Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Part 1

Petyr is slowly stirred from the womb-like warmth of sleep. Prickling into his awareness is the heightened sense that he is being observed, and the soft little blows of warm air on his brow and cheeks all but confirm it.

His wife’s golden eyes are clear and sedate. She smiles as though the corners of her mouth were pulled by a string.

“Shhhh,” she coos. “Don’t move just yet.”

He regards her from under hooded eyelids.

“I want to remember you like this always,” she rests her hand upon his chest. “I like to hear your heartbeat when you sleep. Don’t mind me.”

“Alerie...” his voice is dry and gruff in the pale morning light.

“You are so beautiful Petyr,” she whispers as though she would break, and he breaks a little.

He’s awake now. There was no going back to it.

“I have to get up,” he gently lifts her hand from his chest, where she had entangled it in the sparse black and grey hairs above his sternum. He sits up in one smooth motion and swings his legs over the edge, releasing her wrist. She does not meet his gaze as he gets dressed.

~~~~

At breakfast she’s already made his coffee and set out a muffin.

“Margaery’s gone to school with a friend.”

“Which friend?”

“Don’t know. She just said a friend. A girl friend, I heard her voice as Margaery was leaving.”

“Hmm,” he checks his pocket for his car keys. “Do you know—“

She turns around holding the set of keys in her delicate hand.

“You can get them back for a kiss,” her voice is teasing, lilting.

He smiles, indeed enjoying how playful she is this morning. “How many?”

“Two maybe three. Start with one.”

“I see you’ve got me on a payment plan.”

“Just kiss me.” He obliges.

The kiss is gentle; he cups the back of her skull, hand tangling in her long silvery blonde hair. She tastes of morning dew with a tang of orange blossom. He doesn’t want to forget that taste. The kiss deepens.

“How soon do you have to go to work?” she pulls away, breathless.

“I should’ve already left,” he’s got his hands on his belt, undoing the clasp.

“I hear the traffic on highway three was really bad this morning,” she turns and places her hands on the marble countertop; rucking up the hem of her knee length peach silk nightgown.

“Oh the worst. Backed up for miles,” he fits himself right into the sumptuous curve of her backside. “Are you sure?” he mutters lowly into her ear. “You’re okay, you know, for this?”

“Just fuck me,” she sighs. And he does.

~~~~

At about 1 o’clock that afternoon he gets a call from the school.

Margaery stands at the school’s curb as he pulls up in the convertible. The top is up despite the favourable weather. She knows he’s mad.

The window rolls down.

“Get in the damn car.” His voice holds no humour in it.

She comes up to the window.

“You know there are laws against child endangerment.”

He leans over the gear shift and shoves the door open.

“Just get in the fucking car.”

With a huff she takes her seat, and buckles the seatbelt. He says nothing. He can barely look at her right now.

They drive in pure agonizing silence for five long minutes.

The car comes to a red light.

“I’m waiting,” he hisses.

“For what?” she looks down at her shoes.

“All the shit you’ve pulled recently, seems like a desperate plea for my attention. You have it now, so...I’m waiting.”

She shifts her body and averts her eyes to the floor, saying nothing. Another bout of silence. Another red light.

“We don’t need this right now,” he says lowly, calmly. “Your mother and I...”

That was it. The sore point. Margaery sinks into her seat.

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” her voice is small; imploring.

“I don’t understand where all this behaviour is coming from. Help me understand, Marge. Then maybe we can sort something out.”

Marge looks down at her nails, all naked and bare save for one painted red on her fourth finger on the right hand.

“It was all Sansa’s idea.”

~~~~

The cutlery scrapes against the good china as dinner is consumed in utter silence.

She looks so beautiful tonight, Margaery thinks. It must have been a good day.

Her mother’s hair is pulled back into a clip, and spills as a fountain of gold silver across her neck and left shoulder. I’ll never be as beautiful as her, thought Margaery, her eyes darting over to Petyr.

“So Margaery...your father tells me that there was some trouble at school today,” Alerie finally broke the silence, her tone cautious but kind.

“It’s nothing,” Margaery averts her gaze to her plate and pushes a stray piece of chicken around with her fork.

“It’s not nothing. Margaery was suspended. For a week.” Margaery flinches at how sharp he is. How hard and unyielding.

“It wasn’t my fault! Principal Tarly hates me, he hates all women! He’s a misogynistic prick!”

“Margie,” Alerie sighs, wiping her mouth with her napkin.

“All we did was skip a couple of classes, but we didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just because we are girls that we are made an example of. To discourage “displeasing behaviours”, you know, like having tits and equal rights.”

“And the weed?” Petyr adds tersely, not even looking up from his dinner.

Margaery shrunk back in her chair.

“It wasn’t mine.”

Petyr scoffs and wipes his mouth. “Of course! None of it is any of your fault, you’re just the victim.”

“I didn’t say that!”

“God, will you not accept responsibility for anything that you’ve done?”

Margaery was cowed. It was not often that Petyr yelled at her, and she did not like it.

Alerie sits, stone-faced. She seems drained now, and pale. She pushes away her plate. “Excuse me, I’m going to lie down, I’m tired.”

“Mom,” Margaery pleads. Guilty.

Alerie doesn’t respond. Doesn’t even look at her. She leans over to whisper something in Petyr’s ear, and kisses his cheek, clearing her plate and walking out.

“Dad...” her distress is evident, but Petyr is unmovable.

“You may go to your room.”

She gets up, head hung low, and leaves Petyr to finish his dinner alone.

~~~~

That night, as Petyr takes his clothes off, he catches Alerie staring at him from the bathroom door.

His scar still peeks through, despite the matting of chest hair.

She looks so frail, with dark circles under her eyes.

“Don’t mind me,” she whispers. She seems ghostly in the dim lighting.

He stands in the middle of the room, his discomfort as tangible as the fabric in his hands. Alerie was in one of her moods.

“Should I...”

“No, no,” she smiles shyly. “I just wanted to watch you. Memorize how you look, how you smell.”

“Alerie, please,” he looks down at his dress shirt now fully wrung out in his hands. “I just...don’t talk like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you’ve died already.”

She bites her lip and her golden eyes dim as she sinks into the shadows of the door.

Against his better judgement, he lets out an audible sigh and pushes past her into the bedroom, to cover himself again.

~~~~

Petyr pours his third glass, fingering the small gold frame. The wedding photo. Alerie in her delicate lace dress, young Margaery in her bright flower girl frock. Both his girls smiling with their arms around his neck. It was his favourite.

“Daddy,” Marge’s small voice calls from the crack in his study door.

“What is it, sweetheart?” He does not turn around, he is too busy nursing his glass of whiskey.

“Can I come in?”

He sighs, and takes a drink.

“Of course,” he sits up in the high-backed chair and swivels so she can see his face and know that he is not angry with her intrusion.

Margaery enters in her socks and sleeping shorts and oversized teddy nightshirt. She looks almost like she did when they first met. The sweet little girl without a father who needed him.

“Is everything alright?” His tone is a bit more haughty than he intended, and Margaery visibly flinches and deflates. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired, I didn’t mean...” he sighs again and rubs his forehead. “Talk to me sweetheart, please, I’m not...I’m not mad at you anymore.”

A small smile graces his baby girl’s face. She averts her gaze to the floor again. “I know I hurt you today and I...I just wanted...I’m sorry, ok. Forgive me?”

God, she seems so small and defenseless, he can’t help but relent. He puts his glass down and offers a soft smile. “You know I can’t stay mad at you Margie,” he pushed his chair back from the desk a little. “Come here.”

Margaery smiles like a young girl about to get a treat and skips over to crawl into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck and nuzzling her face into his shoulder.

“I know you’re a good girl,” he sighs as he kisses the top of her head. Fatherly. His eyes dart over to the frozen image of his wife in the frame. In every photograph, she seems ageless, timeless, unending.

“I’ll talk to the Principal tomorrow. See if he can reduce your sentence. You will get detention though.”

“Okay Daddy,” Margaery smiles out the corner of her mouth, nestling her face even closer to the crook of his neck. “Is mom mad at me?”

“What can I say. We aren’t mad, we’re just disappointed in you right now.”

“I understand,” her small hand lifts and gently drops on top of his large one on the desk - her fingers playing in the cracks and divots of his knuckles. “Daddy?”

“What else?” his tone is wary.

“Can you also do something for my friend? For Sansa?”

It is the second time he’s heard that name.

“Sansa?” he scrubs a hand over the tired lines of his face.

Margaery lifts her head from Petyr’s shoulder to meet his eyes. “Please Daddy. She’s my best friend. She’s the only one who understands.”

Margaery’s eyes were so wide he could have fallen into them. “Understands what?”

“Everything.”

He wants to hold her to him and tell her all the things a father would say. “You’ve got me, kiddo. Always and forever.” But his eyes find their way back to the photograph - the smiling visage of his wife, and the smiling man beside her - how that smile never quite reaches his eyes.

“I - uh...I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you Daddy.”

Chapter Text

The first thing he sees is the tattoo of a wolf’s head wrapped in poison ivy. Located on her right thigh, just above the knee. Her skirt is just short enough to display the tattoo proudly.

“Hey Mister can I get a ride?” Her voice is soft and lilting, and dreadfully familiar. Her girlish laugh even more so.

“Sansa, this is my dad, Dad this is Sansa.”

“Petyr.”

“I see the familial resemblance.”

Margaery laughs. “He’s my step-dad. No blood relation. My real dad died when I was like seven.”

“So can I get that ride?”

“Please dad?”

He didn’t really have a choice and he knew it. “Sure.”

“Great! Thank you so much!”

Both she and Marge move to get into the front seat. “Oh, is it all right if I sit up front? I get terrible car sickness.”

Marge hesitates, put off by having to give up her coveted front seat. Deftly, this Sansa girl takes her wrists in her hand and gently strokes the delicate thin skin there. Three strokes and whatever unease that had faltered Margaery before seems to melt away.

Petyr eyes the entire exchange as though he were watching a magician performing a sleight of hand.

Without another protest, Margaery climbs into the backseat, while Sansa sits up in front beside him.

“Thank you, Mister Baelish.” She touches his hand over the gear shift. He is quick to kick the gear out of park, shirking her hand, and it’s oddly uncomfortable touch off.

“Where to?” he sniffs, bringing the tingling hand up to his nose to pinch the bridge, before settling it on the wheel.

“Just the corner of Vale St and 9th. I can walk to my Aunt’s from there.”

“You live with your aunt?”

“Temporarily,” she undoes the clip holding up her luscious red hair, letting it fall around her in a big fiery mane.

The way she sits causes her skirt to hike up just the fraction more up her pale thighs. He catches another glimpse of the wolf’s head, and it looks as though it were snarling at him.

“This car is the shit. What do you do for a living?” Those delicate hands run feather light over the wood and leather interior.

“I’m a senior financial officer and editor for the Lion’s Hand Company.”

“He’s a corporate sell out,” Margaery pipes in from behind him, kicking his seat.

“That’s enough out of you,” he teases with only a slight warning edge.

“No for real though. Petyr used to stand up for the little guy, do pro bono accounting for non-profits and family businesses. He’s like, wicked good with numbers and stuff. But then he went corporate and now all he cares about is lining him and his friends pockets with more money than they know what to do with.”

“Oh so that college fund means nothing to you then?”

“I’m not going to go to college. I’m going to join the Peace Corps and write Nobel Peace prize winning books about tribal cultures in the forgotten wilderness, and perform art pieces with trained cats about the evils of capitalism!”

“Good lord, she’s a humanitarian.”

“Better than being a cold-hearted, money grubbing, corporate shill. What do you think Sansa?”

Sansa stares out the car window, chewing on the corner of her singular painted finger nail.

“Sansa!” Margaery barks.

As her head turns, her red hair cascades like a fiery waterfall over the creamy expanse of one pale shoulder. Her blue eyes are glossy and deeply melancholy behind her porcelain face of indifference.

“I think it’s really sweet, you know,” her answer seems like a response to a whole different conversation. “The way you guys talk to each other. I can tell you really love each other, as a family. I think it’s really nice.”

The car falls into an awkward quiet.

~~~~

“You can drop me off here, it’s alright,” Sansa shakes her hair behind her shoulders, collecting her purse from the car floor.

“Are you sure? It’s no bother, I can get you to your front door.”

She shakes her head again. “No, that wouldn’t be good.” Her aloof glass-like eyes avert his gaze to her manicured nails. All nude save for one painted red. “If my aunt saw me get out of a car as swanky as this, she’d think I was a prostitute or something. Then she’d send me away.”

“Send you away? Send you where?”

“Dad!” Margaery kicks the back of his seat.

Sansa shrugs. “A nunnery I suppose. Some convent school for wayward girls. She threatens to every time I do something she doesn’t like, and she hates everything. She’s probably going to send me there at Christmas time just for kicks.”

Petyr side glances at Margaery. “Are they accepting applications?”

Margaery swats him. “That’s not even funny, Petyr!”

Sansa fixes him with that entrancing sapphire gaze. His casual mirth dies right in his throat.

“I don’t think I’ve thanked you yet...you know, for what you did. Talking to the principal for Margie and I. You really saved my skin.”

Her hand purposefully reaches over and touches his shoulder. The car feels suddenly warm and constricting. She opens the car door and steps one elegant long leg on to the pavement. The wolf’s head snarls again.

“Thanks for the ride again. Petyr.” She says his name and it’s like hearing it spoken for the first time. “Later Margie.”

“Later Sans.”

And she is gone.

Margaery climbs into the front seat over the console, swatting his arm during her journey.

“Jesus Petyr, do you have to be such a creep.”

He sniffs and pulls the car back on to the roadway.

“Jeez, at this rate, I’m going to be lucky to have any friends at all by the time I die if this is the way you’re going to interrogate them anytime they step into your car.”

“I-uh...I’m sorry,” he says absently.

“Dad?” Margaery’s tone changes from teasing to concern. “I-I’m kidding, Dad.”

“Hmm.”

“Daddy?”

“Let’s go home. Your mother’s waiting.”

~~~~

Petyr senses it the moment he walks into the room. Alerie had a visit from the Doctor today.

The machine whirs as she lies curled in a ball on the bed. The mask obscures her beautiful face, which looks pale and tired; everything just a tad more dull than usual.

Why does she do this to herself?

Petyr sits on the edge of the bed and leans over and presses the gentlest of kisses on to her forehead. When he pulls away, her eyes are open, she is awake.

“Hey,” he whispers. “Did I wake you?”

“Uh uh,” her voice sounds tinny and robotic from behind the mask.

He can’t quite look at her like this. He shifts away to stare at the wall. “You comfortable? Do you need anything?”

“Hold me please.”

“I don’t want to get in the way of all your equipment.”

The whirring dies and he feels her shift on the bed beside him. She climbs on top of his lap and lays her head on his chest.

“You smell nice,” her voice is clear, human again. “I love the way you smell.”

He doesn’t speak, but lifts his arms to gently wrap around her waist and stroke her delicate arms. The skin is still so soft.

“Do I please you? Do I make you happy?” she presses their pelvises together.

“Of course,” he kisses the top of her head; breathes in the scent of orange blossoms and spring from her hair.

“You’re such a good man, Petyr. You’ve been so good to us. So, so good.”

“You and Margie...you’re my girls, you know that.”

“I know.”

She presses a kiss into his chest.

“I wish I could take all your pain away. Heal all your scars. I wish I could make it all go away.”

Petyr doesn’t respond, only continues to stroke her hair and arms.

“I just want to cut you open and crawl inside you.”

He swallows heavily. “What else do you want?”

“Just hold me,” she sighs.

And he does. And he doesn’t think about Sansa Stark or her wolf’s head tattoo.

Chapter Text

She watches her husband as he sleeps. The lines of his face have softened in the moonlight till his skin is as smooth as polished stone. She runs feather light fingers over the divots in his forehead and leans down and breathes in the scent of his skin.

“I yearn for you,” she mutters in his warmth, honeysuckling his eye lids. “Since the very first moment, all I’ve wanted is to possess you.”

~~~~

“Of course, you’ve met my widowed daughter-in-law, Alerie.”

“Mama, please.” She covers her blush with a delicate hand and ducks her eyes beneath the rim of her glass of sparkling rosé.

The man smiles, kindly but not interested in her beyond her tangential relations.

“Alerie, sweetest, I’m going to need a little more of your cooperation if I’m ever going to find you another husband,” her mother-in-law turns to her after the man politely excuses himself to refill his drink.

Olenna pushes a loose strand of gold hair off her face.

“Do pinch your cheeks, sweetness, you’re starting to look sallow.”

She wants to cry.

Don’t you care about Margie and I at all?

“I’m just not ready, mama.”

She walks away on unsteady feet.

Her hands run under the cool tap. She dabs her wet fingers on her heated neck. The cold edge of her ring startles her. She looks down at the gem. Her wedding ring. A family heirloom.

Stupid, fucking Jace!

She wants to tear the ring off her finger and wash it down the drain. Wants to scratch off her pretty reflection and rip her dress off her body.

She emerges from the bathroom and he is there. Leant up against the arch connecting the winding hallways in Olenna’s expansive mansion. Striking in a dark suit that looks black until he shifts and reveals that it is in fact a midnight green.

He holds out a tumblr of bourbon towards her.

“Here,” is all he says.

And she falls, right then and there.

~~~~

“Petyr,” his name leaves her mouth in a soft, sensual sigh.

She writhes on top of him. Drags his long, elegant hands over the pert mounds of her breasts and encourages him to squeeze.

She surprises him this morning with her burst of energy, with her eagerness to be with him, to have him inside her.

Lying on his back and arching his hips up to rock her against him at just the pace she likes. So attentive, so caring.

She laughs like a liberated teen, and pushes her long blonde hair behind her ears, shifting forward to hover above him and pump her hips to the pace she knows he likes.

His eyes are blissfully shut.

She stops her movements grasping his head roughly with her sweaty palms and prizing the flesh of his brow, the cheeks, his eyelids until he laughs and opens his eyes again.

“I love your eyes,” she says breathlessly. Stomach clenching with girlish giggles, squeezing him so high up in her core. He groans a little.

She leans down and kisses his nose, the perspiration on his upper lip, and snakes her tongue into his mouth to pry his lips apart so she can take his front teeth in her mouth in a sloppy and sensuous kiss.

He splutters, a little from shock, a little from amusement.

She sits up, taking in his thoroughly tousled and debauched form with a gleam in her eyes.

“I don’t know what’s got into me this morning,” she ducks her eyes and blushes down to her breasts. “Aside from the obvious,” she squeezes her insides again.

He smiles, lopsided and light, like a summer breeze, and lifts the knuckle of his right hand to her chin, chucking her with a teasing pucker of his mouth.

“It makes me happy to see you like this.”

Her shyness melts, replaced by hunger. She takes his hand from her face and puts it on her waist.

“I’m gonna ride you till I come, and if you don’t come with me I’ll swallow you whole,” she leers at him darkly, and pulls her hips away.

“I think I’ll survive,” he grins, reaching up to cup the back of her neck and wrap his fingers in her slippery, shiny hair.

The door to their bedroom opens.

“Hey mom, have you seen my-o-oh my god!”

“Shit,” Alerie reaches for the silk bedsheets to cover her and Petyr from their daughter’s startled gaze.

“I-I...” Margaery stammers, her mouth falling open, eyes darting from mother to Petyr. His hair unkempt and of place, his naked body blocked from her view by the sheet and her mother.

“Give us a moment won’t you sweetheart?” Alerie smiles assuringly. A mother always, despite the position she was in.

“Y-yeah...I’m sorry, I...”

“It’s alright, sweetie, I’ll meet you downstairs.”

Margaery turns beet red and averts her eyes, turning and heading for the door. She steals one last glance at her mother, and at Petyr before quickly shutting the door, her footsteps heavily clomping past the landing and down the stairs.

Alerie pulls off of him with a chuckle, reaching for her abandoned nightie.

“No rest for the wicked,” she says, leaning over and kissing him.

Petyr sits up, running his hand through his hair.

“I’ll see what she needs,” Alerie was already put together like nothing had happened, and pulling on her robe and slippers. “But don’t go too far,” she touches his shoulder, smiling at him as she walks her fingers down. “I’m still not done with you yet,” she squeezes his cock and leaves.

~~~~

“I can’t believe you did this to me,” Margaery refuses to look at him in the car as he drives her to school.

“I’m not going to apologize,” he keeps his eyes on the road, his manner unaffected. “You didn’t knock.”

“How was I supposed to know you’d be...”

“Well, we are married.”

“You two are disgusting. Aren’t I supposed to be the crazy hormonal teenager in this household?”

“Married couples do fuck from time to time. Not just to make babies.”

“Ugh! Gross!”

She looks away, outside the window.

His sunglasses shield his expression. She looks at him from behind her hand. He is put together now, hair neat, shirt buttoned all the way to the collar. All she’s ever allowed to see.

“Petyr, do you think I’m pretty?“

He doesn’t answer immediately.

“Of course I do. One of the prettiest.”

“I mean really. If you weren’t my step-dad, would you still think I’m pretty?”

He lowers his sunglasses so she can see his grey-green eyes.

“Of course I would.”

~~~~

That tattoo again, peaking under a school girl’s skirt.

“Hi, Mr. Baelish.”

He pushes his sunglasses up his nose.

“Sansa, save me!” Margaery flings her seatbelt off of her and quickly clambers out of the car.

“What did you do, you dirty old man?” the red head bends down leaning her elbows through the window.

Petyr lifts his hand up and shrugs innocently.

She sucks on a red blow pop. It stains the inside of her mouth, making her teasing smile look bloody and somewhat sinister.

“Come on, I’ll tell you all about it when we’re alone. Bye dad!”

Margaery tugs on Sansa’s hand trying to pull her away like a selfish toddler but Sansa resists for a moment, keeping her eyes trained on Petyr, predatory, like the wolf’s head of her tattoo.

“Nice to see you again, Mr. Baelish.”

~~~~

“I don’t know how I feel about this girl Margaery’s been hanging out with,” Petyr fiddles with his cuff links later that night. It’s a function like any other. Boring, but necessary.

“Sansa? Margaery seems to have nothing bad to say about her.”

Alerie appears behind him, taking his arm to place the cuff links in the right position herself.

“You haven’t met her, she’s got an influence on her.”

Alerie’s eyes sparkle up to him. She’s been better the past few days, like the worst has passed.

“You’re right, I haven’t met her. It’s like you’re both keeping her from me.”

Something niggles in his stomach.

“I guess we wanted to make sure you were feeling better,” he lifts a hand to her face, letting her silvery hair entwine in his fingers.

“Well, I am, and I think it’s about time we were introduced. Shall I set a date?”

“They’re teenagers, hun, they don’t run by dates. Certainly not ones set by their parents.”

Alerie leans down and applies a fresh coat of lipstick in the vanity.

“Well then, we’ll just have to run the idea by Margie, won’t we?”

With her bent over like that, he wants to forget the whole evening and just take her there against the mirror.

His hand cups her bottom and she swats it.

“Down boy,” she chastises him with a barely concealed grin. “Didn’t you get enough of me this morning?”

He bends down and kisses the bare spot on her back where her skin isn’t covered by the dark velvet material.

“I can never get enough,” he whispers into her spine.

She sighs, pulling his arms around her and nestling her back into the warmth of his chest. They hold each other for a long minute, staring at their entwined reflection.

“Well, it‘ll have to wait,” Alerie finally breaks the hold so she can grab her wrap and her purse. “Olenna won’t tolerate us being late.”

Chapter Text

“Petyr, Alerie, you’re late.”

“Sorry mama. We had a little trouble getting out of the house.” Alerie leans over to kiss her cheek.

“ Don’t call me that. Where’s Margaery? Where’s my grandbaby?”

Alerie steps back, abashed. “Well, you see...”

“She’s grounded,” Petyr says firmly.

“She’s been having some trouble at school...”

“Oh poo! She’s willful! She’s a Tyrell!”

“Mama...”

“I suppose you wouldn’t know, you’ve always been such a mouse.”

Alerie bites her lip and looks away.

“Nothing to be done,” Olenna sighs. Disappointed. “Next time, I want her here, I don’t care if she’s up for arson. I want to see my grandbaby.”

She leaves them to mingle.

Alerie shakily reaches for a flute of champagne as a waiter passes by with a tray.

Petyr is at her elbow.

“Alerie...”

“Why can’t you ever stand up for me?”

~~~~

Margaery likes the woods at night. They are spooky, and the trees look like they have scraggly fingers, like witches hands.

Maybe she was just that kind of girl who liked to be spooked.

“Boo!”

“For fuck’s sake, Sansa!”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist,” she gently takes her am by the wrist and runs her fingers along the skin. “Forgive me?”

Margaery relaxes. “Yeah, its fine.”

Sansa lets go of her wrist.

“I’m surprised. You got away.”

“It wasn’t that hard. My parents are out for the evening.”

“Oh?” Sansa makes herself comfortable at the base of a tree and pulls out a bag of weed from her backpack.

“Yeah, every so often my grandma holds these business functions, and because Petyr works for her we have to go. Except for this time, cause I’m grounded.”

Margaery finds a spot by the tree beside her, hugging her knees to her chest.

“You sound disappointed,” Sansa rolls a joint and lights it passing it to her.

“Not for the party, really, they’re usually dull as shit, but I like seeing my Grandma. She’s very cool, she owns like half the city, and she’s a real ball breaker. Mom says I take after her.”

“She sounds like a badass.” Sansa agrees.

Margaery takes a hit off the joint and passes it back.

“You know what I find interesting?” Sansa asks, her eyes gleaming like a wolf’s in the moonlight.

“What?”

“You and you’re step-dad.”

“What do you mean?”

Sansa smokes and passes the joint again.

“Sometimes you call him Dad, and sometimes you call him Petyr. Wonder why that is.”

“I don’t know,” Margaery shrugs.

“I think you’ve got a thing for him.”

Margaery splutters. “Ew, don’t be gross.”

“Yeah, you do. You’ve got a thing for your step-dad.” Sansa begins poking her in the ribs, teasing her.

“Well what about you? You’re always talking to him and stuff, aren’t you. Maybe you’re the one whose got the thing and you’re just projecting your feelings on to me, huh?”

Sansa suddenly goes cold, sitting back on the ground, disinterested and aloof.

“Don’t be silly.”

~~~~

Petyr reaches over the divider to gently touch his wife’s hand.

“Hey,” he says softly.

“Hmm?”

“Say something,” he pleads. “You’re killing me.”

She takes his hand and interlaces their fingers.

“You can’t let that woman get to you every time. It doesn’t matter. She’s not your mother anymore!”

Her hand drops. She slithers away from him.

Her skin grows pale right before his eyes, her hair and her eyes lose their brightness.

She crumbles.

“I’m sorry, dear, I don’t feel well.”

~~~~

Petyr half carries his wife up the stairs to their room. She’s feels so frail and fragile in his arms he’s afraid she might break.

He gets her to the bed and kneels before her reverently. Hand cupping each ankle, he gently pries off her heels. He unzips her out of her dress, and like a porcelain doll, gets her into her nightgown.

She lies in bed as though it were her funeral pyre.

“I’ll call the doctor in the morning. Perhaps you’ve overexerted yourself.”

She claps his arm tightly when he moves to leave her.

“You are so good to me. Such a good man, I don’t deserve you.”

Her eyes shimmer. Tears.

“No, love, I’m not,” he says, and walks away.

~~~~

Margaery scrambles up the trellis to her bedroom. Desperate not to make a sound.

They came home earlier than expected.

She hurriedly pries off her clothes and gets into her night shirt. She gargles with mouthwash and sprays herself with mist to hide the weed smell.

She just gets into bed when the door creaks open.

“Margie?”

She lifts her head off the pillow.

“Dad?”

He comes in, still in his dress shirt and trousers, a bottle in his hands and a glass in the other.

“Mind if I come in?”

“Sure. Did something happen?”

He scoffs.

Of course something happened.

He plops down heavily at the foot of her bed.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”

He pours a drink, takes a sip, then hands the glass to her. The liquor burns, but she likes it.

“It’s like she wants it to happen...when she gets this way. Like dying will prove something to her.”

Margaery takes another hesitant swallow. Petyr never talks this way.

“Dad? Can I ask you something?”

“Of course, sweetheart.”

“Why did you marry her?”

He takes a swig from the bottle.

“Why?” He sighs. “It was the easiest decision in the world.”

~~~~

Alerie brought her finger up to his lips, kissing him as she fiddled in her purse to find her keys.

“I never do this,” she murmurs hotly against his cheek. “I’ve never brought a man home like this.”

His hands are on her waist, moving in circles, dipping lower, and lower.

“We don’t have to go inside if it will get you into trouble,” he groans, grinding his groin against her ass for emphasis. He was not a shy man.

She laughs. “You’re so naughty, Mr Baelish.”

The keys jangle in her hand when she finds them. “Ah! Saved by the bell!” She giggles and pulls him inside.

The foyer is impressive, but he doesn’t have time to admire it before he is being dragged into her deceased husband’s study.

She has told him about this desk, and all the fantasies of what she would like to do to him on it.

“We must be quiet though, I don’t want to wake up my little girl.”

He zips his lips and throws away the key.

She pours a bourbon from the liquor cabinet and places it by his hand on the desk, then shoves him against it.

“Sit,” she demands.

He does, and she knocks his knees apart with a high-heeled foot.

Her hands on his thighs, the taste of fine liquor in her mouth, she leans in and kisses him. Once, twice, thrice, then drops to her knees.

She covers her face and laughs against his thigh.

“I swear I’ve never done this. You bring this side out of me.”

“You don’t have to...” he tries to say, but her hands are already at his belt buckle.

“Oh no, once I’m decided to do something, that’s it. I can’t be deterred Mr. Baelish.”

“Call me Petyr,” he moans, grasping her hair as she releases him from his slacks.

“Mmmm, Petyrrr...” she purrs and takes him in her mouth.

After he comes, she is back on her feet, giggling and kissing him.

“You stay right here and drink your bourbon like a good boy. I’ll be right back. I’m not done with you yet. I’m just going to go change into something more comfortable.”

She kisses him and trots away before he can protest.

He feels delightfully warm and loose. The drink and his recent release doing wonders for the synapses in his head. He tucks himself back in his trousers and truly takes in his surroundings for the first time.

The dark greens and the deep gold ambers; the artworks and the cabinets of glimmering silver and bone china. Nothing beats old money, he thinks, and takes another sip of his drink.

“Momma?”

The young girl startles him. Lured by the light and the shadows coming from the room. She rubs her sleepy eyes and clutches a tiny bear.

He puts the drink down and stands upright.

“Hello.”

“Are you a friend of mommies?”

“I am,” he smiles. She’s so small, he’s never seen something so precious and small. She looks like a doll. “You must be Margaery.”

The girl nods.

“I’m Petyr.”

He holds out his hand and she takes it, her hand only big enough to wrap around his first three fingers.

“You’re mom will be back in just a moment. Would you like to sit with me and wait?”

She nods. He escorts her to the deep green loveseat.

“What’s your companion’s name?” He asks, pointing to the bear in her little arms.

“Just bear.”

“How pragmatic.”

“Bears don’t have names, their just bears.”

“I see.”

He sits beside her on the couch, nursing his bourbon and praying he doesn’t look too mussed up.

“Do you have any kids?”

Petyr sucks through his teeth and takes a quick drink. “No. No I do not.”

“I don’t have a Dad either.”

“Do you miss him?”

She shakes her head then after a moment, nods.

“That’s okay then. You’re allowed to miss him.”

She looks up at him. Her eyes are large and brown, and wide enough for a man to fall head over heels into.

She leans over and hugs him. The action takes him by surprise.

“I like you,” she says, muffled into the fabric of his shirt.

He relaxes. He likes it, oddly. The trust so freely given. He finds himself wanting to keep it, to protect it forever. He wonders if that’s how every father feels.

When Alerie returns, in her slinky silk robe, the girl is fast asleep in his arms.

If she wasn’t already determinedly in love with him she would have fallen then.

They gather up the girl and take her up the stairs and tuck her into bed. Alerie kisses her daughter’s forehead, while Petyr nestles her bear into the crook of her arm.

They sneak out of the room, closing the door behind them as quietly as they can manage.

She takes him by the tie and leads him to her room.

They lie on her bed together.

“Are you some kind of magician?” she asks. “Have you bewitched us?”

“I don’t know...I’ve never...that was amazing. She’s amazing. You’re amazing.”

His hands come to her waist, and he is looking deep into her soul, a look she has never seen before. A man possessed.

“Will you marry me?” he asks.

And the whole world stops.

~~~~

Margaery wakes up in the morning feeling a bit groggy. She must have had way too much of that bourbon last night. Her mouth feels parched and her head heavy.

She gropes around the bed for her phone.

Her hand comes into contact with something that is not her phone, and soon retracts with the realization that its hair. Human hair. Attached to a body.

She sits up sharply and there he is. Draped against the side of the bed, arm underneath him like a pillow. The bottle forgotten somewhere on the floor.

“Dad?” she experimentally pokes him. He shifts and sighs but doesn’t wake.

She leans forward, on to her knees. He looks so peaceful asleep. His hair disheveled, all the lines of his face smoothed away. He looks...lovely.

A feeling niggles in her insides. Sansa’s words from last night pop afresh in her mind.

She looked at his lips.

Was she?

She shifted closer to him.

Was she?

She’s never been kissed before. Would this even count? She leans in, her lips just touch his then she springs away.

What the hell am I even doing?

She slaps herself with both hands across the face.

Snap out of it!

She crawls out of bed and rushes down the hall to her mother’s bedroom.

She hears the whir of the breathing machine, and the steady mechanical breaths.

The sound terrifies her but she crawls in next to her anyway.

Alerie immediately wraps her arms around her.

“Morning baby.”

“Dad said you weren’t feeling well.”

“Did he?”

“Yeah, he was drunk.”

They laugh.

“He just loves us both so much. You know that don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do.”

She nestles her face into her mother’s golden hair and breathes it in deeply.

“Mom?”

“What is it sweetness?”

“I love you.”

Alerie kisses her forehead, and Margaery shuts her eyes tightly, willing herself to forget what she had done that morning.