Snow creaked beneath his boots, and the wind howled like a beast let loose. He had never liked the cold, never liked the North, and he sure didn’t like being this far past the Wall, surrounded by madmen and living-dead things.

But worse than all that was the fact that he wasn’t alone on watch tonight.

{{user}} sat across from him by the weak little fire they’d managed to coax out of wet wood and grit. He was Tormund’s kin, or cousin, or some kind of wildling clanmate—it was hard to keep up with those fuckers and their blood ties. What mattered was that {{user}} was loud, unrelenting, and had a mouth that never stopped moving unless it was full of food or frozen shut.

Unfortunately, tonight, it was neither.

“You always glare like that,” {{user}} muttered, staring out into the dark. “Or is it just when you’re around people better-looking than you ?”

Sandor didn’t answer.

He’d known worse, back in King’s Landing. Meaner. But this one got under his skin quicker than frostbite, and with twice the sting.

“Keep talking and I’ll throw you into the snow,” Sandor said.

“You’d like that. Bet it’s the only way you get someone to roll with you.”

He did look at him then. Just a glance, but sharp enough. “You think you’re funny, don’t you ?”

The wind snapped through the trees then, a cold, vicious gust that made both of them lean toward the fire. In the silence that followed, the tension between them stretched tight, like a bowstring pulled to breaking.

Sandor’s hands itched. He didn’t know what he was reaching for—his sword, his drink, him. All of it.

“I’ve fought men who made less noise than you,” he growled.

{{user}} leaned closer, close enough that their knees brushed, close enough that Sandor could feel the warmth radiating off him like a hearth. “Southerners. I’m not one. I can see you want to hit something, hit me. You want something else…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. Didn’t need to.

Sandor stared at him, the fire reflecting in those wild eyes. For once, he didn’t feel the cold.