Chapter Text
When the effects of drinking too much tequila finally wore off – a little after midnight – Sansa had cried. Disgusting, snotty tears like the kind she had not cried since she first got home after running away from Joff.
It was hard to say exactly what she was crying about this time. Maybe it was that she still had a raging headache, even though it had been nearly ten hours since her last drink. Or maybe it was that she would probably have to buy Bronn a replacement pair of boots out of her meagre assistant’s salary. Most likely, though, it was the fact that she had managed to humiliate herself in front of Sandor not once, but twice, in the space of 24 hours.
She couldn’t even delude herself that it wasn’t as bad as she remebered: he had practically told her it was as he bundled her into a cab after the margarita incident, with a grim look that might’ve been disappointment on someone else’s face. On his face, it only looked grumpy, like practically every other expression he had.
“Is this what you do now? Getting drunk in the middle of a workday and leaving stupid cards for people?”
He may as well have slapped her, for how sharply the words stung. She must have been looking at him some type of way about it, too, because grumpy as he was, Sandor faltered for a second before closing the taxi door.
“You thought it was stupid?” she mumbled – courtesy of whatever alcohol was left in her system. It was impossible to say whether he heard her as he pushed the door shut and sent her on her way.
Now, in the sober light of 1 a.m., Sansa was sure of two things: he had heard her, and it was, in fact, stupid.
Once she had managed to settle from bawling into an entirely pathetic sniffling, Sansa flipped open her laptop and tapped out a speedy resignation letter.
Dear Deputy Commissioner Snow
I am writing to inform you that I have decided I no longer wish to continue in my role with the Blackwater PD.
Please don’t ask me why
I am not open to any questions about this decision at this time
I found that the work was no longer stimulating me mentally
I have decided to retrain as a marine biologist and will be moving to Norway immediately. Don’t try to contact me.
Thanks.
Sincerely,
Sansa Stark
Her finger hovered over the send button for so long the muscles in her hand began to twitch. All she had to do was push it, and she’d never have to see him again. She could talk Margaery into collecting her things for her and then...
And then what? Leave town? It was the only option that wouldn’t see Jon banging down her door and demanding to know what happened until she finally relented or made up some ridiculous lie. She had never been a very good liar, though, thus the leaving town part. Even still, he would assume it was Sandor’s fault: everyone would. That hardly seemed fair.
That wasn’t what had Sansa’s finger hovering, unable to press send, though. It was the simple fact that she didn’t want to leave. (God, when was the last time she actually knew what she wanted?) Not when she had a job she liked, and was finally making friends, and had a boss who was actually nice to her, most of the time.
It didn’t matter that he didn’t want to date her. It didn’t matter that she’d humiliated herself. The only truly stupid thing in this whole situation would be her leaving all of that behind over some silly card that wouldn’t even matter in a few months. She just had to grow some balls and talk to him. Not any of the stupid shit she and Margaery had prepared to say to him. She would just tell him the truth: that the card had been a big misunderstanding, and she never should have left it, but that she really wanted to be friends with him, and didn’t he want that too?
She just needed to be honest, and everything would be okay.
Sansa steeled herself. Shifted her finger a few keys up, and pressed down a little harder than was needed. The email deleted.
___
So it was that, rather than moving to Norway to become a marine biologist, Sansa found herself pushing open the doors to the station at 7.30 on Friday morning, to sit and wait for Sandor Clegane to emerge from his weekly training session in the basement gym.
Thankfully for her frazzled nerves, it wasn’t too long to wait before she heard someone stomping their way up the stairs from the basement. There was only one someone it could be.
She intercepted Sandor at the top of the stairs. He had a towel slung over one shoulder, sweat sticking his shirt to his torso, and all her carefully prepared speeches deserted her. When she finally remembered how to speak, her mouth would only form around two words.
“I’m sorry.”
“Not me you need to be sorry to: I'm not the one whose boots you ruined.” He was scowling. That irritated scowl that she’d gotten used to seeing directed at other people and not at herself over the past few months. Now, having it fixed on her made Sansa feel two feet tall. It made her want to scurry back to her desk and abandon the conversation, but she’d come too far now.
“No. I mean, I’m sorry about that too, but that’s not what I meant. I’m sorry about -” She steeled herself for perhaps the fifth time that morning. “About the card. It was a big misunderstanding.”
He moved to step around her, to carry on towards the showers. His grunt was barely audible. “Fine.”
Her lungs were closing up, throat tight with panic as she caught him by the arm. He could’ve shaken her off easily, but to her surprise he let her hold on. “I just thought – Podrick gave me a card and I thought it was from you, see, otherwise I never would’ve... It’s just that I thought you wanted to.”
The excuse didn’t sound any better now that it had made it out of her head and into the world. If anything, it sounded ten times sillier.
“Thought I wanted to what?”
“Go to dinner. With me. That’s... That’s what the card said.”
"You thought I asked you out? With a fucking Valentine’s Day card?” When he said it out loud it sounded ridiculous. She should’ve realised that from the start. Her cheeks were hot, embarrassed tears pressing hard against the back of her eyes. This had all seemed much easier in her head.
“No, I – well, I suppose I did think that, but obviously you didn’t. Obviously. Sorry.”
But Sandor didn’t even really seem to be hearing her, staring as if she’d miraculously sprouted a second head. “And rather than telling me to get fucked, you, what... you said yes ?”
“Well, yes.”
“Why?”
“I...” Sansa couldn’t meet his gaze, looking down and dropping her grip on his arm, ready to make a run for it as soon as she choked the words out. “It doesn’t matter. Can we just forget about it?”
It was his turn to grab her this time, hand catching her arm before she could beat a hasty retreat back to her desk. He was so close to her she could smell the sweat on him. Could feel the heat radiating off him, hand rough against her bare skin. “No, hold on. Why’d you say yes?”
"I don’t know, I just...” His proximity made her nervous; made words spill out across her tongue before she could think them through. “I like spending time with you. I thought maybe it was just me who felt that way, but then you left the card. Or I thought you left the card, at least, and it said you thought I was beautiful, and I figured it wasn’t just me after all. Except obviously you didn’t actually say anything like that. Of course you didn’t.”
Her cheeks were flaming with heat, but Sandor still hadn’t let go of her arm to allow her to move away. If anything, he was closer, eyes boring into her so hard she thought she would melt. A few moments ago, she’d thought that feeling might be embarrassment, but the longer he stared at her, the more there was a different heat curling through her.
“What do you mean, ‘of course I didn’t say anything like that’?”
She swallowed. “I don’t know.”
“Just because I didn’t leave some stupid card,” His voice was barely more than a low rumble as his hand slid up her arm to settle at the back of her neck, fingers leaving fire in their wake. “Doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re beautiful every fucking day.”
The words squeezed the air out of her lungs. “Really?”
“I thought that card was a joke. I...” He faltered, stepping even closer into her space. “I didn’t think you actually meant it. That you actually wanted to go to dinner. I mean, is that what you want?”
Sansa swallowed. Tried to breathe in. Shook her head. (Channeled her inner Margaery for the first time ever.) “Not right now.”
She had to fist her hands in his shirt, still damp with sweat, to pull him down far enough to kiss him. Sansa didn’t know what reaction to expect, but she knew she hadn’t expected the way he groaned. The way his whole body went tight under her touch, rough hands hooking her legs up around his waist so there was no space between them at all.
They ended up on her desk, a trail of loose stationery strewn behind them, bumped haphazardly off other people’s desks as they fumbled their way through the maze. Sandor swiped a fresh stack of papers off Sansa’s own desk to make room for him to set her down, groaning again as she hooked her legs even more tightly around him. He was so hard where he pressed between her legs and she wriggled her hips even closer, wanting more.
“I think about this a lot,” she whispered against his mouth, the words almost swallowed up by Sandor’s sharp inhale.
He kissed her harder, tongue licking into her mouth, fingers twisting hard into her hair. “Really?”
“Mmhm.”
His exhale was even shakier. But his free hand didn’t shake at all as it slid its way along her thigh to push her skirt up around her hips. Tugging her panties out of the way to make room to dip into the wetness pooling between her legs. Sansa moaned, wondering if it was possible to simply melt from pleasure. "I think about it too. Watch you sitting here every day and think about spreading you out on this desk and making you come.”
“Oh my god.” Heat spiked through her as he tugged her underwear clean off. His fingers slid up, settling on her clit and making any other words she might’ve said dissolve into a meaningless babble of moans.
Sandor did exactly what he had promised, one hand hooked under her knee to spread her out for him, and the other soaking wet between her legs. She had never writhed against a man’s touch like that. Never grasped at his shoulders with her nails, afraid she would float away otherwise, or whined when that same touch finally cracked her open and left her shuddering and sweating in his grip. Never had a man mutter “that’s it” into her mouth as she shook her way through an orgasm.
“More.” Sansa hadn’t even finished coming when she breathed the word out. “Please, more.”
It was his turn to shudder then.
Sandor’s tongue was in her mouth, her hands inside his sweats, when the light switched on.
He was off her in a second, jumping back across the space between their desks before the electric hum of the last light flickering to life had even died out.
Sansa’s heart was in her throat as she slid off the desk and hastily brushed her skirt back into place, settling into her chair like some guilty school child almost caught graffitiing the bike sheds. Opposite her, Sandor’s shoulders were still heaving as he took his own seat, just in time for DS Tarth to round the nearest partition and catch sight of them.
Sansa realised a moment too late her underwear was twisted around one of the legs of Sandor’s desk, only half-obscured from view. Her stomach turned violently. Why had she had to wear hot pink underwear today, of all days? It was so damn obvious against the sea of black and brown office furniture that there was no chance Brienne wouldn’t see it.
With any luck, maybe she wouldn’t want to speak to them. With Sandor there, people usually didn’t. But Sansa must have used up her luck for the day, because Brienne stopped right beside them on her way to her desk.
When she screwed up her nose at them, Sansa’s heart almost beat out of her chest, but Brienne only said, “Most people shower after working out, you know, Clegane.”
“Most people mind their own fucking business,” Sandor replied, a slight hitch still there in his breathing. She saw the exact moment he spotted the underwear, unscarred eyebrow shooting up almost to his hairline, before he fixed his gaze firmly on anything but the leg of his desk where the offending garment was in plain view.
“What are you doing in so early?” Brienne asked Sansa, not unkindly.
Sandor was much less kind in his reply. “What part of mind your own fucking business was unclear?”
“I went home early yesterday,” Sansa replied swiftly, before he could start an argument with Brienne that would probably end with her staying longer, seeing Sansa’s underwear, and Sansa having to resign in humiliation after all. “Just catching up on a few things.”
Behind her, Sandor stood up, shoving his hands in his pockets. The underwear had disappeared. “Move, will you? Gonna go take that shower you’re so bloody concerned about.”
It was mortifying that the mention of Sandor showering was enough to make her cheeks flush pink. Or maybe it was the fact that she was 90% sure he had her underwear in the pocket of his sweatpants right now. Either way, she looked down at her desk before either of them could notice.
“I’m sure we’d all appreciate that,” Brienne replied tightly, moving aside to let Sandor pass. She lingered a moment after he was gone watching his retreating back with a frown. “I don't know how you put up with him.”
Sansa might have laughed: the taste of him was still on her tongue. “He’s not so bad.”
Brienne only hummed a grunt of disagreement and strode off to her own desk, leaving Sansa to breathe a heavy sigh of relief as she properly adjusted her skirt to hide the fact that she was no longer wearing any underwear.
Margaery would be proud.
___
Sandor was still in the shower when said Margaery appeared, wordlessly handing her a piping hot coffee and taking a seat on Sansa’s desk. It was the same spot Margaery sat in all the time, but today it only made Sansa think of herself in that exact same spot on the desk, with Sandor's fingers inside her, less than twenty minutes earlier. She blushed furiously, despite herself.
Margaery mistook the blush, placing a consoling hand on her shoulder.
"How are you feeling?”
“Fine.” Understatement of the century. “Much better.”
“Good.” Margaery leaned in close. “I was thinking, you know, just because things didn’t go quite to plan yesterday, doesn’t mean you should give up. I’m sure it will all work out in the end.”
“I know.” Sansa sipped her coffee, not daring to make eye contact with the other girl in case her face gave something away. Knowing Margaery, it was a miracle she hadn’t scented the gossip in the air already. “It sort of has worked out.”
“What do you mean?! You talked to him?”
“Yep,” said as casually as she could muster, which was about as casual as Sam looked while he stared at Gilly whenever he thought she wasn’t looking. “It’s fine, it’s all sorted.”
“Oh my god.” Margaery clutched her arm, a spark of glee lighting up the grin that stretched across her mouth. “What did he say? I need to know everything.”
It was awfully tempting to tell her, just to be the one to scandalise Margaery for once, rather than the other way around. But even if she had wanted to, Sandor chose that exact moment to return from the shower.
His hair was wet, tied roughly back off his face, the sleeves of his sweater rolled up to the elbows. Sansa didn’t even realise she was staring at him until he glanced back at her and their eyes caught. It felt like electricity, dancing over her skin. Like she might melt into a puddle right there on the floor: even Margaery’s first aid certification wasn’t going to be much help if that happened. His throat worked as he swallowed.
Sandor looked away first, sitting down and fixing his stare on his computer instead, before she could tell whether the thing tugging at the corner of his mouth was a smile. Whatever it was, he must’ve been distracted, not to throw any of his usual barbs Margaery’s way.
Unsurprisingly, Margaery noticed it too.
“Aren’t you going to tell me off for being a distraction?” Even her jovial tone could not entirely distract from the way her eyes had narrowed a little as she looked between the two of them.
“Stop being a distraction,” Sandor parroted, not even tearing his eyes off his screen. “Happy?”
“I don’t know,” Margaery said very slowly, a twinkle in her eyes. “Is there something to be happy about?”
Sandor didn’t even bother to reply.
"Why don’t I come and see you later?” Sansa offered gently, but firmly enough that Margaery slipped off the desk.
“Friday night drinks later at Leroy’s. You had better be there.” She sauntered away, pausing only long enough to toss over her shoulder, “ Both of you.”
Sandor snorted, but did not turn around. She wondered if it was the residual crackle of electricity in the air between them that had him so focused on his computer. Perhaps he was as worried as she was that if he looked at her for even a moment too long, he’d have her back on the desk before poor Beric Dondarrion even had a chance to avert his eyes.
“Aren’t you going to tell me to get back to work?” Sansa asked. Her teasing wasn’t quite as polished as Margaery’s, but he seemed to like it all the same, if the reluctant flick of his eyes to her was anything to go by.
“Get back to work.” Sandor turned back to his screen with a shake of his head. “Happy?”
This time, Sansa was entirely sure it was a smile tweaking at the corners of his mouth.
___
There had been plenty of days in recent months that Sansa had found working a few feet from Sandor Clegane a little distracting. Days where she found herself staring sidelong at his hands and wondering how rough they would be to touch. (Turns out they were plenty rough, in the best way possible). Days where her mind crept off into fantasies about the two of them in one of the interrogation rooms together, only to realise she’d been staring at a blank screen for two whole minutes. (Turns out the desk was better than any of her fantasies). And days where she had thought she caught him staring at her. (Turns out, perhaps, he had been).
But none of those days had ever felt quite like this one.
At 9.34AM she had accidentally dropped her pen. He had handed it back to her, without even a word, but their fingers brushed, and heat shot down Sansa’s spine. If he heard the catch in her breath, he didn’t mention it.
At 10.18AM, he had answered the phone, and the sound of his voice made her think of other words he’d muttered that morning into her open mouth. Words that made her clench her legs together now, just to think of them.
At 10.56AM, she had asked if he wanted some new files scanned in, and he had looked at her so hotly she may as well have asked if he wanted her to climb under the desk and suck him off. (In hindsight, maybe she should’ve offered that).
By 11.14AM, she couldn’t stand it anymore.
Sansa grabbed the final card from the side of her desk, scrawling a quick message on it before flicking it at Sandor. He caught it with a frown, which quickly morphed into a grin when he read the message inside.
I think you have my underwear.
He scrabbled through the mess on his desk before producing a heavily chewed pencil and scrawling a reply.
I’ll give them back when there aren’t so many detectives around.
“That’s alright,” Sansa replied softly, spinning back around to her computer before he could see the slight flush colouring her cheeks when she added, even more softly, “You can keep them if you want.”
Any embarrassment she might have felt saying it was entirely worth it for the way Sandor choked on his own saliva, coughing as he turned away to gather himself. “Fucking hell,” he breathed, and that same heat shot back down Sansa’s spine again.
She gave him another couple of minutes to recover before she wrote another message in the card.
Do you want to come to my place tonight?
She slid it over to him, unable to keep from drumming her fingers nervously on the hardwood as she waited for a reply.
It was a few minutes before he slid the card back to her, their eyes meeting for just long enough that she could see a grudging smile tugging at the unburned side of his mouth.
How about you let me take you out for that dinner first?