A/N – Two updates within in a week! At this rate, maybe I'll finish the story before Winds of Winters comes out (haha jokes – if I don't finish it by then, you all have permission to send as much hate mail as you want).
Again, I'm sure there are typos in here. Let me know if any of them are jarring or not. I'm a lazy proofreader when I write fic because I do it to relax.
This is an Arya x Gendry chapter. Enjoy!
Arya wakes up curled against Gendry's bare chest. She keeps her eyes closed, snuggling into his warmth. His steady breathing relaxes her. Soothes her. It's so different from everything else in her life – faced-paced racing, risky blackmail, lying to her family.
She opens her eyes, soaking in his exposed skin, the sharp lines that lead down to his sweatpants. Her fingers slowly trace a line from just beneath his bellybutton up to the crook of his neck. His breathing changes, just barely, and he shifts in his sleep. Arya leans forward and plants a warm kiss against the side of his neck and then nuzzles herself closer against him for just a second more before prying herself out of the warmth of the bed.
Her clothes are scattered all over the floor. They had sex at his office last night, and when they came back to his apartment to sleep, they had sex again, just as frantic and desperate as the previous time. She likes gripping onto the hard planes of his body, threading her fingers through his hair, clutching and tugging. He's always so stable. If she presses against him, even pushes him, he pushes right back so that they're always at an equilibrium.
Arya picks through the clothing, slipping on her jeans without underwear because she doesn't have a clean pair hanging around. She throws back on the same bra and shirt from yesterday and finds her shoes tossed in the corner of the room. As she turns to leave, Gendry shifts once more in the bed, barely cracking his eyes, peering at her in the early morning light.
"Get back here," he says. His low voiced, graveled with sleep, tugs at Arya. The same desire as always reemerges, and as always, it's stronger than ever.
She chews her lip and pulls her eyes away from his bare torso. "I can't," she says. "Go back to sleep. I'll see you later."
"Where're you going?"
"Just a few errands. I'll be back soon," she says.
Gendry's eyes harden, just slightly, but it's enough to tighten her stomach with tension. She can't keep evading him like this – not necessarily lying – but not telling him the truth either. It's wrong. He trusts her with everything, and she leaves him with nothing.
"We'll talk tonight, okay?" She asks. "I'll make dinner, and we'll talk."
"You don't cook."
"Right, well, I'll buy us dinner, and we'll talk."
He lets out a quick sigh, but she can feel him relenting, like he always does, stretching further and further for what she wants.
"Fine," he says. "Tonight."
Sansa won't pick up her cell phone, and she's not at her apartment. Arya's nerves twist with anxiety. It's barely eight in the morning. Where else would Sansa be at this time of day?
Joffrey didn't leave the race in a good mood last night, and Arya has a terrible feeling that he took that anger out on Sansa. She's been taking those stupid fighting lessons with Sandor, but have they really made her stronger than Joffrey and his fist of expensive rings? Arya picks up her motel phone and calls Sansa again. The phone rings and rings until it hits voicemail.
Arya leaves a quick message, "Hey, it's me. Just trying to get in touch after last night. My cell phone was, ah, broken by a certain blonde prick. Um, I guess you can call me back at this number."
She's rarely at the motel, but it's a better option than giving her Gendry's number and having them talk to each other without Arya's knowledge. Arya hangs up the phone and drums her fingers nervously against the bedside table. Nymeria whines from her corner on the bed, stands up, and lumbers over to Arya.
"Hey, girl," Arya says, nuzzling her face into Nymeria's soft fur, breathing deeply. Nymeria gives her a wet lick across the cheek and then barks twice. "I'll bet you're bored," Arya says. "I'm sorry I've been so busy."
She glances at the silent phone and realizes she can't sit in the motel room waiting all day. Waiting isn't her style. "Come on," Arya tells Nymeria. "Let's go visit a friend."
"You could've called ahead of time," Jon says when he opens the door.
Ghost bolts outside, and he and Nymeria immediately head for the small patch of woods surrounding Jon's apartment complex.
"Sorry," Arya says. Jon's wearing boxers and a days-old beard. "I guess I forgot how early it is. I've been up for awhile."
"And I just got to sleep a couple hours ago," Jon says, but he opens the door wider and lets Arya inside.
"What were you doing up so late?"
"Practicing. I like the roads empty and dark. Have you ever shut off your headlights and driven by the moon?"
"No, but next time I want to die in a fatal car crash, I'll give it a try."
"Funny," Jon says. "Moon's bright enough if you drive far out. And the roads are empty for miles."
"Sounds nice," Arya says, only half-listening. "Look, have you heard from Sansa?"
Jon sits down on the couch, and Arya sits on the opposite end. She tucks her knees under her chin and wraps her arms around her legs.
"Sansa?" Jon asks. "No, we never talk. You know that."
"Oh," Arya says. "Okay."
Jon's eyes narrow. He scratches his scraggly beard. "Why? What's wrong?"
"Well, you know all that stuff we were talking about earlier? With Sansa, and Joffrey, and –"
"The blackmailing of our entire family. Yeah, didn't exactly slip my mind, Arya."
It's becoming obvious that sarcasm ran in the family. "Yeah, well, last night Sansa was, well, let's just say she was breaking back into Baratheon Corporations to return a file she had previously stolen that contained incriminating information on the Baratheons."
Jon shifts in his seat, clears his throat, and says, "Go on."
"And let's just say I was racing Sandor last night to distract Joffrey from figuring anything out, and let's just say I won that race and Joffrey was pissed, and he broke my cell phone, and I haven't been able to get in touch with Sansa since then."
"That's a lot of hypothetical," Jon says.
Arya scratches behind her ear. "So what should we do?"
"We?"
"Jon, I thought we talked about this earlier. I know, I realize, look, I'm sorry about what happened between you and mom. Okay? It sucks. It's not fair. But don't let that stop you from having a relationship with the rest of your family. This is your sister. Sansa is your sister. I know you two never got along, even before Bran, but she's your sister, and she could be in trouble."
Jon's eyes darken, and for a second, Arya thinks he's going to scream and tell her to get the hell out of the apartment. But instead, in a guarded voice, he says, "Fine. What can I do?"
"I have an idea," Arya says. "Now just hear me out."
It takes awhile to persuade him, but finally Arya persuades Jon to call up Joffrey and ask for an impromptu race. "It'll be perfect," Arya says. "I'll swing by his place while he's gone and check for Sansa. And while you're with him, you can casually ask where she is or something." Jon looks a little sick at the prospect, but Arya just slaps him on the back and says, "You're smart. You'll figure something out."
She waits half an hour to drive by Joffrey's, just to be on the safe side. But when she arrives, the apartment looks dark and empty. She knocks twice just to be sure, but no one is home.
"Damn," Arya mutters, not knowing if this is good news or bad news.
She drives by Sansa's place one more time, but she still isn't home. So next she swings by Wal-Mart to pick up a new phone, choosing the cheapest model possible. She might have made a pretty sum of money last night, but it isn't going to last her long now that she's kicked off of the circuit.
As soon as she connects the phone, she calls Jon's number. "Any luck?" She asks.
He whispers, "Still with him, and no. Hasn't seen her for a day." The line immediately clicks silent.
Arya tries Sansa's number again, knowing it'll only go to voicemail, but shockingly, on the third ring, she picks up.
"Hello?" She asks. Her voice sounds coated with sleep even though it's now well into the afternoon.
"Sansa!" Arya says. "It's me, Arya. New phone. Are you okay?"
"Yeah," Sansa says. "Look, can I call you later? We need to talk, but—"
"Where are you?"
There's some muffled shuffling in the background. "Look, I can't really talk right now, I'm at—"
Arya can hear a distinctly male voice in the background. She tenses, anger creeping in on her. "Sansa," she says slowly, "Have you been ignoring me all day because you had a fucking booty call last night? Where are you? Who is it? Don't you realize that—"
"Look, Arya, I have to go. Meet me tomorrow morning at my place."
And then she was gone, the line silent.
"Fucking hell," Arya mutters. "I hate sisters."
Arya picks up Chinese take-out and heads back to Gendry's apartment. The entire day seems like a giant blur, and somehow the sun is already dipping beneath the horizon. He opens the door on the first knock, still wearing his sweatpants from that morning.
"Wasn't sure you were coming," he says, walking back into the apartment, leaving her to trail behind him.
"Did you stay here all day?"
"Worked from home."
Arya doesn't see how that's possible considering Gendry's a mechanic and can't store any cars in his tiny apartment, but she let's the comment slide. "Here," she says, offering him the bags which contain enough food for six people. "Hope you're hungry."
She grabs plates, and they sit at the table, silently swirling around untouched food. This is why relationships suck, Arya thinks. I have this incredibly stressful day, and now, instead of relaxing with a nice round or two of sex, I have to deal with his emotions too.
Of course she'd never say that out loud. It'd make her sound like a monster. But it's the truth, and lying about it only seems to make it harder.
Arya finally puts down her chopsticks and says, "Look. I haven't been entirely honest with you."
"No shit," Gendry says. His blue eyes are hard as steel, missing the warm teasing she's so used to.
"But it's not my fault," Arya says, stumbling over her words. "Okay, it's partially my fault, but not all secrets are my secrets to tell, you get that, right? And it's hard looking out for everyone at the same time, and I'm just trying to do the right thing here."
Gendry stays silent, arms crossed, waiting for her to continue. Arya chews her lip, weighing her options. She should speak to Sansa first before spilling all their secrets, but at the same time, Gendry already knows so much. How could filling him in on the rest of it hurt in any way? She glances at his cold eyes. She has a feeling if she doesn't tell him now, he won't be around to listen tomorrow.
"Okay," she says finally, taking a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I wish I could have told you all this earlier, but like I said, it's complicated, but...but you're Gendry, and I'm Arya, and I can trust you."
It comes out more like a question than the statement she had meant, but she blunders on anyways, telling him everything, rehashing the blackmail of her father all the way up to stealing the incriminating file of the Baratheons and replacing it last night, even the strange way Sansa had been acting today.
Half-way through her speech, she stands up and starts pacing the room, and Gendry follows her with his eyes, silent, but receptive. When she finally finishes, she's short of breath, and part of her thinks she's going to puke. This is it, she thinks. It's too much. I've piled on too much, and now we're over, and I should be thankful for it.
Gendry stands up slowly and walks towards her, his eyes unreadable. He stops moving when they're only a few inches apart.
"I—" Arya starts to say.
But Gendry cuts her off and says, "Shut up." He takes another step forward so that she can feel the heat of his body radiating towards her, and then he says, "You're Arya, and I'm Gendry. And you can trust me."
And then they're suddenly reaching for each other, lips desperate, kissing, long, deep kisses, tongues warm and sweeping between each other's pliable lips, arms wrapped tightly around each other so that they can feel each other's heartbeats synching in time.
Gendry's lips are warm and sweet, better than anything Arya has ever felt before, and she can't imagine anything better than standing there, clinging to his body, kissing him, finally knowing that she trusts him, that she—
"What is it?" Gendry asks as she pulls away. His lips are flushed, and his eyes are once again warm.
"I—" The words are on the tip of her tongue, but she can't say them. She knows they're true. Looking into his eyes, she knows they're more true, more real, than anything else in her life. But she can't say them. Admitting it would almost be like breaking off a part of herself, stripping off another shred of her independence. "Nothing," she finally says. Her fingers toy with the band of his sweatpants. "Let's go to your room," she says. "Or the couch. Or the table."
Gendry grins, and it's a wicked grin that helps wash away some of Arya's misgivings, and definitely peaks her desire. He steps forward, pressing her backwards, warm hands tracing her bottom through her jeans, pushing her back until she hits the edge of the -
"Table," Gendry says. "Definitely table." He presses kisses against her neck, her collarbone, her ear, and then he suddenly growls, "Take off your pants."
She does so immediately, fumbling with the button for only a second before stripping and tossing them to the ground. Her shirt follows. His sweatpants. Her bra. His boxers. And then his large hands wrap around her naked bottom, and he lifts her on top of the table.
His erection is pressing against her thigh, and she feels desperate for him, as if being with him will fix everything. "I need you," she says, "Now."
Their lips clash together as he pushes inside of her again and again. She doesn't bother keeping quiet. Each time Gendry shouts her name, it builds her arousal, and she knows it does the same for him. The table shakes beneath them, but Arya doesn't give a shit if it breaks. Right now she doesn't care about anything except for this wonderful feeling.
They're bodies are slick with sweat, and her fingers keep slipping, trying to find something firm to clasp onto, fingernails scratching down his back as he moves within her. It's rough and fast. Not at all like their first time, but just how she likes it, and she can feel her orgasm peaking quickly.
"Almost there," she says, her voice coming out low and panting. "Almost—"
Gendry cuts her off, crashing his lips against hers, pumping into her one last time as they come together. He shudders, and his body collapses over hers, damp cheek against her own.
He angles his head so that he can place a few chaste kisses against her moist skin. They stay like that, arms wrapped around each other, bodies spent, exhausted, breathing slowly together.
A/N – Things are going to be heating up soon as all of these plots start piling on, so get ready for it. A lot of you had guesses for who wrote the note Sansa found, but (evil laugh), you'll have to wait and see.
As always, thank you for reading and reviewing! Sansa chapter next? Or Arya? Any preferences?