Chapter Text
He's rudely woken in what feels like the early hours the next morning by a weight on his chest, and something tickling his face and neck. “What the--?” Petyr cautiously opens one eye then the other, groggy and voice rough with sleep.
Sansa leans over him in mismatching pyjamas, thick ginger hair mussed in his face, looking irritated and beautiful. “Come on! You slept in! I'm bored…” She whines and shifts her weight, she pouts her pursed lips even further.
Groaning, he rolls over as best as he can and stuffs his face under the sheets, away from her toying gaze and the suddenly offensive sunlight. “Respect your elders, woman. I'm tired, I was running after you all of yesterday.”
“Please, pretty please. I'll make you coffee. Just the way you like it.” She purrs, the weight over his chest is gone when he feels her slide over to his side of the bed and annoys him further. Sansa curls herself around him on his bed, feels her warmth through his bedsheets, wondering if she thinks about the night they shared together. She lays on her side, he could feel her eyes on him, watching his every move, wondering when he'll eventually stir.
“Go on then.” He sighs, resounded.
“Milk no sugar, right.” She leans up, on her elbows and kisses him gently, fatherly. Certainly not the heated kisses they'd shared many weeks previously. Sansa whines in discomfort and pulls backwards, much too sharply for his liking. Was she uncomfortable when being intimate with him? “Itchy beard.” She moans and touches it with her fingertips, a featherlight touch.
“Yeah. Sorry. Forgot to shave it last night, was too busy looking after you.” He rubs it, gets a feel for how long it had gotten.
“Don't! I like it.” She half shouts in fear and he feels a warmth spread from the inside.
“Well, I'd have to trim it eventually. I'll end up looking like a fucking pirate. Apart from the gold teeth.” Momentarily shutting his eyes before stretching, he thinks. He wasn't against growing a long beard. Though resembling a grubby looking stateless pirate wasn't on his bucket list. He hears her giggle and snuggles into his side, being obviously anything but uncomfortable with him. She laughs at something and it's a wonderful sound.
“I'll have to start calling you pirate Petyr!” She chimes and Petyr snakes an arm around her waist. Stifles a laugh and gives her a gentle shove off his bed.
…...
She's eating waffles with honey when he finally moseyed downstairs. He smells it before he sees it, yawns and rubs at his goatee. “Coffee's over there.”
Sansa points at his spot on the sofa and the small wooden coffee table next to it. He sips it, finds it good and strong. Not too sweet. She offers him a waffle and he takes it and eats it with his bare hands. “I should make something to eat, too. I'll do it when I've showered.” Petyr grabs fresh towels, leaving a pile of them to warm the day before. Knowing Sansa would be wanting a hot shower every morning until the foreseeable future.
It takes him less than twenty minutes to shower, after smelling of black mint shower gel, he's fully awake. Denies himself a quick shave, after Sansa’s suggestion and changes his clothes, chooses black lounge pants and a Ralph Lauren t-shirt.
He's halfway down the stairs when Sansa throws his phone at him. He misses catching it and it hits the floor, watches it skate a few inches before looking at her, eyes red and puffy.
“Your phone buzzed, I didn't want you getting a missed call.” She sniffles. “I had a wonderful conversation with one of your girls. You know, at your brothel.” She spits the word out like it tastes foul.
Tentatively, he picks up the phone, gives it a once over for scratches and marks and steps forwards towards her, notices how she shrinks in size a little, hunches her shoulders, tenses. His mind races, wonders at the conversation she must have had, makes a mental note to chastise Ros when he sees her next.
Petyr grabs her wrist and her yelps in surprise. From the look in her eyes, it was difficult to tell if she expected him to punch her in the face.
“First of all, it's none of your business what I do to earn money. Second of all if it wasn't for girls like that, we wouldn't have that fancy television and the shower that you enjoy using so much.” He huffs out a breath. “I don’t see why you’re so upset, my girls are well looked after, I give them free services to see the doctors, they’re well protected. It would be a completely different story if they were working on the streets.” Petyr says, low and rough.
“Now, if I let you go, are you going to hit me?” She slowly shakes her head, eyes still brimming with tears. Shakily taking a breath, she takes a step back moving her wrist into her chest. Sansa quickly moves away and runs up the stairs. Something inside himself told him that he wouldn't see her until the evening.
************
It is several hours later until he sees her again. He’s sent her a text informing he’s made dinner and she’s more than welcome to warm it up in his microwave. “Could you drive me into town later on?”
Her voice was soft, kind. The type a child uses before asking for candy or a new phone. He wonders if she’s eaten, or if she wanted to clear the air with him first. He was willing to let her eat her food upstairs away from him if she was still in a mood.
“Suppose. What are you wanting?” He doesn't look at her, instead, watches the cooking show he'd lost interest in several minutes ago.
“Um, well, Margaery has a name day party and I promised I'd go.” She plays with her fingers.
“A party…” Petyr exhales slowly through his nose, painting a lewd picture in his mind of what could possibly go wrong. “So, alcohol.” And boys.
“We wouldn't have to stay long, I've got her a gift, a necklace. And I promised I'd go, please.” She says all in a rush and her eyes are wide, excited.
Petyr sighs, knowing he'd already lost a losing battle. “I don't see why not.”
Several hours later, he climbs the stairs and stops a few feet outside from her bedroom, he hears her move, probably getting dressed or changing her outfit for the third time. He briefly wonders if this what it would be like if he had children of his own, or if he had fathered Sansa instead of her own family. Would she have been as beautiful?
The new rose coloured lamp casts a cosy glow over her room, his office turned bedroom really did not look too bad once she had gotten her claws into it. She had added concert posters and small blue tacked pictures of her siblings dot the walls here and there, from the last time he had been inside. She had successfully turned it into a place she could love and relax.
Sansa watches him watch her from the doorway. “What do you think?” She says over still facing her floor-length mirror, dropping to one hip and smiling as superficially as she could.
Petyr looks her up and down. “It’s not bad. For only meeting your friend.” His voice is low, stern, puts emphasis on the word ‘friend’. Sansa rolls her eyes. “Promise me something, okay? No giving boys your number.”
Sansa laughs humorlessly. “Why? Would it make you jealous if I did?” Sansa asks, smirking and there’s a playfulness to her eyes that he imagines she had learnt from him.
“Would you like it if I was?” Petyr holds her gaze for a few paces longer than normal before she nervously looks away before continuing. “No accepting drinks from people you don’t know.” He continues in a more reserved tone of voice.
Sansa huffs out a breath and puts down the tube of mascara she had just been applying. “Petyr--”
“And no smoking either.” He had to put his foot down at one point before his adopted daughter slash cousin went AWOL and completely off the rails.
She smiles sweetly and it’s his undoing. “Technically that’s three things.” He creeps forward and reaches for her waist, but instead of grabbing her, he pinches the bottom of her skirt and pulls it down a few inches, feels his fingers accidentally on purpose graze her thigh.
“And if I really was your uncle, I wouldn't let you go out dressed like that.” It's a point he had to make. In this position, she would be able to feel his breath on the back of her neck.
“If you really were my uncle, you wouldn’t be touching me like that.” She bites back, snarky, proud. Not meeting his eyes in the mirror.
“Would you rather I didn’t?” There’s a beat and she leans back, so his hands are full of her, the ends of her hair lightly against his cheek. It’s an honest question for once, one he’d already have an inkling about while watching her reflection in the mirror. Suddenly curious.
He knows her answer before she opens her mouth. “No.”
The ride into the Vale takes almost thirty minutes, the club is a massive, beige building with music booming out into the street. A boxy, glass and steel building with a jutting out entrance a few metres in front of the main area. Getting out of the car, moonlight reflects off puddles in the road, half wishing he had brought his coat instead of rushing outside in what he was already wearing.
Once inside, a burly looking bouncer in a tight black t-shirt and slacks stands guard outside giant, black double doors. “Who's this handsome devil?” This was most likely Margaery. And Margaery gives him the once over. She has cat-like features, green eyes and full lips, blonde hair worn in long, tumbling curls. She has a full face whereas Sansa still had a childlike innocence to her. It made her look a few years older than Sansa and he briefly wondered if she really was.
“This is my Uncle, Petyr. I've been staying with him over the holidays.” Smiling shyly, her friend grips her arm, fondly.
“Well, Uncle Petyr, help yourself to drinks. Everything here's free.” Her friend warmly offers and whisks Sansa away bluntly in search of nibbles and drinks. He watches when Sansa pulls out her perfectly wrapped gift and hands it to her. Petyr turns away, knowing she's in safe hands. Over twenty people dance inside and surely, a family like the Tyrells has private security hidden away. Perhaps in disguise as the bartenders or the guests. Petyr swiftly waves over the nearest waiter and orders a drink, the music being a bit too loud and modern for his tastes, ordering a rum and coke, hoping it will drown out the sound of the music.
The party passes fairly easily, leaving only stragglers and Sansa is left standing. She's since helped herself to the name day cake when her best friend had blown out the candles and cut a fairly large piece for her to take home. They'd hugged and kissed and taken selfies. She touches her friend on the shoulder, taking a seat next to her on the tall bar stool, and points to another slice of cake and smiles before wrapping it in a bright coloured napkin and puts it in her handbag.
Sansa comes over and he looks away, paints on the best nonchalant expression that he can muster and pretends he wasn't watching her. “Hey, I asked Margaery if you could have a piece of cake.” Sansa cheerfully says, he takes a sip of his rum and coke and takes it off her hands.
He delicately unwraps the edible slice, there are white frosting and pink icing sugar layers. And the cake itself is a dark brown colour which could only be chocolate. Taking a bite, he finds it moist and rich, guessing it was well within his price range when it came to buying food.
“It's good, right?” She asks innocently and he nods. It certainly was by his standards. But he senses the atmosphere cleared from the few hours previous. It was good. Exceptionally so.