ataraxionlogs | ( closed ) a lone fool out in the sun

Entry tags:

arya stark,
gendry

( closed ) a lone fool out in the sun

CHARACTERS: arya + gendry
LOCATION: the pools
WARNINGS: emotionally stunted children
SUMMARY: shortly after the jump, emotionally stunted children attempt to deal with emotions, fail at it
NOTES: see above

[ the days have passed without much interruption. duties have been ignored; responsibilities have been avoided. even nymeria would have gone unfed if not for others in the days approaching the jump. most were glad to leave arya alone, only rarely urging her to talk or get up.

not gendry. never gendry.

he had been in her room when he suddenly picked her up. gendry trekked with her to the pool and, without warning, threw her into the deep end.

spluttering, she breaks the surface of the water. arya drags in a greedy lungful of air before she starts hurling insults and curses his way. she cuts through the water with furious strokes. seizing the edge, arya grips it tight like a child its mother. she coughs and spits out water and shoves her hair away from her face. her expression promises pain.

a far cry from the listless figure lying prone on her bed. ]

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[ he preferred her laughing, hissing, spitting insults like venom, bristling with anger. but she hadn't done any of that since before the jump, she was too silent, doing very little. it was unsettling, and he didn't like it.

might've been why he thought it was a good idea to pick her up and dump her in the pool. in his defense it worked. life came back to her in that bristling angry way that promise pain when she gets her hands on him. gendry quickly decided it was worth all the pain.

there is a laugh on his lips as he bends down, holding out her hand. ] Does m'lady require assistance?

[ arya could kill him. she slaps his hand away as hard as she can. quickly, she splashes him too and smacks the water's surface in frustration.

she doesn't need his assistance. she hates gendry. she hates how stupid he gets and she hates his stupid face, of which she is quick to inform him. ]

— and I hate your stupid face!

[ stubbornly, she shuffles to the side and clambers out of the pool with difficulty. arya bangs her knee on the lip of the pool, but she ignores the pain. she scoots a little away from the pool, dripping wet and now cold besides. with a scowl, and resolutely not looking at gendry, she looks the picture of ( albeit kind of funny ) misery. ]

[ he edges back to avoid the water with a laugh, hardly bothered in the face of her anger. she practically screams her hate for him and he knows that they are just words, not entirely meant.

it is when she climbs out of the pool and bangs her knee that laughter stops. he finds her a towel to drape over her shoulders and another to put on top of her head. ]

It's nice to hear you screech again.

[ she has half a mind to tear the towel off her and snap it at him. when she jerks away, arya catches sight of the ugly red lines stretching down his neck. her stomach twists. guilt and anger wrestle with the lingering bone-deep lethargy. arya angrily dashes at her stinging eyes before she can cry. ]

Shut up. [ rather than another scream, it comes out as a weak mutter. reflexive reply. she keeps her eyes trained on the water. ]

[ he sits down beside her, resisting the urge to scratch at his wounds. he'll tear them open if he isn't careful, and then he'll be in the trouble. ]

I was worried for a while. [ of course gendry ignores her, continuing on as if she had never said anything at all. ] Thought we were losing you, you were so quiet.

[ the hound hadn't cared for her silence. she thinks he may have preferred it. there was less fighting then. arya hadn't had anything to say, anyway. all she had wanted then was her mother, but her mother was dead. and she had been tired, so tired, of wanting and getting nothing.

on the tranquility, death means little. arya has often wondered what the kindly man and the waif would make of the ship. but in westeros it means little too. lord beric dondarrion had evaded death six times. then there was gendry telling her her mother had done it too. arya hunches under her towels. the hound was wrong. they could have found her mother. it's her curse: to never be where she wants to be, to miss her family by a day or a mile.

then there's gendry. stupid, stubborn gendry whom she loathes when she's stuck with him and hates more when he isn't for how keenly she misses him. ]

Shouldn't you be glad of it? [ her answer is toneless. it adopts a bitter edge when she adds: ] You were always calling me a stupid lady.

[ arya skirts around the topic of her mother. that hurt is still too raw. ]

You'd make a horrible lady. [ he doesn't push her to talk about it, gendry knows better than that, and in truth the terror still sits in his bones. it mixes with anger and frustration and the knowledge one day he will have to go back to that woman, one day he'll have to leave arya again.

he focuses on their conversation instead, trying to keep her talking so that she doesn't lapse back into silence. ]

You're loud and never afraid to yell at people. You prefer running around in breeches and getting dirty to dresses. You're more a wolf than a lady.

[ and he still calls her one, regardless. ]

I think you're face is funny when you get mad about being called one.

[ her arm flashes out to strike his.

she does not make faces. ]

[ he catches her arm with a scoff, not that he expected anything less from here. ]

I'll throw you into the water again.

Let go of me!

[ she jerks her arm free. ]

If you're going to keep being stupid, you can leave!

I'm not going anywhere.

[ the humor in his voice vanishes, expression turning serious and sour. ]

I'm staying right here.

Then stop being stupid!

[ she gives him a shove, though not toward the water. indignation from the surprise swim and trembling from the cold, arya is ready to continue tearing into him. her eyes fall on the angry red marks on his cheek. she follows them down to his neck to his adam's apple, which bobs when he swallows. she swallows too; guilt punches her in the stomach.

the anger drains away from her so quickly she is almost lightheaded. arya looks away from gendry. her hands ball into fists in her lap. her fingernails carve half-moon craters into her palms. ]

I'm sorry, [ she bites out. the two words proved difficult to say. they're a defiance of the only unspoken agreement they both held to: don't speak of what happens, any of it. they would fight and disagree and make plans and that was enough.

— it's not anymore. not when he got hurt because of her wants. if he hadn't followed her, he'd be fine. if he hadn't ever followed her, he might have been better off.

arya glances at him out the corner of her eye. how funny. how terrible. he's supposed to be her best friend, and it turns out she doesn't understand him at all. what an awful friend she makes. ]

[ he readies himself for the onslaught that is surely to follow, muscles coiling to weather the storm. but nothing follows the initial hit. it is only guilt that comes instead and he wants to shake her. ]

Don't. [ gendry looks away, watches the water lap up against the side of the pool. he had made it clear he didn't want to speak on it, and in one unspoken moment they agreed not to and now she is ripping all that apart. the safety of not acknowledging what had happened. ] Just don't.

[ when he looks back at her it isn't with the irritation that struggles to sit in his voice, it is with a tired acceptance. ]

It wasn't your fault.

[ but it is taste like bile on her tongue. arya bites the inside of her cheek until it hurts. she likes to pin the blame on others, but it has always been her fault. the kindly man was right. everyone was right. she's reckless and selfish and proud, and it doesn't just get her into trouble. her decisions affect those around her too. it has never been for the better. gendry should know that better than everyone else.

she feels like she ought to kick or scream or cry and can't decide which — so she settles for none at all. ]

I want to go home.

[ a child's plea. an admission of weakness, her private shame. that despite knowing it as impossibility ( we're so far away, and winterfell was burnt ) she would still yearn for the grey walls and the white tree with its scary face and the northern wind rattling her shutters. she wants the shouts of the cook when she stole into the kitchens to snatch still hot cakes she would then distribute among the servants. she wants her brothers and her sister and her lord father and lady mother. she wants —

arya looks at her fingernails. sometimes she wants to be faceless again. she wishes it as much as she has wished anything. to be arya is too awful. it is her biggest secret, one she dares not breathe a word of to her brothers.

— but gendry is different. ]

I'd rather be no one.

[ words fall from the tip of his tongue into a pile of jagged thoughts and confusion. there are many times when arya says things that he doesn't quite understand, he figures she'll be doing that for the rest of her life, and this time isn't any different. expect that it is, expect that something in the way she speaks shakes him to his core.

no one? what in the seven hells does that even mean?

he thinks he knows but at the same time he doesn't. she always speaks in riddles, with some sort of hidden meaning in her words. gendry hates it. he shifts to face her fully, brow pulled together in a tightly knit frown. ]

What are you talking about? [ as gentle as he tried to be the confusion bleeds into his voice, a desperate tone that is begging her not to be saying what he thinks she is saying. ] You can't be no one.

I don't want you to be no one.

It doesn't matter. [ sounding older than she is; far older, and wearied.

she's tired. two of her brothers with her, having nymeria again, and still some days she struggles to find anything left inside her anymore. arya feels as much like a mummer's farce as cat or salty or nan did. another name to wear.

little wonder the ship could fool her so wholly. she is only a foolish little girl, after all.

arya pulls her knees in toward her chest, and wraps the towel tightly around her. the line of her shoulders rounds down; her head hangs. a small sniffle ( water that went up her nose, not because she almost cried ) tries to prevent the silence. still it settles around them, uncomfortably heavy. ]

[ she leaves him confused, with questions running about his head like a pack of wolves. he wants to demand answers, to shake her, make her disprove his fears. but none of that will work, gendry knows that much.

seven hells, he wishes they never got separated. wishes he ran away in the rain with her.

( wishes he was back at the inn. )

the silence weighs heavily on his shoulders until he cannot take it anymore, so he shifts closer to her and wraps an arm around her. gendry isn't good at these things, he isn't good at much, he really is a stupid bull headed boy.

so he does the only thing he can think of, the only thing he thinks he can do. ]

[ arya stiffens. her first response — to slap him away, to put distance between them — wars with an ache for company. in the end, the latter wins.

one by one, she forces every muscle to relax until she sags against gendry. arya inhales through her nose, exhales through her mouth. ]

You're an idiot, [ she mumbles. her fingers curl around a handful of his tunic. ]

[ he prepares himself to be struck, truthfully expecting her to fight him on the contact. neither of them have ever really been ones for it ( too many bad memories ) so he wouldn't blame her if she did.

instead she sags against him and his own grip lessens just a touch, locked up muscles forced to relax. awkwardly he touches the back of her head, looking off to some wall. ]

Yeah, so are you.

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( closed ) a lone fool out in the sun

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WOW I DID NOT SEE THIS NOTIF??? THANKS GMAIL

ONE JOB GMAIL YOU HAVE ONE JOB

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