Did you once enjoy reading this fic or have you started reading it and wish the whole story was available? Well, because someone has stolen my work (as well as the work of many others) to post on their site, I have removed all instances of the full version of this story, everywhere. This person has made steps to evade law and ignore the few rights we fanfic authors have in the name of "preserving" the fics they stole. Guess what? I'm not sure they're aware of it or not, but they have a limited version. The full version of this fic is now no longer available because of them. Wish you could read the whole thing? I wish that, too. Want to let this person know how you feel about disrespecting fanfic authors, see my profile.
There were times when Gendry wondered what would become of his life, but this was not one of those times. In fact, he relished just how directionless his life was at the moment, finally, mercifully without some immediate danger hanging about his neck like shackles.
Staring at the bottom of his second cup of ale, his biggest worry was whether or not to have it refilled while he barely listened to the prattling of his friend across the table from him. Thonas. The man was as unkempt as just about anyone else in Flea Bottom, but his mood was as light and jovial and without a care in the world as a noble.
"…and so when I hear'm, I grab my boots and jump out the window—," Thonas interrupted his own joke as his eyes squeezed shut, and he thumped his cup on the table, amused by his words so much that he couldn't even force out the sound. After a cough and full breath, he continued, "By the time her man got to the room, I was already down the road, in the brothel!"
Now doubled over, one hand pressed to his knee for balance while the other held his stomach, Thonas laughed until tears worked their way out of his eyes.
Perhaps the joke would have been funny if shared with someone else, but Gendry couldn't allow himself to think of what men and women do with their bodies. Every time he did, the red witch would conjure herself in his mind, forcing him to relive the emotions he felt that night in their precise order: passion, confusion, fear, shame, pain, despair. Despair was always the one that lingered the longest, never really going away.
"Seven Hells, you're a sad sight," Thonas proclaimed as he rested his chin on his hand, his elbow teetering precariously on the table. Gendry ignored him and tried to pry that last drop of ale from his cup.
Thonas was loud, and Thonas was often obnoxious, but Thonas was also what Gendry could truly call a friend. A rarity in his life. The truth of it was that he hadn't had one of those since…
"You know what you need?" Thonas's firm, loud voice and his free hand slapping down flat to the table was enough to cut the thought from his mind. All other thoughts froze as dread crept up from Gendry's chest to his throat, from his throat to his mouth, until he tasted the bile of what might come out of his companion's mouth next.
"You need a thorough bedding. You need someone to fuck the whore out of your head."
Gendry rolled his eyes. He couldn't even think about the act. How could he manage doing it?
The man pushed himself from the table and leaned back on his bench as he raised his arms up and wide. "I'm sure there's an accommodating serving wench around here that can help you with your…problem." Thonas motioned toward a woman with a red halo of hair framing her face. "How about that one?"
The woman's red hair, even though it was nothing like the sleek red of Melissandre's, made Gendry wince*.
"Alright then." Thonas seemed to read an expression on Gendry's face that Gendry wasn't even aware he'd had. In seconds, Thonas already moved on, eying the black haired woman across the large, crowded room. "How about that one?" Gendry's brows furrowed while he thought about his own coloring and circumstances. Could this be one of his half-siblings? Another that somehow survived the Westeros-wide massacre?
"Hmm," Thonas rubbed his stubbly chin as though coming to the same conclusion at the same time. He turned his gaze toward a wisp of a woman quietly filling pitchers at edge of the room. She was the smallest among the women there, and a darker color close to her scalp peeked through her blond hair, undoubtedly a false color thanks to a wood ash lye rinse. "I've been eying that one for myself tonight, but seeing as how it's for a good cause. How about her?"
The woman turned her head in their direction and appraised them both. In the dim light of where she stood, Gendry couldn't make out any specific features of her face, but it didn't matter. It was enough light to see her brows furrowed deeply and her mouth all but sneered, and it told him all he needed to know: she was not interested in the slightest.
Gendry's head turned away quickly, his eyes looking in all directions other than hers. He cursed himself for even looking at her in the first place. Was he truly considering this?
Thonas dropped back into his previous position: his head perched on his hand, his elbow balancing on the table with a drunken wobble. And for good measure, he sighed just to let Gendry know how frustrated he was with him.
"That one?" Thonas lazily pointed to a brown haired girl, could barely be considered a woman grown. The man's interest in the game was obviously waning.
Gendry felt badly for his friend, he truly did. The man was trying to help, but there was nothing anyone could do. Women were once a mystery to Gendry; a mystery he felt would reveal itself in due time. But after the red priestess, all women morphed into some aspect of her, no longer a mystery but a trap, instruments of fear and pain and…despair.
Barely interested in his own endeavor, now, Thonas once more pointed to another woman in the inn. Her hair was the same brown as the girl, but was as sleek and shiny as the silk he'd seen nobles wear. Also, unlike any of the others, she had soft, welcoming eyes when he glanced her way. There was no hint of the cold, hard stare of the red witch.
"Ah hah!" Thonas sat up and thumped his fist on the table, causing Gendry to jump. "Finally found one!" Thonas wasted no time as he emptied his cup with one gulp and lifted it in the air, his other hand pointed to the woman with silky brown hair, then pointed to his now empty cup.
She made her way over to their table with a pitcher and glanced from Thonas to Gendry and back with a friendly smile. "Need more ale?"
"Aye," Thonas answered. "I'm Thonas, and this is my friend—" The man stopped mid sentence when Gendry shot him a cautious look. Thonas knew fully that his name was never to be used in the open, ever. "Friend."
One eyebrow rose higher than the other before she began filling their cups. "Kasil. It's nice to meet you, Thonas," she said in Thonas's direction, the smile she wore never faltering, then turned her attention to Gendry, "and you, Friend."
Gendry felt heat shoot throughout his entire body, and his palms began to sweat. He hadn't felt like this since the red witch, and usually that was enough to sober him and bring his body to heel. Not this time. His eyes focused on her chest, noticing how perfectly full and womanly it was, not spilling out of her bodice like the red-head, or quietly tucked away and unassuming like the other brown-haired girl. The curve of her hips were pronounced but not exaggerated, and his mind wandered, wondering how all of those shapes fit together without clothes.
In the blink of an eye, heat rushed to his face *. The heat rushing through is body must have caused him to noticeably blush, and that was enough of a sign for Thonas, who pounded his fist on the table with a very self-satisfied smile, startling the two around him. Gendry jumped in his chair, suddenly aware of just how much of his concentration was on this woman. The woman's head snapped toward Thonas, giving him a questioning look, but he waved the incident away.
"Your speech, you're not from around here." Thonas didn't say it directly, but the question was there. Judging from her accent, she was not Westerosi.
"No," she said and slammed the pitcher on the table, ale sloshing over the sides. "I come from Braavos."
And she had every right to be defensive. People in Westeros could barely trust their own countrymen, but when it came to those outside of Westeros, you could add scorn and contempt on top of mistrust.
"Hmm." Thonas sounded so content as he leaned toward the woman from his bench. "Sounds like you have a good tale to tell. What say you sit here and tell us this story of yours."
The anger and resentment in her eyes vanished, and in its place was something else Gendry couldn't quite place. When her eyes darted toward the inn's owner, Thonas patted the area of the bench next to him and soothed her worry. "Oh, don't worry about Newford. He's an old friend and wouldn't dare mind one of his women entertaining me for a few moments."
There was definitely some hesitation as she slid onto the bench beside Thonas, but when her eyes glanced in her employer's direction once more, Newford eyed her and answered her questioning stare with a nod of approval. "See there! Old friends I tell you!" Thonas confirmed. "So, now, about your story."
Kasil licked her lips that had gone dry from her nervousness *.
"It's not a story that would even interest a child. I'd come here for work and hoped to save enough for my mother's passage here. But a month ago I received word that she has fallen ill…" A tear welled in her eye, and she wiped it before it could wrestle its way free. "And so I must leave for Braavos."
"You hear that, Friend?" Thonas leaned back and rubbed the woman's arm in what was meant to be soothing circles, but she recoiled from his touch. It was a slight reaction, barely noticeable, but enough to stop him from continuing. "This poor woman has need of quick coin. Whatever can she do for it?"
Gendry's brows raised at that. Even though he shouldn't have been surprised in the least, it was the next words the man uttered, as brazen as they were, that caused Gendry to close his eyes and pretend that he was not sitting at the same table with this man and embarrassed in front of this woman.
"Well, Friend here has a need and has coin. You have what he needs, and he has what you need. I say a bargain can be struck!"
The woman's gaze rested in Gendry's direction for confirmation, something he was only vaguely aware of since he could barely look at either of them for very different reasons. Thonas had gone too far this time. And to make matters worse, there was a witness to his humiliation. The last time he'd been humiliated with witnesses was when the red witch…
"What say you, Friend?" Thonas was also unrelenting.
There was a heartbeat when Gendry's temper almost caused him to tell his "friend" to slowly wander blind-folded through the seven hells, but a hand, calloused by hard word and a hard life, covered his. It was a simple gesture, and if any other woman had dared to be so bold, he would have balked. Instead, it inflamed his senses. He was suddenly very aware of everything around them: the earthy scent of mud-caked boots, the sour smell of spilled ale, the sticky floorboards all around them. There were men laughing with the odd ringing of a woman's voice among them. The red-head. He was also very aware of the warmth of her hand on his, the steadiness of her gaze, the blush starting from her cheeks and spreading to her neck, and then her bosom.
In his own body, his heart beat inside his chest like the drums the nobles used for their not-so-noble celebrations. In his fingertips and toes, he could feel his pulse. His body responded to her in other ways as well.
"I'm willing if you are, Friend," she said to him, her voice soft and barely heard. There was only one thing to do under the circumstances. Gendry nodded his consent and rose from his bench, starting in the direction of his room. He couldn't see her, he couldn't hear her in the din of drunken people, but he knew she followed him.
What he could hear was the whooping of his so called friend and what sounded like "thorough bedding."
n't understand. What he did see was need, desire…for him. *