promise pt.1
I really can’t believe how well my last gendrya was received. Honestly, I’m not totally sure how tumblr really works even after having it a couple of years, but I have this other story I’ve started based on this text post I found, I’m sorry to say I didn’t save it because I never thought I would actually be posting stories on here so I didn’t think I would need it, but it was basically a prompt about how Arya and Gendry making a pact to lose their virginities together. I started writing this with the intention for it to be very short and very sweet, but it has turned into something much longer and more involved than I thought it would, so I thought I’d be posting different parts one of at a time and see how it goes. Sorry if this whole preface ruined it, but I also just wanted to thank everyone for all the kind words and reblogs, the positive feedback was so overwhelming and unexpected, and I’m not sure if it was even that big of a deal in the world of tumblr but it was a pretty big deal for me. So, thank you so much, and here’s a part one that I may be continuing if things continue to go as well. Okay, I’m done talking, sorry lol
Arya and Gendry had grown up making each other promises.
The first was made when Arya was seven, Gendry nine, and he had began getting closer with all of her brothers. Before this Gendry had always been hers. Gendry got nervous around the other boys, he felt inferior to them since they had always been together and had always been in the same family. Gendry had only moved in with his father three years before then, and still felt like an outsider, no matter how hard Robert tried to make him apart of everyone’s family.
Arya didn’t make him uncomfortable though. It was probably because she was younger and she was a girl and in some ways didn’t fit in quite the same either. It wasn’t any where near Gendry’s level of isolation, even if it was self inflicted partially, but she didn’t like the things her sister liked so they never got on very well, and while her brother’s never minded Arya joining in on their games, their mother did. Cat had always been more on the old fashioned side and letting her youngest daughter play outside and climb up trees and roofs or join her older brother’s boxing lessons was too stressful for her to handle. So, Arya was always caught in a middle place, and that was where she met Gendry. On equal footing.
Jon joined them often but he was also very close with Rob, so Arya wasn’t threatened at first. It wasn’t until Rob began noticing Gendry was just as capable at throwing a ball about and punching stupid boxing bags when Arya started worrying. Once Gendry was accepted with the boys what would he need Arya for? Once he was involved in the family fully, there would be nothing tying them together and Arya would be left alone.
She knew she had to act quick before too much damage was done.
Sitting him down Arya fixed him with the most serious of looks she could make as she stuck her pinky out. “You have to promise that you’ll always like me better than them,” She told him in the most mother like voice she’s ever made.
Gendry raised an eyebrow at her, “Better than who?”
“You know damn well who I’m talking about stupid. But I always have to be your favorite, promise me,”
Gendry rolled his eyes but hooked his pinky with hers all the same.
The next real promise was made when Arya was ten. There had been lots of tiny promises here and there on both their ends. Arya promised not to tell his brother where he kept his secret stuff and Gendry promised not to let Arya win anything, he always had to try and beat her fair and square.
Arya had been listening in on her parent’s conversations for years. It was through listening to their concerns and secret opinions she managed to get anything she really wanted. Like finally getting a turn in boxing lessons and archery, it was how she managed to wiggle her way out of etiquette classes. She had also come across ballet through this method, as a sort of compromise between her and her mother. Arya had went in determined not to enjoy herself, and then found herself thinking about applying to different dance academies her senior year.
She was sat high on the staircase, snacking on a cookie mother was supposed to be saving for Sansa’s class the next after noon, expecting them to complain about Rob’s new girlfriend, once again. But that wasn’t the relationship they were worrying about.
“It won’t be long until he starts to look at her. Maybe even the other way around, he’s already taller than any twelve-year-old boy I’d ever seen,”
“He’ll probably stop soon, at least. I’d think he would…”
“Ned, he’ll be noticing girls any moment now. Sansa has already started asking questions about Joffrey,” she was interrupted by Ned’s scoff. “Well, which one would you rather have pursuing her? Joffrey or Gendry?”
“Tommen would probably be best,” Ned answered and Cat giggled in response.
Arya set her cookie aside, suddenly feeling uneasy. Gendry noticing girls? What for? Sansa talking about boys? What was there to talk about? Her and Gendry never had much to do with one another before. They were polite enough and walked home from school together sometimes, but Gendry was Arya’s friend. It was one thing being friends with the boys, but he couldn’t have both of the girls, things would get too messy. Sansa accused Arya of messing with her stuff enough as it was, if Sansa suddenly started talking about Gendry…
Arya sat with this for almost a week. Considering the conversation over and over, and she never liked the conclusion she came to.
Obviously, her parents were referring to a fancy type of noticing and talking, a romantic type. Arya understood those things well enough, one time she had walked in on Rob’s hand up Talisa’s shirt. So, if Gendry and Sansa started on that road, Gendry would be sticking his hand up her sister’s shirt. She didn’t like that, she liked it even less then when Robb did it.
She mostly didn’t like what it meant for her and Gendry. With Gendry’s hand up Sansa’s shirt, surely Sansa would become his favorite. Arya wouldn’t stand a chance. And what with Gendry’s hand up Sansa’s shirt and his close friendship with Jon, again, he would have no need for Arya anymore. Arya was awfully frustrated with this, because she thought she had already taken care of that problem last year.
The way her parents talked about it made it sound like she had some time before she had to act on it though, but it was clear she was running out. She needed to know how much time there was exactly, but she couldn’t go to Gendry about it, she wasn’t stupid. So, instead she went to Jon, who was the same age as Gendry and who she knew she could say anything to.
“Jon?” he had taken to staying locked up in his room for the entire day and night and got mad when people came in without knocking. Arya forgot to knock very often, but today she made sure to. She wanted him to be in a good mood.
Jon stuffed his phone under his pillow, “What is it Arya?”
“Can I ask you something?” she asked innocently.
Jon sat up on his elbows and gave her a suspicious look. “When have you ever asked my permission before asking me something?”
Arya decided to ignore that question, “It’s just that…” she closed the door behind her and sat at the foot of his bed, “Its only…have you started noticing girls? And if not do you think you’ll start up soon? And if soon than how soon? Weeks or months? Days?”
Jon stared, wide eyed. Arya only stared back, determined for an answer. Eventually he sighed and plopped back down onto his back. “What has brought this on Arya?” he asked miserably.
Arya shrugged even though he wasn’t looking at her. “Nothing I was just wondering…”
“Are you going to let me not answer you and keep some dignity?” he asked.
“Not without a fight,” Arya answered, which really meant no, she wasn’t. And Jon knew that.
He sighed heavily again before emotionlessly saying, “Yes, I’ve noticed a thing or two about girls. Can you leave me alone now?”
Arya chewed her lip. That wasn’t good, that didn’t leave her much time at all. “Have you noticed everything about a girl or would you say you have a ways to go?”
“I’m not sure how much more there is to notice that I haven’t already gotten to,”
Arya heard in his voice that he had reached the limit of how much he was willing to share and any more information had to be drawn out through out the week, or even a month, and she didn’t have the time. At this rate, Gendry would be noticing and Sansa would be talking and Arya would never hear from him again. She didn’t bother to thank Jon as she ran out the door and bicycled her way to Gendry’s house. She climbed up to his window and knocked so she wouldn’t have to deal with Joffrey or Cersei.
Gendry’s loud, angry music blasted through Arya’s ears as he opened the window for her.
“I was about to come over,” Gendry told her casually, snacking on an apple.
“Promise me you won’t notice Sansa,” Arya got out before she lost courage.
Gendry blinked at her, “What?”
“Promise me you won’t notice Sansa and put your hand up her shirt,” she clarified, her pinky out and ready.
Gendry almost dropped his apple, “Put my hand where?”
“I know you’ve already started noticing girls, and I know Sansa’s the prettiest one, but you can’t notice her, okay? Promise me,” she thrusted her pinky in his face.
Gendry’s face was now just as red as the apple he was eating. “I-I…honestly Arya what makes you think—”
“Are you going to promise or not?!” Arya didn’t like that he didn’t agree to this immediately. Maybe she had been too late, maybe he’d already noticed all there was to notice like Jon had.
Gendry was stiff a moment, looking to her pinky then to Arya and she was sure in that moment that he had noticed Sansa at least a little bit. But in the next moment she saw him let it go and hook his pinky with hers. Gendry had picked Arya and it almost made Arya cry. Arya cheered, wrapping her arms tight around his neck. “Thank you,” she said.
“Yeah okay,” Gendry grumbled, patting her back.
It wasn’t long after that, a few months really, the next big promise was made. It came the day after Arya had her first lesson on the birds and the bee’s. She wasn’t meant to receive this lesson, but she often snuck herself into the bigger kids’ classes so she could go back to her own and pretend she already knew everything they were talking about. She had come home that day with lots of questions regarding the video they had watched.
Her mother couldn’t stop her voice from getting too high and her father kept stuttering so she turned to her oldest brother Rob. She would’ve gone to Jon, but she already made him uncomfortable with the ‘noticing girls’ thing and, if she was being completely honest, she doubted he knew much more about it than she did.
“Rob,” she said while he was doing his homework. “Can you tell me about sex but be honest about it?”
Rob threw his head back and let out the longest, most miserable, tortured groan Arya had ever heard. When he was done he just sat like that, his head back, staring at the ceiling. Arya got the idea he thought if he didn’t move long enough she’d forget about it and walk away. But she didn’t. She could wait him out, she didn’t have any homework to do anyway.
Eventually she won and Rob told her to sit down.
“Listen, I’m gonna cut to the chase about it, but I’m not going to give you details. I’m gonna tell you the basics and nothing more, and there’s nothing you can say or do that’ll make me give you more, you got that?” he got that serious determined look Arya often copied so she nodded. Secretly she figured she’d give it a day or two before trying him again if she had any more questions, which she probably would. “Okay, so…” Rob suddenly didn’t seem too confident as he looked at Arya’s eager, curious face. He groaned again, rubbing his forehead before he pointed his finger at her ambitiously, “So,” he started again, voice stronger, “there’s a girl and there’s a guy, usually—”
“Usually?”
“Hey! What did I say?” Robb raised an eyebrow and Arya rolled her lips together. Robb made sure she was gonna stay quiet before starting again, “There’s a girl and a guy, a much older girl and guy, like ten to twenty years older, and only if they love and trust each other very much, and they come to the mutual decision to have sex. That means, both of you, especially you Arya, will agree to have to sex. You have to be very, very, very, very sure you 1.) want to have sex, and 2.) want to have sex with that person, I can’t stress that enough. Do you understand that?” he looked at her and Arya nodded. “And once you two have talked about it, thought it over, and have come to the decision you want to have sex you…” Rob’s voice got wobbly again and he had to clear his throat, “Well you…uh…okay, so uh…” he closed his eyes and tilted his head to the side. Arya rolled her eyes. “gods, I can’t do this,” Rob shook his head and turned back to his homework.
“Hey!” Arya grabbed his sleeve, “You can’t do that!”
“I said I’d give you the basic information, and that’s as basic as it gets. Sex is with someone you love and trust, and that’s all you need to know,” he said in the voice that meant he wasn’t going to talk no matter what Arya did. At least, not today, she could try again tomorrow if she wanted, but it honestly seemed like a lot of work if that’s all the information she was going to be getting per conversation. She knocked his text book off the table before stomping away,
Just like she did before her last promise, Arya sat with the information she had for a while. Sex, whatever it was, should only happen with someone she loved and trusted and should happen in ten to twenty years which, at ten, was almost the same thing as it was never going to happen.
All those things together made it almost obvious on what was to be done next.
The next time Gendry was over, right before they started playing video games, Arya stuck her pinky out.
“What the hell Arya, what is it now?” he asked her, frustrated. Arya was suspicious he was still a little bitter about her making him promise not to notice Sansa.
“Promise me that the first time we have sex, it’ll be together,” Arya said unashamedly. There’s no one else in the world Arya trusted or loved more than Gendry, other than her family and while Arya didn’t know much about it, she knew sex wasn’t meant for family.
Gendry’s jaw dropped the widest Arya had ever seen it. “Arya!”
“What?” she frowned. “I love you and trust you, that’s what you need to have sex with someone.”
“Well yeah, but—”
“You don’t love me?” Arya asked, suddenly feeling very sad, “You don’t trust me?”
“It’s not that! You’re ten years old, I’m older than you—”
“Not now, obviously, sex doesn’t happen for another ten to twenty years, I’m not stupid!”
“Arya, you don’t get it—”
“Sex is for people who love and trust each other,” Arya felt like she was close to tears. She didn’t think this promise would be a big deal at all, she thought it made the most sense in the world. “Why are we even friends if you don’t love or trust me?”
Gendry ran a very stressed hand through his hair, “Arya that’s not all there is to it—”
“Well, what else is there?” she was quick to ask. When Gendry struggled to answer she took that as a sign he was lying and didn’t actually love and trust her. Maybe he wanted to have sex with Sansa first, and was mad at Arya for stopping that. “Fine, if you want to notice Sansa so bad go ahead and notice her. I never cared anyway. You can play video games with her for all I care,” Arya left so she could beat Sansa’s old stuffed animals with a stick.
She barely talked to him for a week. He tried, he knocked at her window, he walked her to school, he waited outside of her class, but if he didn’t immediately promise her what she wanted she ignored him.
“You’re a kid, Arya! I’m not trying to be a creep,” he said from outside her window. Arya turned her music up. “Oh come on, how long are you going to pout?”
Arya didn’t answer, he knew exactly how long she was going to pout.
“Fuck you Arya!” he hit at her window before leaving.
He stopped trying to make up for two days. Instead he hung out with her brothers in a very obvious and obnoxious kind of way, but it didn’t bother Arya. She knew Gendry and she knew he could never hold out as long as she could. No one could.
Eventually, while she was eating her cereal, Gendry angrily took a seat next to her.
She took a bite, looked at him.
He set his jaw, looked at her.
Then he stuck out his pinky.