Chapter 4: Gendry

There are some things that are considered acceptable treatment of one's roommate's younger sister. Carrying groceries for her, for example, or pointing her in the direction of said roommate when she comes over for a visit.

Flirting with her over text message (using the phone number you got from your roommate's phone when he went off to work without it) probably would not be considered acceptable.

Gendry knew that.

He knew that very well.

He also knew that Arya Stark was quite a bit younger than him, and that she was a first year, which probably made him the worst kind of lecher (after, of course, those people who watched child pornography. Those were worse than him).

He set his mug of coffee down, stretched, the towel he was wearing dropped from his waist, and he set about dressing himself.

Though he slept naked, he always felt uncomfortable doing work naked. There was something off about it he couldn't place.

He sighed looking at the reading he had to lead a discussion on the next day. It was from the late 6th Century, AL, and it was really quite an atrocious text, for any number of reasons, academic and otherwise.

He woke up with his head pressed against the open book. The page he had fallen asleep on was slightly creased from his face.

It was a testament either to the dullness of the text or to the state of his coffee addiction (and he wasn't sure which) that he had fallen asleep while working for the first time in three years.

He winced at the stiffness in his neck when he sat up. The pre-dawn light was beautiful, and as he looked out the window, he thought he saw movement in one of the windows in the house across the yards. He wondered briefly who, by the old gods and the new, would be up so early, then sighed. It looked like he was going to be unprepared for his seminar on the history of urban waste management.

He packed up his school bag, figured that the clothes he had slept in were probably not too rumpled to wear today, and headed downstairs and out of the house. If he was going to have to work this early in the morning, he decided he deserved good coffee, so he walked in the direction of central campus, and Chataya's, the best source of Sothoryosi coffee on this side of the Narrow Sea (or so they claimed).

Chataya's was a wonderful little shop, tucked in between two larger clothing boutiques. It was open twenty-four hours, perfect for a university student, though it was mostly empty between the hours of two and six in the morning. It was full of warm colors and comfortably cushioned chairs, and the baristas were very beautiful.

Gendry ordered his drink, then set about picking a table. They were all empty, save one, which was occupied by a girl on a computer, who was typing away fervently.

On second glance, he saw that it was Sansa Stark. But not the Sansa he so often saw walking to and from campus, a composed and impeccably dressed young woman. This girl was dressed in ratty sweat pants and her long auburn hair was in a loose ponytail. Her eyes had dark circles under them, and the tea that she was drinking did not seem to be giving her any energy.

When he crossed the room, Sansa looked up and smiled at him. It was not a smile that reached her eyes, but she did not wince at the sight of him, which he supposed was good. Not that he should expect that. She hadn't at any interaction with him. Why did he assume she would wince?

"Good morning. What brings you here so early?" she asked, her voice warmer than her face.

"Fell asleep doing work last night. So early-birding it. Yourself?"

"I don't sleep much. And it's always more peaceful to work in the morning. I have a reading response for my history seminar later today. Would you like to join me?"

"Yes, thank you." Gendry was almost too surprised at the invitation to realize that he had accepted it.

Sansa set back to typing, her brow furrowed.

When one of the baristas brought Gendry his coffee, he set about working too. Maybe twenty minutes later, Sansa chuckled at something.

Gendry looked up.

"Sorry. My professor seems to be as much an insomniac as I am," then she began reading an email aloud to him. "Dear Sansa, I understand your concern about the reading response due later today and the only thing that I can say, without reading the thing, is try. You won't get it perfect. I'll give you comments. You'll do better on the next one. It's called progress. It's what one does in a class. Best, TL. P.S. It is four in the morning. You should either be asleep or questioning life choices about why you are awake this early. As if he shouldn't apply that to himself. He sent that email an hour ago, when it was four thirty in the morning."

"Have you slept at all?" asked Gendry. At least he had slept.

"Nope. I'll sleep tonight. I only fall asleep if I wipe myself out, and by the time I get home tonight, I should be ready to sleep about twelve hours, which will have me up and ready for tomorrow afternoon's lecture without any trouble."

"This doesn't seem healthy," commented Gendry.

"I'm not a healthy person," smiled Sansa. Gendry hoped she was joking. "It'll be fine. I've done this before. Do it pretty regularly, actually." She frowned briefly, then the smile was back in place.

Gendry could see from the smile that it was a well-practiced one—the kind that Sansa had undoubtedly used thousands of time to stun people with her beauty, so that they would forget whatever was troubling them. The movement was the same, the composition perfectly prepared, but the life behind it was low.

Maybe she was just tired.

"Why are you so worried about a reading response? They usually aren't worth too much, are they?"

Sansa chuckled darkly. "Not for this class. They are the only way you're graded in the seminar—apart from participation. Each one isn't worth very much, but a shitty paper can devastate your final grade."

"That's odd."

"It's an odd class. It's the only seminar I've ever taken that doesn't have a final paper. Lannister said his goal was that by the end, the term's reading responses would be about as long as a final paper—if not longer." She shrugged and settled back in her chair.

Gendry returned to his unbelievably dry reading.

"Gendry, stop falling asleep," came Sansa's voice after an hour.

"Thanks," mumbled Gendry.

"It must be really dry stuff if you are falling asleep after that coffee."

"Yeah, just don't tell Arya," he mumbled.

"What's this? Anthropology isn't the most interesting subject in the world?" teased Sansa.

"Oh, it's very interesting. This," he gestured in disgust at his book, "is the driest pile if shit I have ever read."

"That's fortunate," chuckled Sansa.

Gendry rolled his eyes and checked his watch. He sighed and turned back to his reading.

Then Sansa laughed again, "Another email from Lannister. Dear Sansa, Forgive the snippiness in my last email. Apparently I should not write emails while both tired and drunk. Best, TL."

"Good ol' TL."

"Why do professors always sign emails with their initials? It's really hard to tell how to address them when you write them."

"They do it on purpose. They like watching you squirm. Probably took seminars on it in grad school. I'm surprised I haven't seen one in the course listings."

"What are you lot doing here so early?" demanded Arya. Gendry and Sansa looked up. Arya was covered in sweat and appeared to have been running.

"Coffee," said Gendry at the same time that Sansa said "Work."

"We just happened to bump into each other. It's a coincidence," supplied Sansa.

"Why didn't you invite me? I have birds to read about you know." Her hands were on her hips, making the fabric of her sweatshirt clutch to her frame, and Gendry couldn't help but notice that she looked much less like a little girl when you could see the curve between her shoulder and waist. It was a more womanly frame, even if it was a different kind of womanly frame than the ones he was used to seeing.

"It's not an invitation thing. It's an I-fell-asleep-doing-homework thing," replied Gendry.

"Besides, don't you usually jog or weight lift for fencing in the morning?" asked Sansa.

Arya rolled her eyes, but did not reply. She looked over Sansa's shoulder.

"Why are you getting late-night drunk emails from your professor?"

"He seems not to sleep either. But instead of tea, he drinks alcohol."

"Fair enough. I'm headed home. See you both later."

And she was gone. Gendry watched her out the window. She was jogging, her legs lifting higher than he would have imagined, and he did his best not to look at her rear as she disappeared.