livhatesolives

Sometimes You Have To Be Brave

Hi there, I'm Olivia! I spend too much time on ao3 and, needless to say, I hate olives.18 (no longer a total baby), bi, she/her.

494 posts

IDIOTS. WHAT IDIOTS.

I LOVE THIS SO MUCH.

A snippet of @beautifulinsanesanity‘s gift but also a direct result of @fineosaur demanding WIP wednesday content from me.

Either this or the next chapter of The Last Time will be posted next week. The only one who knows for sure is my muse and she’s being 🤐🤐🤐, so for now enjoy this teaser 👗💎

–

She’s deciding between two pairs of earrings when there’s a knock and a creak as her door opens.

“Hey, Jon wanted to know-…whoa.”

She spins around, the delicate hem of her dress following her, just in time to see Gendry freeze in the doorway of her bedroom.

He gives her a quick onceover before locking his eyes on hers. Not for the first time, Arya wishes that his cerulean gaze didn’t make her feel so hot, so exposed.

Especially when she’s so unused to wearing dresses.

“You look nice, going somewhere?”

He leans against the wall, strong arms crossing over an even stronger chest and for a sudden, incomprehensible moment, all she wants to do is return his sentiment instead of answering his question.

She doesn’t.

Both because it’d be completely off the wall – she doesn’t do compliments, and because she’s gotten very good at ignoring these inexplicable bursts of attraction? Thrill? Excitement? Whatever it is that she’s started to feel more and more lately around Jon’s best mate.

“Yeah, I’m meeting Ned.”

She tries not to fixate on her careful word choice – meeting, not dating; least of all not a first date, even if that’s exactly what this is.

After months of trying, her old fencing partner finally managed to wear her down, and even now, thirty minutes before she’s supposed to leave the house to meet him, Arya is still as unsure as ever.

But Gendry – especially Gendry – doesn’t need to know that. Doesn’t need to know that he might be a huge part of why she’d finally agreed to have dinner with Ned.

After all, Sansa always says the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.

Not that Arya is planning to get under Ned or anyone tonight, and not that she makes a point of listening to Sansa ever?

But maybe the charming Ned Dayne can be a distraction from these thoughts, these feelings she’s been battling for weeks, if not months really for someone who nobody would describe as charming, and yet -

“Ah…” is all Gendry says, and she could kill him. Truly.

For his bulging muscles, and unfairly mesmerizing eyes, and the mop of black hair that is just begging for her fingers to run through it.

But mostly for the wave of affection that threatens to knock her off her feet as he gazes almost contemplatively at her before pushing off the wall.

“What did Jon want?” She asks in some half-desperate attempt to keep him from leaving.

“Just if Pentoshi take out was good with you, but I guess he forgot you had a date.”

The way Gendry says date makes her stomach twist in the most uncomfortable way, because she wants to correct him but can’t. Ned was very adamant about this being a date, and she’d agreed.

Stupid her.

But Gendry’s looking at her like she’s anything other than stupid, something like expectation fleeting all too quickly through his ocean-tinted eyes. Then it’s gone, and he’s turning on his heel again, and –

“Go with the silver ones. They bring out your eyes.”

It takes Arya a solid minute to realize he is referring to the earrings she’s holding in her left hand and by that time, he’s long gone.

But the look on his face stays with her through the entire night, especially when Ned compliments her earrings before leaning in to kiss her.

And stupid her. She lets him.

–