Chapter Text
hi…im looking for a place to stay?
Send a pic
The lighting outside of this gas station was abysmal. Her face was in no shape for a photoshoot; splotchy, streaked with tears, greasy and unwashed on top of it. She sent one instead from two weeks prior, a lifetime ago it seemed. Froyo with Margaery.
im the redhead
Send another but hold a spoon up to your face
why?
So I know you're real
Sobbing anew, she raced across the street to the McDonald's to carry out the request. The gas station clerk would surely call the police if she went inside a third time. The cashier here was no more impressed, leveling a dubious look at the scraggly hooded figure who stole into the dining area fifteen minutes before closing, nabbed a plastic spoon, and locked herself in the bathroom.
It smelled like diarrhea and cheap soap. She scrubbed her face with a paper towel wet with tap water and took the picture.
im sorry
im not pretty rn
You're so fucking pretty
Why are you crying?
i dont have any money
or anywhere to go
its supposed to freeze tonight
Minutes passed with no reply. Just as Sansa was about to give up, turn her phone off to conserve battery, and begin the slow, long walk back to her sad little nest ‒ it began to ring.
“...Hello?”
“This isn't some kind of troll?”
Sansa certainly felt as ugly and smelly as a troll but…
“...No?”
Days of disuse cracked her despairful bleat.
“Huh. When do you want to move in?”
Oh Gods. He could be anyone. He could be a serial killer rapist cannibal. He could stuff her in his closet and do whatever sick shit he wanted to her and who would ever know?
Who would ever care?
He could be any number of things, but there was no question that he was someone with a roof and a bed. Maybe even food.
“...Tonight. Please.”
His name was Sandor. He only told her after getting hers and deducing that she needed a ride. He pulled up outside the McDonald's an hour past closing in a rusted pickup truck that sputtered and hacked black smoke into the sprinkling snow. The only sign of life in the parking lot was Sansa.
The floorboards were littered with cigarette butts, beer cans, and fast food detritus. Despite evidence of a diet consisting entirely of burgers, french fries, and tall boys, his black T-shirt clung to an obscenely muscled torso, an arm thick as the heaviest, healthiest tree branch spreading across her headrest. She leaned forward to avoid touching him as she buckled up and they took to the road.
“How old are you?”
It was the first thing out of his mouth, his shadowy voice somehow deeper in person. She pulled her arms up through the sleeves into the cave of her hoodie to warm herself.
“Eighteen. A week ago.”
“No shit,” he laughed, “next you'll tell me you're a virgin.”
Awful, cringe-inducing silence filled the cab.
“Holy shit.”
From her peripheral she saw his face snap her way, revealing a discoloration of flesh on his left side. He was scarred ‒ disfigured. She swallowed, refusing to return his gaze and explore further. He needed to watch the road.
The quiet was unbearable. He wouldn't stop stealing long glances, the back of her head tickling like fingers were toying with her snarled curls.
“No boyfriend?”
Her head shook.
“...I don't know how to cook.”
Thick digits delved past her ratty mane to the back of her neck, squeezing.
“That's alright. Old dogs can learn new tricks, n' you're still a pup.”
The apartment was worse than the car. Sansa whimpered as the door shut behind her, the giant who had escorted her three floors up to his lair locking first the knob, then the deadbolt, and finally securing a sliding chainlock. There did not appear to be anything worth stealing on the inside but a moderately sized flatscreen and a few gaming consoles.
The carpet was sticky and stained, encrusted with who knew how many years of unattended spills and dropped crumbs, and the couch was no better. Every surface was cluttered; more beer cans, empty liquor bottles and take out containers, dirty dishes and teeming ashtrays.
It didn't smell as awful as it looked. The bathroom at McDonald's was worse.
But it was still bad. The heat made it worse. It must have been cranked up to seventy-five.
Sansa bit her tongue on complaints. Feet glued to a cleanish portion of carpet, she watched as he ambled about casually, turning on a lamp, grabbing a beer from the fridge and ‒ to her vast alarm ‒ ripping his shirt off before settling into a sunken seat on the couch, the television already on and set to something loud and angry sounding.
All of the doors in the apartment were open, save the thrice-locked exit.
“Figure since you can't pay rent you won't mind helping me out with this,” he lit a cigarette, shooting an unimpressed glance at his surroundings ‒ as if it had all appeared out of nowhere and was but a passing nuisance.
“Cleaning stuff’s under the sink.”
No further directions were given. Sansa didn't move. After several seconds of inaction, his attention shifted from the screen to her, horribly scarred face expressionless and unblinking.
She moved.
It was a fair exchange, really. A few hours of cleaning for shelter from the cold was not much to ask.
His cabinet was surprisingly well-stocked, as if an attempt had been made at some point in the past to make a dent in the chaos, but whatever efforts put forth were clearly short-lived. She took a deep breath and mentally prepared, cataloging her tools and the chores in need of doing.
Okay. Let's go.
Mother always said that it was best to clean from the top down; clutter, then surfaces, then floors.
She began by taking a garbage bag and gathering all of the trash in sight, first in the kitchen, then all around the living room and bathroom.
“Don't be shy,” he called from the couch while she disassociated her way through emptying his bathroom trash can of used condoms and shitty, bloody, mucousy dried toilet paper.
“Get the bedroom while you're at it.”
The bed was king sized, as advertised, but all it had to offer for comfort was a loose sheet, presumably used as a blanket, and a single naked yellowing pillow. It was cleaner here than anywhere else, with no furniture to clear other than the bed and only half as many paper bags, cups, and cans to gather. She even went as far as to unstick the half-dozen used condoms dried to the wall across from his mattress.
Four trash bags were filled by the time she was done, enough to make yet another barrier in front of the only exit.
“Don't worry about taking that down, I'll do it later,” he said as she dragged in the last bag, panting and perspiring, single-mindedly scanning the room for any missed trash. “Just keep doing what you're doing. You hungry?”
She nodded eagerly, swiping a sleeve across her face to wipe away a sheet of moisture.
“I'll order pizza. Take that off, girl, you'll pass out.”
Too tired and hot to disagree, she pulled her heavy, damp covering over her head and let it fall, shameless of the wave of stink the action must have released. Her tank clung to her like a sticky second skin, gunked with days of dirt, sweat, and an endless shed of dead skin cells with nowhere to go.
“There's beer in the fridge if you're thirsty. Drink up.”
No.
She instead washed a dirty glass, drank enough tap water to refill it twice ‒ then forged on with the next task, laundry, but only after collecting the cans that had accumulated at his side to join the pile of trash. She filled his only hamper with the sheet from his bed, all four of his discarded outfits, underwear and all, and his one towel, then carried it to the back of the hall where a washer and dryer were hidden behind a persnickety sliding door that jammed on its hinges.
“Do these, too.”
She jumped, startled to find herself eye level with his hairy chest. He wore naught but a pair of holey boxers, offering a filthy pair of jeans draped over his forearm. She took them, clutching the dusty garment close to her chest when he reached behind her to jiggle the door fully open, using some sort of secret trick.
“I do construction,” he told her unprompted, lingering uncomfortably close to her back as she carried on methodically loading the wash, heart thundering. “Long hours. Hard work. Alright money. Don't feel like doing this kinda shit when I get off.”
Sansa had nothing to say to that.
“You should wash yours, too.”
She paused, looking down at her disgusting top and stinking jeans and it was all she could do not to burst into tears.
“...This is all I have to wear…”
The stipulations in his ad were very clear. Maybe this would be the final tick on his list; ugly, couldn't cook, and most certainly not okay with the human body. A large part of her feared he would order her to strip and carry out the rest of her chores naked. She would freeze first. Or he would kill her.
None of those things happened.
“Hm,” he grunted, scratching his furry gut, “that sucks.”
And then he walked away.
Pizza came while she was working on the kitchenette. He had gotten a family deal with two large pepperonis, bread sticks, and a two-liter of vanilla coke ‒ her favorite. A coincidence. It was a silent meal. She gorged, eating almost as much as him, but he didn't comment on it. Didn't even chastise her for the horribly unladylike belch she released after guzzling soda until it dripped down her chin. For the first time in her life, she did not excuse herself for the faux pas, simply wiping her mouth on her bare arm and gulping down more.
Okay. Back to work.
The washing machine beeped. She switched the load to the dryer. Dishes were finished quickly. Cleaning his drying rack took more time than anything, it was encrusted. He barely had any actual dishes; the glass she was drinking from, a pot and a pan ‒ no lids ‒ and just one bowl, plate, spoon, knife, and fork each.
With dishes done, the first portion of cleaning ‒ clutter ‒ was complete. Now for surfaces.
He stopped her, grabbing her elbow, when she breezed past on her way to the bathroom to Windex the mirror while Scrubbin' Bubbles was busy at work decalcifying sticky crud on his counters and the back of the kitchen sink.
“You're doing a good job,” he said, weighting each word, before releasing her to continue sipping beer and watching sports ‒ hockey.
The praise gave her an extra boost of energy and before she knew it, all the counters, both sinks, the tub, and toilet were sparkling. All that was left were floors ‒ but he didn't have a vacuum or a carpet cleaner, or even a mop or broom! She could have at the very least worked with a broom, brushed what crumbs and ashes could be gathered by its bristles from the carpet into the trash pile but there wasn't anything!
“Sandor…?”
He didn't answer. He was asleep, his lumbering form draped over two-thirds of the couch, a beer dangling from his slackened grip, threatening to drop onto the filthy floor. Sansa spared herself the future mess anyway, very delicately tip-toeing close to pluck the bottle from his lax fingers. He didn't stir.
She took the opportunity to examine his face. It really was awful. He must have lived a hard life. His mother must not have taught him how to clean. It wasn't his fault he was this way.
Construction work looked hard. Sansa would rather clean three apartments just like this every day than ever do that kind of heavy lifting. He was probably exhausted.
Let him sleep, then.
She gave herself permission to enjoy the sparkling tub she had just polished, luxuriating in the creamy lather of his 3-in-1 shampoo-conditioner-body wash, scrubbing and rinsing her scalp until her hair felt like squeaky clean steel wool. Its questionable ingredients and faux pine fragrance were massaged lovingly into her pores, cleaning the oily gunk of homelessness down the drain. She would have to introduce him to castile peppermint soap. He would love its price, functionality, and neutral scent, and it would be so much better for his skin and hair.
The door was left open the entire time, per the ad. He was still asleep when she skittishly emerged, wrapped in a clean, warm, fluffy towel. Once his unconsciousness was confirmed, she left the towel to dry on the rack, and gave herself another treat: one of those giant clean shirts of his. The soft, worn cotton felt so good dropping over her damp skin that she had to bite back a groan, hugging herself and turning in a complete circle in dizzy pleasure.
His bedroom didn't seem so personal and forbidden anymore now that it was literally just a mattress and a pillow. A stained mattress and a gross pillow, yes, but so much softer and warmer than her bed of the past week.
She had done so much work for him. It was a different apartment, unrecognizable from when she began. Surely she had earned a nap in the bed. There was nothing in his ad forbidding it.
Quite the contrary.
Heart thudding, bones heavy, Sansa cocooned herself in the dark in his clean shirt and sheet, shut her eyes, and went somewhere else for awhile.
The world was moving. She grunted and flipped away from the rippling disturbance, hugging her cushion close and nuzzling deeper into its comfort. It smelled like summer evenings fishing on the river, like grass and earth, Father and happiness.
“Who said you could steal my clothes, Goldilocks?”
Reality returned in two blinks. She tried to flee but was pinned, one of those massive arms resting dead weight across her waist. He boinged one of her frizzy, unkempt curls, ever-expressionless.
“Guess you're more like little red…”
Did that make him the big bad wolf? Was this his pattern? Make his victims clean up his vile messes before eating them up then repeating the process whenever the cesspit reformed?
So be it.
She trembled, fight gone, tears falling fat and free.
“I’m sorry,” she turned her face away, shrinking into a tinier target despite the imminence of her demise, “I just wanted to feel good…”
“Shhh…it's alright.”
Gentle fingers brushed her tears away, the unexpected sweetness of the gesture bringing more to the surface.
“You can wear my clothes. I'll even buy you some. We can work out a payment plan.”
Of course. Nothing was free. Uncle taught her that lesson the second she turned eighteen. Sandor kissed her tears up now, pulling her into his enormity as she fell into sobs, unable to hold them in. He was naked.
“Never had my place looking this good before,” he praised, touch growing bold, petting curves over his stolen shirt, “you work fast. Efficient. You followed the rules, too. Learn how to cook and you'll be perfect.”
Uncle never appreciated the work she put into keeping up the house after Mother died. He thought her allowance was far too generous. He thought she needed to do more to earn her keep, nevermind that his cozy work-from-home desk job gave him ample time to clean up after himself.
“How's this for a lease agreement,” he suggested, squeezing and stroking in joint efforts to comfort and explore, “you keep a clean house, get good in the kitchen for me, and let me fuck you however I want. Do that and you don't have to work, and I'll buy you stuff you need ‒ just no dumb shit.”
He crushed her tight, bucking against her ass.
“Fuck,” he slobbered into her neck, wedging fingers between her clenched thighs to reach for her center, “gonna have this wet little pussy tonight no matter what ‒ but don't leave me tomorrow, baby, let me keep you…”
Such a bold, blunt proposal burned her up from the inside out, tender horror coiling with arousal as he made good on his threat, pulling her legs apart fully so a monster cock could spring up between them just to squish her thighs back together and hump the soaked crevice.
“I'll treat you good,” he promised, plucking her nipples, surging between her thighs eagerly, “won't hit you or fuck around on you. I'll try not to yell too much.”
Uncle yelled at her every day. That slap from the morning she ran away after refusing to pay rent could still be felt stinging her cheek.
“Got a big cock, too,” he pulled it up flush against her clit and tummy, forcing her hand down to feel its width. “You don't know much about cock yet, but you'll never have another like this. You wanna feel good?”
He rocked, sliding the shaft along her swollen bud.
“This’ll do it.”
Somewhere along the way, her sobs turned needy. She was clutching him back, nuzzling his enormous bicep, helping hold his meat against her to rub more sweet pleasure into her pussy ‒ until he swatted her away to take hold of himself and aim properly. She stiffened.
“Wait‒!!”
A broken cry echoed through the apartment, cutting through the monotonous hum of the television. He shushed her, rocking leisurely, rubbing the spot in her tummy he was stabbing with lazy thrusts.
“It's alright,” he pushed deeper, pulling her closer, “it's not that bad, see? Relax that cunt for me, sweet girl…”
It was agony, but there was nothing to do but ease into his suffocating hold, let his bulk tell her what would happen next.
“Fuck,” he grunted, cuddling tight until his balls were cushioned to her thighs, his cock nudging at something deep inside that had her keening and shaking and scratching that pain back onto him, “that's so good. I dunno if I can let you go…fuuck…”
Long fingers crept up around her throat, loosely clinging to the shuddering cartilage. The gesture awoke something animal in her, that annoying, persistent will to live. She struggled, begging;
“No! Please!”
He choked like he meant it, forcing somehow more cock in and air out until there was room for nothing else.
“Shut up,” he growled, and she was sure she was going to die, “shut the fuck up! I'm not gonna fucking hurt you!”
She surrendered. There were worse ways to go. The nails embedded in his forearm fell away. Shadows at the corners of the room crept in closer and closer, swallowing the edges of her vision to a pinhole.
She inhaled, gasping; pine and musk and Father and happiness. A sudden burst of light swept the shadows away, her cunt spasming with violent convulsions around his iron girth, blissful oxygen flooding her lungs.
“Shit‒”
He shoved forward, rolling her onto her front to pound himself to a brutal finish, a forearm planted above her skull keeping him from ramming her up the mattress.
After leaving a wet kiss on the back of her neck he rolled away panting. The scent of tobacco filled the air. Sansa stayed put, thighs squirming at the warm, wet release seeping out of her.
He had not worn a condom. She was so tired.
“Smoke?”
“No, thank you.”
The cherry was half down the cylinder before he addressed her again.
“Where've you been sleeping?”
“A treehouse across the street from where I used to live.”
But she hadn't lived there in a long time, and neither had the Pooles. Some other family stayed there now, one that would have no qualms about shooting or incarcerating a filthy homeless girl found loitering on their property.
“Been sleeping in a tree like a little bird, eh?” He huffed, stroking her calf with his foot. “Gonna go back to that?”
“...No.”
“Smart little bird.”
He stubbed out his cigarette, turning back to his side to cuddle lightly, allowing her space to breathe and heal.
“So you need clothes. What else?”
“Shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. All three. Not one. Please.”
He snorted laughter into her hair, shifting closer.
“Done. What else?”
“Sheets and a blanket and pillowcases. And another pillow.”
Would he consider that “dumb shit”?
“Keep the bed made and it's a deal.”
How far could this go?
“My uncle’s going to cut off my phone any day now.”
“Fuck that. Need to be able to reach my little bird.” He nuzzled beneath her ear, bringing her tummy to a flutter. “I'll add you to my plan.”
This was so easy. His love was brutal and hard to swallow but once won came without condition.
“You're going to have to get a vacuum.”
She met his gaze head-on, unflinching.
“It's non-negotiable.”