Mᴀᴅᴇ ᴍᴇ sᴇᴇ ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ I'ᴠᴇ ʙᴇᴇɴ ( closed )

[dogmeats]

Who: Sandor Clegane & Others
When: February
Where: Solvunn
What: Catch-All
Warnings: Language, Violence, Substance Abuse (Alcohol)

Bᴇᴇɴ ᴅᴏᴡɴ ᴏɴᴇ ᴛɪᴍᴇ
Bᴇᴇɴ ᴅᴏᴡɴ ᴛᴡᴏ ᴛɪᴍᴇ
I'ᴍ ɴᴇᴠᴇʀ ɢᴏɪɴɢ ʙᴀᴄᴋ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ
Yᴏᴜ ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴋɴᴏᴡ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ɪᴛ ᴍᴇᴀɴs ᴛᴏ ᴡɪɴ
Cᴏᴍᴇ ᴅᴏᴡɴ ᴀɴᴅ sᴇᴇ ᴍᴇ ᴀɢᴀɪɴ

Comments

[dogmeats]

It isn't not interesting, as far as conversation over drinks goes. Could be worse. If he had no patience and less interest in it, Wrench would surely know — he'd make no illusions otherwise. The fact that he's carrying it on should say enough.

He reclines back in a chair that seems faintly dubious in its job at holding up his mass, creaking beneath him as his shoulders hit the wall behind their table. From that comfortable lean, he studies Wrench's expression, his countenance. Weighing, considering.

At length, he admits:

SPENT THE BETTER PART OF MY LAST YEARS ON THE RUN MYSELF. THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TELL A KING TO FUCK OFF. I WAS ALL BUT DEAD WHEN THOSE WRINKLY OLD CUNTS PULLED ME THROUGH.

In other words, he can relate perhaps better than Wrench might have been expecting.

[wwrench]

That almost inspires a laugh out of Wrench. It's as close as anyone seems to have gotten since he's been here, at least. The short burst of air through his nose seems suddenly amused, though his expression barely changes. Maybe there's a little bit more light behind his pale green eyes, but he's not quick to go drawing any parallels that might make Sandor balk. He can already imagine the other man's firm insistence that the two of them are nothing alike, and the pile of evidence he'd no doubt hurl to prove how less Wrench is by comparison.

He'd never, for example, have had the wherewithal to tell Tripoli to fuck off. But living vicariously through Sandor's own story is an unexpected delight. Wrench leans forward even as the other man is leaning back, posting both elbows on the table and falling straight into the tale.

All but dead thanks to the king? Did he send men after you to bring you back?

[dogmeats]

AYE, HE DID. BUT IT WASN'T THE KING'S MEN THAT DID ME IN.

Though gods know they tried — and maybe had a hand in it, if you want to be technical about it. That gaping wound at the juncture of his shoulder surely festering did not help his case in his battle with Breanne.

This, he thinks, is likely to amuse the fucker. He could keep it to himself, but fuck it, why not give the Deaf Cunt a laugh:

IT WAS A WOMAN. GIANT BITCH TALLER THAN YOU ARE. WE FOUGHT, AND SHE PUNCHED ME OFF A FUCKING CLIFF.

[wwrench]

Just as Sandor is expecting, Wrench does exactly that. It startles out of him with a note of uncontrolled surprise, less truly amused than he is shocked at the story he's being told and the fact that the man across him is willingly giving it up. It's enough, for a second, to erase the fears that had plagued him earlier. The creeping realization that he's well and truly alone, and has been for a lot longer than he'd care to admit.

The involuntary sound is a lot less deep than someone might expect based on Wrench's stature alone. It's a soft tenor that manages, for half a second at least, to make him seem a lot younger and a lot less troubled by what he's been through than he really is. Then the sound is gone and Wrench is cradling his glass.

Punched off a cliff? And that's the last thing you remember before you woke up here? What'd you do to her to deserve that?

[dogmeats]

It is with perhaps a bit more force and a slightly more severe look than Wrench may have expected that he sharply answers:

I DIDN'T DO A FUCKING THING TO HER.

He is not his brother; probably best to leave it at that. Wrench didn't necessarily imply anything untoward, but he takes it that way all the same and resents even the hint of association. He won't linger on it, though — instead, he offers an abridged version of the truth.

SHE THOUGHT SHE COULD DO A BETTER JOB PROTECTING A GIRL I WAS LOOKING AFTER. I DISAGREED.

Another truth he won't correct: falling off that cliff is not the last thing he remembers. The last he recalls was lying broken at the bottom of the hill, bleeding, in pain, a bone in his leg jutting out from his trousers. Arya Stark, the cold little bitch, squatting in the distance and watching him bleed.

Begging her to kill him. To end it. Ready for death.

But that's his own fucking business.

[wwrench]

She killed you to prove she could do your job better?

Never mind it may not be quite accurate. If Sandor isn't going to bother correcting the assumption he came directly here from a fall off a cliff, Wrench is going to go with what works. He's sure there isn't a person here who hasn't contemplated their own mortality. Apart, perhaps, from the ones claiming to be angels, who never had any mortality to begin with. It seems easier to simply assume that most of them found their way here on the verge of death. That this place is either a grand shared hallucination, or some kind of purgatory as they await whatever's next.

The way Wrench frowns thoughtfully into his glass makes the rest evident as well: if she managed to kill Sandor in the process, then she was probably right in her assertion. A fight to the death over the chance to defend a girl. Must have been some girl.

I wish she were here.
That's who I need teaching me to fight.

we're just gonna pretend i spelled brienne right, she deserves better

[dogmeats]

If you ask him, she did his job about a hundred times worse. The girl bloody took off. Arya Stark went from having one protector to zero, which is in all ways doing the exact opposite of the job. Fucking stupid, the entire thing. Not that he knows firsthand, only what he's heard from Snow and Sansa.

Despite his ill humor a moment prior, Wrench does earn himself a singular snort of something adjacent to laughter at that last little comment. Fuck off.

AND WHAT EXACTLY MAKES YOU THINK SHE'D WANT TO TEACH YOU?

He could defend himself. Admit to being wounded before their fight even started. Why bother? She'd been formidable enough regardless, and his ego's not so fragile as to need that on record.

honestly, we stan brienne 4ever

[wwrench]

Because I'm a fucking good student.

Look at that, Sandor. You managed to startle some self-confidence out of Wrench. He's still smiling to himself without a single hint of malice or offense, despite knowing this very well may not be the going theory. Wrench was never particularly successful in school, nor were his teachers particularly interested in ensuring that he would be. But if their midmorning swordplay is any indication, Wrench wants to learn, and he's glad enough to put the effort into learning as much as he can.

And I do what I'm told.

The addendum is perhaps more telling. Wrench means it to be half-humorous, because the moment he's said it he pitches back what's left of his drink and heads back up to the bar to get them the second round. Sandor said two drinks, and so they'll have two drinks.

Truth is, Wrench is dutiful to a fault. It's hard to tell what order he may willingly defy when so many of the ones he's been given in the past have put him solidly in the line of fire. Clearly the risk of his own imminent death isn't enough to make him say no.

He comes back a few moments later and plunks Sandor's glass down in front of him before swirling the liquid in his own.

[dogmeats]

A fucking good student is debatable, but they've only had the one lesson. He'll let that declaration linger unremarked upon for a few more yet, and they'll see how well Wrench's dedication to learning holds up. Particularly once Sandor starts striking him back properly, and he goes limping away with fresh bruises every time.

I do what I'm told, on the other hand? Well.

TRUE ENOUGH.

Nobody could doubt that. Particularly when Wrench comes back to top him off with a second drink; Sandor only smirks in wry amusement. It isn't every man that's willing to brag about how well he takes orders like a loyal dog — and, as it so happens, he's boasting about it to one of the few other men who do the same.

And so it goes, the pair of them sit drinking until the second round is gone — after which point Sandor will stand, grace Wrench with a relatively companionable slap to the shoulder, and then see himself out to wash up.

All things considered, a successful first lesson.