Jon Snow (blackestsnow) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-03-22 20:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, arya stark, jon snow |
RP: Wee Bit
Who: Arya Stark and Jon Snow
When: 22 March 2013 following Robb’s after these texts.
Where: Red Gum Studios - Anaheim, California
Rating: Middling for underage drinking and language.
Status: Complete
‘Steady on, love. Almost there.’
Hardly wide enough for one, it took some time for Jon to get Arya down the length of the trailer and into the double bed at the boot.
Shite... he thought idly, easing his noodly baby sister onto the trussed up sheets. There was something instinctually wrong about folding her into a bed smelling of cologne, sweat and indelicate topics but he hadn’t a choice, really. It was either bring her here to Jon’s trailer and the bed where Robb and Jon spent every spare moment discovering one another, or back to Stark Manor and Catelyn who was surely waiting up for her daughter’s arrival.
Hopefully Arya’s own bailey soaked stench would cancel out the resident odors and she would be none the wiser come morning. Then again, perhaps this was the perfect payback for interrupting Jon’s Friday evening.
Robb. Got to ring Robb.
Determined to deal with this efficiently before it got any later, Jon turned from the bed, took three steps to the mini fridge and fished out a bottle of water, cracking open the top. ‘E-lytes, then...’ he grumbled, popping open the overhead cupboards and beginning to peck about chock-a-block shelves.
Where the fuck did they go?
In Arya’s defense, it wasn’t as if she’d gone wild and drank too much but that she was skinny and hadn’t eaten since lunch at school earlier in the day. So whatever she had drunk hit her hard. It wasn’t as if it was the first time she’d drank, either, but it was the first time when her parents weren’t present so she’d wound up having two beers and something else during her time at the party.
By the time she’d begun to really feel the effects of the alcohol she had gone to find Alyssa and Damian who she’d finally gotten to meet in person earlier during the party and thought would be her best bet at figuring out what she should do.
She knew that she couldn’t very well drive herself home and she didn’t want to ask Courf to find her a way home because it was his birthday party.
Once she’d found Alyssa and Damian her head was swimming and she’d decided that her best bet was to call Jon. But she doubted that she’d make much sense over the phone so she’d asked Alyssa if she could text her brother for her and had told her where she could find his number in her phone.
After Jon had agreed to come get her, Arya had sat down on the couch to wait while Alyssa got her some water. Once Jon arrived Arya had insisted that she could walk out to the car herself but Jon had insisted on carrying her instead. Jon had won. She didn’t remember the car ride mostly because she’d fallen asleep and woken up just as he was setting her onto a bed.
Brow furrowed, Arya glanced around. “Where are we?” It certainly wasn’t either of their rooms at home for which she was grateful because she highly doubted that Catelyn would be pleased with her if she found out about this.
'Work,' Jon replied, pulling out a box of Tetley's from the bottom shelf only to have ten p noodles poetically rain down upon him, spilling over onto the floor.
The night was just getting better and better.
Typically, Jon would never mind to retrieve any one of his siblings from novice err, particularly if it meant pulling the wool over Catelyn's steely gaze. Not that he wished to deceive her - the woman hardly needed further reason to detest him - but sparing his brothers and sisters, particularly Arya, from her motherly wrath happened to be a favoured pastime. This wasn't the first drunken rescue he'd performed as eldest brother nor was it likely to be the last.
It would, however, be the last time he traded an evening with a naked man, his naked man, in order to play wet nurse to an underaged twig who should have had more sense between her ears than he had teeth to grind together in annoyance.
Alas, away went the teeth as Jon decided to go whole hog and dig out the rest of the cupboard, determined to find the electrolytes.
'Please tell me your mother knows where you were and expects you to be out all night.' Even one bit of good news would do to keep Jon's blue blood from boiling over.
Arya sighed and laid back down, covering her eyes with her arm. She now remembered finding Alyssa and Damian and asking her to text Jon for her. ‘Yes, she knows I was going to Courf’s party.’
Of course what Catelyn didn’t know was that Courf had been the guy she’d met in the hooka shop back during the whole trippy Wonderland thing; to say that Catelyn hadn’t been happy when she’d found out that Arya had been there was an understatement. But honestly, she had just turned eighteen and technically she was an adult. So that meant she could do whatever she wanted, didn’t it?
‘I was planning on going home whenever the party ended.’
As she laid there, bare arm over her eyes, she began to become aware of a dull throb in her head. “Got any Tylenol?” she asked, lifting her arm to look over at Jon then groaned. ‘I’m gonna have to go back in the morning to get my car.’
All she had known was that she couldn’t drive but it had never occurred to her that if someone else brought her home that would mean her car would still be at Courf’s place.
Good one Arya.
She was haggered. Wisps of brunette hair poked out every direction from her untidy plait sporting a look much like what Jon fancied a deflated hedgehog might, too blotted to curl up and defend itself against attack. She swayed when she sat, stilled like stone when she lay and looked about as peaky as the sheets upon which she flopped as a disoriented seal failing to manage the shore.
Such a tiny thing, too. Ninety pounds soaking wet on a bloated day and here she was tearing down the brick and mortar walls caging Jon's heart.
For the third time that night, he felt invaded and oddly happy about it.
'We'll get your car tomorrow,' Jon promised, his voice softer now as he watched his tiny slip of a sister struggle with too much alcohol. ‘And I’ll text your mother and let her know you won’t be home tonight. Staying with a friend,’ was as good an alibi as any.
And water! Any water would be better than none at this point so Jon gave up on the e-lytes and walked the bottle back to her, carefully avoiding stepping on any food items. 'I have some paracetamol in my bag.'
Once Arya had firm hold of the bottle and Jon was satisfied she would not drown herself or the bed, he shuffled back up the trailer and began shoving noodles, crisps, dried fruit, crackers, instant porridge packets and more back into cabinets any way he could make them fit. Everything except the Tetley's; a night like this demanded tea.
'How much did you drink?' he inquired when the room was clean.
Once Arya had drank about half of the bottle she placed the cap back on and set it on the bed so she could sit up and try to take her boots off. Luckily they went up to just below her knees so the zipper was easy to find. She had thought that the boots as well as the skinny jeans were going to be uncomfortable but thankfully when her mother had bought her the boots she’d had enough common sense to get ones without heels, otherwise Arya would have twisted her ankle before she’d even left the house. And the jeans had gotten more comfortable the longer she’d worn them so she hadn’t been strangled by them.
‘Two beers and something else,’ she said as she got the first boot off, not quite looking at Jon. ‘But I hadn’t eaten since lunch.’
She knew that she should have eaten something before she’d gone to the party but she’d been so preoccupied with trying to figure out what to do with her hair and fending off Catelyn’s insistence that she wear some makeup that she’d simply forgotten by the time she’d left.
As if on cue her stomach rumbled.
'It's a wonder you're not worse off.' And that was the worst of the chidding Jon planned for the evening. One simple sentence subtly conveying all his brotherly love, concern and what warning he felt qualified to provide.
Tipsy at one pint, naked by two, Jon could not speak on the merits of curbing drink or being more responsible. Bollocks to that. If America had a better attitude on alcohol and how to handle its effects the entire social demographic of the United States would be unrecognisably more civilised.
That was, of course, just the quiet opinion of a Briton; but as all of the Isles knew, an Englishman was never wrong for he was too stubborn to let go of his opinions.
Out came the ten p noodles again, one for Arya and one for himself because dinner had been a long time ago. Jon set the kettle and while it brought water to a boil for soup and tea he remembered Arya's request for paracetamol.
'How much do you weigh these days?' he asked, fishing the box from his rucksack and reading the warning label.
He really needed to ring Robb soon, too.
'About six stone?'
Unlike in America where pharmaceutical companies were more concerned by lawsuits than healthcare, over the counter pain relief in England actually worked. A single dose was all a person needed to - nay, should - take particularly when combined with alcohol. None of that shaking a handful of pills from bottle to mouth here! Just the precise tablet amount.
Yet another lesson the Yanks could learn if they would only listen to their elders instead of acting like petulant toddlers still learning to share.
‘Well, I didn’t drink them all in one go,’ she said, laying back down once both her boots were off. She turned her head to watch what Jon was doing and was glad for the dim light in the trailer because her eyes were beginning to hurt a little. At least she didn’t feel sick because throwing up was the last thing she wanted to do tonight. That was never fun.
‘I spaced them out, but I guess not having eaten since twelve thirty isn’t good when drinking.’ She’d be sure to remember that for the next time.
When Jon asked her how much she weighed she quirked a brow at him, ‘I guess since you’re gay you missed the memo where you’re not supposed to ask a girl her weight.’ Besides, at the moment the whole pounds and stones thing wasn’t making any sense in Arya’s alcohol addled mind.
‘Just give me two of whatever you have.’ Arya was no stranger to pain meds considering she played sported which often resulted in aches and pains.
Jon shot a glare through the dark along with a zipping, ‘Cheeky monkey,’ a term synonymous with Arya. Just as Jon endearingly called her baby sister or when he was feeling particularly affectionate, wee bit, for she was at best of times a wisp of a girl, no wider than a blade of grass.
Staring back down at the package, Jon considered whether or not he should listen to her American assessment on drug protocol but got no further than the opening statement as the kettle began to whistle. Against what he thought to be better judgement, Jon popped two tablets from the package and dropped them into Arya’s outstretched hand, unable to deal with yet more interruptions.
The night had been too full of them already.
‘So what were you doing at a party with a bunch of gay blokes?’ Jon inquired as he poured water for tea and noodles. The food would have to sit and cook but the tea could steppe in their hands, warming more than their bellies.
Carefully, Jon climbed into bed next to Arya and passed her a cup of tea, sitting cross-legged himself against the wall of the trailer.
Arya took the pain meds from Jon and downed them with a swig of water. ‘They’re not all gay, Jon.’ She said taking the cup that he passed her, blowing across the surface of the hot liquid.
‘And it was Courfeyrac’s birthday party. I met him when the OC had that bad acid trip.’ It was hard to believe that it had only been a month since she’d met Courf and his friends but she was glad that she had because she enjoyed talking to them and spending time with them.
‘So, what were you up to tonight? I would have asked Alyssa for a ride, but I didn’t want to make her and her boyfriend leave.’
Arya had only just met Bran’s friend Alyssa in person at the party that night but she’d figured that if Bran could still be friends with the red headed girl even after his crush on her then she couldn’t be that bad. She’d actually enjoyed hanging out with her and Damian. ‘Hope I didn’t drag you away from anything important.’
'Actually, you did.' The words were out before Jon could think twice, the evening's frustrations bubbling to the surface against better judgement and not only surprising Arya but Jon, as well.
See what you do to me, Robb? Opening me up and leaving me helpless...
Now that the words were out there, however, Jon didn't bother holding back the other thoughts bouncing about his skull. Hold too many back and a person was bound to lose more than they chose to freely allow escape. At least this way, Jon would be able to filter himself and speak calmly, letting go a little of the overflow before the damn fully collapsed under its own pressure.
In many ways, Jon's calm tutelage was more impressive than if he'd simply shouted.
'You know, wee bit,' the precious nickname added to take the sting off the lecture, 'I am a huge supporter of alcohol. I think it's bloody brilliant. And I could not care one piss kidney less if you're drinking underage or not. But if you ever do something so stupid and irresponsible again, I'll hold you down while your mother wallops you. You don't ever, ever drink like that on an empty stomach. Especially when you're not used to it.'
Arya opened her mouth to speak but Jon held up a finger indicating he wasn't quite done and would harbor no interruption. 'Everybody's allowed to make that mistake once. Now you have. Don't ever make it again.'
To say that Arya was surprised was an understatement. Jon so rarely talked to her like that, reminding her in the moment of her mother. The whole reason she had asked Alyssa to text Jon for her was because she had thought that he would be the only one who wouldn’t lecture her. Obviously she’d been wrong.
‘Wow, mum, I hadn’t realized that I would be such a huge inconvenience to you tonight. Next time I’ll just call Sansa. She might tell me I was being stupid but she wouldn’t get all pissy.’
Frowning, Arya looked away from Jon and sipped her tea. ‘If you were doing something so much more important why did you even agree to come get me?’ She might have sounded much more coherent than when Jon had picked her up but the dull throbbing in her head was beginning to grow despite the meds.
‘And how would you even know if this was the first time I’ve drank like this? You’re never around.’ Her words might have been a little harsh but she didn’t care at the moment. She loved Jon and missed him terribly when he wasn’t there; right now she hated him for always going away.
And now Jon's voice did adapt a frightening tone; one he had only used against Arya three times over the course of her entire life.
The first time had been after Bran's accident.
Catelyn Stark was absolutely beside herself the day Bran became a cripple and not a single word from anybody could have calmed her. It wasn't Arya's fault she'd gotten caught in the crosshairs; could have happened to any of the children, even Ned, but if there was ever a moment for Arya to bite her tongue and bridle her spirit it would have been that day. Jon hated calling Arya out on her behaviour but the short bite of his voice was as silk to burlap compared to the wrath of Catelyn Stark who's true-born baby boy had fallen from a tree, never to walk again.
The second time Jon snapped at Arya was the day she punched a cheerleader from her school.
At her bequest, Jon had been giving Arya lessons on basic martial arts the summer of her visit to London. He too had been learning for his courses and it had seemed a fun and harmless exercise to pass his knowledge along to the one person he knew would appreciate the study. Learn by teaching, they said; what Jon had failed to teach Arya though was when and what to fight over. A mistake he corrected over the phone with a deeply stern tone which booked no argument from the little girl.
Lastly, prior to tonight, Jon had recalled his voice of terror the first time Arya saw him snogging a bloke.
Dropping eaves was not acceptable. Jon had lectured Arya for a long while that evening on the merits of keeping her nose where it belonged at the end of her face and not sniffing round other people's private business. But Arya had been so inquisitive, so interested, that even his commanding tone had failed to curb her beaviour. Instead, over several cups of Tetley's, Jon had patiently answered every question she posed in as much detail as he'd felt comfortable sharing. That evening remained the one and only time he'd allowed her to probe so deeply into his private life because if Jon were honest, sharing that most important detail of himself with Arya had been a blessing in disguise.
Tonight, however, Jon cut Arya off with all the intent of severing a festering wound before it took to rotting the rest of the body.
'That's enough.' Arya may have been drunk but after all he'd done for her through the years and what he'd given up that night alone Jon did not deserve her vengeance in exchange for his brotherly corrections.
More than she could ever realise, Arya had just let lose a mortar in Jon’s soul.
That caught Arya’s attention and she turned her head back towards Jon and just stared at him for a moment.
Finally, she placed the tea cup down on the nearest flat surface and slowly moved towards Jon, laying her head on his upper arm. ‘I’m sorry.’
The more she thought about it, the more she realized what tone Jon’s voice held when he was telling her off. It was the same tone that he always had in those instances, but she was drunk and quick to upset. ‘That was uncalled for. I was an ass.’
She tipped her head back to look up at Jon, ‘Do you forgive me? Are we still friends?’
She didn’t really hate Jon. She had just been upset because she’d thought that he was mad at her. She could never really hate Jon. As far as favorite brothers went, it was a very close race between Jon and Bran and she didn’t think she could ever hate either of them. ‘I just thought you were mad at me.’
Instead of agreeing with Arya and running the point nose first into the proverbial mud, Jon nudged her playfully as he reached over to set his mug next to hers. Pliable and wobbly, she needed a hug; or he needed a hug looking at her. In either case, an embrace followed, tea safely to the sidelines.
'You're just pissed,' he said, looping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her face up close beneath his chin, the same way he'd cradled her as a baby. The same way they still fell into one another after months and months apart, Arya at his neck, Jon to her scalp, both breathing one another in like two wolves remembering the scent of a lost member of the pack.
'And I'm not mad. You had me worried, is all.'
Though he was only half a Stark, Jon took his eldest responsibilities as seriously as if he too had been pulled from Catelyn’s loins. The smallest bunged knee to the most severe accident, emotional missteps, illness, lost and broken; Jon tended to all his siblings’ wounds, the messier the problem the better he was at handling.
Arya leaned into Jon as he wrapped her in his arms and closed her eyes. Some siblings weren’t quite as close as they were and Arya was glad to have him. ‘I didn’t mean to worry you. I just figured that you were the better choice than calling Sansa or anyone else.’ Of course she could have just stayed at Courf’s but she hadn’t wanted to impose on him.
‘I’m sorry I interrupted whatever you were doing.’
She rested there for a moment, listening to the steady rhythm of his heart until her brows furrowed slightly, ‘Wait a minute, what were you doing this late that was so important?’
Arya pulled back a little so that she could look at Jon and only now noticed the marks on his neck. She hadn’t noticed before because she’d been too far away, but now they were unmistakable. ‘Oh my god! You were with a boy!’
Jon felt the preamble to the storm before Arya even lifted her head from the safety of his broad shoulder and wished suddenly for an aneurism to strike and bring death. The measly warning however was about as effective as an early airstrike horn, the reality of Arya's realisation hitting him square in the gut like a punch.
There was no prior experience Jon could recall quite like being caught with his hand in this particular cookie jar.
His little secret was no longer his to keep.
Wanting to crawl away and die a long agonising death via rusty spoon rather than face Arya's wide inquisitive orbs, Jon closed his eyes and thuwmped his head against the trailer window. Its hollow thunk the only response Arya needed to confirm her newest and most treasured fact about big brother Jon.
And what's more it was somehow worse this time around than when Arya had accidentally outed him. Then it had been her doing, her own nosy fault but now Jon had no one to blame but himself.
And Robb McLellan.
Even now Jon could hear Robb's prideful snerk knocking about his brain. Not a boy, thanks much. Those words would hardly fly with Arya though, even if he'd had the courage to say them.
Instead, cheeks pinker than a baby's freshly smacked bottom, Jon opened his mouth and confirmed under no uncertain terms, 'Aye.'
Arya almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Jon had been with a guy? No wonder he had been a little annoyed that she’d called him. She almost couldn’t believe it.
The mattress dipped as she moved up onto her knees to look straight at Jon. Trust Arya Stark to be able to move like a flash even while somewhat drunk. ‘Who is it? Where did you meet him?’ Normally Arya didn’t get all girly over things like relationships, but there had been a few exceptions and Jon was one of those.
Jon was lucky that the lights were low enough that she couldn’t see the flush of his cheeks because she totally would have teased him about it forever. She didn’t think she’d ever seen Jon blush before, so that would have been a time when she would have wanted a camera. Lucky for Jon though, she couldn’t see it.
He's mine. Just mine.
Beneath Arya's initial observations Jon had no recourse, no possible means of escape trapped between his sister's wide eyes and the back of the trailer. The evidence was there, marred across his jugular like spots on a zebra.
What Arya didn't have though was a name. That still belonged to Jon alone and would remain that way until he saw fit.
'Mind your own business,' Jon chipped, bursting forward to wrap his arms around Arya and wrestle her to the mattress. Kicking and laughing would do her no good even if she'd been sober; Jon had a good hundred pounds on Arya. 'And go to bed, wee bit. Or eat your noodles and then go to bed. It’s late.'
If Arya had been completely sober she would have put up more of a fight, but as it was, she only fought against her brother of a moment or two before she finally gave up and sighed. ‘You’re no fun, Jon Snow.’ She stuck her tongue out at him then sat up again once he let her go.
‘Fine. Keep your secrets to yourself. They won’t stay secret for long.’
If Jon were straight, she would have said she’d just tell their father that he had a girlfriend but as it was, she couldn’t tell Ned that Jon had a boyfriend. It wasn’t her place to tell him. When and how Jon told their father that he was gay was completely up to Jon and she wasn’t about to out him.
Reaching for her cup of tea, she took a sip of the now warm liquid, ‘I probably should get some sleep. I just remembered that I have a softball game in the morning.’ And she had invited Gendry to come so she couldn’t miss it just because she might be a little hungover.
‘So, give me the noodles so I can eat them then go to sleep.’
Glad to escape Arya so easily, Jon climbed from the bed and brought her a bowl with now soft noodles and a plastic fork. ‘Don’t you dare spill in my bed.’ The last thing those sheet needed were more stains and if Jon was going to spend his Friday night sleeping in his work trailer with his drunken baby sister rather than in a bed with dark cotton sheets tangling legs with a naked Scotsmen, he would lay in a dry bed, not one smelling of too salty prawn juice.
‘I’m going for a walk. Go to bed and we’ll get your car in the morning.’
Once Arya had agreed to his requests, Jon checked his pockets. Wallet, keys, mobile. Everything he needed to escape the confines of the trailer and ring up Robb before it got any later.
Jon had made a promise which he dared not break.
And then were questions, too. Questions for Robb, inquiries Jon knew Arya would prod him with as soon as her brain remembered once more how to properly fit inside her skull. And the answers Jon needed in order to ward off Arya’s probing beyond tonight were currently across the county with the man he couldn’t quite call his own.