AN: Hey all! This is my first AU fan fic, so I'd really love your feedback! Its just an idea that popped into my head while I was on the bus the other day and so I thought it'd be fun to tease it out. Let me know what you think!

Gendry

He never thought of himself as a fidgety person, but as he listened to the Stark women's argument echoing through the house he couldn't help but tap his foot with nervous energy. He was in the den at the Stark mansion, xbox controller in one hand and a cold beer sitting on a coaster two feet away as he battled Jon, Robb, and Robb's friend Theon in Call of Duty. Ned Stark sat grading papers in his favorite leather arm chair, occasionally glancing up at the game being played by the four boys and raising his eyebrows at them sarcastically. By silent agreement all five men in the room were pointedly ignoring the row occurring just above their heads, but the tension in the air suggested that they all knew that that was only temporary.

In the four years he'd known Jon he'd gotten to know his family pretty well. He and Jon had been assigned to room with each other freshman year at UConn. He'd almost asked for a transfer when the school gave him his contact info – the address was more than enough to tip Gendry off about his roommate's wealthy background – but seeing the 'Snow' surname had stopped him. What kind of a bastard lived in Dover Massachusetts? It was one of the richest suburbs of Boston, full of sprawling estates, half of which dated back to the Revolutionary War.

So he'd waited it out, and thank the Gods he had. Two weeks into the first semester they were affectionately referring to themselves as the Bastards of Boston, laughing at the kids from Jersey who couldn't deal with the New England winters. Gendry had never been the most talkative person in the world, and in Jon he'd found someone who could actually get that without assuming he was being a dick.

He got Jon too, though they had different issues to work through, and so when Snow asked him to come back with him to Winterfell Manor (yeah… Jon's family home was historic enough to have a name… like Mount fucking Vernon) Gendry had known it was more because he needed the moral support if he were going to make it through the holidays with his dreaded step-mother than because Jon wanted to show Gendry where he lived.

So he'd agreed, and it had been even more ridiculous than he thought. Not that Winterfell was pretentious – far from it – it was just impressive. The house, which was really the ancestral manner home of the Starks (where American Independence had effectively been planned over illegally imported Caribbean spirits) somehow managed to be grand and puritanically no-nonsense all at once. The same could be said of Jon's father – who had greeted Gendry as if he was as welcome a guest as the governors and former presidents who frequented the premises. His positive reception from New Stark had soothed Gendry's nerves, and he'd gotten through meeting the rest of the family without much difficulty – though it was clear from the moment he was introduced to Catelyn and Sansa Stark that he'd never be their choice companion.

That was almost four years ago now, and somehow he'd managed to actually feel decently comfortable in the Stark household when he came to visit. He'd seen the various Stark children a number of times since then, mostly Robb (who'd rebelled against his father's Harvard legacy by going to Yale and was only an hour away from them), and Arya Jon's spit fire little sister.

The bang of a door came from upstairs accompanied by a loud drawn-out "Dadddddddd!" and the sound of someone thundering down the stairs making more noise than a herd of elephants. Ah yes, Arya.

Jon's younger sister was one of the most infuriating and entertaining people Gendry had ever met. She couldn't have been more than 5 foot 2, but had by far the largest attitude of all of the Stark children. He didn't think he'd ever seen here in anything but athletic ware – typically a hoody and a pair of rugby shorts with sneakers that looked so much like her cleats that he could hardly tell the difference when she'd just gotten off the pitch.

She'd been gone the first time he visited the Stark residence, off in a tournament in Maine so he'd first met her when she'd come to Connecticut with her travel team to play some private girls prep school. All of the Stark boys were obsessed with rugby – apparently it was a family thing, like the Kennedys have sailing. Even Jon was into it, and he had been surprised freshman year when he learned his soft spoken roommate actually played for the UConn team. In fact, even though he wasn't much of a debauched partier like most of the self-proclaimed "Black Brothers" Jon had been so good that they'd picked him as a captain after his first semester of freshman year. Gendry had never been exposed to the sport before, the South Side of Boston wasn't really the place for high-class imported British sports, so it hadn't struck him as odd that Jon's little sister would play too. He hadn't even thought it was that strange when the teams had taken the field and Jon's sister had been a full head shorter than all the other girls on the pitch. I mean, it's like Lacrosse, right? They change the rules for girls, maybe put them in plaid skirts in the process?

Nope. Wrong. Five minutes into the first half they had their first blood sub when two girls collided in a forceful tackle and one of them spit her eyebrow. Arya – who Jon said was her team's fly half – was everywhere, in the thick of every ruck, right behind every scrum, shouting battle commands to her teammates who miraculously seemed to have no issue taking orders from the 110 pound high school freshman.

She scored her first try after only ten minutes and Gendry had to admit he was thoroughly impressed. She was good. She was skinny and short for sure, but far from delicate and so much quicker on her feet than the other girls that she managed to weave her way through the crush of bodies like some kind of violent dancer. She was frustrating the hell out of her opponents, pouching balls easily when they rolled out of sloppy rucks and running plays so fast that they were constantly running back on their heels.

One of the girls, evidently fed up with getting her ass handed to her by some punk kid, horse-collared Arya so badly at the beginning of the first half that the spectators collectively shouted out in protest as her tiny frame was ripped backwards by the neck. The whistle was immediate but not loud enough to drown out Jon's R-rated exclamation, which was enough to get Gendry really worried for a second (Jon Snow did not yell in public – and he certainly never yelled things that would cause half the helicopter moms in the stands to turn and gape at him in horror). But Arya had just sprung to her feet and taken a quick penalty so rapidly that even her own team didn't realize what she was doing until after she'd scored a try.

That had been his first impression of Arya Stark – wild, violent, skilled, and unapologetic – and in the four years he'd known her he couldn't say that his first impression had been wrong. She'd come up to them after the game, bruised and mud covered with her pixy haircut sticking up at odd angles. Her eyes had been glowing with triumph and delight at seeing Jon and he'd been struck again by how small she was. He couldn't understand how on earth someone so small could ever want to get into a sport like rugby, but that just showed what he knew. Here they were, four years later, and she was much the same (though she'd grown out the pixie cut, explaining that it was easier to keep hair out of your face by just French braiding it instead of having to get it cut every few weeks) with a full athletic scholarship to UC Boulder to play rugby competitively.

"Daddddddddddd!" she came stomping into the den and Gendry and the two Stark brothers shifted uncomfortably knowing that their sanctuary was about to dissolve into chaos. No fight between Arya and Catelyn was ever anything but. Theon however, who seemed to revel in chaos paused the game and took a healthy swig of his beer, leaning back and grinning as if he couldn't wait to see the show.

Ned sighed and put down the papers he had in his hand.

"Yes, dear."

"I'm not going. You tell her no."

"I have no idea what you're—"

"Here you are!" Catelyn came in behind her, her hands on her hips and her blue eyes flashing, as ready for a fight as her more patently aggressive child. "Arya Stark don't you dare try to have him get you out of this. This is a women's issue and your father has no place—"

"I. Am. Not. Going."

"Well then, you'll just have to content yourself with your father and I driving you out to college then and forgo this ridiculous road trip of yours."

That caught all the boys' attention. The whole reason he and Jon were here was to get ready for the trip; hell they already had the RV packed with half or Arya's college shit. He'd gotten a mechanical engineering degree, though truth be told all he really ever wanted to do was be a mechanic, and he realized a few months before graduation that he could really take that anywhere and do fine. So when Jon had gotten a job with the Park Service in Bellingham, Washington on the other side of the country and encouraged Gendry to apply out West with him, he had. He'd landed a job in Seattle, and so they decided they'd road trip out there together with all their meager possessions stuffed into the old RV Jon had managed to borrow from his eccentric uncle Benjen and see as much of the country as they could on the way.

Arya had immediately asked to come with and have them drop her off at school. Even though it was kind of weird Gendry had found that he didn't mind the idea all that much, and so they'd agreed to take her, and for the last few months they'd had an ongoing group text about all the places they'd stop on their four week long trip around the country. And now, a week before they left, Catelyn was threatening to take it all away. Typical.

Jon glanced at Robb, asking him to do something in the silent way the Stark brothers did and Robb in turn looked to their father who sighed and got up putting himself in between the warring Stark women.

"Cat, now let's not go jumping to that extreme. Why don't you tell me what this is…" the murderous look he got from his wife caused the last few words to die in his throat, but Arya, seeming to know it was now or never blurted it out.

"She's trying to force me to go on the pill."

"What?!" Ned sputtered, clearly not having anticipated the subject of the argument being something so intimate.

"Who would want to have sex with you?" Theon laughed, face alight with glee. He was the only one though, all the other male occupants looked as if they were trapped in a nightmare. Gendry felt his ears go red and desperately felt the urge to flee but couldn't bring himself to push through the Stark women who were currently blocking the only exit. Robb was staring intently at the coffee table looking like he was trying to memorize the exact pattern of the wood, and Jon poor soul was as red as a tomato.

Arya took off her flip flop and flung it at Theon's head without breaking her gaze away from her mother who huffed in frustration.

"I am not forcing her on the pill. I am strongly suggesting that she get protection, and I am demanding that she go to the ob-gyn before she goes on this confounded trip so that she can get her first pap-smear and get tested."

"Get tested for what? Oh my gods mom!" she said in frustration.

"Arya you do know you can get things from activities other than sex? Even things you do with girls…" Catelyn said in an undertone, as if anything she said in this room could be at all discrete.

"Gods Mom is that what this is about? What is wrong with you? How many times do I have to tell you and Sansa – and yes I do know that you ask her to ask me – that I'm not gay! Why is it so hard for you to understand that it is possible for a girl to enjoy playing sports without having the urge to eat her teammates out in the locker room after games?!"

Somehow through his haze of embarrassment images of Arya Stark having sordid encounters with other women in locker room showers began to blossom in his mind. He shook himself feeling his cheeks flush. Where the hell had that come from?

"Don't you use that crass language with me young lady! And no, this is not about me thinking you're gay, this is about me worrying about what happens when you seize on an idea and just go for it without thinking like you always do. If you can't even stop to think how inappropriate the things you think are before you say them how the hell am I supposed to trust in your ability to get protection before you do something with a boy? And besides, there are literally no downsides for you! It's not like you're going to get fat with all the rugby you'll be playing and if anything it'll just help you fill out like you're supposed to…"

"Dad," Arya said rounding on her father and holding him in her gaze her eyes flashing as if she dared anyone to bring up her mother's jibe against her unladylike physique. "I don't want to go. I am not having sex and I do not want to get a pap smear. Do you know what they make you do for those? They make you lay back on your back with no pants or anything on with your legs like strapped open just waiting there with your knees spread for the doctor to stick something into you that stretches out your…"

"Arya." Her father managed running a hand over his face in exasperation. Jon was literally clenching his eyes shut as if he could will himself out of the room and this heinous conversation if he only tried hard enough, while Robb's eyes remained locked on the coffee table with his hands fisted in his hair in an apparent attempt to rip the uncomfortable thoughts out of his head by the roots. Their distraction was probably a good thing, as Gendry saw Theon's smirk waiver slightly as he shifted on the couch. Gendry had readjusted a boner enough times to recognize the act when he saw it.

Ass. He thought to himself. And not ten minutes after you said no one would want to have sex with her you fucking perv.

Shit, not that he was much better, he thought realizing as he thought out his condemnation of Theon that he'd gone hard as well. What the fuck was wrong with him – sitting here on Jon's fucking couch popping a halfie listening to his baby sister argue with her parents about a doctor's appointment.

To be fair, a small voice in his mind chimed in, she was talking about laying back with her knees spread waiting for someone to stretch out her…

Nope. Stop. Not going there.

He looked up to see that her father had drawn her into the adjoining kitchen where he was talking to her in a low voice, while her mother leaned against the adjacent counter top rolling her eyes at their exchange. She was stiff at first but then seemed to relax somewhat, finally pushing her father affectionately before grabbing her keys and leaving out the back door, off on some errand.

The Stark brothers looked relieved, glad to be dealing with anything but that, but Gendry felt a small wave of disappointment in not knowing how the conflict had been resolved. Then he shook himself and stood up to get another beer, trying to shake himself internally.

He had no business wondering if Arya Stark was on the pill or not, and this was about to be one long ass car ride.