Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/5624032.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      Game_of_Thrones_(TV), A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire_-_George_R._R._Martin
  Relationship:
      Petyr_Baelish/Sansa_Stark, Harrold_Hardyng/Sansa_Stark
  Character:
      Petyr_Baelish, Sansa_Stark, Harrold_Hardyng
  Additional Tags:
      Implied/Referenced_Underage_Sex, Marriage_of_Convenience, Adultery, Las
      Vegas, Extramarital_Affairs, Cheating, Alternate_Universe_-_Modern
      Setting, Daddy_Kink, Age_Difference, Mild_S&M, Blindfolds, Non-Consensual
      Voyeurism
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-01-03 Chapters: 1/3 Words: 1979
****** Bright Light City, Gonna' Set My Soul On Fire ******
by Alayne_StoneColdFox
Summary
     Got a whole lot of money that's ready to burn,
     So get those stakes up higher.
     There's a thousand pretty women waitin' out there,
     And they're all livin' devil may care,
     And I'm just the devil with love to spare.
     Viva Las Vegas, Viva Las Vegas
Notes
     Vegas AU, if you couldn't tell.
See the end of the work for more notes
Sansa Stark was perfect.
Her whole life, her whole image, everything about her embodied an easy
perfection that seemed to come naturally, yet seemed so very on purpose.
Growing up in Georgia, rich and privileged and raised so right. Manners and
class and the soft gentle graces of a true southern belle. The big white house
and the picket fence, the respectable name, the good grades, the beauty pageant
winner at ages twelve through to sixteen, high school cheerleader, the prom
queen, Sansa Stark just had it. That 'it' that never cracked once. Even down to
the details. Sansa Stark never even slipped with something as small as a
chipped nail. Her manicure was always freshly done, and never in a gaudy
colour. Her shoes and bag always matched her outfit. People could try and try
to find any kind of flaw to bring her down in some way, any small way, but it
seemed an impossible task. The envious and the admirers alike simply had to
admit that Sansa Stark was perfect, with affection or hatred in their tone as
they did so. She was a perfectly respectable lady.
And that why it would not do, for anyone to see her getting out of a taxi in
the parking lot of a Las Vegas Strip Club at three o clock in the afternoon.
“Keep the change,” she smiled graciously to the driver, trying to hide the
twang of her southern accent as she closed the door, heading into the club.
Vegas was a twenty four hour party city, as advertised to the masses that
flocked here. Even now the music was low and thrumming, the lights were neon
red and purple from floor to glass ceilings, and dancers already had men
entranced as Sansa slipped by unnoticed at the back. One of the heavy set
bouncers placed by a door looked mildly surprised, but accommodating, as he
gave her a curt nod and a smile before letting her through without a word.
Petyr Baelish was at his desk with a cigarette hanging out one side of his
mouth as he looked up to see her at the door.
His arms opened wide and he leant back with an easy smile.
“Well, if it isn't the blushing bride,” he said, cigarette stubbed out in an
overflowing ash tray as she shut the door behind her.
“Well, hello to you too.” she smoothed down her skirt before taking a seat,
handbag placed on the floor besides her, hands gently folding in her lap.
“You want a drink? By the way you sounded on the phone, you sounded like you
needed a drink.”
she held up a hand “I'm fine, Petyr.”
“Well too bad, I already got the drink.” he muttered, opening up his desk
drawer, the sound of glasses chinking together as he pulled out two tumblers
and a bottle of whisky.
“You know I saw you and Harry's ten page spread in the latest Home and Livin',
it happened to be lying around my dentists office, don't think I went lookin'
for it,” he spoke as he poured “and I have to say that Vera Wang was the right
choice. Cinched you in in all the right places, those pictures came up real
nice. I tore one out. Keep it in my bedside dresser.”
Sansa smiled, despite herself, taking the drink and almost melting into the
familiarity of his tone. That way he oozed his words, low and inviting. Most
people heard his practised voice. The one he'd taught himself to do to sound
more refined, to be taken more seriously as he rose up in the world, wheeled
and dealed, fashioned himself as a businessman. Then there was the voice she
caught. If you really listened you could pick up on the way he drawled, how the
words started to blend together. The little boy from small town Alabama tried
his best to cover up his roots, but he couldn't hide it from her. She'd picked
it up the hour she'd met him and by now he didn't even bother to hide his
accent when they were alone like this.
“You kept that picture, of all pictures?” she couldn't help but tease.
He smiled deviously over the rim of his glass, smacking his lips a little over
the sting of the straight whisky “You wanna' send me any new pictures, be my
guest, sweet thing.”
“You're disgusting.” She tutted, smile never leaving her.
He always looked so self satisfied, like he was sat playing poker with a
winning hand and all the chips on the table. In a town of sleazy bastards,
Petyr Baelish was their king, wether they knew it or not.
“Now how is our dear Harry?” he asked.
“Oh, he's having a fine time.” Sansa waved a hand “Gambling. Drinking. Bringing
every willin' cocktail waitress back to my suite, spending all our hard earned
money while he's at it. Think's he's a damn Rockerfeller now.”
Petyr nodded “Yeah I've been hearing 'bout his braggin'. Acting like the hotels
new surge in business is down to his prowess, and not the wing a'new suites and
two new clubs I funded in all those renovations. The Arryn would still be
pullin' in shit without us...you say he's been gamblin?”
Sansa nodded.
“How bad?”
She shrugged, softly “Well...if the whole point of me marrying him was to get
enough money to fund my own damn hotel renovations, then the new Winterfell may
as well be the size of this office.”
Petyr heard the barely contained fury he knew she was holding back.
“Now, I'm sure it's not that bad.”
“He's put it all on the back burner, Petyr! I keep showing him the blueprints,
the plans, the designs we had made, it's all ready to go and now he's hot
steppin' around it, doesn't even want to talk about it! He's blowin' money as
fast as we can make it, and how the hell can we get this new project off the
ground if he's not even interested! He told me he wanted this just as much as I
did!”
“Of course he did, he thought he was trying to get you into bed.”
“Petyr, be helpful.”
He threw his hands in the air “What you want me to suggest? You wan't me to run
him over with my car? Honey, we just signed you up to inherit half his entire
estate and savings, killin' him off two months after the wedding will have
police at your door in minutes.”
“....what about eight months?”
He clucked his tongue “I taught you better than that. When we went into this I
told you two years minimum. Then we film him fuckin' the hired help, a
girlfriend he has on the side, whichever, release the tape, out the fact he has
two bastard little kids up in florida, and everyone thinks you're the innocent
victim to his philandering ways. Tragic divorce. Everyone's on your side. We
get the money, the media sympathy, half the Arryn and the newly built
Winterfell. Cross your fingers and hope he gets into a car accident on his own
terms, by all means, but 'till then we stick to the plan.”
Sansa begrudgingly seemed to agree, though she shuffled in her seat “It's just
so embarrassin'....everyone see's what he's doing, he's not quiet about
it....bet he's picked somethin' up from all those waitresses too.” her face
screwed up at the thought.
“If you want I'll offer him free drinks here. Get him away from the slot
machines and cheap cocktail girls and have my girls be his distractions. The
screened ones, they get their tests done so you won't catch nothing.”
“Aw, and people say you ain't sweet,” she smiled.
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor, and it doesn't suit you.”
Sansa breathed in and released, shoulders slumping.
“So what am I supposed to do in the meantime? It's like being married to a lazy
teenager, and I'm the nagging mother, asking when he's going to meet with the
architects and financiers, and he just grunts at me, tells me he'll deal with
it later, to get off his case, he's a busy man.” Sansa scoffs.
Petyr taps on the desk with a ringed finger, and she can sense he wants to say
something.
“What? What is it?”
He shrugs “Nothing...just...you say you're acting like some kind of nagging
mother, now, that's about the least sexy thing you can be.”
Sansa immediately bristles slightly and Petyr knows he has to be quick.
“And I know you would never be the type of woman to let yourself go after
marriage, like so many women do, but is it fair to say that you may have...been
slippin' in the attention you gave Harry after he slipped that rock on your
finger?”
Sansa was quiet for a moment, eyes flitting to the overflowing ashtray
“...Well, maybe I don't pretend the jokes he steals from the Late Show are
funny anymore or give him blowjobs in the shower, but come on now. All that was
to get him to marry me, a solid year of being better than my best all the time,
and now I have him, and I'm tired Petyr. I'm damn tired! He gets to do whatever
he wants, runnin' all over town, never seeing me, never taking me anywhere
unless it's to show off to his stupid country club friends, and I still have to
be perfect for this jacked up idiot!....I'm just real tired...”
She hadn't meant for her voice to crack with emotion, but it had, and she was
embarrassed, composing herself again in an instant.
Until Petyr stretched out an arm, gesturing for her.
She hadn't done this in a long time, but she stared at him with softened eyes,
standing up from her own chair to step around the desk. To sit on his lap. Wrap
her arms around his neck in an embrace she'd missed. She would have felt silly
for it, if it wasn't just him and her, and it didn't make her feel so much
better.
Sansa Stark had to be perfect. She was twenty, an adult, with responsibilities
and dead dreams and a dulled heart, and sometimes she lay next to Harry late at
night and hated how she couldn't just stop life and go back, or at least slow
it all down. Life was moving faster and it wasn't getting any better, and she
found growing up was in part realising and accepting that perhaps it never
would.
But then when she came to him, when she sat in his arms, had him rub at her
back and whisper in her ear, she was a child again. Like when this all started.
She could let everything go and become his, taken cared for, loved and adored.
He'd seen her cry, throw tantrums, comforted her at her most needy, helped her
with mistakes, it didn't matter. He was still here. He'd still hold her.
They sat like that for awhile. A long while. Until Petyr moved to have her
shift her gaze to look at him.
“Now...Harry's an idiot, we always knew that much, and who knows how to deal
with idiot boys better than you, hm?” he rubbed at her leg and she smiled,
weakly “I've seen you run rings around bigger men than Harry. Don't think for a
second you can't get anything you want out of that husband of yours if you put
your mind to it.”
Sansa pulled back, red hair falling over one shoulder, her hand coming up to
grip lightly at Petyr's un-shaven chin as she leant in and gave him a red
lipped kiss, slow and arduous.
“I love you, daddy,” she mumbled, meaning it with all her dulled heart.
End Notes
     This is born from my love and affection for the tacky glamour that is
     vegas, in all it's sleazy neon lit debauchery.
     Shout out to Cat/Ocularis too, since I pictured my american Petyr as
     a sleazy southern gentleman, and Sansa as a perfect southern belle,
     and she has helped me flesh that out with her first hand southern
     american knowledge. Did you know southerners calls shopping carts
     buggys? And a place called 'piggly wigglys existed?' I sure didn't.
     That's not going to come up in the story though. Expect another
     couple of chapters to this one.
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