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Sansa Stark was his best friend. Sandor knew he was a lucky bastard for it, for having someone as sweet, kind and caring in his life. He had never had that many friends so that made her even more special to him. They talked every day, hung out a lot and had so much fun together that he couldn’t help but feel like she was the best part of his life. And that scared the shit out of him. Because for just as long as they had been best friends he had been in love with her. He had tried to deny it, pretending like the way his heart ached for her didn’t mean something but he couldn’t lie to himself. If he had been a total sap who believed in what the songs said about love he would probably have recognised it sooner. Instead it had grown on him, this need to be with her all the time. This desire to make her happy and he should have realised sooner what that meant. Now he was scared that it was too late to do anything about it. Because what if she didn’t feel the same? She called him her best friend too, and eventhough that made him fucking happy to hear there was a sting to it. Because best friend was a fucking far throw from boyfriend. And what if he told her and she didn’t feel the same, he would lose her friendship and that would be the worst thing to ever happen to him since his brother pushed his face into the fire on that camping trip years before.
He knew he should just consider himself lucky to have her in his life at all, and he was. It was just his fucking treachourous heart that didn’t seem to get the message. It was as if it had been working overtime ever since that first night at the bar when they had met. He had never been sociable, preferring to get drunk in the privacy of his own home, away from people who would only stare at the scars on his face. But his coworker had convinced him that he needed to come out for a drink and he liked the feisty mechanic enough to let her convince him. It wasn’t until they were there that she had told him that her sister would join them and Sandor hated meeting new people. They always stared the first time they saw him. Sansa hadn’t been any different, except this time he had been staring too. Because she was so fucking beautiful that he hadn’t been able to keep himself from doing so. He couldn’t remember if he had even greeted her before he had run off to the bar, hoping to escape the pretty face that made him wish he looked like anyone else. He had been shit out of luck because it only took a second before she was next to him, ordering her own drink. He remembered that she had tried to strike up conversation with him, but he had acted like he couldn’t hear her. He had been a proper asshole, to be frank, and after a few attempts she had given up and they had waited in silence. A silence that had been broken by a drunk asshole who had tried to insist that Sansa let him buy her a drink. Sandor had scoffed at the polite way she had tried to turn him down. When the drunkard had gotten far too close Sandor had turned towards him with a scowl and told him to fuck off. The man had looked up at Sandor, who was twice his size, but the alcohol must have muddled his survival instincts because the man had sneered. Sandor would never forget the words the man uttered.
“Mind your own fucking business, Scarface.” Not that he hadn’t heard worse, or that he actually cared what the asshole called him. No, the reason he would never forget them was because of the reaction they had elicited in Sansa. She had turned to the other man and in doing so she had taken a step closer to Sandor. He remembered that he had been surprised by the way she had put herself between them, as if she was protecting him. In a stern, icy voice she had then given the man the sternest scolding Sandor had ever heard. She hadn’t used any curse words or even raised her voice, yet as she spoke the drunk man had visibly shrunk into himself and scampered off with his tail between his legs.
Afterwards she had turned to him with a soft smile and Sandor had burst out laughing and paid for both their drinks. They had spent the whole night just talking and for someone who struggled with opening up to people he had somehow ended up sharing a lot with her. There was just something about her that made him feel comfortable and safe. At the end of the night she had put her number in his phone and put a bunch of those pink little hearts around it. The next morning he had woken up to a text from her, asking him to brunch. He had never ever been to brunch before, thought it overprized breakfast but it turned out that Sansa loved it. One brunch had turned into dinner, which had turned into just hanging out and talking every day. Now he didn’t know what he would do without her.
She had brought so many things into his life that he wouldn’t want to be without. And a lot of new experiences. He had never even used emojis before her, but she used a ton of them so he had started using them too, only with her though. She introduced him to a lot of new things and he would never say no to her if he could help it. He was a fucking sap for her and if that meant having to put up with paying a ridiculous amount for pancakes and mimosas he would.
She had been shocked when he had admitted to not having any social media and after a lot of prodding he had gotten an instagram account and a tiktok. He had never posted anything on either and he spent far too much time just going through Sansa’s posts. She had tagged him in so many pictures and he couldn’t help but smile at them.
Mimosas with my bestie. Cosy dinner at home with the bestie.
His favorite picture was one that Arya had taken of them. He had his arms around her, resting his cheek against the top of her head while she had her cheek against his chest, a smile on her lips. It was a simple caption, but to Sandor it meant so much.
He gives the best hugs.
She was a very tactile person, she never hesitated to reach out to take his hand or give him a hug. At the beginning it had almost overwhelmed him, since he wasn’t used to people touching him. It wasn’t like he didn’t like it, what had overwhelmed him was how much he had enjoyed it and come to crave it. Over time he had started doing the same to her, just reaching out to touch her arm to get her attention or pull her into a hug just because he wanted one. He had tried to not let it mean anything, after all, Sansa would hug all of her friends. He really tried to not read anything into the way she would wrap her arm around his back and press into his side while talking to someone else. Told himself she was just cold or something, it had nothing to do with her wanting to be close to him.
He told himself that but that stupid heart of his didn’t want to believe it. It took every touch and held it tightly and it was betraying him. Because she was everything and it was torture holding her but also torture to not hold her and he was becoming a fucking mess.
He was too scared of losing her to be able to tell her how he felt because how could someone as amazing and beautiful possible have any feelings for him? It was moronic to think so. But then one day he had stumbled upon a tiktok challenge. He had never been part of one, despite how many times Sansa had asked him to do some fucking dance thing. That wasn’t happening, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t sometimes scroll through the app when there was a slow day at the garage. The challenge seemed the perfect way to get to kiss her. If she kissed him back, that would of course be amazing. But if she didn’t and his attempt went to shit then he could use the excuse of it being for tiktok and laugh it off.
He knew that if that happened his fucking heart would break, but at least he would know and he could be able to keep her friendship. He would stop reading too much into her words or touches and it would hurt but he would still have his best friend.
So he made a plan. He didn’t want to leave anything to chance and risk fucking it up before he could even try. He had asked her to go for a hike, which wasn’t unusual and had picked her up at her place. He had made a playlist for the drive over and he had put the song for the challenge in the playlist so that it would come on just a little after they had reached their destination.
His heart was in his throat the whole drive there and while Sansa chatted away as usual he could only give grunts and mumbled answers because he was trying to plan how he was going to go about things.
“Okay, so what trail do you want to take today? I got my new sneakers,” Sansa said as he parked the car and lifted a foot to show the bright yellow sneakers. “And before you start going off about chafing I’ve already broken them in. So I am good to go.”
“Eh… What?” Sandor said and quickly darted a look at his phone on the dash. It was just a matter of seconds before the song would change and his hands were shaking. He needed them to stop shaking. It was just a kiss, it was just Sansa.
But as the song changed and the music filled his truck he leaned his head back against his seat. It wasn’t just a kiss and the fact that it was Sansa made it so much more important. What had he thought? That one kiss would change everything to the better? With his fucking luck in life she would reject him and never feel comfortable with him again. He would lose one of the good things in his life because he couldn’t just be her best friend. What the fuck was wrong with just being her friend? Nothing, there was nothing wrong with that. She was a great friend. Only…
Only she was everything he could think of, everything he wanted. And he wanted her, so fucking badly. He wanted to hold her, kiss her, be hers. In every fucking way there was.
Just go for it you fucking coward. If it backfires then you deal with it.
“Sandor?” the soft tone of her voice had him turn his head towards her and found her already looking at him. She was leaning slightly over the centre console and when her blue eyes met his there was a twitch of a smile on her lips.
Sandor knew this was the moment, his one shot, and he forced himself to push through the fear. He was just about to lift his hand when hers came up to grasp the nape of his neck. His eyes widened the second before she pulled his face into hers and pushed her lips into his. He felt like someone hit him over the head as Sansa’s soft lips touched his and then in the next second he was fairly sure that he had to be dreaming because Sansa’s kiss turned firmer and there was a swipe of her tongue against the line of his lips. With a surprised groan he opened his mouth and in an instant she claimed him. Her other hand came up to push into his hair as her tongue entered his mouth. She tasted sweet, like the vanilla lattes she liked to drink, and something that was so completely Sansa.
Sandor had never been kissed the way she was kissing him. He felt like she was everywhere, her tongue, her taste and her scent completely encompassed him and there was only her. She released a soft humming sound and it was as if it brought him into action. His hand came up to cup the back of her head and he started kissing her back with the same intensity. He wished that the console wasn’t between them so that he would have been able to pull her into his chest.
He had no idea how much time that had passed when she pulled back, all he knew was that he didn’t want the kiss to end. His eyes were blown wide as he stared at her. Sansa’s cheeks turned pink as she smiled bashfully at him and leaned into her seat.
“Wha…” Sandor closed his mouth when he saw the way she started fiddling with a strand of her hair, a sign of her being nervous. She had just kissed him senseless and now she was nervous?
“So… let’s go hiking.” Before he could react she got out of the car and he had no choice but to follow her. He rounded his truck and moved close to where she was standing by the passenger door.
“What was that?” he asked, putting himself so close to her that she had nowhere to go.
“What?” She turned her eyes downward but he needed her to look at him. He needed to know. Hen gently took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted it up so that she would look at him.
“Sansa…” He spoke her name softly, afraid of what she was going to say or do. She had kissed him in a way he had only ever been able to dream of but now she was pulling away and it was confusing as hell.
“Did I ruin it?” the blurted out question had him frowning down at her in confusion and she sighed. “Did I?”
“Ruin what?” he asked in a whisper and he took a deep breath when he felt her hand press against his chest, right above his heart. Did she know that it was hers?
“Our friendship. I just… I have wanted us to be more for such a long time and I tried to show you that but you never seemed like you did. Oh Gods. You don’t feel the same way. I… I don’t want to ruin our friendship.” His heart almost lept out of his chest and into the palm of her hand then. Hearing her say that she had wanted him, wanted them, just as he had was more than he could truly wrap his mind around. He could just focus on the here and now, on the fact that Sansa had kissed him because she had wanted to. Because she wanted him.
“Oh, it’s ruined,” he answered in a rasp as he moved his hand to cup her cheek. Her beautiful expressive eyes filled with worry and then confusion when he smiled happily at her. “Because I’ve wanted us to be more too, for so long. And I don’t want to go back.”
“You…?” This time he was the one who kissed her. His kiss started softer, just a press of his lips on hers until he felt her response in the pressure of her own lips and then her hand in his hair. He smiled against her lips while his thumb dragged softly against her cheekbones. “Sandor.”
The way she said his name, so breathless and tender, made him press his whole body against hers and instantly her arm came around him and it was better than he could have ever imagined. They kissed for so long, varying between soft pecks to deep hungry kisses that had his head spinning. It was everything and so much more than he thought he would ever have.
When they finally pulled apart she stayed in his arms and pressed her cheek to his chest and she was probably able to hear the frantic beating of it, the rhythm of it telling her that it was hers.
“Are you still my bestie?” she asked against his chest and he pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head.
“Whatever you want me to be, I’m yours.” He answered in a whisper and she tilted her head up to smile at him.
“Mine.” He obliged her when she asked to take a selfie together, holding her close and pressing a kiss to her cheek when she snapped the picture, causing her to grin widely.
It wasn’t until later, when he was home again that he got the notification that he had been tagged in a picture and as he opened instagram and read the caption his eyes darted to the woman who was coming into the living room with a glass of wine in each hand. Her face split into a huge smile when he opened his arms for her and when she climbed into his lap and he held her close he smiled too. Because the words were equally true for him. And Sandor was a lucky bastard for it. Because of her.
My love.