Archive of Our Own

“I know it was just my turn, but I don’t care. I’m in charge tonight,” Arya demanded, glaring up at Gendry from her stance on his welcome mat.

“Hello to you, too.”

He stepped aside to let her into the apartment, as she brushed past him and dropped her gym bag and shoes haphazardly in her path, finally reaching his couch and plopping down with a long exhale. He’d imagined that command from his best friend many, many times before. When she said those words in his head, she was always much less angry and much less clothed.

This did not seem like the time to entertain that fantasy.

“Ned is cancelled.”

He didn’t even try to conceal his sigh of relief, as he made his way to the fridge. Arya hadn’t asked for a beer, but she didn’t need to. “Oh, thank the fucking seven. What did he do?”

“You mean ‘who.’”

A pang of guilt flared in Gendry’s chest, stopping him dead in his tracks. He paused for a beat, closing his eyes tightly and leaning his forearm on the wall in the kitchen. He tried to mentally run through all of the reasons that storming out and beating the living shit out of Ned Dayne would not do either of them any good. Admittedly, he was drawing a blank, but he knew Arya well enough to know that Ned was probably already scared for his life.

“Shit, Arya. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she responded plainly, kicking her feet up onto his coffee table and accepting the bottle he handed her. “You were spot on about him. At least I only wasted a few months this time.”

He stared at her as she took a long swig. They’d been here more times than he could count in the past fifteen years. Rejections from primary school crushes had morphed into the ends of several long-term relationships over the course of their friendship, and they always wound up in the same spot. Side by side, on the couch, back to square one. This one was nothing they hadn’t tackled before. They’d both been cheated on.

But each post-mortem got steadily more difficult, as Gendry Waters fell more in love with Arya Stark. He always did as well as he could to forget that bit, until they were back in this position. Something about the ‘vulnerability of a breakup bringing up deep-seated emotions,’ or whatever. Something about one of them, usually her, being newly available. It only served to remind him that they’d never even been in the position to break up in the first place. Because they’d never been together. He sighed to himself. It was a whole cycle.

“Are you ok?” he asked tentatively, propping his feet up alongside hers. She would insist that she was fine - he knew that. She’d probably already released most of her aggression during her training sessions that afternoon. But he couldn’t not ask.

“I’m fine. Just pissed at myself.”

He raised an eyebrow. That, he wasn’t expecting.

“No, no, not like that,” she corrected. “I know this isn’t my fault. I just…” She took a deep breath. “I knew this would happen.”

“You knew he’d sleep with someone else?”

“I knew it wouldn’t work out,” she amended, shifting slightly, so she faced him. “Just had a feeling. And I should’ve trusted it.”

“Why didn’t you?” he asked, confused. He had never known the woman next to him to not trust her instincts.

Arya leaned back and eyed him curiously, before looking down at her beer. She took another long sip. 

“Don’t know,” she finally said with a shrug. She appeared to have had an entire conversation with herself, to which he was not privy, in the span of about fifteen seconds. He was used to that, too. “But let’s forget it. It’s Friday.”

And, no matter what, Friday nights belonged to them. They always had. When they were eleven and fifteen, it was video games in the sprawling living room at Winterfell, after her brothers had gone to sleep. When they were fourteen and eighteen, it was Gendry sneaking Arya into high school parties, getting pissed on really cheap liquor, and taking long walks until they were sober enough to go home. When they were seventeen and twenty-one, she had temporarily dubbed Fridays, “Gendry Pays Attention to Arya Day.” That was the year that he picked up a second job and had even less time to see her between university classes. Now, at twenty-five and twenty-nine, Friday nights looked a lot like this. Convening in his tiny one-bedroom flat in Storm’s End, two blocks from the loft she shared with Shireen, taking turns deciding what to do.  

“It’s Friday,” he repeated, opting not to press her on her feelings. Maybe they’d get to those later. Maybe not. But right now, she seemed determined to move on with the night, and Gendry would be damned if he didn’t comply. “What’s on the docket, then?”

“Oh,” Arya chuckled, a glint in her eye. “I’m so glad you asked.”

“Please don’t say what I think you’re gonna say.”

Her face twisted into mock despair. “Gods, Gendry, it was so awful. I mean, first I find out he fucked the other trainer at the gym, and then I learn he sent photos of his-“

“Fuck, alright!” he cut her off. “You pull it up. I’ll get us refills.” He waited for her to down the rest of her beer, before grabbing their empty bottles and heading back toward the kitchen. He rolled his eyes at the sound of Arya giddily loading up his DVD player. Two fresh drinks in hand, he reentered the living room and saw the television screen conveniently paused on a close-up shot of his prepubescent face. Drinking games were a common fixture on Friday nights, but the one where they cringe-drank to the recording of Gendry and Jon’s eighth grade play was reserved for special occasions.

“Would it be too much to ask for a live reenactment of my favorite scene?” she asked, as he returned to his seat next to her. He didn’t think twice when she leaned against the armrest and threw her legs over his lap, but he did stop breathing for a half-second.

“Yes, Arya, it would be too much,” he grumbled.

“Can I ask again after you’ve had a few more drinks?”

“You’re insufferable. Do you know that?” he grumbled, already aware that in about an hour, he’d be on his feet performing the entire musical number from memory. He could practically hear Tom and Anguy, Shireen, his own mother in his head telling him he was whipped, a label that he wholeheartedly resented. He preferred loyal. And it’s not like if the roles were reversed Arya wouldn’t be bowing to his every whim. And this was the same exact sequence of thoughts he had every single time he tried to convince himself he wasn’t-

“Love you.”

-whipped. He was whipped.

____

Two hours and several renditions of ‘Kingslayer’ later - it was a pretty gruesome production for a crew of thirteen-year-olds to put on, in retrospect - Arya and Gendry found themselves on the streets of Storm’s End, in desperate need of dessert. Regardless of how they spent their Friday nights, the evenings usually ended like this, and Gendry was pretty sure they had patronized every confectionery in the bloody city. Tonight, she was a bit more buzzed than he was - a status that she had rightfully earned, he decided. So, he was startled, to say the least, when she yanked his arm in the opposite direction from where he was leading them.

“Arya, the bakery’s this way.”

“Not going to the bakery.”

“The only place up this street is that dump with the shitty lemon cakes, remember?”

She huffed and continued to drag him behind her. “We can go to the bakery after this. I promise.”

“What’s ‘this,’ exactly?” he asked, feeling more like he should just hoist her up and redirect her by the second.

“I’ll know it when I see it.”

“Surprisingly, that does very little to comfort me,” he muttered sarcastically. He was about to open his mouth to argue again, when Arya stopped abruptly, causing him to nearly knock her over. He looked around from where he stood, his confusion mounting still.

“What am I missing here?”

Arya grabbed his shoulders and turned him to face the alley next to which they had halted, where he could see the dim lighting from a few seedy bars illuminating the muddy ground. At the far end, he caught the glimmer of a flickering neon sign - one shaped like an outstretched palm. They’d been at the mouth of this alley before. Suddenly, everything clicked.

“Nope. Absolutely not.”

“Gendry!” she whined. Arya didn’t whine. He...wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

“You’re drunk, and we’re not getting our fucking fortunes told. I’m not messing with that shit. Nice try, though.”

“I’m not drunk, so jot that down,” Arya slurred. “And why not? It’ll be fun.”

“I can tell you your fortune right now.” Her eyes lit up, and she squeezed his shoulders, to which he realized she was still clinging. ‘Not drunk,’ his ass.

“We’re gonna turn around, we’re gonna walk to the bakery and eat donuts in my living room, you’re gonna pop two Excedrins, and you’re gonna go to sleep on my couch.”

Normally, her expression upon being told she couldn’t do something could wipe out an army. The wide, puppy dog eyes and protruding bottom lip she gave him now were, somehow, even deadlier.

“I hate you so much,” he groaned, leaning forward to indicate his resignation.

“Like hells you do,” she grinned, looping her arm through his, seemingly more for balance than to lead him down the cobblestone path.

As always, she was right.

____

The fluorescent lighting beckoned them as they approached, and Gendry rolled his eyes at the sign in the window - Red Priestess Psychic Services. A high-pitched bell rang when Arya pushed the door open, causing a tall, slender woman with long red hair to slink toward them from behind a bookshelf.

“Good evening. The night is dark and full of terrors,” the woman said in a low voice.

“Let’s go, Arya,” Gendry reacted definitively, attempting to tug her back through the front door by her elbow. He was met with a sharp glare and a jab in the ribs.

“You’re here for clarity. For a peek behind the curtain, into the unknown,” the woman stated, moving toward Arya. She paused and shifted her eyes up to Gendry. “You’re a skeptic.”

“Very astute,” he carped.

“Come, dear,” the woman commanded softly, ignoring his remark and guiding Arya away by her shoulders. “Take a seat. I have answers.”

Against his better judgment, Gendry trailed behind the two women, as they approached a small round table at the back of the shop. A gaudy crystal ball, a deck of what looked like oversized playing cards, and a smattering of crystals were on display, prompting him to search the surrounding walls for some indication of pricing. There was no way this wasn’t a huge fucking scam.

When he couldn’t find what he was looking for, he turned his attention back to Arya, who was seated in a velvet armchair with her legs crossed underneath her like a small child. She’d always been tiny, but oversized furniture always made her extra adorable. His annoyance at her, as usual, was short-lived.

“I don’t really have specific questions,” Arya commented, seemingly unsure of what to do now that she was actually here.

The woman had reached for the deck of cards - which, from a closer vantage point, did not look like playing cards at all - and begun shuffling them methodically. She paused her routine and looked at Arya, eyes narrowed.

“I don’t require specific questions to see with the mind’s eye. I simply require an open heart.”

“And an open wallet,” Gendry mumbled under his breath. Ignoring him once again, the woman pressed on.

“Since you are a beginner in the dealings of divination, I’m going to conduct a basic tarot reading to unlock your subconscious mind.” At this, Arya turned to flash an excited smile at Gendry, who was standing behind the chair protectively. Something in his gut told him to stay away from the supernatural. He was fully prepared to call an audible if this started getting dark.

“To start, please draw a card from this spread,” the woman instructed. “It will serve as your archetype and inform the following three cards.” Arya giggled to herself and deliberated for a few beats, before reaching out and flipping the second card from the right. And, of course, it read one word: ‘Death.’

“Bloody fucking hells. Can we please leave?” Gendry practically begged.

“A common misconception,” the red-haired woman said calmly. “Death is actually a welcomed choice.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” he replied sharply. The woman raised an eyebrow before returning her gaze to Arya.

“Death simply means that a phase of your life has come to an end. A new one is coming to take its place,” she explained. “Look here. The figure on this card is riding a white horse - a symbol of purification. I’m sensing a need to put the past behind you.” The woman sat back and observed Arya quietly. “You’re scared. But you will do well to welcome this change.”

Gendry shifted his focus from the red-haired woman to his best friend, whose previous excitement seemed to have dissipated. If he had to guess, she even seemed a bit uncomfortable. Arya shifted slightly in her seat, glancing briefly over her shoulder at Gendry and giving him a feeble smile. She seemed to convey a silent apology.

“Is this more than you bargained for? Do you wanna go?” he asked quietly, wanting to tease her for getting in over her head, but wanting more than that to ensure her well-being.

She had another silent conversation in her head, looking back at the Death card and up again at his anxious face. Her confidence returned right before his eyes, and he chided himself for thinking that Arya Stark would back down from anything, ever.

“No,” she said definitively, talking to the woman, but maintaining eye contact with Gendry. “Let’s keep going.”

The rest of the reading only made him tighten his grip on the back of the armchair a few times, but something had shifted in Arya’s demeanor that caused him to keep his snide comments to himself. She had wriggled a bit more in her seat once the woman resumed, but she was now resting the back of her neck contentedly on the spot where Gendry’s hands held tightly onto the headrest. A handful of platitudes later, and the detour seemed to be over.

He’d never had to work so hard for a donut in his life.

The pair made their way toward the counter, and Arya looked up at Gendry with a glaze over her eyes, as he rifled through his wallet for a high enough bill to shove in the tip jar, so they could avoid further delay. He caught her steady gaze and smiled softly. She looked exhausted, but, gods, she was breathtaking. He had just started to think that maybe this had all been worth it after all, when their reverie was disrupted.

“One more thing,” the woman said coolly, leaning forward from behind the counter. “I’m not usually in the business of providing extra…elucidation. But I find myself intensely overpowered by the energy here.” She gestured between them and closed her eyes. Gendry looked down at Arya, who appeared just as baffled.

“A formidable thread ties the two of you together. Your connection goes back centuries.” They snorted simultaneously.

“Ha! See? Pain in my ass now, pain in my ass in a past life,” Arya snarked, lightly punching his shoulder.

“Have I ever killed her?” Gendry asked the woman sardonically, poking her side in return.

“Hardly,” the psychic replied, opening her eyes and flashing a coy smile. “Your souls are destined for one another. The fates have always seen it through.” She paused, and her smile grew immeasurably. “And your time in this life is fast approaching.”

For once, neither of them had a comeback. Gendry cleared his throat and looked at Arya, whose head was bowed intently toward the floor.

“Seven weeks. Seven signs of fate. And the threshold will be crossed.”

One million thoughts raced through Gendry’s head at the prospect of any kind of threshold being crossed with Arya, but before he could ask for clarification, the woman had disappeared, leaving the two of them in painfully awkward silence.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Arya run a hand through her hair and glance at his feet. He looked at her fully then, as her eyes crawled slowly up his figure - not suggestively, but still curiously - and stopped on his own. She laughed nervously.

“What did I tell you?” she prodded, attempting to remedy the tension. “A quick laugh. This was just what I needed.” She went to loop her arm through his, like she had countless times before, but she stopped herself. Her limb fell lamely to her side. Gendry just stared.

“Donuts, right? Then Excedrin, then sleep. Look at that, Waters. I think you’re in the wrong line of work,” she joked, before turning quickly on her heel, signaling that he should follow.

As always, in spite of himself, he did just that.

____

He definitely wasn’t keeping a vigilant eye out for these so-called signs of fate. But what could technically be considered the first of the seven was…pretty stupid.

“Gendry!” he heard Arya cackle from the living room the following Friday. “Come look at this, please. I’m fucking dying.”

He approached with their drinks, settling next to her and peering over her shoulder at the screen of her laptop.

“’Warning: If you opened this email, the spell has been cast. Forward to fifteen of your closest friends, or spend eternity with the last person you texted,’” he read aloud. He only ever texted one person.

“Very funny, Arya. I haven’t seen one of these in, like, a decade.”

“I didn’t write this!” she shrieked, wiping away tears of laughter. “It’s from Lommy. I didn’t even tell him about last week.”

“Are you gonna forward it then, or what?”

“I don’t even know fifteen people.”

“I can think of fifteen people right now that you not only know, but that also have your last name.” Arya rolled her eyes. 

“I’m not forwarding it to anyone.” She grabbed a beer off of the table in front of them and twisted the cap off, eyeing him with an unrecognizable, slightly unnerving intensity. Before he could question it, her playfulness returned, and she shrugged casually.

“Guess you’re stuck with me forever.” 

He chose to ignore the thrill incited by ‘forever.’ 

____

The second non-sign was definitely more obvious, but with a movie title like Timeless Lovers, he’s not sure what they were expecting. This wasn’t the fates’ fault. In a way, they had done this to themselves. 

They had settled on their classic double feature act that night - buying tickets for one film at the local cinema and sneaking into another when the first was over. They came out of The Long Night feeling invigorated, albeit a little miffed about some poor lighting choices. Gendry had just talked Arya down from fighting a pair of guys that were going on about the heroine being a Mary Sue - whatever it was, it seemed like the wrong assessment - when they slinked into the theater across the corridor, ten minutes into the movie. 

The protagonists were a tall, lumbering man and his much shorter, female best friend. Seemed standard enough.

~

She came from a prominent, noble family. He was a bastard. Less standard, but still cliché enough to be excused.

~

The part about the main character’s breakup with ‘Jane’ was a bit more on the nose, but Arya read his mind and leaned over to whisper in his ear.

“Don’t worry, there’s no parallel here. You were far more dramatic when this happened to you,” she remarked with a wink.

~

Only Gendry knew the significance of the heart-to-heart between the lead and his mother. The one where he poured out his soul about how hard it was to see his best friend dating yet another arrogant, self-righteous prick that her parents had set her up with.

Only Gendry should have known about the significance, anyway, but the way Arya fidgeted in her seat suggested that she noticed more than she was letting on.

~

They dropped all pretenses of nonchalance during the mutual love confessions. And one could cut the tension between them with a knife during…what happened after that.

~ 

“Do we think-“

“No! No, I mean-“ 

“Yeah.”

“She didn’t even look like me all that much. And…I don’t have a cat. So, it was all wrong.”

“Right! You’re so right.” 

____

By the third week, it was all getting a bit ridiculous.

They had gone on a light walk along their favorite trail, which opened into a public park. They had kicked the evening off a bit later than usual, on account of a mandatory Stark family dinner. Arya was wearing a skirt. The sun was setting. It definitely wasn’t romantic.

Gendry was just preparing to commend himself on only looking at Arya an appropriate and normal amount, when a man wheeling a flower cart toward them tripped over a loose stone on the pathway. Like a scene out of a damn movie - in fact, much like a scene from the movie they had pointedly avoided discussing since last week - a bouquet of roses went soaring through the air toward Arya’s face, leaving her no choice but to extend her hands to catch it.

To make matters worse, the sudden jolt made her stumble backwards, and even someone who had never seen a romantic comedy in their blessed life would’ve been able to predict where she landed.

He took a moment to recover and slow his breathing, before the symbolism dawned on him. Gendry looked down at the woman in his arms and found her eyes already studying his face. She was probably just a bit slower on the uptake, what with the near injury that just took place. That wasn’t comfort he saw in her expression. It certainly wasn’t cautious optimism or hope. It was the daze and shock of almost wiping out cold on the pavement. He gently helped her back to her feet, and she wordlessly returned the flowers to their vendor.

The walk continued. They kept a healthy distance.

____

The fourth Friday featured Arya’s undone shoelace and Gendry’s very poorly timed decision to genuflect onto one knee in front of her to tie it.

The cluster of high school girls walking by on the pier didn’t hear the pair’s adamant protests over their squeals.

____

Okay, but honestly, what were they supposed to say?

‘No, we actually refuse to watch your baby while you run back into the restaurant to grab your coat’?

And, alright, what about when an elderly woman inevitably spotted them in that thirty-second window and positively cooed over their ‘adorable little family’? What then?

____

“What did you do with our bags?”

“Oh, I unloaded them onto the luggage trolley with everyone else’s. The concierge is dropping them off in our room.”

“Right, I forgot we were at a rich wedding.”

The sixth Friday presented…a bit of a complication.

Three months ago, Arya had just started seeing Ned, so he wasn’t exactly a viable option for a date to her sister’s wedding. Since Gendry was basically family, and he was already going anyway, they had decided to attend together. Split the cost of a two-bed room. Be each other’s way out of a boring conversation with drab relatives. They’d already been to a handful of formal events together over the years. It seemed like a fine arrangement.

Something they had orchestrated weeks before the psychic even entered their lives. It didn’t count as a ‘sign of fate.’

It didn’t.

____

The ceremony went off without a hitch, and Gendry made a mental note to tease Arya later about the tears he saw her shed during the vow exchange. Once the reception was underway, any lingering discomfort about the circumstances had faded completely, when she passed him a flask under the table with a sly wink.

If anyone could bypass the lack of an open bar, it was his best friend.

Dinner was served, conversations became progressively funnier after each clandestine swig of whiskey, and, eventually, a few innocent slow dances were shared. The pleasant warmth in his stomach was a direct result of the liquor.

It was decidedly not the result of Arya’s arms around his neck, of the way she laid her head on his chest, of how the deep pools of grey in her eyes gleamed when she gazed up at him. It was not because of how she looked almost disappointed when the party came to an end, or how she perked back up when he jokingly offered her his arm to lead the way toward their room.

But, fine. It may have been a result of the fact that they opened the door to the daunting sight of one, giant bed.

Arya keeled over with laughter in the doorway.

“Remind me to kill my sister and her dumb wife tomorrow. I was wondering why they were smirking at me all night, the trollops.”

“You think they did this on purpose?” Gendry asked, rubbing the back of his neck and looking around the room, as if a second bed were just going to rise up from the floor and put him out of his misery.

“I know Sansa better than anyone. She saw an opportunity, and she took it,” Arya said, still laughing.

“Well, what are - I mean. What do we do?”

She snorted and fell into another fit of giggles. She was drunk. He was drunk and not equipped to handle this. Arya would have to beat him to Sansa and Margaery in the morning.

“We’re gonna go to sleep, stupid. Unless you wanna order everything on the room service menu. I think I know Sansa’s credit card number.”

He watched her from a careful distance, as she kicked her heels off and discarded them in the corner of the room. Only when she had turned her back to rummage through her suitcase did he feel comfortable enough to loosen his tie. He quickly located his sleep clothes from his duffel bag and moved toward the dimly lit bathroom.

“I’m just gonna…” he trailed off. She waved at him over her shoulder without looking up from her luggage. He backed into the bathroom, leaning against the door when it clicked shut behind him.

Gendry was, quite determinately, not a fan of fate. He quietly cursed fate up and down, as he changed out of his formalwear. He gave fate one final piece of his mind, cautiously opened the bathroom door, and saw just how little fate cared about his distress.

Arya stood at the foot of the bed - their bed - with her back toward him, dress half unzipped, struggling to complete the task at hand. She looked over her shoulder at the sound of his exiting the bathroom and shot him a shy smile. He suddenly preferred when she had found this whole ordeal funny.

“Can you- I can’t reach the zipper anymore. I forgot that I needed Ygritte’s help getting into the bloody thing.”

He stood frozen. She blinked slowly and turned to fully face him, stumbling over thin air and taking a frustrated breath.

“Can you just unzip my dress, Gendry?”

He shook his head rapidly, giving himself one final opportunity to wake up, if this was truly a dream. When it became crystal clear that it wasn’t, he flushed and stepped toward her.

“Sorry. Right. Yeah.” He closed the short distance between them and reached around her middle to pull the zipper fully down her back. Of course, it would’ve made much more sense for Arya to have turned back around, so they could’ve avoided his arms being unmistakably wrapped around her in this state. 

Again. Drunk.

His hands fell to rest on the dip in Arya’s back when he had fully unzipped her, and his breath hitched when hers grabbed onto his forearms, both to steady herself and to hold him in place. They were so close, closer than they’d been when they danced. He could feel her warm, shallow breath on his chest through the thin material of his shirt. 

He was a little bit confused as to how she was still capable of breathing at all. 

They were in hot water, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from her face. Her gaze intently followed one of her hands, as it trailed from his arm, light as a feather up his chest, almost not touching him at all. The tips of her fingers danced along his collar, seeming to entertain the idea of what lay underneath, but not daring to see for themselves. 

She had yet to look at him, and he hoped she didn’t, because he knew that would break this delicate spell that they were under, and it wasn’t a spell, they were just drunk, but, no - he suddenly had never felt soberer in his miserable life. He knew if she looked at him, she would realize what a colossal mistake this would be, but maybe not, because her other hand was languidly moving toward its counterpart, except circumventing his collar and heading right for his fucking jawline, and gods, it was like he had his arms around a cloud. She studied the movement of her thumb across his cheek, and her eyes just needed to travel a bit higher, and there it was. 

Gendry had long considered himself an expert in the many faces of Arya Stark, but he should’ve known that she would keep surprising him.

He had been so captivated by her, that he had failed to register his own hands moving from the small of her back to the curve in her waist, allowing him the freedom to trace small circles on her hipbones through her dress. His motions had pulled the open back of the garment even further open, and the tips of his fingers brushed lightly against her bare skin. The silence between them was agonizing, and he felt her shiver when his grip tightened, and her eyes were boring into his with an emotion he wouldn’t - couldn’t - dare to classify, and he had to remind himself for the thousandth time in the last thirty seconds that she was not in her right mind. 

“Arya, I-“ 

“Shhh,” she cut him off, the sound of her own voice seeming to startle her. She closed her eyes and swayed in place. “You’re here.” 

“I’m here,” he whispered. 

Her eyes opened, impossibly hazy and bright all at once. “You’re always here.” 

He couldn’t tell if she was talking to him or to herself, but that was the farthest thing from his mind, because her eyes were closed again, and she was tilting her head up, pulling him towards her, tenderly nuzzling a spot just below his ear that made his knees nearly buckle, and how did his hand get into her hair, and who bloody cares if they were drunk, they could just- 

“Gendry! Open up!” 

Someone was banging relentlessly against the hotel room door. Someone who had just bumped Sansa and Margaery out of the top spot on his hit list. 

Arya had pulled back from the crook of his neck, but her hold on him hadn’t loosened. The hand tangled in her tousled up-do reached out to unabashedly stroke her cheek, and he tried to convey everything he was feeling in one brief look. He refused to construe the sorrow in her eyes as regret, refused to let anything make this more painful for him than it already was. He didn’t realize it was possible to have all he’d ever wanted physically, literally in his grasp and still feel like it was all so out of reach. 

“Gendry, man, I saw you come up here! This is an emergency!” 

Fucking Pod. 

“One minute!” Gendry practically growled over his shoulder. He looked back down at Arya and sighed. She was all but falling asleep standing up, and his hold on her was the only thing keeping her from fully collapsing. Without reservation, he bent forward to hook one arm under her knees and carried her to the far side of the bed. She stirred at the movement and sat upright in a daze when he set her onto the mattress. He cupped her face in his hands, wanting to savor this daydream for a moment more, and pressed a simple kiss to her forehead. 

He strode away before he could gauge her reaction. 

The banging on the door hadn’t stopped. After several minutes of convincing an obliterated Podrick Payne that, no, he had not intercepted Margaery’s bridesmaid on her way to his room, and that, yes, it was just Arya that he had come up with - as if his best friend could ever be just anything - Gendry was able to return to the peace and quiet of the room. He dejectedly moved back toward the bed and saw Arya’s small frame, sleep clothes on, her body curled on its side and fully engulfed by the feathery duvet. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing was even. 

He looked back to the foot of the bed, where things had almost changed forever. Her dress lay in a crumpled heap on the floor where they had stood. 

____

The week after the wedding was a whirlwind. Arya had been forced to book group sessions for most of her clients at the training gym, and Gendry had spent four consecutive late nights at the studio finalizing blueprints. There had been no discussion of what happened - or didn’t happen - in their hotel room. It didn’t even seem like Arya had any recollection, which Gendry kept telling himself was for the best. 

Truthfully, he could barely keep down food.

He almost cancelled on her that following Friday. He had been neglecting housework all week, so his flat was in complete disarray. He had a kink in his neck from falling asleep face down at his desk, and he hadn’t taken the time to shave since before the wedding. He couldn’t even muster the energy to bring in his growing pile of mail from the mat outside his front door. 

He sat at the counter in his modest kitchen and stared at his phone. He couldn’t remember the last time one of them had dipped out on a hangout. Even on their worst days, at the ends of their worst weeks, they were still each other’s person. The stresses of life typically only made them crave Friday nights more. 

He wasn’t sure what he needed now, but he was certain that seeing Arya - seeing Arya act like everything was fine, more specifically - was not it.

As if on cue, his phone lit up with an incoming call, and he found himself staring down at his favorite selfie of the person he was trying to avoid. 

“Hello?” 

“Hey, you.” Gendry’s stomach flipped. “I’m just wrapping up at the gym. Want me to stop for anything on my way over?”

“I, um- I actually was just getting ready to call you. I’m not sure I feel up to being around people tonight.”

There was radio silence on the other line. He closed his eyes and breathed heavily.

“Are you there?” 

“Since when am I ‘people,’ Gendry?” she asked, clearly hurt.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn’t have the energy for an argument. “Arya, that’s not-“ 

“No, that clearly is what you meant, or you wouldn’t have said it.” 

“Look, I just need some time alone. We can talk tomorrow, ok?”

“What’s going on with you? We’ve barely spoken all week.” 

“We’ve both been busy, Arya.” 

“We’ve never been too busy for each other.” 

“Well, maybe it’s healthy that we just take a night for ourselves.” They were entering dangerous territory.

“Healthy? Wow, I didn’t realize I made you sick.”

“Motherfuck, that’s not what I meant,” he bit back, his voice inadvertently rising.

“Please tell me what you do mean, Gendry. I’m dying to know,” she said, sarcasm dripping from every word.

“I don’t. Feel. Like doing anything,” he replied through gritted teeth.

“We don’t have to do anything. We can sit in bloody silence, if that’s really what you need.”

“I need to be alone. That’s what I need.”

“Did I do something-”

“Gods, Arya! Not everything’s about you, for fuck’s sake!”

He regretted the outburst as soon as it happened, but that was the tricky part about words. Even though they couldn’t be seen, they could still be strong enough to break someone.

They both sat on the line, and he could hear that she was breathing just as rapidly as he was. His face felt unforgivingly warm.

“Fuck you, Gendry,” she whispered, the sound of her cracking voice threatening to torment him forever. She hung up before he could say anything.

He was alone - he had gotten his wish. Which was just his luck, because the person he wanted to be around even less than Arya was himself. 

____

Gendry hazily remembered pulling himself together long enough to manage a shower, but he wasn’t entirely sure when he had made it to the couch, and he definitely wasn’t sure when he had fallen asleep. He woke up slowly, rolling his head in circles to massage out the last of the cramping, and sat up to check the time. The apartment was illuminated by one cheap floor lamp that he obviously couldn’t have been bothered to switch off, and Netflix was patiently waiting to find out if he was still watching whatever had been playing.

His phone informed him that it was 11:30 - just late enough for him to know that he probably wouldn’t be returning to bed that night, after being pulled out of such a deep sleep. It was only when he began to wonder what had actually woken him up, that the repetitive knocks on his front door started to sink in. 

He vaguely realized that he wasn’t wearing a shirt, but he decided that whichever neighbor had chosen to add to his irritation could handle a bit of indecency. He padded toward the door in a huff, ready to fire on all cylinders, and swung the door open, promptly losing all executive function at the sight of his late-night visitor.

“Here’s your mail, asshole,” Arya said unceremoniously, tossing the pile of envelopes onto the floor behind Gendry, not moving from her spot outside the door.

He blinked and shook his head, his eyes still adjusting to the bright lights in the hallway. “You came all the way here to give me my mail?”

“And to give you this,” she snapped, raising her fist to punch him in the shoulder.

“Ow! What the fuck!”

“Just when I think you can’t get any stupider, you outdo yourself.”

“Are you quite finished?” he barked.

“There’s not enough time in the world for me to tell you what an idiot you are, so no.”

“Great, then there will still be time in the morning, won’t there?” he yelled. 

“I’m kind of counting on it,” she snarled, promptly crossing the threshold into his apartment and forcing him backward.

He felt his anger rising, or maybe it was something else, because one second, she was glaring up at him with a storm raging in her eyes, and the next second, she was kissing him, and no, none of his wildest fantasies could have prepared him for this. 

The kiss was blazing, unrelenting, but so was she, and wasn’t that what he loved most about her? She tasted like winter, and that made no sense, because he’d never felt more on fire, and he couldn’t figure out where to put his hands, so he lifted her by the legs instead, and she was wrapped so tightly around him that he lost track of where he ended and she began. His hands finally found purchase in her hair, damp and cooling on his boiling skin, and he backed up until his legs hit the couch, falling onto the disheveled cushions and bringing her down to settle in his lap. Her arms had encircled him from the start, and her fingers were combing roughly through the hair at the nape of his neck, and he was trying desperately to slow everything down, because she said it herself, there was still time.

They had so much time.

He decelerated the movement of his lips against hers, bringing both hands down her back to rest on the tops of her thighs. He massaged her legs through the soft material of her sweatpants, and she finally matched his unhurried pace, slipping her tongue between his teeth to meet his own. She released a breathy sigh and brought her hands down to settle on his chest, clenching her legs around his middle to maintain some semblance of urgency, even amidst the slower pace. He hummed blissfully and felt her soften under his touch, felt a smile creep onto her lips, lips that he didn’t know how he had lasted so long without. Even so, even now, he missed her eyes, so he pulled back, bringing his hands to cradle her face and waiting for her to meet his gaze.

She looked at him gradually, and he finally allowed himself to believe that she, too, was afraid she might be dreaming. Her features lightened when she took him in, because they were both very much awake, and he couldn’t help leaning in to kiss her one more time.

“Stupid,” she whispered against his lips.

“You mentioned that,” he replied, just as quietly. There was no one around to hear them, but they both seemed keen on preserving the calm.

“But I think I might love you a little bit,” she confessed, bringing her thumb up to graze his bottom lip.

Gendry let out a shaky breath, almost laughing, because he was stupid. So stupid. Of course she loved him. Her love was honest and challenging and cosmic. It hadn’t even been five minutes, and he had already forgotten his entire life before that night.

It was like he felt every lifetime they’d spent together, every lifetime they would spend together, all culminated in that one moment. 

“I love you, Arya,” he said, a tremor in his voice. Her eyes glistened with tears, and he kissed her until they fell freely. 

“In case it wasn’t clear, I’m staying. If you still need to be alone, I can sit…over there,” she offered, gesturing ambiguously across the room.

“I dare you to try leaving this spot,” he asserted, his hands tracing down the curves of her neck, down her sides, down to her hips to plant her more firmly in his lap. 

“So, this was about me then?” Arya teased.

He let out a gentle, resigned laugh, inhaling deeply and angling his head to leave tame kisses along the length of her neck.

“It’s all about you,” he muttered between kisses. “It’s always been all about you.”

She moaned eagerly, downright sinfully, and pulled his face back up to hers, and their confessions had unleashed a previously idle hunger within both of them, because it was sloppier, wetter, louder than before, and you would’ve thought the world was ending tomorrow with how desperate they were for each other.

They left trails of kisses upon progressively exposed skin, trails of their clothes on the pathway to his bedroom, trails of filthy commands and intimate proclamations anywhere they could reach. They laughed a lot, and she trusted him with everything, and he moved inside her like it was the only thing he had ever known. She was over him, under him, beside him always.

Gods bless the fates, really, but they had figured it out on their own. Like they would figure out everything else.

Discarded among the pile of envelopes - the one that had sat untouched in the hallway for a week, the one that was still strewn across Gendry’s living room floor - lay a cheeky advertisement for the local shopping mall, marketing material for an upcoming clearance sale. The side facing the floor asked: ‘Need a reason to go shopping?’ 

The side facing up, though, in bold, red letters, read:

‘If you’re looking for a sign, this is it.’