"Oy! Where d'you think you're going?"
Gendry stumbles when the Hound yells at him. He's not embarrassed by that, it's the Hound. But Gendry's leg has a spear head stuck in it, so stumbling takes him right to the ground.
"To-" Gendry gestures to the ruins that is the castle of Winterfell. To where, exactly? To find Arya, really, to search for her at least. He knows she has survived, but not if she's wounded, not if there's anything he can do to help her.
The Hound picks him up off the ground, lifts him in the air and shakes him.
Gendry has never felt smaller, or less like a man.
"You think a battle gives you an excuse, huh?" the Hound asks, breathing right into Gendry's face, breath heavy and smelling like blood and dirt.
Gendry shakes his head, thinking that's probably safest.
"No? No? So what's your excuse?" The Hound shakes him again, for good measure.
"My excuse for…?"
"She deserves better, you little bastard."
"Oh. Oh. Yeah, yeah she does. Um, Hound, Sir."
"I know men who use scared women," the Hound says, voice dark, low, dangerous. "Who use their fear to get what they want."
"I - uh. I'm not saying she's not - but I'd say I'm the scared one, really. If there's a coward, well, it's more me than her. Uh, sir."
Gendry has lost the capacity to speak full sentences. It's humiliating. A couple of men walk into what used to be Winterfell's courtyard, and stare at the spectacle of the Hound holding him up, and Gendry sputtering.
Very humiliating.
"She's a hero," Gendry says, a bit more completely. "She's a hero, and if she wants - well, if for some reason I'm what she wants, then I'll be there for her. Even you can't scare me enough to stop that."
The Hound drops him suddenly and Gendry goes crashing to the floor. He lays there, knowing better than to get up and be chucked down again. He sees that the Hound, too, is wounded - there is a dark gash on his arm, and he limps as he takes a step towards Gendry. It doesn't make the man any less threatening though.
"And if the hero decides she doesn't want you?"
Gendry shrugs, even though it hurts, even though it just moves dirt on the ground where she is lying. "Then I'll go on wanting her. And she'll go on being a hero."
The Hound shakes his head and stalks away. He doesn't offer Gendry a hand; Gendry didn't expect him to. He's not entirely sure he can get up from the ground, but he thinks lightheadedly that maybe he'll wait here until Arya comes along and prods at him with her weapon.
That would be nice.
He can even find himself forgetting the horrors of last night, when he thinks of her, and the night before.
Author's Note:
I wrote a darker take on post the Long Night from Arya's PoV and posted it about an hour ago. This is a lighter-hearted one from Gendry's.
Feel free to request any GoT one-shots on my Tumblr, I'm looking for inspiration: /blog/wolfram-matter