Gentle
Sandor Clegane x Plus size!reader
Word Count: 2737 words
Warnings: none
Summary: Ned Stark’s eldest daughter finding herself interested by the King’s loyal protector, and even more disenchanted by how he’s treated
—————————————————————————————————
The King’s arrival in Winterfell wasn’t of much interest to you, if you were being honest.
Of course you understood that it was a great honor and that his Grace was very important to your father, but outside of that, you had no real reason to pay the caravan much mind as it moved through the streets of Winterfell.
Had it not been for the pretense of duty and honor, and more severely, the pressure of your mother’s wrath, you truly believed you would have skipped the entire affair.
You weren’t the object of their visit, after all.
As the eldest daughter of Lord Eddard Stark, you were much too old to be of much interest to the young Prince compared to your sisters, and the King only came to Winterfell with your Aunt Lyanna on the mind.
Really, you weren’t sure why you needed to attend.
Until, you found yourself staring down the traveling party of the King’s guard, and the striking presence of the man they called “the Hound”
You had heard stories of the man over the years, and you knew where the title had come from, but never could you have imagined the man before you now and that man were one in the same. He hardly struck you as some ravenous monster, even then.
…and as the days went by, you found your opinion unchanged.
You existed in Winterfell simply, a privilege afforded you by your father’s title and the love the families of the North had for the Starks.
For the most part, you did what you wanted and didn’t call too much attention to yourself, content to read on the sidelines and follow after your siblings as they grew into their own. That meant that you escaped a lot of the formalities of nobility, as no one really needed too much of your attention.
If they were looking for a Stark to talk to, you were always fairly low on the list and you liked it that way, especially given all the excitement in Winterfall over the past few days.
With Sansa entertaining the Prince, your father entertaining the King and Queen, and the charms of the North keeping the guard away, you finally had a moment to yourself which only meant one thing. You could finally finish your book.
It was all set, just as you wanted it.
The weather had yet to get so bitter cold that you couldn’t stand to be out, so you grabbed a blanket and set it in the clearing near the market, under a big tree. The septa’s rarely bothered you these days, so you should be able to get some peace and quiet.
Not that you got too far before something else caught your eye.
You had only been reading your book for a short time when you heard the familiar sing-songy tone of your sister’s voice, followed unsurprisingly by the nasally pitch of Prince Joffrey.
They were to be married following this trip, and you knew she was excited. You could tell by the way she skipped lightly as she walked, and how she hung on his every word.
You had never been in love yourself, but you had to imagine that was what it looked like. Perhaps that was why you found yourself watching them as they walked, or maybe it had more to do with the Hound, loyal as always, who was trailing behind them steadily.
He was an interesting man, you’d decided.
Even as he walked, he studied the world around him as if he wasn’t a part of it, rather that he was peering in at it from the outside. You felt that you could relate, in some way, as you had always been that way.
They’d chastised you for being a dreamer as a girl. The Septa would take your books and keep them from you, your mother would beg you to engage in your duties as a lady and even Robb and Theon teased you.
Your head was always far away and even now, you had managed to keep it that way. While other women your age married and had heirs for unimpressive Lords, you remained in your father’s homeland.
A place where you could keep your books and your dreams, without having to endure the ugliness.
Not that ugliness was really the problem in the first place.
You were certain that some found the Hound ugly in all his violence and impropriety, but you couldn’t dare count yourself among them. Even now, as you stared at him over your bound paper novel, you saw nothing short of a dream like all the others.
It wasn’t even something you could truly understand, if you had any desire to try. There was just a softness to him, a quiet contemplation that made you feel as if no harm would ever come to you.
That wasn’t a feeling you’d known before now, as that was one of the things the North had never really had. Your father and brothers would rather die than let something or someone hurt you, you knew that, but it wasn’t so simple.
The comfort his presence held went beyond any physical threat or danger, it was almost warm.
Not that you would have ever ventured to admit it.
After all, you had never even spoken to the man and if you tried to explain the way you were feeling to anyone, they would surely have you committed. The hound was a lot of things, but none would have called him warm.
None outside of you that was.
You continued your staring for quite some time, only occasionally looking away from the sight before you to mindlessly turn the page in your book. You imagined you may have sat there all evening if you remained uninterrupted.
However, when your attention returned to the imposing form of the King’s dog across the way to find him already looking at you, the illusion fell away entirely.
Surely he thought you were demented.
In the entire time he and the King’s guard had been in Winterfell, you had yet to speak a word to a one of them but that didn’t mean he was unfamiliar with you. Every time he turned around, he found you sitting somewhere over his shoulder, that same book perched in your lap.
Anyone else may have just brushed you off, assuming you were a bit out there as your family always had, but Sandor couldn’t quite do that.
After all, he had grown used to the weary glances and fearful whispers between people as he passed, but no one had ever paid him so much mind as you seemed to be.
Naturally he was curious.
No one had voluntarily spent that much time looking at him in all his life, and he needed to know what it was about you that was different.
You tensed the moment you noticed his attention, not daring to look away from the weathered pages beneath your fingers, not when you heard him nearing where you sat and certainly not when he stopped at your side.
Neither of you spoke, and you weren’t even sure if you drew a single breath, but he certainly did as he waited. Waited for what he wasn’t sure, but it just seemed to be the thing to do.
As if you would somehow explain yourself if he stood in your presence long enough.
Though, after a long moment passed between you without so much as a glance from you, he decided to just end the torment for you both.
There would be no sense in just standing here all evening.
“Why do you stare so much?” he wondered aloud, his voice just as gruff as it always was, though you caught something else hidden there too. Just beneath the surface, hiding beneath the walls he’d built hugh within himself.
It almost sounded like a sort of nervousness, though you would have imagined him incapable of something so common.
You didn’t answer at first.
Whether it was due to the humiliation of being caught that held your tongue or the nerves of facing down such an imposing man on your own, he wasn’t sure. All Sandor knew for sure was that this was one of the strangest interactions he’d ever had.
If only he knew.
The real reason for your silence wasn’t some twisted interest or shame but because there was no real answer at all. At least not one you’d confidently admit while those brown eyes had you locked in a stare.
You hadn’t meant it to be disrespectful, of course, because the nature of your admiration couldn’t be farther from distaste. However, to a man like Sandor, that was exactly what it looked like.
…What it felt like.
Naturally, after a life of rejection, Sandor assumed that your staring was like that of every else when they looked at him. He assumed you were disgusted by him, and his grotesque face, or perhaps that you were afraid.
He hoped you weren’t afraid.
In any case, he never could have imagined that you would answer him in the way you did, even if it took you a moment to summon the courage to string any words together at all.
“I suppose I’m interested in you” you decided finally, twisting your face up slightly at the way that must have sounded.
It wasn’t quite right, of course, though it wasn’t entirely wrong either.
You were interested in him, but that seemed too simply a phrasing, like all the gravity and sentiment was missing even still.
Sandor only grunted in reply after a brief pause, his gaze drifting across the market, watching as the surrounding northerners studied your interaction, only to drop their eyes when they met his.
They all feared him, and they were right too, because they understood what he was and what he was capable of. Though, maybe that was another thing that you had done since he arrived that was unique to you.
Never once had you looked away from him.
You had never shrunk away or grimaced as they did, even at a time like this when anyone else would have run for the hills. It was certainly new, even he couldn’t be so stubborn as to ignore that.
“What’s so interesting about me?” he wondered, not daring to move closer or join you as you sat, but not moving further away either. Even though it felt wrong to speak freely with an unmarried noble woman like you, it really wasn’t.
You certainly didn’t think so, and you believed that anyone else would agree.
If anything, you were simply making conversation while he did his duty, watching over the Prince and his future bride.
Now, it was your turn to pause, regarding the words on the page only a moment more before you closed it, and discarded it in the snowy grass.
“We don’t have men like you here,” you allowed, considering his imposing frame as he stood above you.
Though you had only seen him from afar until now, at his impressive height and with your current low position, Sandor seemed even larger than he had before. Still, you couldn’t find it in yourself to be frightened by him, which had to have been because he wasn’t frightening in the first place.
The rest of the realm may have treated him like a monster but you hardly believed that made him one.
You could tell in the way he glanced down at you, surprise painting his features, that he wanted to argue with you but he faltered, because he didn’t understand. He wanted to tell you that there were violent men everywhere, and that most were just better at hiding it, but somehow, he knew that wasn’t what you meant.
No matter how diluted that may have made you seem in the moment.
“Gentle,” you clarified, watching as his mind tried to pin down exactly what you were trying to say, because the most obvious answer just wasn’t possible. “Men here are all the same. They’re either ruthless fighters or cowards and fools. On rare occasions, they may be both but neither are gentle as you are”
That was it.
There were the words you had been trying to find before, but it still didn’t feel as if he understood, or perhaps he just didn’t feel as if you had any right to be the one saying them.
After all, you had only ever been in the North and you hardly knew anything about him, or many other men for that matter. What real ground did you have to stand on when it came to this?
“Trust me little girl, there’s nothing gentle about a man like me” he scoffed, washing away any tenderness you’d been feeling in a moment.
Perhaps he was right, but you didn’t think so.
While it was true that there were no other men like him in the North, you had seen your fair share of guarded men hiding from the truth about themselves. Normally they were trying to convince themself that they were braver than they were, or stronger, but it looked the same.
It made them look small.
“It’s in your eyes. You think I can’t see it because you don’t, but it’s there. It’s the same reason you’re still having this conversation with me, even though the Prince snuck off with Sansa” you countered, gesturing to the missing space they’d previously occupied through the pass.
If he’d truly been keeping an eye on them, and nothing more, he wouldn’t have let them out of his sight.
“Maybe I just want to know what’s wrong with you? After all, I thought the future Lady of Winterfell would be a bit more sociable” he argued, almost poking fun at you in a way you hadn’t seen coming.
Which was a welcome break in that untouchable armor of his.
“I am hardly the future Lady of Winterfell. That title will belong to the wife of my brother Robb,” you informed, gathering your skirts to rise to your feet, only to find his hand outstretched to you, a further invitation behind the curtain.
You took it as gracefully as you could and rose to your full height, though you remained entirely dwarfed by the large man at your side.
“And I have never really taken to being sociable, that’s true. It’s my mother’s greatest upset” you teased, straightening out your gown and taking in the full sight of the Hound in all his glory.
He looked small, if that was even physically possible, as you admired him with those eyes of yours. If you thought his gaze was pointed, you had no idea how he felt beneath the heavy weight of your own.
“You’re a strange little thing, aren’t you?” he grumbled, his question hanging in the air untouched for a moment as you studied him, no longer caring how strange it may have looked to anyone else.
You had been right.
He was anything but ugly up close, and it was a tragedy that so few got to gaze upon him in this manner.
“I suppose. Perhaps that’s why I remain unmarried” you suggested, subconsciously hinting at what you knew to be your own greatest flaw, at least in the eyes of your people and your house.
At the very least, the Hound had been able to make something of himself outside of being a husband or son. He could be a warrior, and he was, one of the most fearsome warriors you’d ever seen.
As a woman, you had never been afforded that kind of privilege and you never would. As far as your mother was concerned, you would live and die a spinster, and there was little you could do to change that.
“Perhaps. Or maybe this place really is full of cowards and fools, as you said” he muttered, sparing you one more heady glance before turning his back to you, his attention fully on the clearing ahead.
That was it.
In all the days you’d been admiring him and making a desperate attempt to understand exactly what lay beneath that shell of his, that was all he had for you.
…and you couldn’t have been happier, because for the first time in a long time, you found yourself looking forward to what the days ahead would hold.