A Need to Suffer

Dissipate

Chapter Eight

Dissipate

Ramsay wasn’t sure exactly when he’d let himself drift off as Sansa had slowly dressed herself, but somehow the feeling of her eyes upon him now didn’t make him feel afraid as much as they gave him a sense of security. He’d allowed himself to trust Sansa and know that she would always be true to her word. Ramsay had known this fact before; it was one of the reasons his smile had faltered at the parlay when she’d told him he would die the next day.

The clarity that she had killed that man as promised came days later, but when it had finally settled in Ramsay’s mind to be truth, it had been a revelation that as rumor had always said, a Stark truly does always keep their word even if not in the way Ramsay might have assumed. Ramsay’s own mind had had trouble comprehending the righteousness and candor that Sansa represented, and up until this point, he’d still found himself doubting. Ramsay didn’t doubt her anymore; he couldn’t in the face of what she had shown him, strength of will coupled with compassion.

He surely didn’t deserve her benevolence, Ramsay had thought quite perplexed when she’d shown him mercy and comfort in the wake of everything he had done to her. This too was an alien emotion, regret and guilt, but Ramsay felt both now acutely. In those moments where he had been sure that Sansa would sate her hunger while he’d wilted under the pressure of facing the punishment he’d so willingly placed on others, Ramsay couldn’t help but to see himself as a reflection of this moment so many times over.

All those women, their eyes had been terrified, fear stricken as they’d bleated for a reprieve, and it had felt like a victory to him to take them as a well won prize. He’d given them a chance to get away after all, and it was but a sport. Their feelings never mattered, their pain only scratched some far off itch within himself to take from them, and to be the one taking from them poured something else into him. Like liquid fire in his veins, he felt a rush of adrenaline and power, but he was feeding a hole that could never be filled. As Sansa pressed against him, and he felt helpless, Ramsay realized what it was to be truly at the mercy of another, and to know what it was now made him hate himself with a bitter loathing.

Ramsay’s eyes shot open at the sound of water filling into the tub from across the way. The tub had been drained after its first use, and the memory of what had preceded his first bath, here in this place, shot a shock of cold to run down Ramsay’s spine followed by a wash of humiliation at the memories held there.

He’d been so thoroughly used for hours on end, and even now those recollections haunted his waking thoughts. Ramsay still felt the ferocity of how he’d been taken throughout the night proceeded by the derisive comments and the looks of disapproval and disgust from more than half of the angry men.

Two of the men had been of his own regiment; he’d remembered seeing them march into battle with his sigil of the flayed man raised valiantly on their shields. That was the last he’d seen of them as the knights of the Vale had ridden in to demolish his standing army like a powerful wave sweeping through them in devastating numbers.

Ramsay hadn’t stuck around to see if any of his soldiers had survived the bout, nor had he’d cared; they were after all quite expendable. Or so Ramsay had thought then; those men surely didn’t think so, and they had made sure he knew their feelings of him thinking them to be so disposable. His own men had been some of the most vicious to take him that night. There had been no sexual desire there only contempt and a wish to see him brought low, and they’d worked extra hard to accomplish that goal in their brutality and vulgar commentary.

They had of course, all of those men pouring their hate and avarice upon Ramsay, spilling their seed in him and across him; it had demoralized him in a way that Ramsay had never thought possible, pounding (quite literally) his old self away and leaving a tattered remains. He had been stripped of his arrogance and pride so thoroughly that he’d become a shell of the man he’d once been; Ramsay now knew full well his place in the world and wanted nothing more than to never be reminded again so thoroughly. Sansa had broken his will into a million pieces, and what she’d taken from him, Ramsay could never take back.