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Arya was the bravest girl he’d ever met. She was so brave she was stupid half the time, and he’d spent what felt like half his life keeping her from getting her stupid brave arse killed in brawls, battles, and wars. She’d been responsible for all of the brawls and none of the wars. He wasn’t certain about the battles.
She never said ‘thank you’ like a normal person would. In fact she usually yelled at him for interfering, but he was long used to that, too, and she did trust him. And so she kept him around and together they kept her alive and mostly in one piece and rambled on through the wars and the blood as a well matched team. He’d certainly had worse companions. She could be quick to anger, but she tended to forgive him once she’d shouted a bit. He’d never known her to avoid confrontation.
But this time she hadn’t spoken to him in four days.
She wouldn’t even look at him to scowl. In fact she kept her face completely blank and impassive when she walked by him, which Gendry hadn’t even known she was capable of doing- Arya wore her emotions on her face as plainly as her nose, her stone colored eyes, the coral slashed impish grin that had caused this rift in the first place. She hadn’t even slapped him, after, and by rights she should have.
He’d known something was bothering her for days, but she hadn’t been ready to give it a voice. He could see it in the fresh blisters on her hand from practicing long hours, until her arms had gone tired and her grip went lax; from the worn place in her breeches that she had worried until it frayed and they had to give it to the washerwoman to mend since Arya was as bad with sewing as he was. Whatever it was she had seemed on the cusp of blurting it out half a hundred times, but when he had seen the two extra cups of wine she had drank at dinner, he figured that this was the night she said it.
When they had retired to the room behind the forge they usually shared she had tried her very best. She washed her face, went behind the curtain and changed into the cotton braies and worn shirt of his that she slept in, just like she did every evening. She checked their supplies twice, and made sure her sword was next to the bed and her dagger tucked underneath the pillow. And then she sat on the corner of the floppy straw tick mattress and fretted for a moment.
When she’d started pacing he finally gave up waiting for her to just come out and say whatever it was and this time when she paced past him he grabbed her by her narrow cotton covered shoulders and made her stop.
“Arya, what is it? You’re going to run a rut in the floor if you keep it up.”
“I don’t know,” she’d exploded at him, her face crumpling into a frown. “I just- I can’t look at you any longer.”
“Me? What have I done?” Maybe it was her lady’s time. She didn’t like for him to know if it was, but he could usually tell- she got a little extra volatile.
She was toying with the hem of her shirt to keep her hands busy, and give her something to do to avoid looking at him. He was a bit surprised she hadn’t run off yet and found someplace quiet to hide and think. He hated when she did that.
“You’re going to bite your lip off if you keep worrying it like that.” He told her gently, lifting her chin with his finger.
She nodded like a guilty child being reprimanded by her septa and he would have laughed at her if she didn’t look so vulnerable at the moment. She wouldn’t have found it funny.
Arya took a deep fortifying breath and stared up at him, the coals in the hearth turning her eyes into twin pools of melting silver; blue hot from the flame and every bit as shifting and dangerous as any molten thing he’d known. He hadn’t realized how close they were standing until just then, when her long shirt brushed his knee and she’d flicked those dark lashes at him in invitation.
So he kissed her, like any one with sense (or lack of) would have done.
He kissed her long and slow and lazily. It had been a long time since the days he’d been a lad kissing girls for practice in King’s Landing and he was a bit rusty, maybe, but he remembered quick. He felt the little chip on her front tooth with his tongue, tasted her sweet lips (honey and wine). And when she’d curled her fingers into the collar of his shirt and opened for him he’d splayed a hand at the small of her back and hauled her against him and not let her go until they were both out of breath.
Then every flicker of emotion was still plain to see. Surprise, desire, irritation.
“You can’t kiss me,” she informed him, even with her lips still plump and pink and her chin a bit chafed from his stubble.
He would have taken that as a slight, once, but he only shrugs. “I did.”
Her knuckles crack against his collarbone and then she’s gone.
She must be sleeping at the inn, because he sees her pass the forge, and once she comes in for something she’s forgotten but she certainly isn’t in her bed at night, or sharing meals at their table.
It’s the close of the fifth day and this time her knuckles are on his door. Arya never knocks, not usually- she’ll come through a window if he doesn’t let her in. So he shakes off the surprise and opens the door to let her in, and she steps into the forge with a rush of words that she must have been holding onto all week.
“No one ever kissed me before,” she offered by way of explanation. “You…” scared me, is what she was going to say. “surprised me.”
“Oh.”
He probably wouldn’t have done it if he’d known that. How had no one kissed her before?
“Was it… did you not like it?” He’d been sure she wanted it, then, but he’s had enough silent days to wonder if maybe she didn’t, and he’s seen enough rough drunkards in taverns pawing at women to need to know.
“It was--" she fumbled. "Nice. I’m not a stupid child, Gendry, I know about kissing and fucking.” She squares her shoulders, draws herself up to her full height and maybe a bit of tiptoe. Her fingers close around his wrist and bring it to the curve of her hip, and the flesh gives under his palm.
“You must have been busy, then.”
Her expression is careful. She must have been taking lessons on how to keep it all composed, because Arya had never been guarded in her life before now. He knows fuck all about women, but that sad, hopeful look in her eyes and the anxious way she bites her lip seem familiar, somehow, and it hits him like a fist. She wants him. Not just a few secret kisses and a bit of squeezing but him, and suddenly he’s nervous too.
She shrugs.
“So show me,” Where she’s gotten the idea that he knows anything to show her is beyond him, but maybe she knows that he’ll figure it out for her, with her.
“No kissing.” Her eyes have gone dark, and they dart to his lips expectantly, like he’s going to pounce on her right then.
Kissing was dangerous, then. Maybe the kissing was too sweet, made that little heart on her sleeve go all aflutter. A sleeve was a stupid place to keep your heart. That sounded like something she’d say.
“What else?” if he’s going to do this- and his cock says he is- he’s not going to overstep any bounds this time and deal with days of silence.
“I’ll let you know.”
Arya lets out a shaky breath when he takes her hand and brings her closer.
“No kissing.” she reminds.
“No kissing where?” he asks with a chuckle, his thumb tracing the arc of her hipbone. She’s pretending to ignore him, but the flush that creeps into her cheeks at his question isn’t embarrassment.
Her rules don’t make any sense. She’s a lady; it’s not her kisses she ought to be concerned about. But she’s always had her own warped set of values. He’ll play along.
“Just show me.” she says, her tone rich with irritation.
“Show you what?” he teases. She huffs at him. If she wasn’t so curious her pride would have chased her out of there already.
“I can use my hands?” he inquires, like he’s asking her how much a measure of oats costs in the market. He dips his fingers low beneath the waist of her breeches and brushes over soft curls and silken skin. She doesn’t look like she’d be this soft.
“Y-esssss.”
The muscles in her thighs are trembling with tension, so he grabs her around the waist and pulls her onto his lap, and she sucks in a breath when she feels his cock against her ass. Already he’s fighting the urge to put his lips on her neck where her hair’s fallen to the side. Not kissing is harder than he thought. He anchors his arm over her belly and parts her folds with a finger, spreading the wetness there over both of them. That she’s wet and arching in his arms sends a thrill of arousal twisting low in his groin. Wet for him. It shouldn’t make him feel so important and possessive, but it does anyway.
He maps her with his hands and whispers her a stream of meaningless compliments to keep his lips busy and off of her like she had asked. He means every one of them. But she’s so tense, so tight when he slips a finger into her. So he strokes her slow and easy and lets her hips show him the speed that she wants, the right pressure for his touch.
He thinks he’s almost dragged her into a peak by the way she’s shifting in his lap, writhing against his cock when she loses her patience. Gendry’s never known her to be especially patient in the first place, let alone with his fingers buried in her to the knuckle, and if she’s half as far gone as he is patience is the last thing on her mind.
“The bed,” she gasps, her knees folding. “Please, Gendry, the bed.”
If not the bed it would have been the floor at that point. He eases her back onto his pillow gently, and then both their hands are on her breeches at once, tugging them down her legs. He doesn’t dare take off his own. No kisses surely means he can’t put his cock in her, either, and whatever can be said of him for this, he’s a man who follows the rules.
He doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore- they’re reaching unfamiliar territory for him, niceties he’s never experienced. Arya hasn’t seemed to notice, and she doesn’t seem the type that would moan and sigh to spare his feelings. He burrows his nose into the little crease of her thigh and follows it down a ticklish path to the downy curls between those sturdy white legs and they part for him, just a bit.
His fingers roll over her entrance, teasing, sliding inside again and his thumb comes up to press against the small knot at the top and she sinks her nails into his shoulder when he does, back bending up off the bed with a gasp.
“Come for me,” he meant it as a question, but it comes out as a gruff command. He’s so hard his voice has dropped an octave.
“I can’t,” she moans, canting her hips up at him, seeking. Her legs fall open and she’s spread in front of him like she’s been in his mind a thousand times when he’s thought about this. Pink and wet as a seashell when he slides a finger in, sweet as a peach when he runs his tongue over her slit from top to bottom. That’s a kiss in his book, but she doesn’t protest when his nose is butted up to her cunt, buried in the hair on the soft little mound between her legs. She grabs a fistful of his hair but doesn’t push him away- she drags him closer and vaguely he registers his name, a sob.
She comes around his fingers with her head thrown back, clutching at him desperately. He can’t see her face from here, with his own buried in her cunt and her quaking around him. There’s regret in that- the first time he’s made her come (anyone other than himself come) and he doesn’t even get to see it. But next time. Next time he’ll be on top of her, or she’ll be on him, maybe. He’ll be inside of her and he won’t miss a second.
A moment passes before he slips his fingers out of her, and she grabs him and pulls him to the bed without preamble. Her lips crush against his, and she manages only a breathless oath.
“I make the worst rules.”
He presses another kiss to the corner of her mouth.
“I don’t know. You seemed to enjoy yourself.”