Arya
She fidgeted the whole train ride into the city. It was really ridiculous that she still reacted like this - I mean she's been going back and forth to New York since she was an infant. Still, there was something about just being in the city that made her restless. She didn't like the feeling that there were people everywhere she went. There was no going on a run just to be alone – not unless you counted dodging pedestrians, dog walkers, street vendors and the occasional bike delivery guy as being alone. She knew she could survive in the concrete jungle if she had to, but it was by no means her first choice.
Jon, sitting next to her with his headphones in, was similarly sullen. In spite of her bad mood she smiled at the sight of him. Ah her brother, she could always count on him to be right there with her on all matters of opinion. Even in her unjustified prejudice against the Big Apple, they were of one mind, more alike than any of her full siblings. Jon was just her person.
She looked over at Gendry who was staring out the window with interest.
City boy, she thought, somewhat derisively. He's welcome to it.
Within five minutes of arriving at Sansa's apartment Arya was ready to leave. It was immaculate as always, the furnishing a testament to her very real skills as an interior designer. As much as Arya thought it was a stupid thing to do with one's life she had to admit, it was the perfect path for her older sister.
They got along better now thy Sansa was out of the house and enrolled in Parsons School of Art and Design in the city. They'd fought constantly while they were both at Winterfell, frequently screaming at each other loudly enough to wake the neighbors. They didn't argue so much now, she couldn't remember the last time she'd really screamed at Sansa, but instead they'd come to a silent agreement where there were some subjects they just did not discuss.
Like Sansa's God awful taste in men. Their mother and father were thrilled when Sansa told them about her relationship, but Arya could not understand what in the world would possess anyone to voluntarily spend time with Joffery Baratheon. Just knowing she was going to have to spend one night in his company was enough to put her in a sour mood. That and Sansa's current anxiety about her appearance was enough to make her wish she could be anywhere but here.
"You didn't say anything about it being a dress up thing, how was I supposed to know?" Arya ground out logically, as her sister gaped in horror when she told her she didn't have another change of clothes.
"It's not a dress up thing Arya, it's just not the kind of thing you can where workout clothes and Adidas slip-ons. You know, like basically all events that take place outside the gym."
Maybe they'd get into a screaming match after all.
"Well I'm sorry but you didn't say."
Sansa gave her a look like she was putting her through Herculean trials, but nodded.
"I know, I know, I should've known with you. Hmmm. Well I mean you could borrow some of my clothes..."
"Don't be ridiculous Sans, your sister is like half your size, she'd be swimming in your stuff." Sansa's roommate Margaery interjected unhelpfully.
Sansa blushed with embarrassment and Arya glared at the older girl. Arya wasn't all that well versed in the petty micro-politics of how women interacted with one another, but she was smart enough to know a passive aggressive insult when she heard one. Margaery just beamed at her, intentionally oblivious to the glare Arya was giving her and continued.
"We should take her shopping! She probably needs some actual clothes anyway, and this way we can pick what they'll be!"
Arya literally couldn't think of anything she wanted to do less. She looked at the boys for support but they were both sitting on the very edge of Sansa's very breakable looking living room chairs both seeming completely focused on getting out of there without damaging anything.
"Gendry and I can kill time in Central Park and then meet you at the pub closest to the show, if you guys want." Jon offered.
Traitor. Arya thought and she glared at him but he just shrugged half apologetically.
"Yup, that works for me."
"Perfect!" Margaery cried, and without waiting for Arya to put up a fight she grabbed her purse off the counter and took a hold of Arya's arm, tugging her out the door.
Gendry
Joffery Baratheon was a fuck boy.
There was really no other way to put it, he thought, admiring Jon's self-control as the little douche alternated between making lewd comments about Sansa and hitting on other girls at the bar. They were waiting in a bar that Sansa had told them about outside the design expo where her work was being showcased, and so until the girls came the only thing Jon and Gendry could do was sit and wait.
Gendry, refusing to acknowledge Joffery any more than he absolutely had to, pretended to be absorbed in the baseball game being shown on the TV screen in front of him. He hated baseball (what a fucking boring thing to watch) but it gave him an excuse not to listen to Joffery. How had he become such a prick anyway? Robert wasn't a saint by any means – but at least he wasn't such a little bitch…
"Jesus Christ!" Joffery said, and Gendry squeezed his eyes shut with exasperation. "Check out the tits on her! Where have they been hiding my entire life?"
He felt Jon stiffen in the seat next to him and move as if to confront Joffery and Gendry grabbed his friend's arm to keep him seated. Not that he would've minded seeing Jon take the little shit to task, but Joffery Baratheon was a little shit with a personal body guard. Even though Robert hadn't formally announced his candidacy yet, his wife Cersei had insisted that her children get security details. This guy was far from the clean-cut secret service agents that would one day be assigned to the Baratheon children – no Sandor Clegane was a hardened ex-con, who would look more at home in a biker bar than in the oval office. Still, granted that Joffery likely needed protection more from the bar fights he instigates himself than from terrorist assassination attempts, Gendry supposed the man fit the bill. He was certainly intimidating enough for the job, and so Gendry gave his friend's arm a squeeze trying to tell him to let it go without taking his eyes off the game.
Besides, why should Jon be that upset that Joffery was being rude about some girl at the bar after all? That was far from the worst thing Baratheon had said all night…
"How's Napoli doing on first?"
Arya's voice came from right behind him making him jump and almost spill some of his pint onto the bar in surprise. He grinned though, glad that she was back with them and that there would be another person besides Joffery for him and Jon to talk to.
He started to turn saying, "Don't tell me you actually know all their…"
The words died in his throat as he caught sight of her. She was in a dress, not just a dress but one of those bandage dresses that clung to every curve of her except for where there was no dress which, incidentally, was a lot of places. It was a deep metallic silver color – more the color of iron than anything else but with some shine to it – and sleeveless, with two thick straps and a sweetheart neckline. 'Sweetheart' was an interesting term for it – the thoughts that it gave him were far from sweet – and from where he was perched on his barstool he got an excellent view of what had made Joffery exclaim, and what had made Jon mad enough to prepare to hit the son of a sitting senator in front of his felon of a bodyguard. Much as he hated the Baratheon boy he had to admit he had a point – is that really what Arya looked like when she wasn't in a sports bra?
"You can't wear that," Jon's voice stubborn and flat cut through Gendry's daze.
"What?" Arya gave her brother a quizzical look, "why not? Do you know what I just had to go through to get them to agree on a stupid fucking outfit so I could get down here and see the game? Don't make me go back up to them, I'll never get free," she said half-jokingly, clearly oblivious to what Jon was upset about. "But if you want to tell them the heels are unsafe be my guest – I've been trying to convince them that I can just wear my flip-flops since we left the house."
"Arya…" Jon began sounding so much like Ned that Gendry would've cracked a smile in spite of the awkwardness of the situation had Joffery Fucking Baratheon not chosen that moment to cut in.
"I think you look fantastic Stark, don't let your big brother spoil your fun."
Arya gave Joffery a side-long look as if trying to figure out if he was pulling her leg or not before saying "Thanks?" guardedly and coming around to lean against the bar on the other side of Gendry.
He jumped up, mumbling something about her taking the stool, and positioned himself behind her, putting his entire six-foot-three 210 pound frame between her and Joffery Baratheon. Jon, who was seated next to him saw what he was doing and nodded gratefully, though Arya seemed too enthralled with the game to really notice.
"Arya," Jon tried again, switching tactics and leaning against his little sister conspiratorially, "don't you think you'd be more comfortable—"
"Time to go!" Sansa's voice rang out, and the group of people near them began to shift and prepare to cross the street into the exhibition hall.
Arya gave her brother's hand a little squeeze and then hopped up from her seat. "Don't worry I won't embarrass you like when we were little, if that's what you're afraid of. I can actually walk in heels now, and I'm under very strict orders from Sansa to keep my legs closed so I don't scandalize anyone at her show thing. It'll be fine."
Gendry felt his ears redden and Jon's face looked like he'd just received a death sentence. Still Snow somehow bravely got up and followed his little sister out the door, with Gendry trailing behind, wishing for once in his life that Arya being embarra was the strongest emotion running through his mind.
The show turned out to be kind of cool, and better yet the expo hall it was in turned out to be freezing and Gendry was able to convince Arya to take his sports coat without much difficulty. Jon had silently thanked his friend with a nod, and Gendry found himself thinking for the first time in his life that it might be easier not to have a sister like Arya to give him heart palpitations on a daily basis. She was doing that enough already – and they weren't even kin.
They wandered around the expo, the group spreading out as they went. The whole thing was set up as a maze of temporary walls, each bringing you through another interior designer's layout of five rooms. Sansa had called it a Tour de Chambre, but there was not a chance in hell he'd call it that. He wasn't really even sure how to pronounce Chambre—'sham-bruh?' 'sham-breh?'—but still, he didn't hate walking through the maze of rooms, snagging drinks along the way. Arya was walking in front of him, and being a surprisingly good sport about the whole thing, even appearing to enjoy herself. The furniture did nothing for her, but he noticed she stopped to really take in some of the art along the way. It was funny to think of her as more than just the gangly sports-playing preteen he'd met four years ago.
She was definitely not giving off those vibes now. Even with his sports coat on there was something about the way she walked in heels, or maybe something about her posture that made him hyper aware of the feminine sway of her hips, brushing tantalizingly against his jacket but largely obscured from view.
He jumped, catching himself, and looked around as if any second Jon or Robb would come charging at him for daring to stare at their baby sister's ass like that. But Jon, seeming to have decided that Gendry was an ally in the "keep-Arya-away-from-Y-chromosomes" cause, had allowed himself to get swept away by one of Sansa's old friends from Winterfell, and was somewhere ahead of them, probably finding a dark corner with Jeyne Poole as they spoke. When they'd moved off together Arya had looked disgusted, and Gendry had had to stifle a laugh.
"The hell does he see in her anyway?" she'd whined, looking more upset than Gendry would have guessed. Perhaps over-protectiveness was simply a Stark Family trait. Still, not letting the opportunity go to waste, she'd wasted no time in whipping out her fake (a real high class job too – she'd picked it up last summer in Braavos – it was an authentic Faceless Man original) and then proceeded to get drunk.
Well maybe drunk was a bit of a stretch, buzzed would probably be a fairer way to describe it. She wasn't misbehaving or anything, but something about the way she was smiling, about the way her usual brisk pace has slowed to a stroll as she admired the work, just gave off vibes of cat-like luxurious relaxation. It was… decidedly unexpected coming from Arya.
She sidled over to the bar to get her third jack and coke and he took a seat across the room from her, watching her as she leaned over the bar, standing on her tip toes, waiting for the catering guy to notice her. Suddenly Joffery Baratheon, who had been engaged in conversation a moment ago is right behind her, his hand reaching up underneath the hem of her dress.
"Just like I thought – I knew you were a feistier fuck than your sister but still no panties at a nice event like thi—"
Gendry had seen red from the moment that creep touched her but before he could get to them he heard the sickening crunch as Arya's elbow connected with the blond boy's nose.
Blood spurted everywhere, and guests all turned around in alarm – a phenomenon which only got worse by the second as Joffery bellowed in pain.
"Stupid Cunt!" he screamed at her but Arya didn't flinch. Then turning on his body guard he screamed "Why didn't you do something?!"
Clegane did his best to look remorseful (though he was clearly not that torn up about it) and muttered something about not seeing that she was poised for the attack. Joffery seemed to get what he was implying (that the Baratheon heir had brought this on himself) and he glared at Clegane, eyes promising retribution.
Just then, Sansa arrived, and Gndry remembered why he hadn't just hit Joffery in the first place.
"Oh my god, Joff what happened?" she said, voice full of genuine concern.
"Your sister just fucking attacked me!"
"Are you kidding me?" Arya said her voice wry with sarcasm but also dangerous.
"I was just telling her that I'd thought she'd had enough to drink and she fucking lost it on me!"
"That is such fuckin—"
"How much have you had to drink?!" Sansa said rounding on Arya her blue eyes flashing with fury.
"Three drinks but Sansa that's not the—"
"Three cocktails in an hour! This is why I can't take you places Arya you're too out of control—"
"SANSA! I did not hit him because he told me to stop drinking, I hit him because he was hitting on me."
"Who would want to hit on you?"
The comment, made in a sneering voice, came from across the room from a brown haired girl with a malicious smirk on her face stood watching the sister's confrontation with interest. Standing next to her, looking utterly bewildered by her bitchy outburst but with his hand still around her waist, stood Jon.
So this must be Jeyne Poole.
Arya's eye's snapped to the girl's, narrowing in hatred and something else Gendry had never seen there before, and then snapped back to her sister. And then Sansa did the unspeakably bitchy thing, and shrugged cruelly.
"She's got a point."
Arya's eyes fixed on Jon, who was now trying to detach himself from Jeyne as quickly as possible without being down-right rude, and she narrowed her eyes furiously.
"No, you stay – have an awesome rest of your date. Oh and Waters? Thanks for the back-up. Way to come through."
And before either he or Jon could say anything, she spun on her heel and left. By the time they got to the front door, she was nowhere to be seen.