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Imagine Sandor finally letting you touch his scars.
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The tourney for the Hand of the King had been truly exhilarating. For the most part it was fun and exciting, but there had also been some incidents that were tragic to witness. When a large splinter from Ser Gregor's lance struck Ser Hugh in the throat, for example. And the day after, when Ser Gregor attacked Ser Loras and Gregor's younger brother saved the Knight of Flowers' life.
Sandor may not have known it yet, but you felt connected to the scarred man. You had heard all about the story of the Mountain and the Hound from Petyr Bealish. About how Gregor had held Sandor's face into a burning brazier for playing with one of his toys, and you identified greatly with the story. It reminded you of your own trauma, a trauma of which you too still carried the scars to this day.
It was the day after the tourney had ended that you encountered him in one of the many hallways of the Red Keep. As he approached and you were about to cross paths, you smiled sweetly at him and said: "Excuse me, Ser, I just wanted to say that you fought very bravely yesterday."
"Spare me your rehearsed courtesies, and your ser's for that matter. I'm no Ser. I spit on Sers and their vows."
"I am so sorry if I offended you, I meant no disrespect. I was only complimenting you."
"You delusional little highborn girls with your pretty songs about glorious battles and brave, handsome knights. Tell me something girl," before you even realized, he had pushed you against the wall, "you saw my brother fight yesterday, he's a knight. Tell me how he fought."
You opened your mouth to answer, but before any sound could come out, he replied in your stead: "Bravely?" He was mocking you and you hadn't done anything to deserve it.
"As I said, all I wanted was to compliment you. And it wasn't a rehearsed courtesy, I meant what I said. And sure, your brother may be a Ser, but that doesn't make him a true knight. I know many knights and I know about the terrible things most of them have done. And indeed, I saw Gregor yesterday. I saw him trying to kill a man, and I saw you save that same man's life. If anyone acted like a true knight in all of the tourney's days, it was you. But I suppose that's just another one of my fake courtesies..."
Sandor's expression softened at that last remark and he didn't quite know how to respond. He was not at all used to hearing things like that being said to him, especially from a highborn Lannister Lady.
"And fine, you may think I'm delusional, but I know how the real world works. And judging from that scar, so do you."
You were angry and it made you speak way out of turn. When you realized the harshness of your words, you squeezed out from between Sandor and the wall to take your leave. you strode away angrily, leaving him standing there, baffled by the honesty and courage you had just displayed. He had never encountered a lady who dared to talk to him like that. Except for you, they were all afraid of him.
And he felt like he should be angry with you for saying all those things, but he wasn't. Because you were just telling the truth, like he always did himself.
It wasn't until five days later that you saw him again. There was a feast in the Great Hall, and he stood guard while the Lords and Ladies of the Keep got drunk to celebrate gods know whose name day. There was a lot of uneasy eye contact going on between you and Sandor, and you felt guilty about the way you had spoken to him after the tourney. Later that night most members of the royal family had disappeared from the Hall, and so had Sandor.
Many of the other guests had also left the feast, you were drunk and tired and decided to call it a night too. Despite all the wine, you still stood remarkably stable on your feet, so the way to your bedchamber should be no obstacle. As you finally reached the flight of stairs that lead to your room, you saw Sandor Clegane sitting on the bottom steps, accompanied by a wineskin. You walked over and sat down beside him in silence.
"I'm sorry about those things I said."
"Don't worry, it's fine. You were just telling the truth, no need to be sorry for a thing like that."
"Still, I shouldn't have said that about your scar." He just shrugged. All the wine in your system made you feel very emotional, and you were trying your best not to cry.
"You know that you're handsome, right?" you assured the rugged man sitting beside you while your hand reached out to touch the scarred side of his face.
He pulled his face away from your reach, "I know that you're drunk, and that it would probably be best for you to go to sleep, little bird."
You hummed in agreement, got up, wobbled for a moment and made for your room.
"Will you be okay on those stairs?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'll be fine. Sleep well Sandor."
"Goodnight (y/n)."
****
You woke up with an awful headache, Dornish wine never did agree with you the morning after.
As you were digging into your memories of late last night, you could vaguely recall a conversation with Sandor. But no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't remember what it had been about. You decided that you'd ask him about it when you walked into him again.
It seemed like you were going to find out about yesterday sooner rather than later, because before the sun had reached its highest peak, you found Sandor sitting in one of the Red Keep's many gardens. He must have had a day off or something. Silently you approached him from behind, snapping him out of a daydream with your voice: "I didn't take you for the gardens-and-flowers type." He turned around to look at you. "Hi," you greeted with a shy smile and wave.
"May I sit?" you inquired politely.
He said nothing, just nodded. With a soft groan you took a seat to his left.
"Your head protesting against all the wine from last night?"
"Protesting would be an amazing understatement," you said. Sandor chuckled, and you couldn't help but think to yourself: "did I really just make him laugh?"
"In any case, I have a hole in my memory I was hoping you could fill me in on."
He barked with laughter, "were you really that drunk, lass?"
"Afraid so. I do recall talking to you on some stairs, I think the ones by my bedchamber, but unfortunately that's all I've got."
"Well, you apologized to me for your little speech," he started.
"Alright, that's actually really good."
"Then you said I was handsome."
"Oh..."
"And then you tried touching my face. That's when I sent you off to bed."
"Oh gods, that's so embarrassing, I'm really sorry."
He chuckled, "don't be, we all do stupid things sometimes when we're drunk."
"I wouldn't exactly call it stupid."
Sandor looked over to you, awaiting a further explanation.
"I'd rather say that it's me losing my inhibition, causing me to do the things I'm too cowardly for when I'm sober."
"Why in seven hells would you want to touch my face? Haven't you taken a good look at me yet?"
"I have, and I don't understand what's supposed to be the problem..."
"This is the problem." He turned the scarred side of his face to me and pointed an angry finger at it.
"Is that why you flinched when I reached out my hand to your face?"
His expression was usually made uf stone and gave nothing away, but it did now. "I'm beginning to remember now," you continued, "I reached out and you almost instantly pulled your head away. Why did you do that, is it because you don't trust me, or because I angered you about the tourney?"
"No, nothing like that," he took a second to formulate a good answer. "I suppose I don't like being touched, at least not there. It's ugly and deformed, I'm ugly and deformed, and I don't want anyone seeing or touching that."
You carefully placed a hand on his lower arm. "Not even if it's someone who doesn't feel the same way, someone who doesn't think it's ugly?"
Dark eyes wandered from your hand on Sandor's arm to your face and into your own eyes. The time you spent gazing into each other's eyes felt like forever. Your hand traveled along his arm and found his hand to hold on to. You gave it a light squeeze and you smiled timidly at the man sitting next to you. When you felt that Sandor would allow it, you dared your other hand to move over to his left shoulder and you turned his body towards you. You let it rest there for a moment before heading up towards his neck. He sensed you closing in on the burned side of his face, and he tensed up like a wild animal sensing it's about to get trapped. When your hand finally hovered less than an inch from his mutilated skin, he couldn't take it anymore. His soft expression hardened and he grabbed your wrist forcefully. He frowned at you, got up from the bench and left the garden.
For a while you were considering whether or not it was a good idea to go after him. Eventually you got up too and decided to run after him. He was already quite a way ahead of you, but you were pretty sure he was headed for his chamber, so that's where you went.
And you were right, you found his door to be open and when you slowly let yourself in, you saw him sitting on his bed, his back facing the entrance. You walked around the bed to where he was sitting and lowered yourself onto your knees in front of him so you coul look into his eyes. "Hey, Sandor, I know why you're afraid, I really do. But, please, there's no reason to be. Not with me."
"I'm not afraid," he snapped at you.
"After you ran away like that, I sincerely doubt it. But that's okay, and like I said, I understand your fear. Better than you know."
"What do you know about my fear?" he retorted with his raspy voice.
"Well, I could explain, but I'd rather just show you." You got back up on your feet and started lifting the edge of your dress.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Just look," you reassured him.
When you raised up your dress, it revealed three scars that ran from the top of your right thigh down to your shin. They were deep and crooked. You gently took Sandor's hand and placed it over the scars. His fingers automatically started following the trail of jagged lines that ran down the front of your leg.
"What happened?"
"Three men raped me when I was only eleven. One of the bastards wasn't satisfied with just raping little girls, he had to hurt them too. So he gave me this while the other two pinned me to the ground."
"That's awful, I'm so sorry."
"I was scared for a long time after that, I distrusted men, and men with blades even more. But not anymore. I've come to terms with what happened to me, and I would like to believe it ended up making me stronger as a person. Just like it did for you." You cupped his undamaged right cheek while his hand still caressed your thigh, feeling the pattern of its scars. You found yourself standing between Sandor's legs by now. Because of his great height and the relatively high bed, you weren't standing that much taller than him in his sitting position.
"You may hate what your brother has done to your face, Sandor," he frowned up at you, wondering how you found out about that. "Yes, I heard about it some time ago. And I too am terribly sorry for you. But in the end, our scars are not a reminder of the terrible abuse we suffered, but of how strong we were that we survived it. And that's what makes it so beautiful, that's what makes you so beautiful."
Sandor's eyes brimmed with tears as you raised your left hand towards his face, ever so slowly. From the soft expression on his face and his relaxed posture, even though your hand was inching towards the scar tissue on his face, you were convinced he would allow you to touch the marred skin on his face now.
Your first touch was a soft caress with the back of your index finger. Soon it became all of your fingers, and then you cupped his cheek with your entire hand. "See? It's not so bad," you said as you traced your thumb back and forth over his damaged skin. You smiled down at him lovingly when his free hand found the back of your neck. He tugged gently to lessen the distance between your faces.
When your noses grazed each other, he whispered a sincere "thank you" onto your lips. You answered his gratitude by closing your eyes and pressing your lips firmly against his.