Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Want To Fight?
Chapter One
- Gendry -
"No one ever tell you that smoking is bad for you?" A quiet voice questioned as Gendry leaned against the alley wall in the dark. Head leaning back against the brick with his eyes closed Gendry blew out a lungful of smoke and replied,
"No one ever tell you talking to strangers is bad for you?" There was a small snort of amusement followed by the metallic click of a lighter, a small huff and Gendry cracked open one battered eye in time to see a small face illuminated by the orange glow of a cigarette tip. A pale face with a pointed chin and large dark eyes flashed in the klight while she drew on her cigarette and then faded as she dropped it to her side exhaling out a stream of smoke. She wasn't looking at him, just leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the alley staring down at her shoes. Despite her initial comment she was silent as she smoked muttering a small, "See ya around." Before stubbing out the cigarette on the bottom of her shoe and tossing it in the dumpster beside her before leaving the alley, a small duffel bag thrown over her shoulder, feet silent on the dirty pavement, as she disappeared into the crowded street beyond.
There was a clatter of metal as a the heavy door to the gym swung open and Gendry was summoned back inside for his training session.
Walking into the dark gym Gendry was annoyed to see how full it was. It was always like this the weeks following a local fight. Bunch of people who've never thrown a punch in their life get their blood all heated watching people beat each other up and decide they can do it too. Beric loved it, easy money he said, happy to sign people up for a bunch of training courses they'd inevitably stop showing up too before too long had passed. Once the novelty of blisters and bruised knuckles wore off. Until then it was showing up to training sessions and waiting to see which jack off would waste his time next.
He was slightly surprised to see the girl from the alley in the entry of the gym, those same big eyes scanning the interior of the building impassively, she gave him a brief nod when their eyes met before continuing to track across the room.
"Are you fucking kidding me." Came an annoyed gruff voice to his left, and Gendry looked over to see Clegane, his scarred face bunched up in it's usual scowl, but when Gendry looked at the bigger man he saw he was staring in the same direction Gendry had been looking to. Looking back he saw the girl from the alley start across the gym straight towards them.
"The fuck do you think your doing here?" Clegane barked out by way of greeting. When Clegane had been an active fighter he'd been known as The Hound, and he liked to lean into the moniker still, always barking and growling. Not in any hurry to find the person who had paid for an hour of his time tonight Gendry watched them silently, curious to how the middle aged giant scarred former fighter knew the small silent woman coming towards them. She stopped in front of them, adjusting the strap of her duffle and met Clegane's scowl with one of her own.
"Back in town," She said with a shrug, Gendry saw now her eyes were a steely grey. "Wanted to hit something." The Hound snorted with something like amusement, and Gendry was surprised to see some warmth in his gaze as he looked down at the girl, then over at a pudgy nervous looking man watching the Hound with no small amount of fear in his gaze,
"He won't last long, go ahead and warm up and I'll find you." A small quirk hit her lips as she looked at his student too and then headed for the swinging doors of the locker room,
"Little bitch." Clegane said fondly watching her go, then he hit Gendry in the ribs, where he knew a large bruise was and pointed at the front door, "Your Wee Lordling awaits." Wincing at the pain, and then again at the sight of his student for the night Gendry walked over.
"Joffrey, you ready?"
- Arya -
Arya had been back on Westerosi soil for three weeks. The past three weeks had been spent at more Doctors appointments than she had been to in the past decade of her life, she was home after 5 years abroad and since she had nothing going on, since she had missed all the appointments and treatments of the year prior she was taking over. She drove Ned to his checkups, she drove him to his chemo, she drove him to physical therapy, she drove him to the acupuncturist and to the nutritionist who made perfectly balanced organic vegan meals to help purify his body from all the chemicals that had been steadily pumped into him over the past year.
Today he had asked her to drive him to the forest where they used to go camping when she was young. It had taken almost an hour of Arya supporting him as they wandered into the woods to find the spot he wanted and then he had just sat on a fallen log, next to a small pond that Arya knew had the best frogs for tormenting older sisters, and had stared out at the world for another hour. His crepey skinned hand holding hers as they absorbed the world and each other in silence.
When they got home Ned told Catelyn he was done with his treatments.
It made her want to scream. It made her want to shake him, or herself or to bang her head against a wall like she had when she was a girl and the rage building up inside her had needed some sort of release. When her father was diagnosed with a brain tumor a year prior Arya had been ready to finally come home and be with her family. But he had told her no, that they would come visit her over the holidays and he would be cancer free.
She didn't need to pause her life to deal with this.
They didn't visit over the holidays. And for every success that his treatment had had, there had been another setback.
Another round of chemo.
Another tumor.
Finally, far too late she knew in everyone's opinion, including her own, she gave notice to the woman she rented a room from, collected her pay from her job and booked a flight home.
And now, less than a month after coming home he was choosing to die.
Catelyn had been stoic in the immediate face of Ned's announcement, but quickly the tears had come and she had gone to their room. Ned had given Arya a hug, kissed the top of her head and followed his wife. The silence of the house had been deafening and Arya had fled.
She had found herself driving aimlessly around Kings Landing for almost an hour before pulling over and doing a quick internet search, and laughed out loud at what she found, before typing, Beric's Gym, into her navigation.
- Gendry -
The lingering activity of the emptying gym had stopped as more and more people took notice of the odd pairing in the back. The giant surly Clegane, who seemed to actively resent every person who crossed his path seemed just as annoyed with the silent girl who had appeared that evening. Not a lot of women showed up to this gym to train in general, it was dirty worn out, that wasn't very welcoming to strangers and outsiders, when new people did migrate in and stick around it was usually because they were brought in. Gendry was also pretty sure this girl hadn't paid or signed in anywhere, which he knew Beric would not be happy about. Gendry supposed that would be Clegane's battle though.
Gendry's client for the night had already left and he was scheduled to close the gym up, which he did three nights a week. He still needed to finish some cleaning but he found himself migrating towards the back to watch them as well. She had done some basic warmups waiting for Clegane to come and find her, jumping rope, stretching, but had mostly just watched the room while she waited for Clegane.
She wasn't a good fighter.
Well maybe she was a fine fighter, but she wasn't a good boxer. She had some technique but as Clegane shouted out,
"Rusty! Sloppy!" Gendry had to agree. She was more emotion than skill as she attacked the punch mitts Clegane wore. He hadn't sent her through a training circuit, hadn't set her on any of the bags once he had joined her, and he wasn't coaching her through the punches she was throwing, just accepting them, insulting them, occasionally swinging a mitted hand at her to dodge.
"You're wasting both of our time here bitch." Clegane taunted and if Gendry hadn't witnessed their initial interaction he would have cringed at the slur like he saw a few people do around him, but it seemed to trigger a reaction out of the girl because quick as a flash she attacked the mitts Clegane was holding and then while he was blocking her blows her leg swung out hitting the man in the leg, sending his knee buckling. His hands never dropped though as he fell though, and when she came closer to hit him again, as he was closer to her level, his longer reach worked in his favor as he muffed a mitt hard against her face sending her staggering back several steps, and Gendry saw a flash of red on her face and the crowd around him that had been mostly silent started to rumble a little. Clegane was back on his feet and the girl was advancing again, her nose was bleeding, and she swiped at it smearing the red across her cheek, and was telegraphing the throw of her next swipe, making an easy job for Clegane to block when a loud yell of,
"STARK!" broke through the gym and she was turning her head towards it,
And then she was on the ground, a loud, "Oooof." Pulled out of her as she hit the padded ground and the wind knocked out of her, and from one end of the gym there was anger as Beric came into the building and witnessed the spectacle within and the other end, where Clegane and the girl had been fighting there seemed to be some joy because of the first time in the few years that Gendry had interacted with the man called The Hound he was laughing a seemingly genuine laugh as he helped the girl off the ground and thrust a towel towards her face, the white bundle of fabric obscuring the look of annoyance she had as she watched Beric storm across the large room towards them, and with his approach the spell of the room seemed to break because the group gathered evaporated.
"Stark!" Beric shouted again, "What part of lifetime ban do you not understand?" His fury seemed to amuse her, because she snorted and then winced, lowering the towel and prodding at her nose, before turning to the Hound ignoring Beric altogether,
"Drink?" She asked, shrugging, "Food?" She was greeted with a half smile and a return shrug,
"Yeah fine." The girl, Stark? Nodded in response and scooped up her gym bag from where it lay on the floor, looked at Beric who was still standing, glaring at her nodded and said,
"See you later Beric." And then hurried for the door, Gendry saw a grin appear on her face as his boss started to sputter and bluster at her, and when she passed him he was pretty sure she winked. Gendry couldn't remember the last time a blood spattered woman had winked at him, it seemed like it would be memorable if it had happened, but he didn't hate it.
-TBC-