Christmas/winter fic part 4. A bit of a filler chapter to get the party to land on Gendry and Arya in that order. Or… whatever. Regardless, it’s here.
Arya watched Gendry drive away into the snow, and she breathed lowly, a sigh of relief and frustration at the sudden lack of him. He was not much, a mechanic with a low voice and stubborn attitude. But he was him.
She moved further into her home, a large mansion. The Starks had done well for themselves over generations, and Arya knew that she was lucky. Complaining about it was not something she tended to do, even when the society around her frustrated her to no end, every individual piece of expectation. Rickon waved from the top steps where he sat with Shaggydog, and Arya waved back, smiling to her younger brother, who appeared to be doing little than just sitting at the top of the steps, surely a nuisance for any who wished to ascend or descend. Arya slinked around the corner into the kitchen, which connected to the dining room. Sitting at that table were Sansa, Theon and Robb, chatting, smiling, laughing.
“Arya! Have you heard…” Sansa began but Arya waved her off, rolling her eyes.
“Of course. Cersei stopped by to invite Gendry, and I was there too, probably because I work there.” Arya countered immediately.
“Not what I meant, though glad you know about that too,” Sansa said with a knowing smile. Arya raised an eyebrow, desperately curious immediately why whatever piece of gossip Sansa had happened upon would be something Arya cared about. Her sister knew her well enough that Arya didn’t care for most simple updates about Freys or Tyrells. Robb waved to Arya and her eyes darted to the motion, and the gleaming ring around his finger.
~
Arya laid in her bed, music blasting. She wasn’t upset by the news. That was not the right way to quantify her feelings about Robb’s engagement to Jeyne. It was obvious that he would become so. He loved her. It was obvious to any looking upon them, even briefly. It was just… Arya felt immediately pressured. The world was changing. She wasn’t a child anymore, even though she pretended as much. Robb had his place in the company, making his own money, falling in love, marrying, starting a family. Arya was fooling around in a mechanic’s shop. Cersei’s words hadn’t meant anything really, they were just to antagonize her, but they were true. Arya had passed her semester, and done so without any close calls, but she wasn’t putting any effort into it. She wasn’t trying to make her life into one that meant anything, one that would bring her true joy, fulfillment. One that would change this world into one she was proud to live in.
She was putting things off. Robb’s engagement brought that into focus. Things wouldn’t stay the same anymore, regardless of if she was ready or not. She would need to… do something. And soon. She wasn’t a child, despite wanting to lose herself in the snow piles outside. She was a young woman, pursuing a career in engineering, who needed to grow up. Arya bit her bottom lip. These seemed like negative thoughts, but they weren’t. They all had a limited time on this damned planet, and Arya needed to spend most of it being fulfilled. So she would.
Time to grow up Arya.
Arya shut off the music, and the lights, and went to bed.
~
At a time indeterminate, for it was beyond the time that mortals stirred, her phone buzzed on her wooden bedside table. She groaned, not knowing why a single buzz had awoke her, but moved to check it anyway.
When the screen glowed in her squinting eyes, she realized why she was awake. It wasn’t one buzz. It was quite a lot. She flicked through her notifications, and it was clear what was going on. Gendry was drunk texting her. A frequent enough occasion. It was clear that he was drunk because he started his monologuing with a classy “im shitfaced”. It only continued. Arya smiled slightly as he complained about nearly everything, how warm he felt, how cold it was outside, how much he hated Cersei.
She should have anticipated this. Drunk Gendry loved to use Arya as an outlet. Drunk Gendry was rather talkative, so different from Sober Gendry. It was fun though. About half way down though, he switched. To declarations of her beauty. Weird, but not exactly the strangest. This had happened before.
“I miss u”
“I love u”
Arya breathed through her nose, blinking more of the sleep from her eyes. Her heart pounded, though she kept her brain functioning logically, easy because she wasn’t drunk.
“I just saw you. And you’re drunk.” She countered, keeping her texts grammatically stable. Hopefully it would help.
“So?”
“You’re not thinking straight. Go to bed, it’s the witching hour.” Arya watched the three dots flicker as Gendry typed something. Then she snorted as it popped up.
“Ive never been more straight” And next.
“But good night I think your right abt sleep.” Arya watched the screen glow for a while longer, wondering if he was in fact asleep, or just trying to head to bed. This made sense. He’d been through the ringer today when Cersei had ambushed them. Arya’s eyes flicked to the window. And he was right, it was cold outside. And she had been cute today. He had every right to complain. Arya breathed, looking back to the cold light of her phone screen. He was drunk. Grow up Arya.
“Good night drunk Gendry” And she turned off the phone, and turned over, to fall back asleep.