aviary | CLOSED | prompt eight

[ In some ways, he is more like a father to her than a lover. He has yet to kiss her upon the lips, has yet to take her into his arms in the way a lover might. Everything that he does is for her protection and furtherment, from the time that he spends with Miss Margaery (still something of a thorn in the proverbial lion's paw though he does nothing to remove it) to the books that he brings back for her.

But still, when he holds her hand, his touch lingers longer than necessary, and there is something more than simple platonic love to his gaze when he looks at her. (She is a lighthouse in the fog, a single bright star in the night sky.)

It's with that same warmth that he looks at her now, reaching up to take off his glasses and beginning, almost absent-mindedly, to polish the lenses. ]

It seems counterproductive, at the least.

[ Sometimes she wonders if love is an actual tangible thing. Something with roots and arms and ears — invisible but physical, able to be felt by one's body. Just as the look in Mr. Baelish's eyes seems to fill her with its own warmth, it reaches for her the way a pea shoot strains for the sun; it curls down through the trelliswork of her rib cage and roots itself just below her navel. (Warmth becomes heat, but Sansa doesn't understand such things. Sex is as much a stranger to a surrogate as the notion of love.) ]

Mr. Baelish? [ Sansa asks softly, leaning forward over her knees, her book folded shut and held neatly in her lap, her hands curled obediently one over the other atop its cover. She is and always has been an ideal surrogate — or perhaps, always had been, until Mr. Baelish took her and hid her away. ] How does one 'burn' love?

[ She asks because, even though she does not understand it, he's made it clear to her that this is a thing that he's given her. Along with the books and flowers from the field, along with the silver brooch pinned over her heart and the velvet ribbons in her hair — his love is the greatest gift ever given to her. Impossible and inconceivable; a flower that blooms in her belly. ]

[ It's easy to burn love. That's the first answer that comes to mind. Easy, but painful in a way he'd never wish upon anyone else. Easy to burn but hard to destroy. He'd tried, after all, when he'd finally taken to the fact that Catelyn didn't love him, not in the way that he loved her. But there is a price to be paid for taking a brand to oneself and he has paid it in suffering amidst the fogs that settle over the Estate, in watching life after life end prematurely for the sake of something called progress.

So when she asks the question, for an instant, his expression is indescribably sad. ]

I think most have different methods, [ he offers, following a pause for thought. ] Matchsticks to infernos.

Why?

[ Once Miss Margaery had told her: you shouldn't read such sad books all the time, Sansa. Sansa hadn't understood what the young teacher had meant, a volume of fairy tales clasped in her hands at the time. The stories contained within had dragons and evil queens and corrupt knights, but nowhere amidst the pages was the bitter pang of sadness. None of the endings eluded to a melancholy refrain and nowhere in the chorus of talking animals and fairy godmothers was a note of unhappiness half as profound as the look that finds its way onto Mr. Baelish's face.

Then: understanding, or an attempt at it. Perhaps what made the stories sad was that they were untrue, so unlike real life. None of them had told the tale of a kind, sad man with silver-threaded hair; and never did the sad man rescue a princess without crown and whisk her to a dark but sacred place. He never gave her books and baubles and birds; he never offered her the throne of his heart, and never did the lost princess admit that she was both gladdened but sad, for she'd never been taught how to rule. ]

I want to learn, [ she confesses and then rises, padding over to him with bare feet. Silently, obediently, she sits at his feet and looks up at him with guileless eyes. Her hand touches his shin and then falls away agan. ] So that I may never burn the things that you've given me. Never — not on accident nor on purpose.

[ He thinks he knows what part he's supposed to play in the story. First, it had been that of the pauper boy, left at home as the heroine traveled in search of adventure, never to return. Now, he's the old man, the one with the magic beans or the sage advice, a stepping stone to something greater. He's not an ending, in and of himself. He never was supposed to be, he guesses. The immigrant's son, the boy in the Tully girl's shadow.

Even here, he hasn't quite managed to escape that.

He leans forward as she sits down, shifting his makeshift desk to one side and settling his elbows on the tops of his legs. (There's no semblance of a lie in the single eye with which she gazes at him, and he doesn't have it in his heart to suspect any otherwise.) ]

Just don't forget me, [ is what he says, following a long silence. (A simple request, at first glance, but one he knows — through personal suffering — isn't quite as easy as it sounds.) ]

[ She cries sometimes, but never where Mr. Baelish can see. (Even though the dead socket weeps no tears, it's unsettling and ugly, or so Sansa believes — ugliness is an unfamiliar concept to her, having never been taught to her by her teachers.) Often, she waits until he's out of the house and she's tucked away safely in her attic perch, her tears held within her like a carefully dammed-up river — throughout dawn and throughout breakfast and their daily good-bye, always her hand upon his shoulder as she kisses him on the cheek, there upon the shadowed attic stairs. Often, Sansa doesn't quite understand where the tears come from and why exactly she cries; all she knows is there is something moving inside her, a slowly growing gap — the place where her life's purpose used to live, the space that once held the promise of her own death.

A surrogate without an Original. Some would argue a shade with no soul to anchor it. In either case, the loss is profound and unshakeable — though to Mr. Baelish's credit, the pain always lessens when he's near, when she catches him looking at her with his sad eyes. Perhaps it is his sadness that comforts her, makes her feel less alone; or perhaps, just maybe, it is his love.

She blinks at him once in confusion. How could he say such a thing? Had she been cruel in holding her tears? If he knew how she cried in his absence, how desperately she wished to not be alone, would he think better of her? Would he know she could not forget? ] Why—

Forget you, Mr. Baelish. You— [ Sansa reaches for him as she presses herself up onto her knees, so much like a child looking to kiss the feet of some great and godly statue. Instead of his feet, however, she brushes her mouth against his cheek. The curve of her eyepatch presses against the side of his nose as she does so. ] I could never. You're my Original now.

[ Every morning, she kisses him goodbye, and his heart sings within his chest. There's no other moment in the day that brings him so much happiness save when he returns home. (The minutes he spends taking the path up to the school are the worst; minutes in which the distance between them grows, minutes in which he forces himself not to look back, for what use would a man who lives on his own have for such longing glances?)

When she speaks (you're my Original now), he does not know whether it is joy or sadness that cleaves his heart in two. No, no, he thinks. I don't deserve that. Give your heart to someone else, someone who lived in the sun as your true Original did. I am but a shadow. But he says none of that. (And in the end, perhaps it is both. Up until this moment, love, in his eyes, has always been characterized by the most dizzying of highs and the most devastating of lows, and perhaps it is right that it should prove no different in this instance.) His eyes press closed as she rises to her knees, his head bowing. ]

Thank you, [ he whispers, one of his hands coming to cradle her cheek as he draws back, just far enough to catch sight of her features (as lovely as ever). Though his mouth opens as if to speak again, no more words come out. So, again, as more and more he comes to realize just how much that simple statement means: ] Thank you.

[ Sansa's heart skips giddily whenever Mr. Baelish touches her, her body well aware of the kinds of desires that her mind and her heart have yet to discover. Some surrogates live well past adolescence (though their existence is considered a failure and often sad) but many barely manage the middle reaches of their twenties. The entirety of their lives are spent upon the Estate, the vast potential of their biology wasted on celibacy and ignorance, the whole of their sexuality often left sorely unexplored.

Sansa, being sixteen, is on the natural cusp of her own womanhood and her thoughts on the matter are on the whole mixed. What did it mean to be a woman other than to be older and perhaps a bit taller? Women could have babies, could get married, could fall in love; but it had never been in Sansa's cards to be a woman. It was her task to live and then die and to make forfeit her body in the process. Would Mr. Baelish then teacher her the remainder?

The hand upon her cheek makes her heart race and makes her head light and something beneath her breastplate aches like a happy bruise. Turning her face into the seat of his palm she kisses it once and then again; Sansa's words are muffled by his fingers. ] I'm the one that should be grateful. You gave me a new life. [ Her one good eye flickers up to linger upon his mouth and then drift upwards to finally find his gaze. ] I want to live it for you. [ A pause. ]

With you. Is it possible? Please say it is.

[ Her heart skips at his touch and his skips at hers, as trapped by the contents of his heart as he is, an insect trapped in amber. As helpless as he had been for her Original, he is doubly so for her. But whatever carnal desires he harbors, he keeps to himself; she is still young, after all, and the circumstances are hardly fair — she has no other options.

Regardless, when she tells him she wants to live for him, with him —

— he only realizes after a few moments have passed that he's smiling.

In a whisper, caught in the back of his throat: ] Of course. [ Then, once more, clearer: ] Of course. Whatever you wish.

[ She has seen drawings in storybooks. Paintings in great tomes. Photos in magazines. Pictures of places she will never go and of people she will never meet, and for the longest time it had made Sansa sad. It had filled her with a kind of longing frowned upon in surrogates such as herself. For longing meant desire and desire had a habit of turning out just as readily as it turned in.

But out was not a direction available to her kind for out meant there instead of here, it meant beyond the great glass sea of mist and salt and fog. It meant real life when all that were was for surrogates like Sansa was the Estate.

But some of that old unhappiness, that hollow sadness that would come in seeing things she would never know, it tempers away in the wake of Mr. Baelish's smile. Smile at me always, her heart seems to sing, the sentiment warming her expression and settling in the wet of her single blue eye. Smile, and I won't need the rest of the world. I'd happily stay here. It's enough.

You're enough. ]

And what do you wish? Is it a secret? Will you tell me? [ Quickly she turns to kiss the bowl of his palm a second time. Then, her mouth lingering she trails another then another, until Sansa has nosed her way past the first inch of his sleeve, her lips breathing hot breath against the inside of his wrist. No longer a kiss, but something.

She murmurs softly: ] Please tell me.

It's no secret, [ he murmurs, watching the path that her mouth takes along his skin. (Outside, a storm rumbles, rain pattering against the windows, rendered invisible by the curtains that he's pulled shut as he does every night when she comes back downstairs. One of the larger lamps casts an orange glow, though the one by his armchair sheds a whiter, more sterile sort of light. He doesn't have much, but he has enough. He has her.) ]

I wish for you to be happy. I wish for you to have everything you could not have before. I mean it, Sansa. Everything. I would give you the world on a string, if I could.

[ His words are, for the most part, needlessly sentimental, and he recognizes as much. (They echo, after all, of promises he had made as a young man, though then they had fallen upon deaf ears. The ghosts ring throughout the bowels of the house regardless, in photos kept in shoeboxes, in frames hung upon the walls.) ]

That is what I wish.

[ The walls of Mr. Baelish house murmur with the echoes of ghosts but Sansa does not recognize them from their beck and call, even though her ghosts and his ghosts are one in the same. When Sansa's Original had written her from the mainland, it'd been with letters taken down by an aging hand. The script hard instead of soft, all of the sort parts to its consonants and vowels made terse by a jittering hand. Her stories were an old woman's stories, not the one's belonging to a young pink-faced girl. The voice with which those letters had spoken was much different than the one that still whispers beneath Mr. Baelish's floorboards, which sings in every curtain flap and dancing mote of dust. A token here, a photograph there; the thought occurs to Sansa she looks just like me and then vanishes again before moving on.

She whispers something now, mouthed mutedly against the bend of Mr. Baelish's wrist, before lifting her face and drawing herself up, flush against the very front of his legs. ] And what if I asked for your happiness? For a means to it. A way to cut down your sadness.

[ Her gaze searches his face as she curls his hand to her chest. ] Would you give me that too?

Time.

[ Again, his hand finds her cheek, the tips of his fingers brushing her hair. ]

Time is the means by which that might be had. Cut a flower down and it will still take some time for the roots to fade away. You're given me so much already, but — just this one last thing, please.

[ Catelyn had always been beautiful. The last memory of her that sits within his chest is watching her fade away through the back window of a car, standing tall and proud as ever, red hair loose about her shoulders, smiling just as brightly as she had when she'd been young. (The last time he'd seen her had been to collect her application to the Estate himself. In the end, he hadn't had the heart to talk her out of it. Perhaps that had been selfish, on his part, but it's too late to change that now. Do you know, he had wondered, as his car had pulled further and further away, do you know how much I loved you?)

That beauty sits in every line of Sansa's face, but more and more, the girl steps out of her Original's shadow. And he loves her all the more for it.

When he speaks again, his voice is barely a whisper. ]

May I kiss you?

[ Time.

Another thing that a surrogate cannot afford and has no right to keep for themselves. Whatever time was given to them was a gift granted from their Originals — the boon of good health and lucky circumstance on their part, a longer wait and delayed satisfaction on the part of the surrogate. In the months and weeks leading up to Sansa's eventual flight to the attic there had been many appointments scheduled, several back-to-back-to-back. And over the course of them, Sansa was to have been carefully disassembled in a last-ditch effort to salvage her Original and send the rest of her to scrap. But in the end, time had not been on CS's side as the final letter brought to her by Mr. Baelish had revealed.

In the end, time had been on Sansa's side. And now, with Mr. Baelish's help, she would have as much of it as any normal girl. She would have years upon years upon years. She would never complete. She would live and die as an old woman and, if Sansa had her way, what separated her now from that final moment was simply a lifetime spent by her former counselor's side. (A living, breathing girl in exchange for a beloved ghost.)

He touches her hair and Sansa leans into the touch, the gesture sweet and kittenish and colored shy. ]

Yes. [ Sansa's heart trills again in her chest, the songbird of her soul flapping joyously from its perch only to hover in her throat. ] Nothing would make me happier— than to be kissed by you, Mr. Baelish.

[ It takes him a long moment to actually kiss her. For a while (a second that stretches out into infinity) he can only stare at her, something like bewilderment upon his face. (She's absolutely lovely. Lovely enough that it hurts, sometimes, to look at her. Hurts because he remembers how lovely her Original had been, too, and because there's more than one life up at the school that needs saving like hers.)

There's just the rustle of fabric as he leans forward to close the gap between them. His touch against her cheek is barely a whisper when his lips find hers. (His breath tastes of mint.)

A color exists here that doesn't in the tryst he carries on with Miss Margaery. Love, in the simplest of terms. A different kind of gentleness, a truer kind of heart. He kisses her gentle, close-lipped, lingering. (Kind. Like he always is, to her.)

He doesn't pull away very far, his eyes opening to flicker over her face. A silent is that okay, is this what you want? ]

[ Once there'd been a boy named Joffrey: narrow shouldered and with green eyes and hair the color of Rapunzel's straw. He was as cruel to Sansa as he was kind — pushing her into puddles on Mondays and stealing kisses behind the the grand oak in the gardens on Thursdays. Sansa had never asked to be kissed by him but bullheaded Joffrey had insisted and when he did it was with more than his lips. He kissed her with his entire mouth and sometimes Sansa feared that if Joffrey had his way, he would swallow her whole.

Never once in all those fumbled encounters, whether his hand had been on her waist or tangled in her hair and threatening to pull, never did Joffrey kiss her the way that Mr. Baelish kisses her now. Slow and careful and lingering. With his lips closed and warm against hers; his breath on her face; his eyes with lids low.

Though he does not speak, his expression says volumes when he finally pulls away, the shadow of him veiling the response that comes from Sansa's eyes. ]

Did I kiss well? [ comes her bashful answer, her gaze lowered and her cheeks burning and her head a wash with dizzy delight. Before he can reply: ] May— may we kiss again?

[ There's one kiss that stands out in his memory. It had been on the banks of the river, the both of them laid out upon the grass. She'd tasted of strawberries (they'd gone into the berry patches earlier in the day) and he'd thought he could taste the sun, too, if only for the way it had been haloed in her hair. He'd been buoyed on by the moment for a week.

It's a dusty reel, now. This moment is not quite as bright, caught in a small cottage off the coast of nowhere, but it sets a fire in the very depths of him. Nothing ostentatious, nothing too high, but steady.

He doesn't bother saying anything in reply. Instead, he kisses her again, a little more plying, but still hinged upon her comfort as opposed to his own need (more alive than he'd remembered it to be, though still easily kept at bay). His other hand finds her shoulder, both to hold her close and to urge her up, their respective poses somewhat awkward as they are. ]

[ She is still kissing him when the rise, her own hands fumbling towards his elbows (warn patches on the sleeves of his sweater) as she tries to find her feet, her neck craning to keep her mouth upon his. Though the kiss remains more or less chaste, she can feel something creeping at the very edges of it. What that something is she does not understand (his desire for her, more bodily and base than she's yet to learn), but it glimmers there like some bauble that dewly catches the lamplight and, ever intrepid, Sansa chases after it with her lips, a sigh escaping her as she finally settles at a short distance, the two of their bodies held apart from one another like teenagers in some awkward dance, even though their mouths remain joined.

A noise then escapes her, curious and questioning, those hands traveling up the length of his arms to find the line of his shoulders, curling loosely over the collar of his shirt.

The children are not allowed movies nor radios nor books that remind them too readily of the outside world. (Sansa's magazines had been near to contraband, though her original had been influential and sent them nevertheless.) She has only stories to mimic, illustrations from fairy tales (Snow White, Cinderella). None have taught her how to deepen a kiss, how to make it more than simply confection and sugar sweet, but the curiosity is there. An unspoken bid of teach me, teach me as her eyes remain open and her lashes flutter and a tin-toy drumbeat hammers at her chest. ]

[ It's only once he, too, has found his feet that he tries to pull her closer, his arms carefully winding about her frame. (He nearly pauses for a moment, unsure of the wisdom of his own actions, but the thought lingers for just a passing second.) Gently, cautiously, the pad of his tongue presses against the seam of her lips, a hint as to the embers that begin to glow in his blood and the part of him that yearns for her in a way that isn't quite storybook. The children are not allowed movies nor radios nor books and Mr. Baelish knows as well as any of the other staff to what extent their education is lacking.

He is not confection and sugar sweet but a different sort of gentleness — like the worn patches on his sleeves, like an old hand-knit scarf, like a beloved book. Kind, more than cloying. The very best parts of him. Still sad, still melancholy (still damaged), but kind. ]

[ She isn't certain what it's meant to mean at first, that soft wet pressure against her lips, the slight exhale of warm breath from Mr. Baelish's nose. Startled and uncertain she draws back for a moment, fingers lifting from his shirt as if caught in the middle of some shameful act. Sansa feels the whole of her face flush in response — not the pleasant tingling rush that kissing Mr. Baelish had brought her, but an overwhelming kind of embarrassement. Had she done something wrong? Was her mouth meant to be wet?

Her blue eyes wide she looks at him for a long moment, her hand moving to touch that wetness as she swipes at it once with her tongue. He tastes of mint and something else, more pervasive, like an undercurrent of sadness. Those pleased prickles return again, replacing her fluster with a more modest blush.

Sansa smiles slowly and then tastes her own lips again. Amazed, she giggles. ] I'm happy, [ she says, such a simple statement and yet — for her kind — nothing short of a miracle. Then, without warning, she claps her arms around Mr. Baelish's shoulders and kisses him again. ]

[ He almost leaves outright when she draws back, suddenly afraid that he's been reading things wrong, that this isn't what she wants in the least. Then, slowly, slowly, her lips curve into a smile, and before he can fully process what she's said (I'm happy), she's kissing him again.

There's a fervency to the way that he holds her now that is equal parts passion and relief (and, perhaps, desperation too). When he pulls back, his cheeks are flushed, and he is half breathless. But, most importantly, he's smiling, too. It takes years from his countenance, makes him seem the age he is rather than the age that his features have worn to be. ]

Me, too, [ is what he manages to say, near baffled in too. ] I mean, I'm— I'm happy.

[ And he kisses her again, his embrace tighter than it had been, lips trailing to her jaw, then her neck, his former caution abandoned as that rush — happiness, a stranger to him up until now — strikes him as the waves of the sea strike against the rock shore. ]

[ They embrace and they kiss with a sudden giddiness, as if two children suddenly caught at unexpected play. Just as Mr. Baelish seems bemused by his own happiness, Sansa feels every nerve in her body fizzle with delightful exuberance — not heated per say (not yet at least), but warm and warming, like a sip of Christmas brandy travelling from tongue to gullet. With the twine of his arms, with the press of his mouth, Mr. Baelish' kisses grow no longer chaste; instead they chance her chin and her throat, nipping enthusiastically along her jaw, introducing tongue here and tooth there, as if he isn't wholly certain which part of him will do the job best.

The exchange lacks the kind of headiness that comes with full-fledged desire, but that fact seems to quell neither of them in their explorations of one another — hands and mouths moving and tracing, little whispers of encouragement and bubbling laughter the only sound over kisses and cloth and the occasional sigh. Rather than hot and heavy and burgeoning, their dalliance is tempered by the inexperience of youth, an awkwardness and fumbling that makes Sansa laugh again and then swoon happily in Mr. Baelish's arms, clinging to him.

When her eyes finally flutter shut it feels as if she is falling down down down from a very great height, only Sansa is not frightened, she thinks Mr. Baelish will catch her. ] May we be happy together and kiss more? Oh, please say yes.

Edited 2012-08-28 03:36 (UTC)

[ And he's there to soften her fall, to keep her from hitting the bottom, his embrace warm and reassuring, cheek pressed to her hair as he hugs her close. A daze clouds his senses, not that of desire but of simple surprise — that she would enjoy this, that she would want him at all. But, that said, he won't question it, and he won't be ungrateful. He knows how precious love is. ]

Of course, of course, [ he whispers, some of that giddiness still readily audible in his voice. ] Yes, a million times yes. For as long as you wish. [ The last part is a fallacy, of course, but a wish that he holds true. As if to demonstrate the point, he kisses her again, one of his hands sliding slowly down her back to rest just above the curve of her backside.

They could be happy, he thinks, the thought fueling his passions. A little cottage by the sea, perhaps, or a flat closer to the city. Something normal. No one would think to question them too long, no one would question the matter of whether or not she could love at all. ]

Some day, [ he manages, the words spoken against the corner of her mouth, ] I'll take you away from here. We'll live together somewhere nice, go wherever we like. Would that make you happy?

[ They say that surrogates are not people. They are bodily vessels, receptacles that hold an entire lifetime of second chances. They are ghosts and they are echoes — thin shadows cast upon the wall by their Originals, nothing more. But if that were true, how then was this possible? How would the copy of the girl who had broken Mr. Baelish's heart so many years ago suddenly find it in herself to love him now — so freely and so effortlessly, the way any normal girl would.

Sansa feels something strange happen to her then, as the tumult of emotions she feels inside had suddenly come to a glorious, shimmering head. Without warning, hot tears sting her eyes and stain her face, her gaze wet and singular and wholly adoring. There is nothing, nothing that compares to first love — a heavy truth that Mr. Baelish has held in his heart all of these long years — and it is first love that fills Sansa's gaze and spills down her cheeks, the sentiment far too large for her unexperienced heart to hold. Even though he holds her ardently, his arms are gentle and — for the first since knowing him — seem strong instead of earnestly meek. Still, a breathlessness takes hold of her, brought about by their kissing and her crying. ] Y-yes, oh yes, [ she sobs happily. ] Nothing would make me happier, Mr. Baelish.

[ Kissing him briefly, she presses his cheek to hers and twines about him, her shoulders shaking as she sobs again, the sound heartbreakingly joyous in his ear. ] Are we in love, you and I? Is that what I'm feeling right now? Can you promise it will never end?

[ They say that surrogates are not people and though Mr. Baelish has never believed the principle, it has never been clearer to him how much of a lie it was until now. She loves him with a fervency that only she could muster, loves him in a way that is untarnished and clean, as lovely as birdsong. And he is too caught, too enraptured, to be unhappy.

She sobs, and for an instant, he's worried that he's done something wrong. But it's joy that colors her voice, not sorrow, and though he does not cry with her, he laughs in relief, the sound bright in comparison to the fog and dark in which he always seems to live. ]

We're in love, [ he tells her, amazement in his words. ] Yes, Sansa, this- this is love. And I swear to you, until my very last breath, I will love you.

[ Pressing a kiss to her temple, he draws her ever closer in his arms, allowing the silence to envelop them for a moment before offering, with a sweet sort of hesitancy: ] You may call me Petyr, if you would like.

CLOSED | prompt eight | RUIN

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