Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1181796.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      A_Song_of_Ice_and_Fire_-_George_R._R._Martin
  Relationship:
      Sandor_Clegane/Sansa_Stark
  Character:
      Sandor_Clegane, Sansa_Stark, Jaime_Lannister, Brienne_of_Tarth
  Additional Tags:
      Porn_Battle
  Collections:
      Porn_Battle_XV_(The_Ides_of_Porn)
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-02-13 Chapters: 6/6 Words: 4112
****** Mercy ******
by dagonst
Summary
     Two years or so after ADWD. It starts with a shipwreck, and picks up
     plot and some sex along the road. Written for the prompt: Sansa/
     Sandor; command, leashed, tempt.
Notes
     Intermissa, Venus, diu, rursus bella moves? Parce precor, precor.
     Venus, do you call me to war again after this long truce? Mercy, I
     beg you...
     Horace, Odes 4.1
See the end of the work for more notes
***** Sansa *****
The ship jolts and rattles, and Sansa prays again that it will sink and never
reach the Fingers. Tom Arryn finds her kneeling when he unlocks the cabin. Then
Ser Corbray shouts for Tom to see to his horse, and she is alone when they
wreck.
By dawn, she sits on a rock above high-tide, spreading her skirts to dry. The
other passengers ashore are strangers; she watches the ship tilt as the water
recedes.
Sansa had hoped for a town or a city, but there is only a community of
penitents. Some of the men have their faces wrapped - against the wind or
against being seen; only one of them speaks.
“I can ride,” Sansa says. The brothers have an odd assortment of horses, from
mules to a black war-horse. The black has been tied to a cart like the rest,
but tries to throw it off before one of the men catches the reins.
“Can you ride that one? The mules will be back soon,” Their speaker - Elder
Brother - says ruefully. Sansa looks at it again, as she hadn’t before. The
horse, and the man holding it -
“Or if you would rather wait for your husband?” The Elder Brother speaks
gently, mistaking her sudden fear.
“I would wait here forever, ser. I only - surely that’s a warhorse?”
“We call him Driftwood. He belonged to a man of war, the Hound, who died near
here.” His name is Stranger, for the seventh god of death. She still hear
Joffrey whispering that he’d kicked a stableboy’s head in once and might do the
same to her.
“The Hound is dead?” Sansa makes herself step forward again. “We have had
little news from the riverlands since the high pass closed.”
“He was wounded and took fever. I found him dying by the Trident the day
Saltpans was burned. Did you know Sandor Clegane, child?”
She is sure her face showed nothing. “No. My father is Lord Baelish; he is
often at court and tells me stories. He will thank you for your kindness to me,
sers.” Petyr might thank them for the rescue of his baseborn daughter. He might
have them killed for speaking to Sansa Stark. At least they would die better
than the Hound.
The man she’d mistaken for Clegane doesn’t look at her at all, but the Elder
Brother has begun to make her nervous. Don’t look too closely, she thinks.
They walk slowly out onto the tidal flat. Stranger is slow and steady enough
that she can even turn to see the ship listing behind her. “I’m no ser,” the
man says finally, not turning his head. The wind whips his words away so fast
she can hardly be sure of them. “And you’re no mockingbird.”
Sansa Stark lets out a breath. And says, stupid with relief, “I heard you had
joined the Brotherhood Without Banners. That man said you’d died.” She loved
the stories of the outlaw Brotherhood, but Sandor Clegane would only have
laughed at them.
“And you turned into a direwolf and bit Joff’s head off.”
“I didn’t know,” she says. “I only told them what he was like.” The Hound had
belonged to Joffrey, before he ran.
“It should have been done before. Anyone could see what he was like. I should
have done it myself.” His voice is half a snarl, as it always was. That was
ruined by the fire too, hoarse and rasping as though he still choked on the
smoke.
Nothing should shock her anymore, but that does. “You were his sworn shield.
You were Kingsguard.”
“The Kingslayer wears a white cloak too. And those fine knights who beat you
bloody.”
“You never did,” she remembers. “You lied to Joffrey for me, and you warned
me... How your face was burned -” She can’t see his face now, and it’s easier
to go on without being watched.
“I married in secret and that’s all I thought of. That I’d been so stupid, and
my knight was only a boy who’d never seen a war or a winter. And when my - if
Petyr came back too soon, he’d ruin me.” He’d sent her off the same night with
Ser Lyn Corbray, and the promise that he’d find some use for her once she
remembered her duty. Perhaps that’s what the Elder Brother saw, back on the
shore. “I can’t think what I must look like now.”
Clegane shrugs, and still doesn’t look back. “Like a Stark.”
***** Sandor *****
Sansa Stark disappears into one of the women’s cabins, shuts herself in for
days. He’d forgotten how quick she was, and how she startled at the sight of
ugly things. How she startled when she saw him.
He wakes up reaching for his sword. Worrying at things that aren’t his concern.
For most of his life, he’d meant to kill his brother someday, but Gregor had
never realized and died of a snakebite instead. Leaving him nothing but a sorry
life to atone for somehow.
But rotting here won’t do anything for the Stark girl, and he owes her penance
too. His bad leg healed well enough to walk or ride; he’s more use to her than
to the gods. He could kill Littlefinger, that might be some use to her. Or her
sell-sword knight, before he takes her away and sells her. Lyn Corbray has no
reputation for patience.
His squire must have some, though - Sandor sees him talking at the girl’s door
in the morning, and he’s still there hours later.
“Ser is getting our horses from the ship. We’re going, Alayne, I have to bring
you as soon as the tide turns -” Sandor finally walks over to break the siege,
and stands there until the boy stutters to an uncertain halt.
He jerks his head towards the path - if she hasn’t come out now, the boy must
realize she’s not going to. But he looks baffled and says, “There’s - one of
the penitents? I think he wants you for something - are you still sick?”
Sansa opens the door and curtsies as though she’d only just heard him. “Thank
you, Tom, I was expecting to be sent for.”
“But we’re -”
“- leaving, at the shore, when the tide turns. I did hear, Tom.” She smiles at
the boy, and then steps out. She doesn’t startle this time, but gives Sandor a
wan smile as well. “I am ready, ser.”
He’d only meant to scare the boy off and give her some peace, but he takes the
path towards the godswood. “My thanks,” she says. “Tom Arryn can talk enough to
make up for every man here. And I am glad to see you again.”
It’s no true godswood, only a garden in stony ground. The trees are slender and
the seaward ones are bent from the same wind that drove the ship into the mud.
“I’m no ser,” he tells her again, and unwraps his face. If she won’t spare him
her empty courtesies, he’s not going to spare her the the sight.
“As you like. But I won’t call you like Joffrey did, Sandor Clegane.” she says,
cross, and then sighs. “This seems a peaceful place.”
He laughs. “It’s the peace of the grave, girl. Praying to gods that don’t
listen and waiting to die. But I begged for death, I can’t complain of it now.”
Then he thinks to look at her again, and curses himself. “There’s nothing to
cry for, girl.” At that, she starts sobbing outright.
“I’m sorry, it’s so stupid -” She swallows back tears. “Everyone dies and I
have to watch. My father, Joffrey and Ser Dontos, Lysa and Sweetrobin. I want
it to stop.”
Crying over Joffrey. He can put an end to that at least, give her something
real to weep over. He grabs her arm and turns her towards him. “People die.
They’ll starve or freeze in the long winter. Or the spring’s wars will kill
them. You can’t stop that with pretty words and tears, little bird.”
She looks at him and laughs. Mad, he thinks, letting her go. And that will be
his fault too. “I could. Petyr Baelish did. He plays against all the high lords
and he’s winning. If I could stop him - if I could make him lose -”
That’s another kind of madness. “Going to war with Littlefinger isn’t something
to laugh about.”
“I was laughing about you,” she admits. “You used to make such a sport of
saying terrible things. Do you still hate me very much?”
“I - no.” He had hated her. She had been weak and terrified, and he had hated
her for it. Had hated her for being afraid to look at him, for clinging to
pretty lies about caring gods and true knights. She’s looking at him now,
though. “No. I’ll help you if I can.”
She takes a shaky breath. “There’s nothing I can do from the Fingers,” she says
finally. “Or from here, even if I could stay. Come with me, Sandor Clegane.”
Something in his chest eases and tightens at the same time. Moving is easier
than speech; within another breath, he’s dropped to one knee. She takes one
step towards him that he sees, touches his face. She’s trembling, but doesn’t
back away.
“Come,” she says again. “We leave at the tide.”
“With your sell-sword?”
“And his squire. How else is Petyr to know where I’ve gone?”
***** Sansa *****
The Brotherhood Without Banners is nothing like the stories. Ser Corbray
seethes at the delay; Clegane curses them for thieves. “I won your trial.”
“That was against Dondarrion,” their leader says. “And before you stole Arya
Stark. You’ll answer to our lady now.”
“Who is your lady, ser?” Sansa asks timidly, before Sandor rasps at her to shut
her mouth. He’s the one who tells the lie they’ve been using, that she’s Alayne
Waters, a Tully bastard bound for Riverrun. Her hair has lightened to a
middling shade of brown.
“She’s not Arya,” the boy who looks like Renly Baratheon says. “Too old, too
pretty, too polite.”
“The Hound’s slut,” someone else calls her, and she blushes to her roots.
The Brotherhood meets in a hall underneath a hill. Their Lady Stoneface - sits
at the far end, veiled in grey and silent. It’s only Clegane they wanted; Ser
Corbray and his squire were allowed to keep their horses and swords, as long as
they kept them outside and away. Sansa does not think Ser Corbray likely to
attempt a rescue, or even wait very long.
“Hound. You sold Arya Stark to the Lannisters and the Boltons.”
“I’ve got no business with Lannisters. The wolf-girl ran near Saltpans. She
took a horse and a sword. Maybe she took a ship, maybe the Lannisters got her.
I don’t know.” Or maybe Arya died.
The veiled Lady Stoneface says something indistinct. Her voice is gone, a
rattling more horrible than Sandor’s rasping. “Hang him,” the nearest of the
Brotherhood relays. He was her father’s man, once, she thinks.
“You can’t!” Sansa cries. Arya had run away, but Sansa had asked. “He only came
because of me!”
“You have another man. He can see you to your people without this dog.”
“He’s not the Hound,” she says, desperately. She pulls her cloak loose from her
hair. “Harwin, you came south with us from Winterfell. You rode out at my
father’s command. Do you know me?” Not all of them will, but enough that she
presses on. “I am Sansa Stark. And the Starks do not keep dogs.”
Everyone is looking at her, and she glares at them all. “You are no true
knights and I’m glad Arya ran. Take your sword, Sandor Clegane, and we’ll
leave.”
It nearly works. But when Clegane moves, so does Lady Stoneface. The woman in
grey rises from her throne and lifts her veil. Her face is so ruined that Sansa
does not realize what she’s looking at for a long moment.
She does not think she screams, she holds her hand to her mouth to hold it
back, but somehow Clegane has drawn his sword between her and her mother. “Have
you all gone mad?” he rasps.
In the stories, the dead are quick and strong. Her mother looks drowned and
rotten and walks slow and halting, and they’d cut her throat so Sansa cannot
understand her speech. Whatever it is, she says it twice before Sansa shakes
her head. “Harwin, what does she say?”
His voice shakes. “She says - she says Sansa Lannister. You married the Imp.
We’re to hang you too.”
She does scream once, when she’s grabbed from behind. They don’t move as
quickly on Sandor Clegane yet, wary of the sword. He might cut his own way out
and live. “Please, Mother, mercy. Mercy.” She looks at Clegane when she says
it.
He takes her mother’s head with one blow. Catelyn Stark doesn’t twitch the way
her father had; she drops soundlessly, with no protest. Sansa pulls free, and
no-one stops her when she takes one of the torches and kneels to set her
mother’s skirts alight. Fire to kill the dead, she remembers. Surely some
stories are true.
“The whole place will burn,” someone finally says behind her.
“Good. Send her bones to Winterfell after.” It’s Sandor who pulls her towards
the door. The smoke stings her eyes, and she scrubs them with her sleeve.
Her father’s men want to follow her. “I cannot,” she starts. Alayne Stone
cannot ride surrounded by outlaw northmen. Sansa Stark wants to be away from
them all. Clegane snarls at them when she falls silent. They won’t listen to
him, she thinks, and Ser Corbray will cut them down on the road.
“You cannot follow, sers. Any castle in the riverlands would have you hanged,
and I need no army here. If you would serve still, go north. Go home to
Winterfell.”
***** Sansa *****
It’s dark and cold when Sansa wakes, and she’s run out of tears. The outer room
is empty too, except for Sandor Clegane sitting by a dying fire. This might
have been an inn once: she’d passed other doors, and there are pieces of chair
burning in the hearth.
He kicks a chair out when he sees her, the one nearest the fire. "There's
bread," he says roughly. “And wine.” Sansa wonders if he was waiting for her,
or only couldn’t sleep.
“I am sorry,” she tells him. It was the Hound he’d cast off, not his own name
and house. And he liked dogs - probably still better than people.
“You’re sorry. Seven hells, girl. Drink your wine.” He raises his own cup.
Perhaps he’s getting drunk as he used to, and she can hardly blame him.
He shifts, leans back to prop his leg up again. An old wound that pains him,
he’d said. “There were dogs at Winterfell. I remember your kennelmaster.”
She looks at her wine, and her voice trembles. “I couldn’t think what to say to
make them stop.” Too late, she realizes that he was trying to speak of anything
but that.
“And that’s what you thought to tell them.” If he were a dog - or a wolf - she
would have called him wary, but Sandor Clegane isn’t afraid of little birds.
“Farlan was kennelmaster, but the wolves were always ours. He said they’d eat
us and he didn’t want the blame. But Lady had better manners than you." It’s a
feeble jest, and he only shrugs.
“Dogs don’t sit at the table in the South.”
“You were as good as any of them,” she says suddenly. “All those brave
knights.”
“I thought I was better.” He shakes his head, looking at the fire. Sandor
Clegane holds his regrets close, in the way of the penitents.
“You could be. You saved me, though I’d given you nothing but courtesy.”
Despite the courtesy, she thinks. She’s given him nothing better now, and he
put her mother to rest in front of all the cravens who’d followed her.
“It wasn’t the Imp you were meeting in the godswood.”
She blinks, but catches the intent in time to answer sensibly. “No. Poor
Tyrion. I wouldn’t even kneel to let him put the cloak on me. He never touched
me after.”
“Never?” Sandor laughs. “If they’d given you to me -” and he stops, as though
he’d bitten his tongue or wished he had.
She finishes for him: “You would have taken what they gave you. I know. Have
you ever asked for anything, Sandor Clegane?”
He stands, stricken, and at first she doesn’t know why. She’d been thinking of
his masters, but when he’d wanted a song from her, he’d put a knife to her
throat. “I should have - I stole from you. I didn’t -”
Wolves won’t beg, her father said. They learn neglect and cruelty, and one day
they’ll give it back to you with teeth and claws. “You wanted more than a song
and a kiss.”
She has grown tall, but still must pull Sandor down to kiss him. On the cheek,
his unscarred side, and then on the mouth. And then he is kissing her, teeth
and tongue.
He lifts her onto the table like she weighs nothing. Drops his head to her
shoulder, and she strokes at his neck. His skin rough on the left. He pulls her
so close to the edge that she’d fall, if she weren’t pressed tight against him.
She wants this, she realizes with mild surprise, as Randa Royce spoke of
wanting men.
When Sandor raises his head, his eyes are dark. "Little bird," he rasps, his
voice catching. "Little bird, run to your room and bar the door."
If she wanted to run, she’d be lucky to find bars or locks in this ruin. She
thinks she may regret more the lack of proper beds. “Take me there yourself,
Sandor Clegane. And bar the door behind you.”
He steps back, then, and Sansa realizes how she must look, sitting on the table
with her skirt pushed up. She is wet between her legs, and blushes at that.
Perhaps in the dark he won't see she looks like a pomegranate.
Sandor follows her up the stairs, never more than a step behind. She finds her
room, and he shuts the door, and she’s alone with him. Wolf, she decides, even
if she can’t say it. No dog is that frightening. Dogs have leashes.
He doesn’t move further into the room, only a dark shadow by the door. "Did
they teach you what to do with a man, little bird?"
"I am twice-wed.” It’s only bravado that makes her go on. “Do you know what to
do with a woman?” She thinks he must, but even a lord’s son might go wanting
with that face.
He laughs. "That comes naturally, girl."
She has not found it so, but perhaps the gods made men different in that. “Then
take your boots off, Sandor Clegane.” The room is still dark and cold. Sandor
is a shadow, lowering himself to the pallet. Sansa stands nearer the window and
takes her hair down. She can feel his eyes on her as she undresses. She lets
him wait despite the chill, and walks to him in her shift. “Now, show me.”
***** Sandor *****
Sansa Stark perches on the edge of the straw pallet, and keeps hold of his
hand, and Sandor Clegane wonders what he ought to do with her. What he wants,
that’s easy enough. But he’s never made a study of fucking, never tried to give
his whores any more pleasure than the coin they earned. He’s seen how they
pleasure themselves, at least, and highborn maids aren’t made any different.
“You can touch me,” Sansa says, as though he’s forgotten.
He runs a hand up her leg, and she lets him push her shift up; lets him finger
her, warm and already wet, and gasps. “Yes,” she says, and then shivers all
over and buries hher face against his shoulder. “I’m ready. Now.”
It’s dark enough up here that her hair might still be red, and she can’t see
much of his face. Perhaps she can imagine him handsome. She gasps when he
tumbles her to the bed. “Now, Sandor,” she commands, and he laughs. She’s
forgotten all her sers and my lords and pleases.
Still he tries to be careful, even as he buries his cock in her. She may have
forgotten to be a perfect lady; he’d forgotten that underneath is a Stark. When
her hand isn’t enough to stifle her moans, she bites, and leaves stinging
scratches down his back.
He spills on her belly - she hadn’t thought of that - and rolls to the side so
she won’t be crushed. After a minute, he remembers to check his shoulder for
blood. Sansa sits up to see what he’s doing. “Oh. Are you alright?”
“I’m the fool that took a she-wolf to bed,” which makes her laugh.
She settles back down, and pulls the blanket close. “The great room at
Harrenhal has a hundred hearths. I’m going to have every one lit.”
“And bankrupt Littlefinger overnight.”
“Then fifty. I do need dresses. And you must have proper armor, and Ser Corbray
his fee. I don’t know what for Tom Arryn.”
“A gag.”
“I’ll think of something. Will you stay tonight?” She lifts her head to look at
him again.
“It’s not fitting. Not for a proper lady.” And she’s going to need some
semblance of a maidenhead to bargain with. That’s her coin, along with
Winterfell and Littlefinger’s credit.
She shrugs, and then pulls the blanket up again. “They’ll say it anyway when I
have you and no husband. We may as well keep warm.”
***** Jaime (Epilogue) *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
Jaime is just this side of too drunk to ride when they reach Harrenhal. Brienne
despairs of him, but Brienne ought to know better by now. She follows rumors
about the Stark girls across Westeros, and he -
“You should rest - I can speak with the castellan,” Brienne says, but he waves
her off.
“Deal with the holy fool if you like. I want to meet this bastard girl who’s
bankrupting Littlefinger.” He laughs at that; no-one else does.
But he’s still drunk when they’re invited to dine with the castle’s lady, so
the first thing he says is, “seven hells, you’re Sansa Stark.”
“Alayne Stone, ser. My lord father favors Tully women,” the girl says
unsmiling, and looks him up and down. Her guard doesn’t smile either, that he
can see - the man wore full armor to a friendly meal.
“I have no doubt. But you are Sansa Stark.” When he rode off to fight her
brother, she was still a flat-chested child and happy to be marrying a prince.
She’s grown tall and pretty. She wears her auburn hair in the elaborate braids
of the south, but her eyes are ice.
Brienne cuts in, “Jaime, she says not.”
“Of course she does, wench, what else would she say to a Lannister?” He can
count his oath half-redeemed. If stumbling over her while looking for refuge is
the same as a rescue. Victories used to be sweeter. . .
“I would say I am sorry for your losses,” Sansa Stark tells him. “We have had
ravens from King’s Landing.”
“My losses. You’re brazen enough to be Littlefinger’s brat, but I think you
mean it.” He grins savagely. “Let’s have proper introductions. You’re Sansa
Stark and I’m Jaime Lannister, the Kinslayer. That’s Brienne the Maid. She’s
been looking for you, so I hope you haven’t met already. Who’s your man there?
Does he speak? What’s his House?”
“Jaime,” Brienne protests again. “My lady, we were pursued from King’s Landing
by a - a thing armored like a knight. It fights like a man, but did not die
when a man would. Ser Jaime means no insult, only caution.”
Sansa looks at both of them in turn. He doesn’t catch what signal she makes to
her guard. “There’s nothing wrong with my tongue, Kingslayer,” the man says in
a harsh, grating voice. “My House is Clegane.”
Jaime’s stomach turns, but he laughs anyway. “And what sort of dead man are
you, Hound? We have so many this season.”
“He isn’t,” Sansa answers. “We burn the dead.”
Brienne’s armor clanks as she shifts, and Jaime decides he is craven enough to
let her to tell the girl what happened to Catelyn Stark.
“You’re going to need a bloody big pyre, Lady Stark.” Jaime grins at Clegane
over the throbbing of his head. “And Lord Clegane, too. Or should I call you
Sansa’s wolf? Sit. Drink. I am going to vomit, and then I have to tell you what
my sweet sister has done with your brother.”
Chapter End Notes
     He turned up on his own. Kinslayer: speculation, not typo.
End Notes
     A thousand, thousand thanks to the ASOIAF wikis! Thanks to those,
     everyone came from canon except the squire. I have indulged in much
     speculation about all characters and the overall situation. In other
     words, none of this is going to happen and GRRM will kill everyone
     you love.
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their work!