#@ brian thanks for the thoros suggestion

[bitchfromtheseventhhell]

How was the pull out?

stranger things spoilers

“I’m not afraid,” Arya muttered to herself as she sat down on Thoros’ guest bed.  The drunken words rankled.  Arya wasn’t afraid of anything, and she certainly wasn’t afraid of Gendry.  What's his name?  Right!  Ned.  We like Ned.  We don't love Ned.  “And I don’t retreat.”  She never retreated, she never backed down.  She was the only one who still cared enough about Weasel to actually try and do something about it.  Ned had been convinced that they couldn't do anything, that they shouldn’t, that their lives would be at risk if they did.  Gendry, on the other hand, had come with her.

Which was how she ended up on the squeaky mattress in Thoros’ house, a little too tipsy to drive back home and his words ringing in her ears.  It is a curse to see so clearly.  It wasn’t clear.  She and Gendry had never done anything.  

She did not retreat.  She shifted on the bed and got to her feet, crossing to the door and opening it.

“Trust issues,” Gendry huffed.  Ok, I’m confused, what's going on here, Thoros had said, and Gendry had wanted to sink right through the floor of his house, to hide, because he’d known what was coming.  Lovers’ quarrel?  He’d laughed at their protestations that they were just friends.  You’ve got chemistry.  History.  Plus the real shit: shared trauma.  Trust issues, am I right?  Something to do with your dad.

Gendry’s dad didn’t have anything to do with him anymore.  He was out of his life, had been useless last year when everything was going on with Edric.  Gendry had begged him for help and gotten nothing.  “I do not have trust issues.”  He got to his feet, annoyed at the words in his mind.  

He climbed from the bed and a moment later was out in the dark living room, crossing to the guest room where Arya was sleeping.  He’d apologize, or something.  He knew what Thoros was, and besides she was with Ned even if he didn’t like it and--

There she was, coming out of her room in a long button down shirt that looked almost like a nightgown on her.  “Hey,” she began, “I just wanted to say that--”

“Don’t worry about it.  He's so drunk,” Gendry said, his face doing something dumb because he was trying to shake the awkwardness of it all.  It hadn’t been awkward until Thoros had said something.  Bad enough that the lady at the motel had given them a look when they had said they wanted two beds.  But at least she had kept her judgemental gaze silent.  Thoros’ laughter still rang in his ears.

“Wasted,” Arya agreed.

“Yeah.  I mean,” Gendry crossed his arms over his chest, “He's got us for a couple of hours and he's got us all figured out?”

“I know.  Exactly.  I'm glad... I'm glad we feel...the same way.”  She was smiling, and Gendry swallowed.  She was so pretty.  But that was a useless thought.  

They stood there for a moment, nodding to one another, smiling awkwardly, and then Arya spoke.  “So...goodnight I guess.”

“Yeah,” Gendry responded, backing away.  “Goodnight.”

He turned back towards the study.  He turned when he got to the study, saw Arya slip into the spare room before he slid the door shut.

God he was such a coward.  Trust issues.

It wasn’t trust issues--not even a little.  Arya had trusted him when she shouldn't have, had been there when no one else had been after Edric had disappeared.  They’d fought off monsters and tried so hard to figure everything out together, and after all of that she was still with Ned.  She was still with Ned.

Trust issues.

Everything they'd been through hadn't put them together last year.

Except she was with him now.  With him, and god it hurt how much he wanted her.  

He took a deep breath, and got up.

Arya sat on the bed staring at the door. I don’t retreat.

Except she had.  She had just retreated.  She’d gone out there to talk to Gendry to...to what?  To knock on his door, to confront him about...about what?  

She should sleep.  They’d said goodnight after all, agreed that Thoros’ drunken words didn’t matter at all.

Except that they so very clearly did, because she was still awake and the way he'd crossed his arms over his chest.  Maybe it was the usual drunken Gendry or maybe, just maybe...

Arya threw herself across the room and opened the door and to her complete surprise he was there, right in front of her, standing over her in the dark.

And then his lips were against hers, warm and soft and she could still taste some of the alcohol on his breath.  Could he taste it on hers?  The kiss was hot, and unpracticed and she was a hundred percent sure that she was Gendry's first kiss, because who else would he have kissed?  Who else would want to kiss him?  Who else knew him half as well as she did, cared about him half as much as she did...

They broke apart, looking at one another, eyes flickering at each other in the dark.  

We like Ned.  We don't love Ned.

And she threw her arms around him, and pulled his lips down to hers again and his hands were in her hair and they were stumbling back, kicking the door to the bedroom shut behind them.  The mattress springs squeaked beneath them as Gendry tumbled her down onto her back, and she let out a surprised hiss at the weight of him.  She knew he was strong--anyone with eyes could see his build--but the weight of him like that...She held him tighter, feeling the way that her nightshirt was riding up her legs as he moved on top of her.  She didn't care though.  Why should she care?  She was making out with Gendry right now, wasn't that part of it?  When had she turned into the sort of girl who’d just make out with someone because an old drunk was playing matchmaker?  Was she even officially broken up with Ned?  He’d seemed to think so outside of the gym the other day.

She ran her hands up and down his back, finding the hem of his shirt and sliding them underneath to feel the heat of his skin.  He sat up on his knees and tugged the shirt off, which was not what she'd been intending but she found she liked the look of him in the half-light.  It was right somehow.  Right in a way that Ned never really had been.  She swallowed.

“Are we really doing this?” she asked him.

“I...” Gendry swallowed.  “Do you want to?  I don't want to push you or...or...” he seemed to be deflating, but Arya sat up and kissed him too, her fingers tugging at her own nightshirt and tugging it up and over her head so that she was sitting there in her underpants. 

“I do,” she whispered.  His eyes were on her breasts now, on her stomach, on the plain white underpants she'd put on that morning never expecting to show them to anyone.  “Do you?”

Gendry swallowed again.  “I’ve never...”

Arya smiled gently.  “I know,” she whispered and she pulled his lips back to hers. 

The heat of his chest against hers was enough to make her blood boil.  She gasped against his lips without really meaning to because of the way her blood was racing.  She reached her hands down and cupped his ass, feeling muscle there too as she held his hips to hers.  She could feel the telltale bulge of him against her, growing stiffer and stiffer by the second.  

Her hands moved along the hem of his pajama bottoms from back to front until they were resting just above him.  She paused in her kissing.  “Is this ok?” she asked him.

Gendry nodded into her neck, and she reached her hand down under the fabric and took hold of him, pulling him loose.  He reached down and shoved the pajama pants down his legs and Arya helped him kick them off.  Then his hand came to rest on her stomach, just above her underpants.  She tugged them off too, awkwardly, since he was hovering just above her, but when she settled underneath him, her hand stroking at his dick, she looked up to kiss him again and saw him watching her.

“Do we...” Gendry began, looking uncomfortable.  “I don’t have a condom or anything.”

“I don’t either,” she whispered, feeling herself deflate a little bit.  “I guess we’ll...” She didn’t know.  He hadn’t even touched her yet, and probably didn’t know what to do.  She wasn’t exactly expecting him to be Cassanova on his first time or anything.  She took his hand and pulled his fingers against her.  They were warm, and stiff, and surprisingly gentle as they began to rub at her.  She sighed and her eyes fluttered closed for just a moment, liking the feel of him, the heat of him, the sound of his breath.

Trust issues, the words floated in the back of her head.  But those were his--according to Thoros--not hers.  She trusted Gendry.  As much as she’d ever trusted anyone.  I don’t retreat.  “I guess if you think you could just...just pull out or something?” She looked up at him, and he nodded, a look on his face that she couldn’t quite understand.  

But it was enough.  She pulled him closer, guided him into her, and he groaned into her neck as he pressed, deeper and deeper into her.  She gasped as she stretched around him, and canted her hips slightly to feel more of him.  He rocked into her, slowly at first, as though he were taking in every sensation of it, and then slowly growing faster, and faster, and faster.  She reached her hand down between them like she’d read in some magazine at some point and found her clit, circling it with her fingers, the pressure of his weight and movement pushing her hand against her so nicely.

Then he was gone from her, and she looked up at him, because he was still over her, but she didn’t feel anything the way she thought she would--he was still panting and when she looked down, his hand was on his dick, and with two more strokes he let out a strangled cry and there was the heat she’d been expecting the moment he’d pulled out.

He leaned forward and kissed her again and she felt him lean sideways so that he wasn’t on top of her when he let himself collapse against the bed.  

It was cold without him, and she turned herself towards him, hand still rubbing between her legs, letting the smell of him wash over her in just the right way to send her throbbing.

She lay there for a moment, feeling his jizz drying against her belly and turning to press herself into his chest.  I didn’t retreat, she thought.  And he trusted me.

She smiled.