Watch Us Go
Chapter 1: Arya
February - Oldtown
There were many things that Arya liked about being with Gendry.
Feeling his weight pressed down on top of her with such force that she couldn't move at all, for example. She remembered joking with him once that he was bigger and stronger than she was, and could probably beat her up (depending on whether or not she could outrun him). She liked that the only way that ever manifested itself was when his tongue was in her mouth, his hands in her hair, and his cock pressed up against her through several layers of clothes.
What she liked even more was that, even when he pinned her down, the slightest pressure on one side or another would cause him to roll back over and pull her on top of him.
What she didn't like about this was a little thing—more specifically the fact that she was so little and he was positively a giant. When they stood next to each other, the top of her head brushed up somewhere between his (very nice) pectoral muscles, and so when they were lying together on his bed—trying so desperately to line up with each other—it invariably ended either with his giving up or with him having to pull away from her slightly so that his lips and cock could both be satisfied. Not that they had had sex yet.
But back to things she liked, because they were more fun, and when Gendry's lips were on her collarbone like that, she didn't like thinking about things that frustrated her.
She liked that the first time she had taken off his shirt (and those muscles she had watched through binoculars for such a long time were infinitely better in person) he hadn't gotten some sort of idiotic sense of nobility the way she had thought he would, but had pulled her on top of him so that she could get a better view and kiss her way up and down his chest.
She liked that his bed was big enough for both of them, and that she was more confident in its capacity to support their weight when they were rolling about on top of it. (Her bed had almost broken the first time that they had ended up prone on top of it.) She liked falling asleep next to him and waking up next to him, feeling the heat of him beside her.
She liked that he let her decide when she was ready to do things (taking off his shirt, or pulling his large—large—hands to her rather undersized breasts) and that sometimes the things she was ready to try made his eyes roll up into the back of his head. The Saturday morning, for example, when she had found his cock not trapped beneath grease-stained jeans or old corduroys but rather, not so much trapped as contained, within a pair of ratty sweatpants and she had slipped her hand boldly right down the front to stroke him. His eyes had rolled into the back of his head, he had emitted a something between a groan and a growl, and he had pushed his hips firmly towards her hand.
She liked that she sometimes got texts from Jon saying things along the lines of Please, gods help me, wait until I'm at work, or can't you do this at your house? It's disturbing to me.
But most of all, she liked being able to tell him all this when they were done with their canoodling. She liked the way his deep blue eyes would soften and make her feel every bit as silly as she had once accused Sansa of being over Joffrey.
No wonder Arya had not done as well on her finals at the end of her first term as anyone had expected. Of course, her parents, her siblings, and even her faculty advisor attributed it to Sansa's breakdown near the end of the semester—something that would have undoubtedly distressed her younger sister, the family member upon whom Sansa undoubtedly relied the most since they lived together.
To be fair, that had distressed her tremendously in the weeks surrounding her final exams. She had spent hours sitting quietly with Sansa, pretending to do something, but watching her carefully out of the corner of her eye. But her fear that her sister would break down again had not distracted her from her work.
But Gendry's very fine abdomen, his sensational lips, and the look in his big blue eyes that reminded her of Nymeria when she and Arya were alone, were what had made Arya so wholly unable to focus when preparing for finals.
"I don't want to get up," she mumbled into his shoulder. She felt his chuckle before she heard it, his stomach muscles flexing beneath her.
"I suppose I could just keep you here." His voice was smiling. She groaned again, trying to calm her the pounding of her heart against her chest. It was beating harder than when she had competed at the Winterfell Championships last spring. But this time, it was not nerves that had her heart racing.
"I told Ned that I'd help him with his Intro homework. I'm the only linguistics major he knows and he's panicking about the international phonetic alphabet."
"Isn't this what his TA is for? I mean, speaking as a TA, I know that that's what we're here for."
"His TA is incompetent."
"How on earth do you know that?"
"She gave him completely wrong information about morphology. He was the only one in his section that did all right on his midterm and that's because I told him to ignore what she had said."
"All the same. He's been panicking about that all semester. He should get over it and leave you to me."
"That's because he's from the south and he doesn't get vowels. Which are admittedly challenging, but he can't hear the difference between some basic ones because they don't exist in southern accents and so he can't hear them and it freaks him out, even though no one will really give a damn about it."
"Well, you should tell him that. Via text message so you don't have to leave."
"As appealing as that is, I'd feel bad. I can make it up to you later though." She nipped at his neck—a little less gently than she might have once. She found that she quite liked giving him hickies—especially after he had mentioned how annoying it was to try and hide them from his students.
"Hey! Stop that!"
She giggled (yes, giggled. She had a boyfriend who made her giggle) and made to get up. But his arms were around her and that drastically limited her movement.
"How do you plan to make it up to me?" One of his eyebrows was arched and the smile playing across his lips almost made her shiver.
"I'll think of something good." She glanced away from him, her smile slipping ever so slightly.
"Hey, look at me. You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"That thing. When you get all distant."
"I don't get all distant. I'm right on top of you. How can I be getting distant?"
Gendry rolled his eyes. "You know precisely what I mean."
She did. But she didn't want to deal with that now.
As if he had heard the thought, Gendry teased, "You're going to have to deal with it one day."
She bit her lip, and she saw the corner of Gendry's eye twitch the way it did when she bit her lip. "I just don't know how yet, and I'll figure it out. It's not a nervous about what we're doing thing, it's a I need to think about linguistics thing."
"All right."
"See? I'm getting better at it."
"That's very good." Gendry sat up slightly and pressed his lips to hers. When his hands slid down her back to her hips, she moved.
Gendry might be bigger and stronger, but she was faster. She had yanked herself loose of his hands and lips before she could convince herself not to do it.
She pulled her discarded sweatshirt over her head and smiled at him. He was lying on his back, his torso propped up on his elbows. His hair was delightfully disheveled and she could indeed see the beginnings of a hicky on his neck. "See you in a bit," she promised, then darted out the door.
When she reached Ned's dorm room, his light blond hair was standing on end from all the times he had run his hands through it. It looked a little bit like it might fly off his head.
"All right," she said, sitting down next to him and pulling off her sweatshirt again. "Merry, Marry, and Mary. Which one's which?"
He did not answer her. "Arya, that is the biggest hicky I have ever seen in my life."
Arya's hand flew to her neck.
She didn't get hickies. It was one of the things she liked best—that Gendry did and she didn't.
"There's a mirror in the bathroom," suggested Ned, and she was back on her feet and flying out the door again.
It was massive, spreading from just below her ear down to the spot where her collarbones met. She pulled out her phone.
Arya Stark: I'm going to murder you.
Gendry Waters: That wasn't precisely what I had in mind when you said you'd make it up to me.
Arya Stark: You could have warned me.
Gendry Waters: Where would the fun in that be? You never warn me about mine. Thanks for the new one, by the way.
She returned to Ned's room and pulled her sweatshirt back over her head, tugging the hood in a way that (she hoped) would obscure the bruise.
"Who did it then?" asked Ned, a teasing smile curving his lips.
"None of your business."
"I'm your friend, Arya. You bet it's my business."
"You don't know him?"
"Then it won't matter if I know who he is."
"All right, you do know him. But I'm not telling you because you don't want to know."
"How do you know that?"
"Because."
"That's a reason. Not a good one, but a reason."
"Shut up, stupid. Marry, merry, and Mary. Which one is which?"
"Marry's the weird a-e thing—"
"Correct."
"Merry's the backwards loopy e thing—"
"Yes."
"And Mary's the backwards loopy e thing with a schwa right after it."
"That's right."
"Now who've you been going with. Come on now. I promise I won't go crazy or anything."
Arya cocked her head. Telling Ned would be very funny. Gendry had been his TA last semester. Indeed, Ned had spent most of the semester stalking Gendry, determined to win a bet about whether Gendry was gay—a bet that he had lost. But on the other hand…She and Gendry hadn't really told anyone. She had only told Sansa about a week ago, and she and Gendry had been going out for almost two months at that point. Jon had figured out pretty quickly, and Daemon and Aurane knew because they heard the moans and Daemon had caught her sneaking out of Gendry's room one morning, but as far as she knew Roslin still didn't know. She hadn't even told her parents.
If she told Ned, the fencing team would know and she wasn't sure she wanted that.
Her phone buzzed.
Gendry Waters: Mum's pleased. She's been wanting updates ever since I told her that I was having lecherous tendencies towards you.
Arya Stark: I might tell Ned. Shall photo-document his reaction for your amusement.
"Arya? Don't make me fetch my épée. I'll duel you for the knowledge and we both know I'd win."
"Yeah, right."
"I'm older, stronger, faster, and better than you. Let's be real, shall we?"
Arya pressed the camera button on her phone, and waited or it to load.
"You also aren't used to sideswipes."
"Come on Arya. I won't help with your Joffrey Plot if—"
"All right, all right. It's Gendry Waters."
Ned's jaw dropped. Arya clicked the button again and sent the photo to Gendry.
"You're joking." Ned did not sound as though he had convinced himself of that.
"Nope."
"You can't be."
"I am."
"But he's a TA."
"He's not my TA. I'm not going to take any of his stupid anthropology courses."
Her phone buzzed.
Gendry Waters: Excellent.
Arya Stark: Ned still doesn't believe me.
"For how long then?"
"Since Sansa's panic attack."
"You were dating my TA during finals last semester and you didn't tell me?"
"What good would it have done you?"
"I would have been more chummy with you, and he would have given me a better grade."
Her phone buzzed.
Gendry Waters: More fool him. I thought I gave enough proof of that on your neck.
Arya Stark: He believes me now. Is annoyed that I didn't get him a better grade.
Gendry Waters: I did give him a better grade because of you. You didn't want to date him. I was suddenly taken with how uncharitable I had been to his intellectual tendencies.
Arya Stark: I think I shan't tell him that.
Gendry Waters: Probably a good idea.
"Anything else you want to tell me? Are you Syrio's long lost daughter or something?"
"Nope, I think I'm good. Do you have any giant secrets to tell me, since we're sharing?"
"Probably. But I'm in too great a shock to think of them."
"Fair enough. "Palm, lot, and goat. What are the vowels?"