A/n: Thanks for checking out my first (published) story. I've got several in the works, so if you like this, check me out in the next few weeks, I should have something else up :)
This is an AU story:
- Arya and Gendry are traveling with the Brotherhood (for a long time, I consider them about 16 and 20/21)
- The Hound never took Arya (and the Red Woman never took Gendry, for show watchers)
- Arya maybe knows what happens to her family/Winterfell, but whether or not she does is not really an addressed issue
- The Brotherhood, Arya and Gendry get on well (they'd better, they've been together for years in this context)
This isn't a 'song-fic', it's just heavily inspired by Hozier's song In A Week.
And they'd find us in a week
when the weather gets hot
after the insects have made their claim
I'll be home with you, I'll be home with you.
- In A Week, Hozier and Karen Cowley
Now that I think about it, Work Song is applicable too:
When my time comes around
lay me gently in the cold dark earth
no grave can hold my body down
I'll crawl home to her.
- Work Song, Hozier
Sorry for all the context/background stuff. I like context/background stuff.
Sometimes, when the sun is out and the wind isn't too cold and it has been recently wet so the moss is spongy under their feet – it actually feels like winter isn't coming. Like the dreaded long winter everyone calls for and the Starks have claimed for their house words, has simply passed them by.
It's those days, the sunny warm damp ones, when they make camp early on an open hill and Beric lets them have a sip or two of his spiced wine and Anguy shoots something good to eat. Those are the good days, the best days, in Gendry's opinion.
Days like today, where they dawdle across a valley and take a break near a river's edge, and no one really knows where they're going now.
They were going to Winterfell, but Arya's stopped asking. Gendry worries sometimes that she knows something he doesn't, like she and Beric have secrets, but then he tells himself she'll tell him when she wants to. And they'll get to Winterfell eventually. Even if it's tomorrow or thirty years from now, cause he swore he'd go there with her, and he doesn't break a promise, not to a lady.
Beric laughs as Anguy the archer misses a rabbit that runs across their path, and Edric Dayne falls asleep on his horse as they ride. Gendry doesn't feel sorry when Arya whacks the Lord with her needle sharply, as he begins to fall out his saddle. Harwin and Arya race, and Harwin wins because he's got the better horse (or so Arya claims). Gendry hangs back with Thoros, who assures him when he sees her braid flailing and disappearing in the distance, she's coming back.
Everyone's chipper and cheery, and there hasn't been a sound in the forest apart from them and their horses and the wildlife, so Beric calls them to a stop at the top of the valley ridge. They make camp in the trees just below a hill, where the wind doesn't cut as cold or as strong, and it's him and Arya who are assigned to get water. But the lady's run off down the sloping field of grass and golden rod and tansy near the camp, so he has to fetch her, because he ain't doing all the work without her.
She's laying in the dirt and the grass and the moss chewing on a stem, wearing his old tunic, vest and britches that he's grown out of, looking all the part of some wayward farmer's boy. Except she's got teats and long hair in a braid, and her face is too soft and lips too sweet to be a boy. And he's glad she's not a boy, cause if she were Anguy and Gendry spend as much time staring at the archer as he does at her, he'd wonder about himself.
He wanders over to her, buckets in hand, and stands looking out over the valley. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Arya smiling up at him, and when glances down at her she reaches her hand out.
"Lay with me."
"We're to get water."
"Lay with me a moment, then."
He can never deny her. He slips his warhammer from the straps on his back and drops the buckets. Needle's on her other side, so he puts Singer in the grass, near at hand in case. He lays beside her, untouching, but close enough to see her smile and hear her breathe when the wind is quiet.
Gendry likes to see her smile, she does so rarely. It's like these days, they don't happen often, but they're the best. She doesn't have much reason to smile. She's seen more badness than him, and she's younger by five years. But he swears that half the badness he's seen, he's seen because of her.
She slips her hand from his to remove the stem from her mouth, twisting the greenery around itself as she watches the trees and the sky. Gendry takes his hand back too, clutching it with its brother against his chest, just to give it some purpose.
"It sure is nice today." She murmurs. "Like there isn't even a war on. Like no one's died."
"You say that, and tomorrow we'll cross some Lions and everything will be right shit again."
"But it's nice today."
They lay peaceful for a moment, listening to the Brothers setting up camp nearby. There's the sound of wood being chopped, and Thoros and Tom arguing about the best way to roast squirrel.
"I think, if I were to die and be buried somewhere, I'd want it to be outside, not in some dank crypt." Arya says, putting her arms beneath her head and letting her braid fall to one side. "If I were to die, though, and that's very unlikely."
He likes to lay and listen to her talk, but he opens his mouth now to tell her he hopes she doesn't die.
She turns to him with bright grey eyes smiling. "Yes, I don't think you'd have half as much fun as you do without me."
He hums. "Fun. Is that what you call being chased all over Westeros by Lannisters and Freys and Boltons?"
"Well, it isn't boring." She says with some certitude, and that's that.
They lay quietly as the grass stirs around them, following the wind. They watch the sky go from blue to yellow to pink, clouds breezing by as the daylight dims.
"Imagine," She sighs loud and sinks in the grass, as if she's trying to sink into the very earth. "If we died right here, right now."
Gendry puts his hand out to his warhammer and she laughs.
"Peacefully, like we'd just fallen asleep."
He looks at her and sees she's got her eyes closed. He keeps his open, in case someone comes. If she's going to be silly, he has to look out for her.
"The moss would be our pillow and the grass would fold over us like furs." She murmurs, describing a very pretty scene. "And the worms would come out of the dirt and wriggle across our skin, making new homes."
He doesn't tell her how gross that would be.
Her face puckers then, brow crimping and lips quizzing. "I don't know how people die peaceful, though, I've never seen it. I bet we'd feel it for a while – the worms and later the insects that hover and bite. And we would want to swat them, but we'd be laying tired, so we'd let them."
Gendry makes a point of swatting the mosquito that lands on his arm. They're not dying.
"Heartbeats going slow as we lay for hours and hours…"
He puts a hand to his heart, to be sure that it's still strong.
"We'd become flowers, scare all the farmer's sheep come to eat our grass. We'd see every sunset, every sunrise, and we wouldn't move until someone comes to work the land." Arya quiets, thoughtful. "How long would it take, do you think, for us to be found?"
Gendry glances up to the forest. He can see Harwin chopping wood and Lem gathering kindling. "Couple of minutes? Soon as suppers cooked."
She smiles, opening one eye to peer at him. "I think they'd cry if they found us. I think they like us very much."
"I should hope so. We've been with them for ages."
Arya sighs, sinking and dreaming again. "And what if we weren't with the Brotherhood? What if it was just us. How long?"
He can't imagine just them. Sure, they managed before, but they were a couple of scrawny kids then. They wouldn't slip by now, they've grown into their looks, the Baratheon Bastard and the Stark Princess. They'd be picked up and recognised, and then there'd be no chance of a peaceful death. He feels a rush of gratitude for the Brotherhood just then.
"I don't know." He says when it's apparent she's actually asking. "How long does it take for a corpse to smell?"
She shrugs. "Probably a week, if this weather keeps up. We would bake in the sun, but our dead skin would stay pale and cold, and all matter of life would come and smell and lick and taste us. The insects and the foxes and the wolves-" She chokes a little. "And once the ravens got real loud fighting over us, someone would come see what'd died."
Gendry wrinkles his nose. He doesn't fancy anything chewing on him.
"But if we were to freeze – I mean, there's always the possibility that a shadow cat would come gnaw an arm off – but if the snow fell and we turned to ice, how long would it take? Ten years? Thirty years? Till winter ends and the snow melts and our great grandchildren find us here?"
He doesn't point out that they don't have children, and won't if they die now.
"I think it would be nice." She smiles brilliantly, sighing again. "Just to lay together forever."
It would rain though, and the field would turn to mud and they'd be dirty. And some boar from the forest would come trample them, and the foxes and wolves and ravens would tear more than taste. And their eyes would be plucked out and their cheeks would go hollow and their lips would never smile again.
"If I were to die and be buried somewhere, I'd want you to be buried nearby."
"If you were to die, though, and that's very unlikely." He japes, then turns towards her. She's not grinning, but contemplative.
He lays his hand in the grass close to her and she puts hers there too, twining her fingers with his like old tree branches grown together.
"I'd want to be buried nearby, too." Though he'd seen a crypt tomb before, of a lady and her knight, carved out in stone, hands linked and loving for all ever; and he thinks it wouldn't be terrible.
Arya wriggles over to him like a worm and leans in to his cheek with her sweet lips, like she does when she says goodnight, when she says thank you. He starts at the touch, lifting his head and growing tense – it always seems a miracle to him, her kisses – and she lays back in the grass.
He drops his head back and breathes carefully, heart racing but he doesn't want to let on.
Arya's staring, though, watching his fidgets and his blinks, and when he turns his head to ask her – what – she's smiling, different from before. Not brilliant or cheery or beckoning, she's cheeky and sly now.
"What?" Gendry asks, immediately on edge.
She grins and rolls over him, quick and tactful, disarming him by her sudden closeness as her braid flops down and tingles his cheek. She kisses him firmly on the lips, like she's never done, and he doesn't question why or wonder whether someone's coming to fetch them. Instead he grabs her and kisses her fierce – Arya started it, she had to know what she was getting into.
Arya breaks away to breathe, grey eyes glittering, nuzzling his stubbly beard and sucking in lungs of air from his throat.
Gendry holds her tight by her hips and keeps her there, like Lem's told him a thousand times before. If ye can get a girl on or under ye, hold her tight until ye've had yer fill. But could he ever be full of Arya? Gods, they really would die here, if he can't let go of her now.
But he can't hold onto her forever, because Arya's finicky and slippery, and she's always disappearing. When she wriggles he lets her go and she slides down beside him, cradling against his side.
"I'd like that." She murmurs and he tries to remember what they'd been talking about.
Death. How romantic.
Gendry keeps his arm around her and strokes her hair, her neck, her cheek. Just touching her with some amount of shock and desperation. For her part, she doesn't appear too thrown, placing a hand on his chest like it's always been there, fingers wrapping in the ties of his tunic.
They lay loving, watching the world turn and the birds fly.
There's the sound of someone walking towards them, muffled by spongy moss and grass.
"What are you two doing?" Anguy asks.
"Dying." Arya murmurs into Gendry's side, small and soft.
Anguy isn't fazed. "You're not dying. You scream and shout when you're dying. Did you get the water?"
Gendry looks guilty up at the man. The buckets are on their sides, rolled a little ways down the hill. Anguy puts his hands on his hips like some den mother, tisking over her pups.
"This is why we should give you separate tasks." He grumbles, going down to get the buckets and carrying on to the stream.
They lay a little longer, until the archer comes back with full buckets and threatens to drench them, and they get up with their weapons out, running mad from the man when he seems likely to actually do it.
And later, when he catches Arya smiling at him across the fire as Lem entertains them with a song and dance, he considers her. She's sat between the pretty Edric and the laughing Anguy, grey eyes all for him. Gendry wouldn't delude himself to think it was him, but he wondered that she didn't care to go to Winterfell anymore.
Winterfell is where her family crypts are, where her ancestors are buried. She had been in a rush to get there before, but now… Well, she fancied herself laying in a field with a bastard for the rest of her days. And he rather likes the sound of that.
A/n: So… this was pumped out in about three hours? Four? I don't know. I should be studying for my finals... I was working on a completely different (like, polar opposite while still being touching and romantic) Arya/Gendry centric story when this popped into my head and refused to leave. That story would probably be online by now, except Lay Me Down 'needed to be written'. It's short, so it's not a big deal and that other story (which remains untitled) should be online soon (check it out).
I might edit this and fix some little errors (I'm catching some now as I re-read for the first time) later.
Thanks for reading!