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Published:
2020-12-08
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2020-12-10
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2/2
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A Drunk Dog's Words, A Sober Man's Thoughts

Summary:

After the Hound gets sufficiently drunk one night and passes out in a stupor, Arya Stark's plan to kill him changes when he begins to confess his love for a woman: her older sister.

*Rated M for language

Notes:

It's the most wonderful time of the year: my seasonal depression has kicked in!

I wrote this in the span of an hour for shits and giggles to pep myself up, and then I spent another hour contemplating if I should post it here. Obviously, I decided to do so; maybe someone else will enjoy it.

Happy reading!

Chapter 1

Chapter Text

The Hound had fallen asleep before he could bind her up in a cloak, drunk off a skin of sour wine he had found on a corpse earlier that evening. 

Arya sniffed the spout of the wineskin; it hardly smelled like wine at all. Wine, piss, poison, whatever it was, it knocked him out cold. 

Do it now, she told herself, eyeing the pommel of his longsword that glinted in the firelight. He’s so drunk, he’ll never wake. 

Arya slowly rose to her feet, biting her lip. Do it. He only means to ransom you. He killed Mycah. He may even kill you. Do it!

She knelt down beside him, as quiet as a shadow, and reached for the sword’s hilt. Closer, closer, almost there… 

The Hound shifted over an inch, facing the other direction, then drunkenly murmured, “I should've taken her.”

Arya froze in place. If he catches me, I’m done.

“Gods,” he went on, still asleep but also...not. She could smell the sour drink on his breath and wanted to die. “Should've told her...told her I love her."

She grimaced. Ew. Arya looked down at the ground, her hand hovering inches above the sword. Do it. Do it. Do it. 

Then he said it again. “Should've taken her...taken her home.”

Home? All of a sudden, Arya's curiosity became greater than the desire to kill him.

For now.

If he woke, she’d get a mean clout on the head for trying to kill him (again), but it’d be worth it if she could dig into his head. The Hound was always so boring. But this wasn’t boring at all.

“Take who home?” she dared to ask. 

He coughed a wet, nasty cough. She grimaced again.

“My little bird," slurred the Hound.

Arya’s eyes widened. That’s what he calls Sansa, she remembered.

Whenever he would refer to her older sister, he’d call her a pretty little bird, her pretty sister. Arya wondered why he’d given her that stupid nickname. 

She wanted to laugh, but said instead, “Why didn’t you take her, then?”

“Didn’t want me to,” he mumbled. “She didn’t want...me.”

Arya sniffed. The smell of him made her gag. “Well, can you blame her?”

The Hound made the strangest sound. She leaned forward an inch more and watched as his face twisted in torment.

Forgetting to be subtle, she all but shouted, “Seven hells, are you crying?”

“No.”

He was. 

Again, she wanted to laugh, but she couldn’t. Arya sat on the ground beside him, kicked his sword over with her foot, then pulled her legs up to her chest, thinking. 

The Hound continued to weep.

“You’re right. You should have taken her,” she said, but the words came out softer than she intended them to. 

He didn’t respond. 

Arya looked at the empty wineskin and bit her lip, hoping he’d stay in this drunken half-sleep a little while longer; she wanted to pry some more. “Why do you like her?”

“Like her?” Some seconds passed, then he added, “I love her.”

“Do you even know what love is?”

That only made him cry some more. 

Seven hells. “I mean...how do you know you love her?”

After his sobbing had quieted, the Hound lay there, motionless. She wondered if he had fallen back asleep. Unfortunately for him, her curiosity remained unsatisfied. Arya nudged him with her foot, no longer caring about being clouted on the head. 

“Hello? I said, how do you know you love her?”

“Protect her.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Huh? Protect her? You want to protect her?”

There was no response.

“Well, you did a shit job. You left her to be killed by Joffrey and Cersei!”

He didn’t cry that time. Instead, he murmured something under his breath. She leaned in closer, holding her breath so she wouldn't need to smell him, and listened to him grumble out, “...kill them all and take her.”

Arya sat back, smirking. “And then what? Marry her?” she teased, unable to stifle her chuckle. Sansa would die. Sansa would-

“Gods, yes.”

The molded cheese she ate earlier threatened to come back up. “You can’t marry her! You’re not a prince or a lord. You’re not even a knight, just some stupid dog!”

“For her…” the Hound trailed off and rolled onto his back, his horrible, ugly face tilted to the sky. His eyes were still closed, but the burned side of his mouth was twitching.

She scooted back and sat an inch away from the dying campfire, casting him in a shadow. Arya studied the thing before her, trying to imagine her sister, the I-do-everything-prettily Sansa Stark, kissing the Hound. 

Arya cringed and laughed at the same time. “Do you want to have babies with her?”

He released a nauseating guttural sound. “So many.”

She laughed again, louder. “How many?”

“Ten.”

“Seven hells!”

“I’d fuck her...every day.”

Arya covered her ears. “Stop! Don’t tell me that.”

His voice was so gross and harsh and raspy, she could hear him through her palms. “Fuck her so good.”

She shot up from the ground and walked away. As she made her way through the trees inside the woods where they had made camp, she heard something about cunts and nipples before she finally was out of hearing distance. Arya took a deep breath when she saw the Kingsroad ahead, the sky above jet black and studded with brilliant stars. “I’m never doing that again," she said to herself. Even then, she laughed. Poor Sansa.

The Hound never came after her. After an hour of practicing her water dancing with a stick since she no longer had Needle, she considered mounting Craven and riding off down the Kingsroad. Or I could go back and kill the Hound, she thought. Arya remembered the part he said about ten babies and laughed again.

Some more time passed; she was enjoying the time alone. Arya hacked her stick into a tree and pretended it was Joffrey. When that stick broke, she grabbed another and hit a tree again, pretending it was Cersei. And just when she made to find another and think of killing the Hound, she heard a voice call out from behind her. 

“You there! Boy!”

Arya glanced over her shoulder at the Kingsroad, watching as several riders approached.

Shit. 

As nimble as a deer, she darted through the woods.

“Wake up!” Arya shook the Hound with both hands, jostling him awake. “Riders are coming! They saw me from the Kingsroad!”

He opened his eyes and cursed the moment he saw her. The wine didn’t seem to be bothering him as much; him waking up from his strange, drunken slumber attested to that. She wondered if he remembered what all he said. Ten babies. Despite the situation they were in, Arya chuckled.

His eyes flashed, scowling. “What the fuck were you doing by the Kingsroad, you little bitch?!”

“Getting away from you!”

The Hound reached for his sword and stumbled to his feet, reeling. “Bloody wine,” he groaned. 

The hooves beating into the ground stopped. She could hear the men swinging down from their saddles, not realizing she was hiding behind the Hound. She peeked around his arm and watched several shadows move through the trees.

“Come out here, boy,” said one of the men. “We mean no harm. But try anything, and we’ve an archer.”

Arya knew that voice. It couldn’t be… 

The Hound laughed aloud, raspy, wet, and repulsive. “Dondarrion returns,” he said. “Come to die again?”

“Sandor?” a woman’s voice called out.

Not any woman's voice. Her sister’s voice.

With her next breath, Sandor’s sword fell to the earth like a corpse. 

The campfire behind them had all but burned out. Leaves and sticks crunched and snapped as they grew closer. Sandor was as still as stone, and Arya felt as confused as Gendry when he would try to think. She wondered if he’d be with them, too. It was the brotherhood without banners. And not only them, but-

“Sansa,” the Hound murmured soberly.

Appearing through the trees were Beric Dondarrion, Anguy, Gendry, and her sister. It was her sister. Sansa’s hair was dark now, dyed, almost black. But it was her, without question. Arya could see the bright copper in her roots, even inside the dark woods.

She found herself running forward, embracing the sister she once couldn’t stand, and just about knocked her over. Sansa smelled far better than the Hound.

Her sister's arms wrapped around her, her touch almost motherly. “Oh gods, Arya!” Sansa gasped. “You’re alive, and you're with…”

Arya turned to look at the Hound. He was in complete shock, nothing short of terrified. His eyes lowered from Sansa to meet her own, and then he frowned.

He had given her that look many times - a silent threat. It was at that moment she knew the Hound remembered what he had said in his drunken sleep. And, somehow, he knew that she had heard each and every word.

Ten babies.

Arya bit her lip until it bled, and then she laughed.

Chapter 2

Chapter Text

Arya’s cheeks were stained with tears by the time she finished laughing.

Sansa stared at her, knitting her brow. “Did I say something amusing?”

No, but the Hound did, she thought. Ten babies. 

Just as Arya made to tell all, Beric Dondarrion loosened his sword in its scabbard. “We wagered it was you who took the lady,” he said to the Hound. 

A silence lingered. When she looked over her shoulder at him, the Hound was staring at Sansa, as if he were in a trance. The uglier side of his mouth twitched, and then he shook his head. “Wager it with the gold you stole from me, did you, Dondarrion?”

Unsmiling, Lord Beric turned to her. “Did he harm you, child?”

“No!” she blurted out. Arya could not say why she did that. The Hound did smack her head a few times, and he cursed at her... a lot. Then again, she did try to kill him once or twice; she supposed it was only fair. 

Now that she thought about it, he really didn’t harm her at all. Any other man would have killed her after her first attempt to smash in his head with a rock. And despite his constant frustrations, the Hound made sure she never went a day without eating, even if it was only stale bread and molded cheese.

He only did that to keep you alive long enough to ransom you, Arya reminded herself. The Hound only cares about his stupid gold.

That was close - she'd almost forgotten that she hated him. 

Hoping Beric might challenge him to another trial by battle, Arya added, “But he does make us travel a lot, even when I’m too sick or tired to ride. He’ll dump water on me and throw me on my horse. Sometimes we ride ten hours a day,” she lied, then smirked in the Hound’s direction.

Ten babies.

“Ten?” Sansa said, incredulous. “That’s quite a lot.”

Arya’s jaw was quivering from suppressing her laugh. “That’s what I said.”

Sandor Clegane’s eyes were shooting daggers at her. She chewed her lip and tasted the bitterness of blood. If I’m ever alone with him again, he’ll kill me.

“We will take Ned Stark’s daughters from here, Clegane,” the lightning lord chimed in. “I suggest you come up with another way to earn some gold.”

“Like hell you will,” the Hound growled. “They’re coming with me. Both of them.”

Arya heard her sister softly gasp. Poor Sansa, she’s still afraid of him. In that same quick breath, Anguy aimed his longbow at the Hound’s ugly face. Do it! Do it! Do it! she thought, until Sansa took a step to the side, putting herself just in front of the quarrel. 

“Perhaps he can come along,” Sansa suggested with haste. “Considering we’ve been separated from the others, it would be of great benefit to have Sandor Clegane around for...safety.”

Arya’s mouth fell open. So did the Hound’s. 

Why is she defending him?

Lord Beric gestured for Anguy to lower the weapon; even he looked confused. “Clegane will be allowed to go, Lady Sansa. However, I do not-”

“Please, my lord,” said Sansa, sweetly. She was pleading with him. She was begging. 

Arya looked over at Gendry. His face was screwed up so tight she thought his head might explode trying to figure out what was going on. 

Lord Beric released a sigh. “It is very late, we will make camp here for the night.” He turned to the Hound. “Clegane, a minute.”

“Why not ten minutes?” Arya quipped. 

Once Sansa hesitantly turned around towards her palfrey and the men began to lead the way through the woods, the Hound stormed forward and grabbed her by the arm.

“Say one bloody word and I’ll send you to the silent sisters,” he rasped.

Arya laughed in his face, despite the smell. “I won’t say one. I’ll say ten.”

She was saved from being clouted on the head when Beric approached, his sword no longer hidden inside the leather scabbard. 

“Release the child, Clegane.”

The Hound cursed under his breath and then broke his grip, giving her one last threatening glance before walking deeper into the woods with the three members of the brotherhood.

Arya chuckled, then walked towards her sister with a pep in her step. 

Despite the fire having burned down to only embers, Sansa sat beside it and neatly unrolled her bedroll. Even when camping, she did everything prettily.

“Why were you traveling so late?” Arya asked, as she sat next to her.

“Well, it was not by choice,” Sansa sighed. “I’ll explain in the morning. So much has happened since I saw you last, I hardly know where to begin.”

Arya agreed. They would have plenty of time to discuss the horrors that happened to their family on the morrow, but the topic of the Hound could not wait. Beric would send him off at first light, she knew, so this was her only chance.

“The Hound told me you sang him a song,” Arya said abruptly.

There was just enough moonlight trickling in through the trees for her to see Sansa blush. “Did he?”

“He brings it up all the time. He even calls you a little bird.”

Her sister’s response was not the one she had hoped for. Sansa was smiling. No, Arya thought, nauseated. Could she have defended him because she lov-

Arya could not finish that thought. 

“It was very kind of him to keep you safe,” Sansa said, breaking the silence.

No no no no.

“He kidnapped me from the brotherhood so he could ransom me!”

“Wasn’t Lord Beric trying to ransom you as well?”

Arya hesitated, then frowned. “He was, but-”

“Well then, I do not think you can be angry at Sandor. I heard what he said. The brotherhood stole his gold.”

She’s defending him - again! 

Arya wanted to pull her sister’s dyed hair but refrained. She looked over her shoulder and could see the men through the trees. Sandor was fuming; the conversation did not appear to be going well.

Good.

Arya scrutinized her sister, watching as she braided her dark brown hair. “I hope Beric kills the Hound.”

Sansa’s head snapped in her direction. “Why would you say such an awful thing?”

Arya couldn’t take anymore. If she knew what he said, she’d stop defending him. “He talks about you in his sleep, you know.”

Her sister’s hands grew still on her unfinished braid. “What?”

“He was so drunk earlier, he fell asleep and talked about you.”

Sansa fell silent, staring at the campfire’s dying embers. It wasn’t until she finished braiding her hair did she say, “He said my name?”

“Well...no. But he said little bird. How many little birds does he have?”

“Only me,” Sansa said all at once, defensively. “He calls me that because I used to repeat everything Septa Mordane taught us.”

You still do, Arya thought, but decided not to say that out loud. 

“Do you want to know what else he said?” asked Arya, overcome with disbelief and mischief.

It was obvious that she did. But, for whatever reason, Sansa shook her head.

Arya proceeded anyway. “He loves you.”

She prayed a silent prayer to the old gods that Sansa might grimace or laugh in horror, but all she did was give her a dubious eye. “You’re lying.”

“Why would I lie? He cried and said that he loves you and wants to marry you. He even wants to have babies with you.”

“He did not say that.”

“Ten of them.”

Suddenly, Sansa’s eyes were like saucers. “Ten? No, I don’t believe you. This must be some stupid game of yours.”

Arya huffed. “Well, if you don’t believe me, why don’t you ask him?”

“That would not be appropriate,” Sansa said. She was blushing. “Besides, even if he was speaking about me, he was drunk.”

“That doesn’t mean what he said isn’t the truth. When I traveled with the brotherhood, I once heard Thoros say ‘a drunk man’s words are a sober man’s thoughts’. In this case, a sober dog’s thoughts.”

Sansa furrowed her brow. “Don’t call him that, it’s rude.”

“It’s rude,” she mocked. Arya was growing tired of her defending him. Why does she care so much? Unless…unless… “Do you want babies with him?”

“Excuse me?”

“Do you want the Hound’s pups? Yes or no? I’ll tell him since he will probably be too craven to speak to you.”

“He’s not craven!” Sansa said in a harsh whisper, despite it being what Septa Mordane would have deemed unladylike.“That’s all I ever hear anyone say about him since he left King’s Landing. No one cares to think about what it was like for him out on the Blackwater! All that fire...it must have been awful!”

Arya could only stare at her for a moment, taken aback at the fervor that exuded from her sister’s eyes. “Seven hells, you love him.”

“I do not,” Sansa said, looking away and fiddling with her skirts. 

“You love him and want to marry him and have his babies. Just say it!”

Sansa pressed a hand over her mouth. “Stop it! He’ll hear you!

Arya slapped her arm away. “Seven hells, you really do!” She feigned a gag. “I’d sooner see you have babies with Beric!”

When she tried to cover her mouth again, Arya squirmed away, causing them to both fall over onto the ground. The sweetness of reuniting with her sister was short-lived, all thanks to the stupid Hound. 

“He said he wants to fuck you!” Arya spat, as they grappled at each other. With one tug, she pulled out Sansa’s braid. “He said he’d do it every day!”

Sansa didn’t respond, only slapped at her and whimpered as their scuffle continued. A few more seconds had passed before Arya felt someone’s arm wrap around her waist and lift her off her sister. 

Arya looked up at Gendry. “Put me down!”

His eyes were smiling. “Will you stop hitting your sister?”

“Yes,” she lied. 

“Oh gods, he’s coming over here,” Sansa said, combing her hair with her fingers. There were twigs and leaves in her unnatural dark strands. It would have amused Arya had she not been so disgusted.

Once Gendry had set her down, Arya looked over at the Hound and rolled her eyes. Surprisingly, he looked rather calm considering Lord Beric just told him he would need to leave at first light. 

Beric probably had to give him gold, thought Arya. That’s all the Hound cares about - his stupid gold. Not me, and certainly not Sansa.

“You might want to hold your breath,” Arya said to her sister. “He smells awful.” 

“You smell awful.”

“Because I’ve been around him!”

Arya exchanged a look with the Hound. He narrowed his dark eyes at her but was significantly less angry than before. Because of the gold, she knew. Now he no longer has to ransom me.

He stood in front of Sansa and said, “Little bird.” Then he had the audacity to offer his hand.

If that wasn’t repulsive enough, Arya watched her sister have the audacity to take it and smile as she did it.

I should have killed him when I had the chance, thought Arya, pouting. I’ll still kill him.

Arya looked over at Gendry. He was staring right at her and had yet to offer his hand.

She frowned and said, “Well?”

Gendry walked towards her, but instead of helping her up from the ground, he sat down beside her. Being a knight had not made him any smarter. “I’m glad you’re safe, Arya. I...missed you. I was-”

“Shh!” she interrupted him. “I can’t focus when you’re talking.”

While Beric and Anguy were busy speaking amongst themselves further off in the trees, she watched her sister walk with the Hound towards his mount. Stranger was a mean horse, as ill-tempered as his master, yet when Sansa approached, the stallion sniffed her hair like a pup, making her giggle.

What in the seven hells is going on?

Arya surveyed them, unblinking, taking note of every detail. They stood a foot apart, which was four feet too close for Arya’s comfort. The Hound’s face, usually taut with anger, now looked...relaxed. His shoulders, too. He looked a little less ugly that way, she supposed. 

“We shouldn’t spy,” Gendry whispered. 

Arya poked him with her elbow, not that it did any good. “You should stop talking. Turn your head if you don’t want to look.”

Gendry laughed. “You don’t need to be so hostile.”

“Shhh!”

The Hound was explaining something to Sansa, moving his hands around so quickly she wondered if he was nervous. Yes, she thought, keep looking like a fool. Sansa can’t stand fools.

Then her sister took a step closer. 

Shit. 

Sansa didn’t appear to be bothered by his terrible appearance or smell. In fact, Arya would go as far to say her sister liked it. 

She gagged.

“They seem to be getting along well,” Gendry pointed out.

Arya bit her lip, reopening the cut from earlier, and watched as Sansa tossed her head back in laughter. The Hound smiled just then, and Arya wondered if she had ever seen anything more unpleasant to the eye in her whole life. When he reached for Sansa’s neck, Arya made to grab Needle, forgetting she no longer had it. Rather than choke her like she irrationally feared, the Hound took a lock of her hair and let the dark strands run through his meaty fingers.

Arya’s lips curled in contempt. “It doesn’t matter,” she told Gendry. “Beric will make sure he is gone by the morning or he’ll have Anguy kill his horse.”

“No, Lord Beric has agreed to let him travel with us.”

Arya looked away from the revolting display and stared at Gendry’s blue eyes. “What did you say?”

“The Hound’s with us all the way.”

She could not believe her ears. “All the way to where?”

“To the Wall.”

“The Wall?” The prospect of reuniting with her brother, Jon, excited her for a moment, until she realized how many leagues and turns of the moon it would take to reach the Wall. “I’ll need to stay on my toes, then. That’s a long time for my sister and the Hound to be around one another. I’ll kill him before anything happens.”

Gendry cleared his throat. “Too late.”

She turned her head back around so quickly she became dizzy, discovering that her sister had placed a hand on the Hound’s chest. No, no, no, no. Sansa looked over her shoulder, confirming neither Beric nor Anguy was watching them, then stood on her toes and pressed her lips to his. The Hound immediately cupped the back of her head with his hand and kissed her back.

Arya knew what she needed to do that night.

An hour later, the campfire burned warm and bright. Arya said her prayer as she always did before sleep, her list now one name shorter. “Valar morghulis,” she whispered.

She lifted her eyes away from the flames. Sandor was still awake, sitting with his back against a tree and watching as Sansa slept just beside him. Lord Beric would not have allowed that had he been awake to notice; come first light, they’d need to separate. But, for now, Sandor Clegane was visibly at peace. 

Sober thoughts. 

Arya rolled over to face Gendry, then lulled herself to sleep by thinking of ten names for ten babies.