Chapter Text
Teaching was the sort of profession adults went into because of some inherent love of it. Of educating the next generation; of watching children grow. It was an innate sort of desire of wanting to watch the young learn and succeed, to help them discover their dreams and achieve them with the same fervor the teacher had in teaching.
Petyr Baelish hated children. Not with a passionate fire, not with a burning need to attack them and their foolish dreams and whimsical ideas. Petyr was a child at some point, after all. Petyr had his own foolish dreams and whimsical ideas a long, long, long time ago.
Rather, Petyr hated that he was stuck here teaching basic math to a group of children. He much preferred dealing with the youth of high school or college – their dreams were, by-and-large, already shattered by the real world. The whimsy fantasies were nothing by embarrassing memories of their childhood. Kids of those ages were starting to learn their place in the cruel, terrible world of Reality.
Unfortunately, the current assignment stationed Petyr here. A private school, grades kindergarten through eighth. Not only were these children filled with their idiotic dreams and friendships, but they were the offspring of King’s Landing’s elites. From the stuffy merchants to the stuffier governors.
The children were just like their parents: in summary, a nuisance.
And so Petyr stood, detailing how to find slopes and derive equations of lines. The children of this grade seven class stared at him with wide, vacant stares. Some scribbled down notes, some passed notes between each other. They were just as pleased to be sitting there learning as Petyr was in teaching them.
At least the feeling was mutual.
Of course, Petyr’s class was just before lunch. The children’s already limited attention was being drawn away from the scratch of his chalk on the board and towards the clock, ticking down their sentence in this hellish room.
One of the kids, a short stuffy boy with blond hair and greasy skin, threw a pencil at another. Then another. Laughter and shouts erupted.
Good gods, there’s five minutes left, Petyr thought, turning to stare at the children. The chalk in his fingers was threatening to crack. Couldn’t they wait to annoy each other after the bell?
“Afterschool detention to both of you,” Petyr announced. The sniggers in the class faded. But that boy – oh, what Petyr would have given to have that boy be the one murdered rather than his brother. For a child who lost a sibling, Joffrey was rather carefree and uncaring.
Or perhaps this was a result of his loss? Taking out his sadness and untampered emotions on the other children in his class? Not likely.
The chalk snapped. Petyr couldn’t care less about the emotions. He wasn’t a psychiatrist or a counselor. No money in the all of Westeros could convince Petyr to care a fraction for these children’s emotions. All he had to do was figure out who had sent the death threats, and he would be out of there. The sooner, the better.
He set the broken chalk on the board’s lip, wiping his hands to clear the dust. Another reason to hate being here – the chalk, the dust, the coarseness it seared into Petyr’s skin. For the amount of money extorted from these children’s parents, one would think the school would be able to afford whiteboards instead.
“Your test will be Friday. Everything that I’ve covered up to today’s lecture will be on it.” A ripple of groaning mixed with the flurry of chairs being scooted. Of papers and books and pencils being put away.
There were still a few minutes before class was officially over, but Petyr needed those precious seconds as much as the students. To clear his mind, to ease the frustration of teaching and the current stagnation of his case. No one in administration harassed him about letting his classes out early, anyways. They must have thought he’d be done with the case already.
He should have been.
A suicide in an uptown private school. The first case of suicide since the school’s inception decades ago. Almost a week since the suicide, since Petyr was assigned to take care of it - and nothing. His mind was growing restless from the lack of leads. If anything, the prospect of having to grade exams was enough incentive to get Petyr to hurry the hell up.
A crash. Laughter. Muffled sobs. More sniggers and snears.
Petyr glanced up, lecture notes in his hands.
Joffrey had pushed a student from her chair. Terrible, snarling curses erupted from his lips, his skin flushed and oily in the fluorescent lighting.
Other students were laughing along. The rest were staring between Joffrey and Petyr, wondering in fear what their uncaring, mean-spirited teacher would set as punishment.
Petyr gritted his teeth, the papers in his fingers crunched.
Oh, if he could give that little shit detention for the rest of the schoolyear. Not in Petyr’s room – he didn’t want to deal with Joffrey more than he had to. Preferably a janitor’s closet, dark and cramped and locked. Petyr accidentally forgetting to set the boy free.
But he couldn’t. The boy was in trauma, the school and family said. Over and over: he’s in trauma; he’s in shock; it’s not his fault if he lashes out.
His family – those detestable and dim-witted Lannisters – hired Petyr to discover who had been sending their younger son death threats. Surreptitious notes and whispered words that led to the poor, little Lion to embrace asphalt with terminal velocity. They said the sight of all that blood and brain splattered was enough to sicken anyone. Petyr had to admit the gruesomeness of it when he visited. What was left of Tommen, however, was hardly the worst death Petyr had the misfortune of dealing with.
Part of Petyr wondered if he took the case more because of the resemblance between himself and the dead student. Either that, or because of the hefty sum the Lannisters were always willing to pay to clean up their messes. And what a disgusting mess they’ve wrought.
The ringing bell broke him from his thoughts.
The children were still standing, staring, waiting. Joffrey had the hideous look of someone who knew he was untouchable.
Petyr folded his notes and set them aside, casually walking over towards the back of the room. “By Friday,” he began, staring down at the blond child. “I expect a hundred lines of I will not disrupt my classes or cause harm to other children. Signed by your parents.”
The boy narrowed his eyes. “I’m in distress,” he emphasized. None of the other teachers would touch the snobbish Lion for fear of reprimanding by his family. A family that was slowly, carefully gaining more and more power and influence in the government. How convenient were the deaths or urgent business of other families that sent them away from King’s Landing.
“Too much in distress to not remember how to write, Mr Baratheon?”
Joffrey’s flush reached the tips of his ears. Other children behind him were stifling sniggers – any sound from them, and their lunch would be spent in the nurse’s office. They were just as impatient in seeing Joffrey get what was coming to him.
The boy was biting his tongue, chewing on words. Debating whether or not he could get away with cursing down a teacher.
He thought better of it and stormed out without another word. The door slammed against the hall.
With the tension eased, the rest of the students filed out.
Except for one.
Petyr was turning back towards his desk when he saw her. He had honestly forgotten the child, so riled up against a boy of thirteen name-days. Such a young thing he was. And already a pain in the ass. Petyr could not imagine how terribly the country would be ruled once the boy reached of age. Assuming the Lannister’s hold on their power lasted that long.
She was staring at Petyr, eyes wide in shock and fear and pain. A delicate hand was rubbing at the back of her head. The chair she once sat upon lay overturned beside her. Her legs were lithe and smooth and bent apart – perhaps she had forgotten her modesty during the debacle with Joffrey.
Petyr couldn’t stop staring at the cascading waves of fire framing perfect ivory skin. The same heat of her hair was found on her lips, in her cheeks. And cooling the flame were eyes of the clearest blue sea. So wide and open and deep – Petyr imagined swimming in them. Remembered once wanting to swim and drown himself in the same beauty.
Petyr was a child again. Small with thin limbs and an awkward face. Such a long time ago. But now he stood above the girl with fire coursing from her. Now he stood watching the girl stare back in fear.
He offered her his hand. “Are you alright, Ms Stark?” Ah, but this girl of fire was drowned by the harsh world of snow and mountains, not the rivers and valleys of years past.
This girl was the same. The shade of hair, the curve of her cheek. And yet, a girl entirely of her own making. A girl entirely of Petyr’s own destruction.
She lightly gripped Petyr’s proffered hand, raising herself up. The numerous bracelets she wore jangled, the only sound. Her fingers were small and smooth and delicate. And warm.
“Th-thank you, Mr Baelish,” she sputtered. Hands moved to smooth the pleated skirt, moved to set errant curls back in place. She moved to collect her things, strewn across the floor in her sudden removal from her chair. She righted that, too, setting everything in its proper place before leaving.
She let the door close behind her without a another glance back.
Had she looked, she would have noticed Petyr’s gaze never once falling from her.
* * *
Every evening, Petyr reported to the Lannisters his findings and a new case summary regarding any possible leads and assumptions made. He was prone to listening in to gossip amongst the students and faculty. Trying to catch any sort of hints to the tragic accident that befell the school.
In the days since taking the job, he had to admit he wasn’t getting anywhere. But that wasn’t what the Lions wanted to hear. So of course Petyr strung together snippets of gossip and notes and far-fetched assumptions. A tale of wonder that was ever-shifting, always changing each time he reported. One student was the suspect, and then another, and then the possibility of a teacher.
That was his job, of course. Weaving half-truths and evidence into the story that a client wanted to hear. It was a wonder that the Lannisters – such regulars for Petyr – believed a lick of what he said during his reports.
Petyr meanwhile had a solid hunch on the actual culprit. The actual person with hands bloody from the untimely death of the poor Tommen. The why was uncertain. The real why wasn’t important – Petyr would create the why that fit his whimsy.
He just needed the proof to back up the accusation. The shred of truth that made whatever story believable. That, and taking the time to milk the Lannisters of their wealth made dealing with these raucous children and the exam he was currently passing out worth it.
Joffrey hadn’t submitted his lines. He hadn’t even told his mother, which Petyr suspected to hear an earful during last night’s report. Not a peep. The little Lion was far, far more trouble than he was worth. If only the death threats were sent to this brother instead of the other.
But then, Joffrey wouldn’t have been the sort child to accept the anonymous threats. If anything, he would have been sending them out.
And so he sat, chair tipped and desk clean of even a pencil – untouchable, impossible to tear down. Petyr set the test on Joffrey’s desk, restraining the itching desire to trip the chair’s legs and set the boy tumbling.
Just as Sansa did earlier.
She was in the back row, directly behind Joffrey. Perhaps that’s why Petyr had never noticed her before. She was always in the shadow of the class’ nuisance. He tried to think on whether or not Sansa ever spoke up or raised her hand. Maybe. But all Petyr would see when he glanced in that direction was Joffrey.
He set the test down on her desk. There was an itch inside of Petyr. As impossible that itch was earlier to set Joffrey falling from his high self-confidence, so too was the itch to brush past Sansa. To trail a hand across that lithe arm reaching for a pencil to write her name. To comb his fingers through the endless waves of red - curls that were both meticulously tamed and yet untamed and running free over her shoulders.
Petyr gripped onto the pile of tests as a means to tamp down that itch. He couldn’t ignore it – it was there, it was always there since he helped her to her feet. A pestering thing that seemed as sudden and unexplainable as the death he was investigating. But now that it was made known, Petyr couldn’t help but want to indulge. To scratch and tear his skin until his own flesh bled from desire.
He moved down the next aisle, setting tests down one by one. The edges were creased from his fingers.
“You have until the end of class,” Petyr announced after he returned to the front. “If you finish early, flip it over and sit quietly. Read a book, sleep, whatever. You may begin.”
The silence was broken by the turning of pages; by errant coughs and a pencil broken then sharpened.
Petyr sat at his own desk, flipping through his notebook on the case. A small book filled with scribbled notes, written in his own shorthand. He opened the folded news-clipping of the suicide, comparing it with the news-clipping from another paper. Words he’d underlined continued to stare at him in a mockery.
His gaze glazed over the classroom, thinking. Trying to imagine junior high-aged Petyr Baelish falling from six stories. Jumping in front of a moving truck. Slitting his own wrists.
Years ago, he considered it. He tried it. Not of his own volition, of course. Petyr was overcome with the embarrassment and shame of stories failing him. Of the fairytales where the boy always got what he wanted. What he was deserving of.
Young Petyr was not deserving of love from such a beautiful girl.
He hated the color red. The color of her. The color of his skin after the other kids beat him behind the school’s cafeteria. The color of the bricks he threw up against, with thoughts of taking back those words, those feelings. The color of the blood that oozed from his wrists.
He always thought himself the coward for not going through with it.
Not anymore. The faint lines running down Petyr’s forearms were an infinite reminder of the pain and sorrow he had to undergo in order to emerge as someone better. Someone who didn’t believe in those fairytales. Someone who wrote the stories.
Someone who survived.
Petyr focused on the classroom again. He hadn’t realized he’d been zoning out for so long – half the time was already gone.
No one was finished yet. The screw of frustration set into each child’s face was almost comical. Part of Petyr wanted to tell these children that learning how to solve for slopes was a pointless waste of their time.
But that wasn’t his job. He wasn’t a teacher. He didn’t actually care.
His eyes roamed across the room once more. Joffrey took up Petyr’s advice of sleeping. It would be a miracle if the boy even bothered to write his name down. Petyr wondered just how far Joffrey was going to get through life with such a terrible attitude and insipid belief that he was the center of the world.
Petyr pushed those thoughts out. Glancing over the pile of gold lying beneath the towering pile of red.
Red – the cascade of red falling all around her. Consuming her in an unburning fire.
How he wanted to part those endless waves. To lift her chin and see her face. To look at her, to touch her. Admiring this new, impossible discovery – a new something, a new definition of a hidden emotion Petyr was sure he would never feel again.
The color red had such a different meaning now. It wasn’t the sight of laughter and embarrassment aimed at him. The blood trickling from nose or wrist. The fear of who he was.
Sansa lifted her head, her gaze still concentrated on the test before her. She raised her delicate arm, connected to her smooth hand, setting the pencil to her mouth. Gently pressing the eraser into her soft lips. Her brows furrowed, face scrunched at trying to remember some formula or method.
She glanced around, towards Petyr. He had shifted his eyes towards the forgotten notebook in his hands, flipping through the pages and pretending to make sense of the words scribed in there. But he paid those words little attention. Over the top of the notebook Petyr continued to stare at Sansa. Stare as she made sure the coast was clear before peering – not so furtively – at her neighbor’s test.
Petyr couldn’t help the smile that spread across his lips.
Sansa Stark – a model of perfection, a shining example for what a proper young lady should aspire to. Cheating, and so blatantly.
Oh, this was going to be fun.
* * *
“Ms Stark, may I have I word?”
Her cheeks flushed into a pinker shade of her hair. More like the shade of her lips that were parted. Petyr saw a feather of panic course through Sansa’s face before she tamped it down.
Petyr was righting the collected tests on his desk, arranging them to lie in the same direction. A final straggler handed her test to him and nearly sprinted out the door in embarrassment. Petyr couldn’t help but notice how much white space was left on her paper.
He took his time. Letting the panic swirl within Sansa – all the what ifs tumbling through her mind, he was sure. She toyed with the gaudy bracelets on her wrists. Petyr flipped through each test, as if examining and measuring the students’ aptitude. The silence was filled only with the rustle of paper and the incessant (and rather annoying) pulse of blood through veins.
Satisfied, he finally set the stack back down on the desk. Petyr gave a cursory glance at the door. It was closed.
His attention finally fell on the girl standing before him. The dread present before seemed to multiply exponentially upon Sansa’s features. Petyr watched as she slid her tongue, slowly, over her bottom lip.
“Do you know why I’ve called you back, Ms Stark?”
Of course she wouldn’t. But Petyr wouldn’t pass on the chance to play with her nerves. Sansa shook her head. Her fingers paused their ministrations over the flashy beads, but they stayed about her wrist.
Petyr leaned back, resting one leg over the other. “I do believe, Ms Stark, that cheating is against the honor code of this institution.”
What Petyr would have given to capture that look of terror. The blue of her eyes seemed to vanish beneath the white. The warm flush disappeared into a cold, white sheet across her skin. Petyr was sure she stopped breathing for several heartbeats.
He saw her fingers tighten over the bracelets. Finally, Sansa spoke: “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr Baelish.”
The guilty always deny the crimes, don’t they?
Petyr pushed back on the smile that was forcing its way onto his lips. “No?” He gathered the stack of tests again, thumbing for two in particular. He made sure to place them one after the other during his perusal earlier. “Well, Ms Stark, then would you please explain how you and Ms Poole wrote the exact same solution to number three, please?”
He set the tests side by side, indicating the two girls’ answers. Sansa had the same wrong solution with the same wrong steps. Flipping the equation for slope was a simple mistake. But both girls also flipped the order of the coordinates, which wasn’t an impossible possibility. Certainly at least one other student made the same folly.
The proof was there, written in her own hand.
Sansa’s fingers were digging the bracelets into her skin. Digging so hard the colored plastic was working to bring an angry flush over her wrists. Petyr thought it cute at first. How impossibly inexperienced this girl was at hiding her lies. At the first sign of being caught, her body was already subconsciously working to expose her of her unspoken guilt.
The irritated flush turned darker. Warmer. Redder.
Petyr swore under his breath. He sat up, ignoring the insignificant issue of cheating. His hands were reaching for her own before she flinched away.
The terror in her eyes was overwhelming.
Sansa’s breath was coming out short and fast, her chest threatening to rip from her heart. She took a step back, two.
It was like looking into a mirror from the past.
“Ms Stark, if I may–”
She was pulling away further, arm clutched against her chest. Sansa was going to bleed over her uniform.
Petyr could feel the panic rising in his own chest, too. The fear of being caught for trying to relieve the pain in his head and heart. Angry lines across skin.
He didn’t know her at all. Who she was, what she liked, what her family and friends thought of her. However, what Petyr did know was that those marks weren’t the cause of nothing. Something or someone was leading Sansa’s fingers to strike lines across her wrists.
Petyr had a moment’s pause before lifting the cuff of his sleeve. He had always worn long-sleeved shirts and jackets, despite the humidity of the city. Never would Petyr reveal that weakness of his youth. Yet here he was, rolling the fabric away. “It’s okay,” he said, showing her the similarity between the two of them. The solidarity in persons cast out for who they were.
Sansa stopped moving away. Her own wrist was still clutched, fingers digging into the fabric and below into the skin. She wanted to pull herself out and away, he could tell.
“It’s okay,” Petyr repeated. Slowly he edged around the desk, stopping before her. He rose the exposed arm before her, letting the fluorescent lights pick up the faint white lines etched there.
Sansa couldn’t stop staring at them. Petyr continued, his voice soft, “You’re going to be alright, sweetling.” Sweetling – what a ridiculous word. It was soft, though. A gentle word meant to calm the wild panic running through Sansa.
She moved her gaze slowly, so slowly, from the wrist to Petyr’s eyes. Sadness coated her own, a mask for the terror and loneliness underneath.
He lowered his arm, not bothering to cover his forearm. Perhaps it was a gesture of familiarity – that Petyr was affected, too, and wasn’t going to hide who he was from Sansa. Perhaps he wanted to invoke not sympathy, but trust.
“Sweetling, I’m not upset about the test.” What did Petyr care about tests for a class he wasn’t technically teaching? Besides, he would be long gone before the tests would be graded and passed back. So he hoped. “Everyone cheats, it’s fine.”
Sansa was shocked by that. Her lips parted as if to speak, but didn’t.
“However,” he continued, “I’m more concerned about who or what is making you feel like… like the pain is necessary.” Like the pain is a necessary relief from the horrors of reality. From remembering how pitiful she was.
She licked her lips. Her wrist was still clutched, but the fingers grasping it loosened. They stopped clawing at her chest at least. “I… It’s no one.”
Petyr glanced behind her, towards the back of the class. Towards her desk. He wondered if he would find his proof hidden behind the books inside. He looked back at Sansa. “Sweetling, it’s not okay for someone to make you feel terrible. It’s never okay.”
Look at him. First a teacher, and now a counselor. If the faux-detective business ever flopped, Petyr would have alternatives at least.
He clasped his hands at the lip of the desk behind him, fingers digging into the wood. Oh, how he was itching to grab onto her arms, to raise her wrists to his mouth and ease the pain away from her skin. To erase the memory – physical and mental – of what that someone was doing to her.
Child killer – that was another alternative.
So Petyr sat, swallowing a lump of saliva down a dry throat. So he sat, wanting desperately to make amends for this girl. For his own self.
Sansa licked her lips again. “I…” she began. There was a tremble in her voice. Her head moved back, looking at her own desk – or perhaps at the door and her escape. Long seconds dragged before she turned to face Petyr again. Her words were so soft he wasn’t sure they were actually spoken. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
Would he? Should he?
Yes, he should. That was the teacher conduct – to report signs of abuse and mistreatment in students.
But Petyr wasn’t a teacher.
He nodded. “Of course, sweetling.”
Her feet shuffled her away from Petyr, back towards the last line of desks. Sansa nearly collided with a chair, so lost in her thoughts.
Petyr followed her. She fished insider her desk with her non-bleeding arm. The other, Petyr could see, had left smudges of red across her blouse. A red so much darker than her hair, but just as alive. So stark and there, for all the world to see.
Sansa pulled out her textbook and old homework. Petyr couldn’t help but notice how, as the dates on the homework were earlier in the year, her marks were better. The decline was a gradual thing over weeks, months.
Petyr gripped the edge of her desk. For support. For channeling the fiery blood running in him. He hadn’t been here when it began, hadn’t even known Sansa or cared for her. But there was a knife, a series of knives, clawing and stabbing within Petyr. He didn’t want her to succumb to that darkness Petyr knew all too well.
She finally found a small crumple of paper. It was balled incredibly small, the paper soft from countless touches and presses.
Die wolf Bitch
That was one note. There were several, all amounting to the sort of worth the sender thought of Sansa.
Petyr saw the sting of tears at her eyes. She tried to blink them away. To hide the weakness she was displaying for Petyr. For someone she didn’t even know.
Sansa opened the last one and crumpled it just as quickly.
He didn’t want to force her to reveal the note. But it was evidence of the crime, regardless of the meanness of words. It was also a reminder of the pain Sansa was going through, as plain as the scars and the blood and the tears that were snaking down her cheeks.
“Sweetling, it’s okay. You’re okay.”
Petyr’s arms were moving before he realized. They wrapped around Sansa’s small form, her body shuddering with the release of tears and pain. He felt her hand clutch at his shirt, felt her eyes dampen the material. Sansa was letting everything go. Showing herself to Petyr – the fragile thing beneath her perfect mask. How well-made the mask was, yet how delicate its hold had been across her face.
He held her, drawing slow circles with the flats of his palms across her back. Petyr whispered, “It’s okay, it’s alright,” into her hair. At one point, Sansa winced from his ministrations across her back.
On and on she cried. Months of bottled emotions, of never being able to confide in anyone.
Minutes passed before she stopped crying, stopped shaking in Petyr’s arms. Slowly she removed herself, scrubbing at her cheeks and eyes. Sansa’s entire face was flush – especially the whites of her eyes. A sea of red with a terrified center of blue, threatened to be swallowed entirely.
She was so delicate. So tired.
But strong.
Sansa was alive.
So he told her, assuaged her fears and the gnawing voices in her mind.
Petyr’s hands were at her shoulders. The warmth within Sansa seeped into his skin. His head was moving before he could stop himself, before his mind could yell no.
Sansa’s forehead was hot, her skin smooth. Petyr pressed the softest kiss against her skin, letting his lips linger over her flesh. She hadn’t moved from his touch, and she hadn’t flinched away.
“I promise he won’t harm you anymore, sweetling.”
Petyr moved away his head and hands. Sansa’s gaze was focused on nothing, on everything. On the fading warmth of Petyr’s lips upon her forehead. On the mirrored soul standing before her.
She hadn’t seen Petyr pocket the crumpled note.
Petyr collected the rest and offered them to Sansa. It was her choice, her life dictated by a faceless coward. Sansa could let them fester in the dark confines of her desk, an ever-present reminder of who she was to someone unimportant. Or she could toss them, grind them into their empty worth beneath her fingers.
Sansa took the notes, one at a time from Petyr’s palm, and ripped each until they were only scraps of dust.
* * *
Petyr sat in his apartment, staring at the fading graphite between his fingers.
The paper had become soft under his grip, folding and unfolding, smoothing and crumpling. He wanted to tear it into infinitesimal pieces. He wanted to burn them. He wanted to do so many worse things – not to the paper, but to the person responsible.
Mostly, Petyr wanted to erase the words and their harm from Sansa.
He couldn’t. Of course he couldn’t. They were a part of her, just as the harm and hurt of Petyr’s past would always be a part of him.
Still, the audacity for someone to slip terrible words into the minds of Sansa and Tommen and who knew who else…
This note Petyr pocketed was the worst:
Don’t scream so much next time bitch.
An endless list was running through Petyr’s mind. Of the wounds he couldn’t see on her expose skin, beneath it. Of what else was being done to her that made the cuts seem an appropriate way out of reality.
He crumpled the paper again. His fingers squeezed it, as small and tight and insignificant as possible.
He unfolded it, smoothing the wrinkles. Staring at the words that were starting to fade.
Petyr set it aside and began pacing the room.
It was still early in the evening. Petyr would be expected to make his report to the Lannisters soon. If he didn’t call, they would. And they would demand results. A week of pretending to be a teacher, of pretending to care about the future and well-being of students. That’s what they gave him.
But what would they give him in return for the truth?
It was there, lying on his desk. Lying atop the other paper Petyr used to cross-reference the handwriting. They matched.
Petyr ran fingers through his hair, down his face, behind his neck. His feet moved of their own accord, round and round in circles.
There was an alternative.
It was terrible.
It was more than terrible.
He would be kicked off the force. Kicked out of the city and the country. Locked up. Murdered.
Petyr kept telling himself no – the logical part of his brain was trying to drill sense into Petyr. That part of the brain dictated his life for so long, it was him. Everything Petyr was, everything he built up for himself.
Then that withered, unused part eased its way back in. Whispering atrocious words, threading a plot around and around his mind. Weaving ideas with a string as red as fire.
Again his fingers moved: hair, face, neck.
Again he made a circuit of his room.
Petyr was going mad.
The fact that he was even debating the possibility and thinking on the consequences of both actions.
He wanted to scream. To kick something, everything.
Any time he closed his eyes, he saw her. Sprawled upon the floor, legs parted in such an innocent, indecent angle. Standing terrified, clutching her bleeding arm, fear flowing from her being. Wrapped within his arms, crying, revealing the broken pieces of herself to an equally broken man.
She was in everything. Red: silky and flowing as boundless as the setting sun. Blue: as vast and impossible as all of the oceans of the world. White: as smooth and pale as ivory, tinged with the softest pinks.
He laughed. Oh, yes. Petyr definitely was mad.
In the roar of the madness in his mind, he almost didn’t hear his phone ring.
Petyr stared at the name before lifting it to his ear, grabbing the smoothed paper with his other hand. Raising it before him to stare at the words as he answered. To stare at the faded lines across his wrist.
“Have you found the killer?” the voice on the other line spat out.
Petyr swallowed. He felt his heart thrumming in his head.
“Yes.”
* * *
Petyr wasn’t sure whether he was nervous or relieved to walk back into that classroom Monday morning.
His mind had been a warzone of emotions and fears and possibilities. So many impossible threads winding through and tangled within. So many what ifs hiding, lurking, waiting for Petyr to fall unawares.
The first classes went by uneventfully. Petyr hadn’t bothered to lecture – he didn’t think he would be able to string together a coherent sentence, let alone an entire spiel on lines and equations. Instead he set up his computer to play some sort of math-related videos. He was certain the students paid about as much attention as Petyr did to the class.
The clock counted down the hours, the minutes until the next class. His vision switched between staring at it and staring at nothing.
He wanted to know the consequences. He wanted nothing to do with it.
When the bell rang, Petyr realized he was absentmindedly running fingers over the lines of his wrists.
The sixth graders shuffled out, confused by their strange teacher acting even stranger. Petyr finally realized that during that lecture-that-wasn’t, students had raised their hands and asked questions.
He hadn’t noticed.
And now he had to. Watching as the next class shuffled in, one student, two.
Who was Petyr looking for? For the terrible child that might have gotten away scot-free? For the poor girl that might have met her end over the weekend from an accident? For his superiors, coming to sentence his ass to prison or death?
For something to change. For nothing.
How different Petyr was this week. How much he actually cared.
His heart leaped. His body almost did, too.
She was okay.
She wasn’t dead.
Sansa moved to her desk, not looking at Petyr, not looking at anything. There wasn’t anything on her face to indicate any accident, nothing on her neck or her arms or legs. The bracelets were still there, and Petyr thought he saw a bandage over one.
But there were so many ways to hurt someone without the damage seen. So many ways Sansa already was hurt and torn and barely hanging on.
She settled in her seat, hands rummaging through her desk.
Petyr’s heart sank. Had the bastard not been caught? Not been sentenced to the consequences of his own doing? Was there another note, neatly folded atop a textbook, spelling out the sorts of dealings Sansa was to be met with later on? Spelling out, again, that Sansa was better off dead?
Ice formed within Petyr’s veins, freezing his heart.
After finally learning that no, Sansa was not worthless – was she going to succumb to the darkness? To the final end?
Sansa removed the textbook and her pencils. She glanced up towards Petyr, her hair following her movements.
And she smiled.
Petyr smiled back.
It vanished when he saw who walked in next.
Petyr rose to his feet, hands flat atop the desk. The dread that had momentarily coiled around his chest came back even harder.
Cersei stormed through the door, shoving aside the children as she went. At least one student fell to the ground.
Where Sansa burned with a soft warmth, Cersei exploded with intensity. And that fire was writ all over her face, all in her movements.
Aimed at Petyr.
He moved to intercept her, to guide her outside and speak like proper grown-ups. His arm was heading to grab onto Cersei’s wrist when she smacked it away.
Her hand stroke against Petyr’s face with a resounding crack. Students gasped. Cersei’s eyes bore into Petyr, through him. He could see the fire coursing within her.
Petyr rubbed at his cheek, rubbed over his mouth to hide the smile.
“Ma’am,” he said sternly. Petyr moved to grab her wrist and lead her outside, but she smacked him away again. “Ma’am. Please, let’s discuss whatever issue you have outside in privacy.”
She was about to decline – he could see it in the tightness of Cersei’s lips. Instead she huffed and stormed outside.
The hall wasn’t empty of students yet, nor had Petyr closed the door completely. That didn’t stop Cersei.
“What in seven hells do you think you’re doing?”
Petyr was sure every person in the school was going to be part of the conversation, whether they wanted to or not. He leaned against the door, arms crossed. “I’m sorry?”
She approached, shoving a finger into his chest. In those seconds, Cersei managed to temper her anger into a seething whisper. “Why did you arrest my son without informing me?”
Oh, did she want the truth?
Truth: because had I told you, you would have weaseled your way with any and all power-holding officials to get your son off the hook, and to have someone more crooked than me place the guilt on someone innocent.
Instead, he said, “Because that is the procedure of law. I found the guilty party, and I sent in for his arrest.”
Cersei’s finger was digging, clawing into Petyr. “That’s not why I hired you.”
Truth: no, you hired me because you knew your son bullied your other son into suicide, and needed to find the proof in order to burn it.
“You hired me to find the person responsible. I did.”
Petyr heard footsteps beneath the thrumming of his heart. Student? Teacher? Police?
Her finger jabbed harder. “Then, you go and lie and say my son’s raped that dumb bitch?” Her voice was growing, the anger impossible to ignore. “Where’s your proof?”
Behind him, Petyr heard the scuffle of shoes and bodies. Math was infinitely more boring compared to the drama ensuing just beyond their door. Cersei wasn’t lowering her voice anymore. And she was so close – the children on the other side could definitely hear every word.
Sansa would know that he told her secret. That he broke his promise.
Petyr wanted to lash out, too.
He took in a deep breath, letting the anger swirl within him. He shoved one hand into a pocket, using the other to swat Cersei’s fingers off his chest. He had one shot at this.
“Tell me,” his voice was quiet, Cersei had to lean in. Petyr felt the heat of her anger in the inches between them. “Was it Joffrey’s idea or yours to harass innocent students?” Cersei tried to pull back in offense, but Petyr’s grip on her hand tightened, pulling her back. “Perhaps you hadn’t meant to have Joffrey sexually assault at least one girl, but you did mean to have him attack and push others into suicide. How convenient they were all children of noble families. How convenient at least one of them was contemplating suicide before your son beat her to it.” Petyr could tell his grip was hurting, his fingers digging into Cersei’s once-pristine flesh. But he needed to – he couldn’t contain his anger in the quietness of his voice. “Would you have kept going if Tommen hadn’t been the first child to die? Did he get in the way of your plans?” A final tug at her. “Did you dispose of your own weak link?”
Cersei yanked her hand free, and Petyr let her. She struck at him. And again. He caught her before the third strike, taking that as proof enough of guilt.
But he needed her words.
“Tell me, Cersei, have you ever had thoughts of killing yourself? It’s not fun.” Say it. “Why do you think it’s okay to tell little children to?” Say it. “Why would you ever condone such a thing?”
“Because, you useless piece of nothing, they’re all in the way. Democracy – pah! Who needs families meddling when we’re practically in charge? A pity that wolf bitch didn’t finish the job.”
It took all of Petyr’s willpower not to crush the life out of Cersei. To wring the neck of such a terrible human being.
No. This way was better.
He let her hand go, and smiled. “Thank you.”
Cersei looked confused, unsure. Petyr pulled out his phone and hit stop on the recording app. Realization dawned on her – he had her confession, words just enough to have questions pointed at her and her family and their reign.
Cersei lunged for Petyr. Her hands aimed to rip his throat out and to destroy the evidence.
Arms grabbed Cersei from behind. She was hoisted inches above the ground. Her limbs thrashed, clawing at the newcomer.
She was finished.
Petyr dusted invisible specks from the front of his shirt. He tried to calm the erratic beating of his heart, calm the irrational fear that Cersei might incriminate Petyr, too. She might still. The police would have to question her in their investigation, and certainly all the wonderful tasks Petyr has done for the Lannisters over the years would be brought to light. Not because they were of import to this case. No, Cersei would do it just to spite Petyr. Outlining every single deal and deed, for getting her caught. For ruining her plans.
Petyr had enough of this work, anyways.
“Thank you, Lothor,” Petyr said to the man holding Cersei. “Now, if you will.” He motioned down towards the front office.
He took a few steps before the sound of the door opening made him pause.
Petyr turned around.
Sansa and other students poked through the opening. He didn’t notice them – didn’t care about them. Perhaps others in that class were also affected by Cersei’s machinations. Perhaps a thorough search would reveal countless notes crumpled with the same words of die die die. A shame on Cersei’s part for not having someone else write the threats. A foolish shame.
Petyr only stared at the curtain of red framing perfect ivory skin, and the streak of red lips. He thought they turned in a smile.
His chest was still pounding, but not from anger.
He called to no one in particular as he left: “Don’t destroy the classroom while I’m gone. Also, you all get A’s on your last exam.” It didn’t matter, after all. He could have flunked them all. Petyr wasn’t a real teacher, anyways.
* * *
Petyr stood watching Lothor and the King’s Landing authorities cuff and lead Cersei out of the school and out of his life. He had to render his cell phone, given that it had the evidence needed to at least start a thorough investigation. Petyr made sure to clear the phone of anything improper and illegal. At the least, that way it would be more difficult to prove Petyr’s involvement in other hideous crimes over these years.
Part of him would miss it. His life, built on years of worming his way into the pockets and purses of the biggest families of Westeros.
It began here. Not here precisely. But with a little boy dreaming dreams far too large for himself. With a little boy who, despite himself, chose not to embrace the cold finality of death.
As he stood there, watching nothing in particular, he felt the presence of someone else.
He knew it was her. That unexplained sensation of thinking on someone, bringing them there. Speak of the devil, and the devil will appears – that was the phrase.
But that wasn’t Sansa. Petyr was the devil of King’s Landing, the horrible shadow in the stories and endings of so many lives over the years. Crafting tales and threads of misery for men and women he hardly even knew. Tales that hundreds of people never would have considered Petyr to be the center of.
Perhaps instead, Sansa had been thinking of Petyr. And as she thought of the devil, so he appeared.
Petyr checked the clock. There was another hour of school left. Sansa should be in class, pondering over her readings and vocabulary.
But she was here.
“Shouldn’t you be in class?” he asked with the faintest turn of a smile on his lips.
“I don’t feel well to be in class.” Sansa adjusted the strap of her bag. It caught over the collar of her shirt, lowering the fabric from her neck. Petyr stared at exposed skin. He shook his gaze away. Had she done that on purpose? No – it was an accident.
Petyr gazed around the empty office. The administration was outside watching the proceedings, gossiping about the Lannisters and the suicides and who knew what else. The room seemed to grow smaller. “Shall I call your parents for you?”
She shook her head. “They aren’t in the city.”
Petyr stared at her in confusion. Of course they weren’t here – the family home was up North. Which meant Sansa was miles and miles away from home…by herself? “You have siblings, right? Will one of them be picking you up?”
Sansa shook her head. “They aren’t here, either.”
He looked at the clock again, tried to remember when the staff left the room. Petyr had already informed them of his resignation, and apologized for the ruse. They understood, if not without an endless supply of exacerbated huffing.
His gaze fell back on Sansa. “How will you be getting home?”
She scratched at her neck, rubbing fingers along the length, from jaw to collarbone. They rested there finally, one finger drawing lazy circles in the hollow of her throat. “You saved me, didn’t you?”
Petyr snapped his eyes back onto hers, tried to focus on falling within the endless oceans. Her lazy motions were threatening to pull his eyes away into the unknown. “I… Yes. Joffrey and his family won’t be able to hurt you or anyone anymore.”
The seconds dragged on before Sansa spoke again. “Do they go away?”
“The Lannisters? They should, after all of the things they’ve done-”
“No.”
Petyr’s mouth was left parted in confusion. “No?”
She dropped her hand finally, pulling the bracelets from her wrist. Blood was seeping into the bandage. “The scars.”
Petyr’s fingers moved to his own. He never let his heal, never let the pain stop. It made him feel alive; it made him feel. That cold, empty numbness crawling inside him never left. It was always there. It still was. But Petyr had learned to live with it, to hide it away in the recesses of his mind and forget.
The two of them were rubbing at their wrists. “They will, if you let them heal.”
Sansa rummaged for a clean bandage, peeling the bloody one off. “Okay,” was all she said as she changed it.
There were voices growing closer. Petyr had spent too long standing and staring. He moved to reach a hand out before thinking better of it. “Here, I’ll drop you off at home.” Petyr moved towards the side exit, not checking to see if Sansa would follow. He had a feeling she would.
The door closed behind them just as the front entrance opened and the staff entered. Petyr sighed in relief.
They headed to his car in silence, moving quickly to avoid suspicion. Or, moving quickly might have been more suspicious. If anything, Petyr was thankful that all of the police had left. He wouldn’t want to start his life as a wanted criminal quite so soon.
Which left him wondering on his future. Petyr had more than enough saved over the years. He could run and run and run. A different country or two. He would need to brush up on his laws, on which lands pardoned immigrants of their past transgressions. Unless of course Cersei went into excrutiatingly minute detail of every transgression Petyr had a part in. That would void out almost everywhere.
Petyr slammed on the brakes.
He had been so lost in his own thoughts, he forgot about the girl sitting beside him. Quiet, staring at Petyr with her own head tilted. As if Sansa was observing him.
“Sh- crap. Sorry, sweetling, I forgot to ask where you lived.”
Petyr then had a thought that perhaps Sansa lived on campus, in one of the few dormitories allowed for out-of-city students. She must have. But at this point, Petyr would have to wait until the school cleared for the day before driving back with a child in his car. Or, maybe waiting would be more suspicious.
“Turn left up ahead,” she said.
Petyr followed her directions through the streets, winding his way through the jumble of King’s Landing. Meanwhile, Sansa sat and observed, moving only to lower the window. Petyr had to keep his eyes ahead – keep his eyes from watching how the wind whipped at the wild beauty of red about her face. At how the sun kissed Sansa’s nose and cheeks, giving them the perfect tint of pink.
“Right, and it’s the last house on the street.”
Petyr slammed on his brakes again.
“Wait, sweetling,” he said, pulling his car to the curb and waving an angry driver by. His fingers gripped tightly on the steering wheel, thoughts racing in his mind. “You live with the Lannisters?”
How hadn’t he known? Petyr knew everything.
He turned to face her, and was met only with the sheepish grin imaginable. It was made more ridiculous by the lazy strands clinging to her jaw. “Did I forget to mention that?”
As much as he wanted to laugh at her jesting, he felt the cold weight in his heart. Petyr was worried for her safety at school, without realizing that she never was safe from Joffrey.
Which meant, Sansa might have overheard conversations.
Which meant, Sansa might have had her own game to play against the Lannisters. She certainly had reason to. Don’t scream so much next time bitch, were the words echoing in Petyr’s brain.
A terrible thought snaked into Petyr’s mind. Worse than any thought from the past week. Worse than what he had been so close to giving up entirely on Friday evening.
“Sansa, sweetling,” he began. That nagging, logical part of his brain told him to stop. That knowing the answer wouldn’t help, wouldn’t change the tangle of threads that Petyr already wove. But he had to know. “Sweetling, do you know what happened to Tommen?”
Sansa cocked her head away from Petyr, gazing lazily across the street towards the Keep. Sunlight bounced off her hair, framing her face in a shawl of light and fire. She was burning – burning, burning, burning. Brighter than fire and the sun and anything in the known universe.
Slowly, she turned to face Petyr again. And Petyr knew. She hadn’t needed to speak a single word - that smile was still there, crawling into her eyes, turning the ocean from something infinitely wonderful into a terrifying abyss. “Yes, Mr Baelish. I pushed him.”
Speak of the devil – and here she was.