Chapter Text
The Hound
The wolf bitch left him under a tree to die. Little cunt. After all her yammering about how he was on her list – the list of people she wanted to kill – she had the perfect opportunity to kill him at the tavern, or anytime since then and now. Instead she wrapped his wounds. She must have known it would only prolong his suffering. She helped him get onto his horse – not an easy feat with Sandor’s left thigh nothing but butchered meat.
They’re all meat, and I’m the butcher.
Sansa Stark would laugh if she saw him now. Now he was the meat, and some worthless cunt was the butcher. It was embarrassing really; Sandor could have taken all three of them without breaking a sweat. But dragging the little wolf all over the Riverlands had sapped him of his strength. Too much riding, not enough food.
But she wouldn’t really laugh.
No, that was true. The little bird was too polite to laugh in someone’s face. Even her little sister, that claimed to hate him so, couldn’t laugh when she saw he was nothing but a walking corpse.
When he couldn’t ride anymore, she helped him to sit under a tree. He’d rather she gave him a swift death, like he asked for. But she didn’t. The girl didn’t mind killing – rather enjoyed it, so far as he could tell. So it was him she didn’t want to kill. The only question now was whether that was mercy or cruelty on her part. It felt like cruelty to him, but her eyes had a certain sadness to them. A sadness he’d never seen in her Stark grey eyes, but that he’d seen often in her sister’s Tully blues.
Gods, what he wouldn’t give to see those blue eyes one last time. He summoned them easily in his waking dreams, but to see the real eyes and the real girl they belonged to one last time? He could die happy. Perhaps, since he wouldn’t live long enough to be ashamed, he’d tell her everything. All the things he’d never told anyone. All the things he hid even from himself until now; as the last of life was draining from his veins, he had no capacity for deception.
I should have been kinder to you.
I should have helped you – done more to protect you from Joffrey and his guards.
I shouldn’t have come to you drunk and broken. I should have been strong for you. Offered you a real escape, not some ill-formed plan to simply ride away from the capital in the midst of battle.
I should have told you that you were better than all of them. Every last one of them.
I shouldn’t have mocked you for your naivety. I should have told you what I really thought – that you were the most refreshing person I ever met.
I should have sworn myself to you. The only vow I’d ever make.
I should have told you… that I don’t know how to love, but that if I did, I’d love you.
It was a struggle just to keep his eyes open now, but his dying brain ordered them open. In his fevered madness, he thought that if there was any chance to see Sansa Stark again, he couldn’t miss it. Perhaps she’d just come strolling right past him. He didn’t know where she went after fleeing the capital during Joffrey’s wedding. No one knew, except Sansa and whoever helped her get out. Maybe she was close. Maybe she was right here.
His senses were failing. It wouldn’t be long now. Sandor Clegane had never been one to pray, and certainly not one to beg. But he did both now.
“Gods… you damned bastards… if you feel any obligation to me… for all the shit you’ve put me through… if you owe me any mercy… deliver it by letting me see her… just one more time…”
He kept his eyes open for as long as he could, but the Gods didn’t answer.
They never had.