wont: (KILLDEER)
ALAYNE STONE ♕ SANSA STARK ([personal profile] wont) wrote2020-04-05 09:02 pm

CONTACT | on the tranquility



— » 003 » 005

QUARTERS | THIRD LEVEL
SEAMSTRESS | FIFTH LEVEL
PETYR'S LIBARY | FIFTH LEVEL
DEVICE, IN-PERSON, BY RAVEN
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[personal profile] grndnpnd 2012-04-13 02:02 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Tommy's expression ripples for a moment, and Tommy feels himself do it but can't manage to keep it from happening, though whether Alayne manages to catch it in her moving about, he can't quite tell. He shouldn't be surprised that people make war wherever they go, and he's not, really. Just look at the ship itself. But he doesn't like that Alayne's had to see it and seen it close enough, whatever she says, to know how it spreads like a cough in a crowded room until it's everywhere . ]

Yeah, we got a war on too. [ He turns his head, looking at nothing particular on the wall to his right. ] I'm sure your pop will keep himself safe. While you're gone. [ Father's are good at that, at least, most of the time. ]
Edited 2012-04-13 14:37 (UTC)
seem: (Default)

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[personal profile] seem 2012-04-14 10:04 am (UTC)(link)
[ For everything, there is a cost, a price. For loving too much and too fiercely and too far above his station, Petyr paid the price in blood. For that blood spilt, all of Westeros has paid, one way or another, and this is the way in which he chooses to extract it from Sansa. And yes, perhaps it's his fault that that reasoning exists in her head, but it exists, and that is that. (And yes, he would prefer that she return his affections — if they can be called as such — unbidden, that her hands would rest instead of hover, but at the end of the day, the truth is that he doesn't much care. Maybe that's part of the price he'd paid, so long ago, to lose sight of those parts of the means so long as the end was achieved.)

When he lets her go, he still does not back too far away, brushing her hair back from her face with one hand. Less and less often does he couch these actions in flowered words. They do nothing, after all, to lighten the weight. He can still taste something akin to hesitation upon her tongue. But he smiles, now, the line of his lips harsher than it usually is, and if that is a manifestation of Littlefinger's place within him or a trick of the light, who is to say?
]

We will make the best of what we are given, [ he tells her, and whether that is a comment on the moments just past or their former conversation, he leaves to her to puzzle out. As he speaks, he takes her hands in his, pressing that bud back into her palm before letting go, fingers slipping away like the waning of the tide. ]
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[personal profile] grndnpnd 2012-04-14 03:08 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Tommy gets, logically, that some kids don't grow up in homes like his. That they have normal relationships with their pop and throw footballs and get grounded for failing math tests and grow up to talk to him sometimes, at least send an email on holidays and his birthday. Tommys gets that, but he can't help pressing his lips together anyway, skeptical. Maybe Alayne's father is everything she says he is and everything he appears to be, but Tommy thinks most likely not.

'Cause Tommy's dad was everything he appeared to be too, back when he was a kid, and look where that ended up.
]

Parent's aren't better at this shi-- stuff. They're just better at pretending to be. [ It sounds to harsh, even to his ears, so he adds, ] You're doing fine. [ For her age. For where she came from. For anyone, really. ]
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[personal profile] grndnpnd 2012-04-14 10:00 pm (UTC)(link)
[ All of a sudden, Tommy seems to remember that he's supposed to be here to get food. Maybe it's the talk of pretending that jolts something in his head and reminds him that he's supposed to be. He moves away from the fridge, so he can turn around, get it open, and try to find something inside that he's fine with eating.

While he does, she thinks more about what she said, about games he'd play with Brendan when they were kids (which were always a little too stupid for Brendan's age, maybe, but which he always went along with) and about how mom pretended everything was okay, up until she decided to stop. So maybe she has a point, even if Tommy's not sure how good he is at pretending these days.
]

That's what people want, right? They ask, "How are you?" and all you're ever supposed t'say is, "Fine."
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[personal profile] grndnpnd 2012-04-15 02:19 am (UTC)(link)
Yes, please, thank you, [ Tommy says, an instant, engrained response to her offer of help. For a moment, his eyes go slightly wide, and it's not pretending exactly, but it's a remainder of what his mom taught him long ago when he was a person who doesn't have a lot in common with the person he is now. He steps back, giving her better access to the fridge, and the moment passes.

He resists the urge to frown at her question. He can't quite tell if it's meant genuinely or as a snappy retort. But either way, his answer wouldn't change much anyway.
]

I'm alive. I've got stuff to eat and somewhere to sleep. Could be worse.
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[personal profile] grndnpnd 2012-04-16 11:48 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Left to his own devices, Tommy will eat just about anything. He's mostly kept to his diet -- as much as possible in the circumstances -- more because the routine is reassuring and it gives him something to think about when he doesn't want to think about other things than because he actually cares.

When he takes the box from Alayne, he gives the contents a quick check and then nods his head in a half-thank you and half-acknowledgement that her choice works for him. He takes a step back to try to find something other than his fingers to eat with (and that, honestly, is just because she's there watching).
]

Yeah, well. When you've been worse, better than worse feels like fine. [ He looks down sullenly at his feet. ]
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[personal profile] grndnpnd 2012-04-19 01:16 pm (UTC)(link)
[ He finds a kind of fork not long after he starts looking -- only so many drawers to sift through and cutlery's still sort of where he expects it, even here in the future -- and digs in. A moment later, he's glad he did because it gives him something to furrow his eyebrows at when she asks her question.

His gut's first impulse is that he hasn't had a friend since Manny died. It's his gut's second impulse too, actually, a one-two punch that makes his jaw tighten and the food he's eating suddenly that much less appealing. His third impulse, though, is that maybe that ain't so true anymore. Tyke and Jenna and Dean and Jim. And Alayne. There are people here he doesn't mind being around so much, and maybe that's what friendship is for him these days.

He doesn't think he'd tell any of the others that, but Alayne's young, and he can't bring himself to shrug her off the way he'd shrug other people off. He stirs the cotents of his container around.
]

Sure. We're friends, [ he says. ] Why you askin'?
seem: (❝ YELLOWTHROAT)

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[personal profile] seem 2012-04-29 03:48 am (UTC)(link)
[ He stays with her as long as Robb allows it.

(There is much to be done, much to be processed, but he does his best to concentrate on what is immediately at hand. At some point he will either have to tell Ned the truth of his relation to Sansa or try to explain away the comment that Robb had made as to being her brother. He'll have to deflect the questions that will inevitably come with Alayne's reappearance, as well. And then there is the matter of caring for the girl herself. He will stay until she has recovered, he thinks. And then he will take his leave. The climate doesn't suit him anymore.

He doesn't like Robb's raised hackles. He doesn't like the way that she had spoken before she'd died. He's seen the scar that she bears, now, one that he supposes is fitting for the mockingbird and his daughter. He doesn't like the weight that she seems to settle in his very blood.)

Still, he sits by the foot of the bed, back against the wall, his fingers threaded through each other like a short patch of latticework.

(He is not himself, either.)
]
seem: (❝ CREEPER)

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[personal profile] seem 2012-04-29 05:09 am (UTC)(link)
[ (He remembers what it was like to die. He hadn't gone over the edge, as she had, but he, too, had spent the ensuing days wondering why it was that he had not simply died. You ought to be grateful, he had been told. But grateful for what? For whatever mercy — Catelyn's, and hadn't that stung — had kept him from being buried? He had nothing. For a while, he had thought that he would rather have died.)

At the sound of his name, Petyr straightens up, raising one hand in an attempt to rub the exhaustion from his eyes. (The time since her death has taken its toll on her, that much is evident. The circles under his eyes have darkened and there is a pallor to his skin, though the most telling evidence lies in the way that he looks at her. It isn't fear, but it isn't total happiness, either.)
]

Sansa, sweetling—

[ He pulls himself closer to the bed, one hand clamped down upon its edge. He doesn't ask how she is. (It's a useless exercise.) Instead, he falls silent, the line of his mouth twitching once before settling back into neutrality. ]
seem: (❝ this is not harmless)

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[personal profile] seem 2012-04-29 06:57 am (UTC)(link)
[ Help is on its way, he had said. 'Til then, I shall be brave in your stead. But the help had never arrived. There had been no help nor succor, just the knowledge that something was wrong, that something had been given or taken that shouldn't have. The feeling that one's skin might peel back and reveal the flaw, the mistake. You should be dead. (This is as close as he will get to being sympathetic.)

Slowly, Petyr pushes himself up to perch upon the edge of the bed, careful to still leave some distance between them. (He will not touch her against her wishes, not now. Truth be told, that caution is as much for him as it is for her. When she had opened her eyes once more, for once in his life — for a single instant — he hadn't known what to do.)

He offers up a small smile, one that flickers and dies but is meant as a sort of comfort. He can read her better than even her own brothers, he would like to think, particularly in light of the parallel paths that their lives have chosen to take. (It's a cruel twist of fate, of carelessness.)
]

I know, [ is what he says, the words stripped of any other meaning, bare and frank. It's not an answer to her stammer, but it's the most, he thinks, that he can give her. ]
seem: (❝ GODWIT)

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[personal profile] seem 2012-04-29 07:18 pm (UTC)(link)
[ (To live and to die and to live again is much too much, he knows that. After all, it – though admittedly in addition to a myriad of other things — had crushed the Baelish boy underneath its weight, lacking as he was in any sort of confidante.)

He shakes his head almost immediately after she has spoken, brow creasing and then smoothing out again.
]

Of course not, [ he murmurs, a note resonating in his voice that sounds almost like pain. ] You needn't worry about that.

[ It's the truth, meager as it is. He doesn't hate her. He does not think her terrible, unnatural, or any combination. He doesn't know what to think. It had been easier, not caring, or at least telling himself so, but know you're loved, she had said, and then, in coming back, had made it impossible for him to simply pretend it never had happened. And is that not a weight, too? One that can crush, one that can torment. No, he does not hate her. But, gods, it would be the easier path to take.

He keeps the thought, however, to himself, instead offering her his hand (his arm, his shoulder), palm held up toward the ceiling.
]
seem: (❝ QUAIL)

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[personal profile] seem 2012-04-29 11:47 pm (UTC)(link)
[ And immediately, something blooms in his chest, frustration or anguish or any combination, he doesn't much care. What did you expect? he wants to ask. What do you want? This is a storm that he is not made to weather and, up until this point, had steered clear of with nothing but ease. He feels young again, in the worst sense of the words, once again at the mercy of a girl who spurns what she has coaxed forth, who will not take what he has to offer, who would rather have died than confront the truth that lies sewn over his heart. At the end of day, even with empires brought down and kings disposed of, Petyr Baelish is only a man.

But no, he tells himself. He will never be caught again, not by her, not by anyone.
]

Don't, [ he says, and it is the closest thing to harsh that he has ever been with her. (More negligence, more mistakes. He cannot persist in this.) ] What is done is done. [ And what is said is said. You cannot take it back.

Still, like hers, his fist curls in thin air, dropping back down to the mattress as he turns away. With each moment that passes, there is a slow, insidious fear that grows within him, one that recognizes that he is becoming careless, that she has seen too much already and will see even more if he is not diligent. (He should have known better.)

Quietly, his face still turned away:
]

Do you wish me to leave?

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