, by someone with such an impenetrable grasp of the Common Tongue. Others tend to avoid him, because of his face, his expression, his general demeanour of enormousness. Perhaps living with the Dothraki, who are enormous, militant, and battered because of their propensity to wage war, means that Irri isn’t intimidated by him?  

He’s not sure whether to be irritated or slightly flattered.

The day just keeps getting weirder.

“Obara. A fine woman. Very tall. Thighs that crush skull of foolish men.” Another of those brilliantly white grins, very wide and disarming. “I go now, and find more for Drogo. Westerosi men, bred so tall these days. It is good hunting ground for fighting warriors.” Irri darts forward, puts her stolen glass on the table, and disappears into the throng. Her girlfriend, violet eyes both amused and apologetic, mouths a ‘sorry.’

Clegane considers his pint, necks, it, and, in a fit of desperation, downs Dondarrion’s bottle of IPA as well.

Maybe he’ll write Gregor’s number down for Irri. He’s due out of Harrenhal in twenty years. Legalised battery seems right up his brother’s alley.

“Sandor?”

“Yeah, little bird?” He’s had a good few drinks, and everything is pleasantly fuzzy around the edges. Daenerys brought him one over to apologise for Irri’s approach; apparently she’s approaching every man over six foot two, and every woman over five ten, and trying to get them to join the Dothraki MMA circuit. According to Jon Snow, who keeps hiding behind Clegane safely away from the massed and lustful ranks of the Daughters of Oberyn Martell, Bolton is pissed off he’s not been asked, and keeps snarling about heightism.

“Will you dance with me?”

Fuck. He’s not quite drunk enough for that. The most Clegane dances is at metal gigs, and that’s more stamping menacingly and whirling his head in time to the music. The last time he danced with a woman, an actual woman, is. Well. Never.

“I’m shit, Sansa.”

“I am, as well,” and he knows she’s lying. Sansa is perfect at everything. She’s all legs, and elegance, and slinky cat-like movements. Like a waterfall. “Just one song?”

“Just don’t want to break your foot or anything.”

“You won’t.” Her hand slips into his, breaking that fear of handholding she’s cultivated, but then she’s been at the prosecco. Sansa’s fingers are warm against his own clammy ones, and they tighten as she tugs lightly at Clegane.

The first dance, the cutting of the cake; all is done. Oberyn and Willas came back, the former smirking and the latter picking pieces of foliage from his hair, and everything rattled off quickly - much to the horror of Olenna Tyrell who obviously hates the lack of pomp and circumstance surrounding the wedding - before stealing a bottle or two of wine and setting up camp at one of the more secluded tables.

They are drunk, Willas on Oberyn’s knee, and they won’t stop snogging for man nor money. It has been approximately seventeen minutes since they surfaced to breathe, and Martell lost his shirt somewhere ages before. Rickon Stark wears it as a headband like Rambo as he and Shireen chatter excitedly about the various things that are incredibly important to fourteen year olds. Ponies and weed, probably.

Sighing, Clegane gives in. He always does. He’d not be in this mess if he’d said no to the scheme that means he has to touch, kiss, adore, romance Sansa in front of the whole Stark clan, his fellow police staff, and various people who seem to be invested in their ‘relationship.’ Davos Seaworth told them he was really bloody happy for them, and that they were good people who deserved a nice thing like that. Bronn threw the thumbs up, smug bastard, before Oberyn’s eldest daughter and Margaery Tyrell dragged him off, laughing. The Prime Minister - who’d have thought he’d turn up? - kissed them both, told them they were utterly delicious, and that perhaps they’d be interested in fronting a Met poster campaign to lure more recruits into the Force? He put his spin doctor’s card into Sansa’s hand, told them that Tyrion would be more than pleased to set that up, then wafted away to schmooze Stannis, much to Baratheon’s horror.

Right. Dancing. He can do this. He’s a policeman. He’s strong. He’s-

The music changes, softening, more romantic, and Clegane almost flees.

It is a difficult beat, rather too slow for actual movement, so they end up swaying hip to hip, chest to face, Sansa’s head resting against Clegane’s tense shoulder. He isn’t sure where to put his hands, so lays them lightly over the curve of her spine, chastely above her arse, touching the smoothness of her soft grey dress. Of course the lighting dips to suit the mood. Of course people watch. Every eyeball on them sears lasers, and he starts to sweat, embarrassingly, closing his eyes to just try and get through this, to ground himself.

In another time, in another galaxy, in another situation, this would be lovely. Sansa can move, she really can, and Clegane follows her lead even if they are just shifting their weights from foot to foot.

She whispers against his chest; he can feel it through his shirt - the jacket is long since abandoned, and he’s rolled his sleeves up, unlaced the linen ghillie with the traditional fastenings to his collarbone as it is a warm muggy evening. It takes him a moment to realise she’s singing along, softly, as sweet and lovely as always.

“ First time ever I saw your face,

I thought the sun rose in your eyes .”

This Roberta Flack song is now their song. Not that it is, but it really is.

It seems hours, and seconds, and his face is buried against her soft red hair, and she’s warm and curved in his arms. Too long. Not long enough. Slowly the music drifts away, and Clegane realises that they’re still swaying.

It is perfectly simple to kiss her. Kiss Sansa. Run his fingers through her long beautiful hair. Cradle the back of her head, supporting her as she kisses back as if she is the one who has been drinking thick black ale to the point where the world is slightly fluffy.

She sighs, and Clegane can’t help deepen the kiss, tongue slipping between her parted lips. She tastes, as he always thought, of lemon. Lemon, and tart fizzy white wine, and something very Sansa. For a moment she doesn’t respond, and he swears, terrified, in his head - fucked up, he’s fucked up. Shit. It’s all wrong, and he’s screwed up, and-

There. A tentative caress of her own tongue against his, almost shy. A delicate touch of the very tip to his, and her fingers tighten on the muscle of his back. All slow, and sweet, and gentle. Oh so careful, by them both. He wonders if Sansa knows he’s not kissed that many, and, shit, is he bad at this? Clegane just goes with what he knows, with what feels right - but it all does, even when her teeth scrape slightly, and she breaths into his mouth. Even when he wraps his arm tighter around her waist and pulls her so very close, so very flush against his body. They are almost as one, melding, from lips to toes.

Sansa whimpers.

It almost makes him pull back, horrified, but when he peeks through his eyelashes - when did he close his eyes? Shit. But when he takes a tiny look, her expression is calm, and soft, and something he doesn’t understand. Warm, definitely. Sansa’s pretty eyes shine, and when she sees Clegane is watching her, her mouth smiles against his.

It’s almost like she’s enjoying this.

The need to breathe overcomes, and he pulls back, gasping for air.

Kissing makes Sansa’s lips redder, and plush, and he wants to kiss her again.

Fuck. No. He wants to scoop her in his arms, run to their bedroom with the one bed, and make love to her. Not that Clegane’s ever made love to anyone. Sex, sure. That’s easy. In, out, thanks for that, dispose of condom. All simple, and quick, and unemotional. Like taking a piss. Lovemaking is a frightening concept. It indicates feelings.

For Sansa? Fuck, he’s in love with the woman. He’d sacrifice himself for her, even if the emotions come and bite him on the arse. He’d take a bullet for her. He’d sell his soul for her. Hells, he’d even be nice to Cat Stark for her.

She watches him, as lovely as always, and there is nothing in the room but her. Just Sansa.

Then?

Then he remembers that they only have one bed.

Fuck.

Clegane is doomed.

“Right. How’re we doing this?”

Sansa wears pyjamas, the sort with a t-shirt and leggings in a comfy soft cotton. There are tiny anime cats all over the shirt. Her hair gleams in pigtails, because apparently it is so long that she sometimes garottes herself with it and therefore it gets tied up, and she’s removed every scrap of make up. In his humble opinion, which doesn’t really matter, Clegane thinks she looks prettier than she’s ever done in the whole time he’s known her. She looks bright and clean, and relaxed.

Adorable.

He made the comment about them being the ‘cat’s pyjamas,’ and she laughed at the awfulness of the joke before clambering onto the vast king size four poster bed, tucking her pale bare feet under her.

“Which side do you normally sleep?”

“In the fucking middle,” he admits.

“I’ll have the side I’m sitting on, then.”

“Lucky it’s a massive bed.” For some reason her expression seems to tighten, and he kicks himself. “Not that you’re going to be shit to sleep with. Just that I’m massive, you’re tall. We need the room to fit us both in with some to spare.”

“Oh. Of course. It is lucky. I’d hate to see you try and sleep on the settee, like you wanted to.”

“Can still take the floor.”

“No you won’t, Sandor.” Her petulance makes him ache. “We’ll be fine.”

Apart from knowing he’ll wake up with a raging erection. Apart from the fact he normally sleeps naked, and is hating the jogging bottoms he’s in. Apart from the fact that he’s too warm to wear a t-shirt because Dorne conspires to make it muggy and sticky at night when the breeze doesn’t come from the Water Gardens into their pretty room. Apart from wanting to just wrap himself around her like a fucking idiot and tell Sansa that she is the most beautiful woman he’s ever met, and will she go out with him properly?

Because, after all, this isn’t real. After they wake up tomorrow, and they go back to King’s Landing, that’s it. It’s over. No more him and Sansa. No more almost believing they are a couple. No more arm-in-arm, or kissing, or her straightening his collar, or trying to stop her hair from attacking them both by loaning her his hair tie.

None of it. Nothing.

“Right. Yeah. Okay.”

Detective Inspector Clegane has never slept in a bed with another person, or at least, not since he was a kid. He’s not at all sure what’ll happen when he falls asleep.

“I normally read before I go to sleep-”

“That’s fine, little bird.”

“If you’re sure.” She snags a book from her bedside table, turns, looks at him. “Thank you, Sandor. For everything. It’s been a lovely day.”

“No problem.”

The lips on his forehead are gentle, and like a blessing, and Clegane manages to control his urge to tangle himself around Sansa’s slim body and aggressively cuddle her.

“Sleep tight.”

There is hair in his mouth. It isn’t his.

Clegane blinks, reaches up, extracts long copper strands from his tongue.

Pauses.

Freezes.

Sansa sleeps, head pillowed on his chest, her hand lying over his right nipple, her hair fucking everywhere as it escapes from her hair bobbles. The rest of her tucks into his side, and, fuck. Fuck. This is seriously bad. One of her long thighs curls over his leg, like he is her full-sized human body pillow.

The time, he manages to see, squirming very carefully as not to disturb her, is 5.21am. Dawn in Dorne, the room starting to brighten, and he’s got the most beautiful woman in existence snuggled into his chest.

Clegane stares at the ceiling, mute and corpse-still, and tries to remember how to breathe.

“Mmm...S’ndor?” Stirring against him, her fingers flexing.

“What’s up, little bird?” Her voice is so tiny, and so sleepy. How can she be like that, all limp and soft, when she’s like this? Why isn’t Sansa panicking about their proximity? Thank fuck he’s not got the usual morning hard on yet.

“Be m’boyfr’d?”

“...go back to sleep, Sansa. It’s too bloody early for this.”

“Mmm. Kay.”

A nuzzle. She fucking nuzzles him, over hair and muscle and the random scars. Over his bloody nipple.

He doesn’t go back to sleep. Of course he doesn’t. Clegane is made of flesh and blood, and the words keep twisting in his head.

Be my boyfriend.

Dondarrion looks amused as he sips at his cup of tea. Considering the amount the ginger bastard can drink, he never gets hangovers. Office legend suggests that his head injuries mean the part of his brain that makes them happen got destroyed, but Clegane is convinced it’s because the man drinks so much booze that he’s pretty much built up the tolerance of a seventy year old alcoholic with a liver made of Valyrian steel.

“What?” Dropping into the seat next to his fellow DI.

“Where’s Sansa?”

“Nabbed by the Martell-Tyrells or whatever the fuck they’ll call themselves. Something to do with something gay, probably.”

Dondarrion tops up his tea, adds a sugar lump. It’s a posh place when they’ve got sugar lumps, the artisanal style ones, that aren’t perfectly square.

“Got to say, Sandor, you’re a bloody good actor.” Amber eyes meet his, completely knowing. Bastard. “It’s almost as if you’re completely in love with our favourite admin. The touches, the kisses, the breaking ranks and stealing lemon cakes for her. That kiss that almost melted the ceiling. Almost as good as I am, really, and that’s very good indeed.”

“Fuck off, Beric.”

The issue with Dondarrion is that he’s one of the best policemen and detectives in the whole of King’s Landing. Clegane works doggedly, meticulously. He sorts through everything logically. He’s good because he’s got an obsessive side, mostly about work and Sansa. No, just work and Sansa. That’s what he does. He works and he thinks about Sansa. Beric is different. He’s natural, and clever, and can coax things out of the most angry and pissed off suspects. He befriends, and teases, and makes murderers think they’re talking to their best mate who wants to help them. Part of him, the dark part, seems to really enjoy the cases. You’ve got to be a bit fucked up when you’re surrounded by rape, murder, and other heinous crimes on a daily basis.

They are the epitome of good cop/bad cop. They even look the part.

“Tell her, mate. For the love of the Seven, I’ve been watching you watching her for two years.”

“Only when you tell that little cunt Bolton,” he shoots back, in the dark obviously, because no one in their right mind could have any sort of loving thought towards their pet body rummager.

“Tell him what? I tell him daily he’s gay, and he doesn’t listen. Theon Greyjoy tried to seduce him last night, and it was the most hilarious thing I’ve seen all week. Ramsay is a honey badger; he will stand and fight because he loves it. Theon Greyjoy’s hand on his arse and tongue in his ear? I’ve never seen him run before. He’s quick, got to give the boy his due. Found him hiding under a Land Rover.”

“Fuck.”

“Roose saw everything. It’s brilliant.” Grinning. Dondarrion has a gold tooth, from the time he almost got killed after being shot in the face. He almost gets killed on far too regular a basis for it to be normal, but when was Beric ever normal? He shoves his tongue in the throat of a man who collates human organs for fun.

“What’s with you two? You and that creepy little shit?”

“We just want to watch the world burn.” Dondarrion shrugs, wide shoulders rolling. “Ramsay is Ramsay, and contrary to everything I don’t have that much of a death wish. He’s essentially a selfish person, with few morals, and an oddly fascinating personality. He is darkness to the light, and perhaps, like a moth, I am drawn by the flame. He is unique. I want to psychoanalyse the hell out of him. Having sex with him would muddy the waters.”

Dondarrion and his bloody psychology degree.

“Fucking R’hllor worshipper. Always fire with you lot.”

“Pretty redhaired admin, three o’clock.” Dondarrion snaps a salute, gathers his drink and a cheeky biscuit. “I’ll leave you to it. Sandor. I’m your friend. I’ve known you for almost fifteen years now. Tell her.”

“Piss off, corpse.”

“Only Ramsay gets to call me that. Sometimes,” and he leans down, mouth close to Clegane’s ear, voice drippingly amused, “when we’re pretend fucking and actually just hiding in a closet, and Roose is around, he screams that I’m his favourite corpse, just to see the expression on peoples’ faces when we emerge.”

“Talk about fucking closeted. Fuck. You two deserve each other.” Wrong. So much wrong.

“Serious though, for a moment. You’re a good man, and she’s a sweetheart. Just tell her how you feel, hey? What harm can it do?”

“Alright?” Clegane clears his throat, sits up, hopes he’s not got honey in his stubble from messily devouring a bagel. Sansa is casual today, in dark blue jeans and a scoop necked t-shirt that fits her neatly, and her hair in one long plait over her shoulder. She looks tired still, and is smiling to herself, arms wrapped around her stomach.

“Willas and Oberyn wanted to say goodbye properly, when they had the chance. They’re off to Lys for the honeymoon.”

“Brothels,” he snorts. “Place is full of fucking brothels.”

“They’re married, Sandor.” She really is the sweetest of little birds.

“Yeah. They are. S’the only thing I know about Lys.” He scratches the back of his neck, decides to not share his suspicions about the Martell/Tyrell sex life. Clegane defaults to a band shirt, because he fucking wants to, and ancient jeans. Part of it is because he wants to be comfortable driving home, because he’s too hot, and knackered, and fed up. Part of it is because this is the end, this is the mourning period for a relationship that he’s never had but has tasted, so tantalisingly, and wearing his normal scruffy shit is him going back to what he was Before He Kissed Sansa Stark. If he can. Which is unlikely.

“They just wanted to-” Sansa looks about, scoots her chair closer. It is still quite early, as policemen tend to be awake at stupid in the morning, and few others eat on the handsome terrace surrounded with singing birds, grape vines, and wisteria. “They wanted to see if I was okay.”

Clegane looks over the rim of his mug. The catering staff offered a cup, but, seeing his expression, ran off and found a cavernous bowl with a handle and filled it to the brim with very strong, death-black, coffee.

“They know.”

“Fuck! How?”

“I...told them.” Her eyes shine with guilt, and something else, and Sansa runs a hand along the length of her plait. “I couldn’t not, I felt so awful lying to them, and they were so happy for me, but I couldn’t not tell them, Sandor. Willas understands. He’s been through the same thing. Actually, he didn’t seem that surprised.”

“Fucking posh cunting fucking families fucking with their fucking kid’s fucking shitting lives.”

His swearing makes her mouth curve into a tiny, tremulous smile.

“If bastards didn’t fucking interfere, we’d not feel like shit for lying. Fuck’s sake!” He drains the coffee, murderous. “I’m angry, little bird. Not at you. The rest of them can fuck themselves. I’m pissed off at the rest of the fuckers that make it that you feel you need to go through this shitshow so your bitch of a mother doesn’t put all that pressure on someone who’s gone what you’ve gone through. It’s shit. It’s fucking shit what she does. What Olenna fucking Tyrell does. What that freaky cunt Roose Bolton does. All of you with your blood, and titles, and wealth, and you’re seen as nothing but fucking commodities to be used rather than people. And that’s shit, Sansa! That’s fucked up beyond words. You’re so strong, and beautiful, and incredible. You’ve been through a hell of a lot, which could have made someone less than you break, and you’re like a phoenix. Resurgent. You come out the other side stronger, and determined. And yeah, of course you still remember it, and it still hurts. Of course you still feel it, and sometimes it’ll get too much. But, shit. They don’t see you, Sansa, and that’s...unfair. And if I needed to? I’d lie through my fucking teeth to your nice honourable Dad again. To everyone. Even if it is fucked up. Even if it hurts-”

“What hurts, Sandor?” She moves, and she is lemons, and sunlight, and autumn leaves, to kneel at the side of his white-painted chair.

“This.” Clegane grits his teeth. “Fuck. This does.”

Carefully, very gently, Sansa’s fingers curl over the ones that Clegane has in a death grip on the arm of his chair. She’s warm, and it hurts even more, because this is the last time she’ll be touching him.

Man the fuck up, Clegane , he tells himself.

“The anger makes me hurt, alright? It makes me want to punch shit, and yell at people.”

“Sandor-”

“I need to calm down. Fuck!”

“Sandor-”

“Shitting hell, why are people such cunts?!”

“Sandor!” The sharpness of Sansa’s voice slices through the wallowing threat of self-pity that Clegane hates but often overwhelms him. He’s lived a shit life. Burned by his brother, basically disowned by his father, lonely and alone in the world apart from a crush on an unattainable woman, apart from his work colleagues. Pathetic. Fucking pathetic, all of it.

“Because they’re not as good as you, Sandor. No one is as good as you.”

“You are. You’re better than me.”

She shakes her head. “No. You’ve no idea what a good person you are.”

“I’m an ugly fucker with a filthy mouth and anger issues, who hates most people.”

“You’re loyal, and kind, and you look after people. You’re tenacious. Very brave. You do anything for people you like, even if you have to do something you really find uncomfortable. You’re a good man, Sandor, and I wish you’d believe me.” She seems so very earnest, looking up at him.

“That’s not comfortable, little bird. Your knees are on tiles.”

She stands, looks at her seat, before elegantly folding herself onto his lap. She’s warm, and so slender that she needs to be fed more lemon cakes. One of Clegane’s hands could engulf both of hers. Sansa is tall, but she’s like a sapling; all long lines and slim trembling frame.

“We don’t have to pretend, no one’s around.”

“I don’t want to pretend, Sandor. I-I’ve not been. Pretending. At all.”

Detective Inspector Clegane is a taciturn man, with the emotional capacity of a brick half of the time, but this?

“T-that’s why I talked to Willas. He knows me so well, and he told me, when I admitted what we’ve been doing, that it looked like we should be together. He said we’re more like a couple than most of the ones he knows, and suggested that I should think about that. He says the way you look at me is like the way Oberyn looks at him, like there’s nothing else in the world. Then he laughed and said that I look at you like that.”

“Little bird-”

“Please let me finish?” She has these moments, with those she trusts, where Sansa feels comfortable enough to be herself, which can be a little bossy. “I remember waking up, and you were trying not to move too much so I could sleep, even though it made you uncomfortable. Everything you’ve done this weekend has been against your honourable nature, and yet, you did it for me. I meant what I said, Sandor. I was very sleepy, but I remember asking if you’d be my boyfriend.”

“You deserve better, Sansa.”

“No.” She squeezes her eyebrows together, frowning. “No, I deserve someone who I like, very much, who is a good person. Someone who embodies what I want, rather than what everyone else thinks I want. I have autonomy, Sandor. I get to decide if you’re good enough or not, not you, when it comes to my own feelings. My feelings say I like you, very much. You’re the kindest person I’ve ever met, even if you are a grumpy man.”

He kisses her, because there is nothing else that can be said. Clegane, out-of-focus and stunned, and not quite believing, and hoping to pinch himself, kisses the paleness of her forehead, the aristocratic curve of her nose, the sweet bow of her upper lip. This is...fucked. Seriously fucked. In a good way, for once, and this isn’t normal.

“Heh. Dondarrion gave me that talk, too. Shit. Think they’ve been conspiring or something?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised. I think our friends want us to be happy.”

“If we make it official, if I’m your boyfriend - fuck’s sake, woman. I’m almost forty. I’m too old to be a boyfriend, think of another term. If we do this, will you be happy?” It matters. Her welfare is paramount, always has been, from the moment she came into his life two long years before.

“I am happy, when I’m with you.” Sansa’s fingers touch the scars, actually touch them, lightly running over ridges and strange slick flatnesses that make up the side of Clegane’s face. “I feel light, somehow, like I could fly, or burst, or sing. Like there is a battered old loyal hound watching out for me, all of the time, who also understands that I need to make my own way in the world. Supportive, I suppose. That’s what you are. You support my choices, even if they are silly, like having you as my pretend boyfriend.”

“Not pretend any more,” he says, quite casually, a visceral heated rejoicing in his chest as Sansa’s face glows. “What you getting yourself into, little bird?”

“Do you know when I knew that I really liked you?”

He shakes his head, and Sansa kisses him softly on the cheek, on the scars. She isn’t revolted. She isn’t disgusted. She accepts him as he is, and fuck, that is insane.

“When I found out that you bake me lemon cakes.”

Sansa nuzzles lightly at his neck, settling against Clegane’s chest with a soft, satisfied smile as the goodly Detective Inspector grins, wild and toothy and a little manic, at the warm blue Dornish sky.

Detective Inspector Clegane is a solitary sort of man, most of the time. He drinks with his work colleagues. He has dinner out once a week with the pretty redheaded administrative assistant who helps at the crammed and untidy office deep in the bowels of Red Keep Yard. He enjoys heavy stouts, and curries, and tries to grow his own chillies and fails horribly. He is a simple man, of simple pleasures, but, above all, there is one thing that makes him happy.

Sansa dips a finger in the bowl, and he waves a rubber spatula at her.

“Can I just eat the batter.”

“No. Piss off, girl. Go and make yourself useful.”

“I am,” and she flutters her eyelashes, the tease. “I’m keeping you company.”

“If you eat it, you’ll have no cake for work. Fuck’s sake, Sansa.”

She steals a little more batter, grins up at him, smears the substance across Clegane’s amused mouth, before pouncing for the kill with tongue and lips. The kisses, these days - and there are many, so many of them - are sweet, and sticky, and lemony, and full of Sansa.