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Daenerys Targaryen was the stereotypical cool-girl around the campus. Everyone knew about her the first day she came to Brown University. Word spread fast about a ridiculously hot and wealthy girl from England coming to America wanting to learn more from a different country. Guys stared at her as she walked through the halls to her locker, classes, lunch, practically drooling from the desire to sweep her off of her feet(or look at her like she was lunch).
It wasn’t a secret that Daenerys was absolutely beautiful, but she was also incredibly smart. Why? Because any douchebag guy that walked her way to ask her out would be turned down faster than a frat-boy could down a drink.
Every girl wanted to be her. Sitting next to her at lunch complementing everything she did from the way she walked to the way she ate her food. There wasn’t anybody around campus that didn’t know who she was, and everyone was obsessed with her.
Everyone but Arya Stark.
Arya thought she was beautiful of course; she wasn’t blind, but she always saw Daenerys as a snotty, prissy, selfish rich girl who craved the spotlight and having men fall head-over-heels for her every time she gave them a brief glance.
Arya preferred to stay away from her, not wanting to deal with brats for as long as possible and just enjoy her college experience as much as she could.
Arya Stark was the captain of the Women's Soccer team for Brown University, loving the sport more than anything in the world. It gave her a chance to lead a team like her father had done before he passed away. Ned Stark, her dad, coached the men’s basketball team before she even finished high school, and watching his dedication on the floor for his team helped shape her into the amazing captain she was.
Today Arya had another game. She’d been practicing every opportunity she had with her beloved team.
Sitting in the Women’s locker room Arya nervously slipped on her uniform and tied her cleats extra tight, enjoying the peace and quiet of the large space. She always got ready last after everyone had left to warm up; it was good luck.
After spreading eye black on her cheeks, Arya took a few deep breaths to calm her pre-game nerves before stepping out onto the field, looking around the college stadium, glad that there weren’t too many people in the crowd.
She ran and joined her team across the field as the announcer said that the game would begin shortly through the speakers. “Stark! We’ve got two minutes ‘till game time!” Shireen Baratheon, one of her teammates, shouted as she jumped with excitement.
Once they all worked the game strategy out as a team, they began to play. The team they were up against was good, great even, matching them point for point until there were only two minutes left on the clock, a tie of 9 and 9.
She walked to the center of the field, waiting for the buzz that signaled that she could kick the ball. Getting her head in the game, she closed her eyes and focused on the goal in front of her.
Once the noise was heard, her opponent ran towards her and tried to strike the ball with her foot, but Arya was quicker, leaping forward and kicking the ball sideways before the other girl could get to it.
She heard the crowd cheering as she dodged the opposite team and ran straight for the goal with the ball as fast as her legs could go.
Only a few yards away from the net, she blocked every sound out and centered her attention on the goalie in front of her, moving back and forth on quick feet, trying to intimidate and confuse her. With a giant breath out Arya kicked the ball as hard as she could, watching the goalie lunge to swat the ball away. The world switched into slow-motion for a moment as the ball kept flying through the air and dropped to the ground after hitting the net of the goal.
The crowd roared in excitement and joy at her victory. Arya through her hands up in the air and shouted as her team ran over to her and scooped her onto their shoulders, parading her back across the field, yelling her name.
While Arya laughed at her team’s reaction and look up she saw something that both shocked her confused her.
Daenerys Targaryen stood on top of a bench, smiling and shouting her name too, looking like she was having the time of her life. Why would little miss I’m-better-than-everyone cheer for me?
Arya was pulled out of her thoughts by her feet touching the solid ground in the locker room, each member of her team crushing her in a hug, telling her ‘Good job’ and ‘That was awesome’ and other things.
After everyone left the locker room and Arya went home to her dorm room, she couldn’t shake the image of that woman in the crowd. Daenerys didn’t seem like the type that would go to a soccer game, let alone cheer her on. It just didn’t add up. Arya had never even exchanged a word with the woman before, come to think of it, she actively avoided her.
Before throwing herself on her bed she checked her calendar; It was Saturday tomorrow.
She had an idea. A crazy idea, but an idea none the less.
******
“Gendry, I need your help right now!” Arya whisper-shouted at her phone.
“What now?” her friend asked, annoyance laced in his voice.
“I’m stuck in the air duct above the art room.” sensing what question would be asked next, she added, “Don’t ask me how I got up here, because it’s probably very illegal.”
“Okay, why are you up there in the first place?”
“I wanted to spy on that Daenerys lady and got trapped. I was trying to get to her room, but ended up in the art room.”
Gendry groaned over the phone. “Arry, if you’re stuck then I’m not gonna be any help! I’m twice your size!”
“Please?” she begged with her best pouting voice. “I can’t get-” she was silenced by the sound of the door below her opening, revealing none other than Daenerys Targaryen and her friend, but Arya didn’t know her name.
“Arry? Arry? Arya!” she heard Gendry trying to get her attention in her ear.
“Shhhhh! I’ll call you back.” She quickly hung up her phone, watching through the vent grate as the cool-girl and her friend sat down on the chairs in the back of the room.
“Missandei, it’s hopeless! I feel like every time I try to talk to her the universe just says ‘Not today!’ and slaps me across the face and reminds me that I’m the most useless gay around!”
So Daenerys Targaryen was gay? That came as a shock to Arya. She should’ve known. The woman turned down more men than Margaery Tyrell.
“You don’t even know if she’s gay either.” The woman whose name was apparently ‘Missandei’ stated.
Arya wondered who in the world was ‘lucky’ enough to have Daenerys as her secret crush.
“What the hell am I going to do?” Daenerys held her head in her hands and lied back on the table, legs dangling off the edge of the table. “Walk around the campus wearing a sign saying ‘I’m in love with Arya Stark’?”
Arya choked on her own tongue, slapping a hand to her mouth, trying not to cough up her lungs. Daenerys Targaryen’s crush was herself? Disbelief flooded through her entire system, suddenly feeling very hot in the cramped space she was in.
“What was that?” The two women below her immediately sat straight up on the table, looking around the room for the sudden noise.
Arya prayer to every God she’d heard of that she could get the hell out of that vent as quiet as possible. Crossing her fingers she kicked her leg out from beneath her, making only a small bang against the metal wall behind her. This is not happening, this is not happening, this is NOT happening.
Trying to shimmy back the way she crawled, she quickly realized that the only way to get out was to wait until the women were out before dropping down the air duct into the janitor’s closet.
Arya lied in the air duct for eleven minutes before Daenerys and Missandei finally left(Yup, she counted). About a minute later Arya managed to get out of the metal death-trap above her and ran to her dorm room while simultaneously causing her brain to explode from the conversation she’d just overheard. Arya was so confused, but there was one thing she knew for certain: She was never climbing into that air vent ever again.
********
On Monday during lunch, Arya walked inside the cafeteria with her hands balled into fists because they were shaking so bad. Today was the day she would walk up to Daenerys and actually talk to the poor girl.
During the eleven minutes she spent in that air duct on Saturday she learned that Daenerys was not at all whom she thought she was. She was actually quite funny and smart(not just because she rejected every man that came up to her), and thought the same thing about Arya, continually gushing to her friend about how cute she thought Arya was, and apparently has had a crush on her for a whole year and a half.
Arya mentally smacked herself. All this time she was keeping her distance from the Targaryen thinking she was just going to waste her time on the woman, but the Targaryen thought Arya was the nicest thing she’d ever laid her eyes on.
Man, she was a complete idiot.
Not even bothering to join the long line to get her lunch first, Arya scanned the room for the woman she needed to find before she became the next case of Human Combustion.
Her stomach flipped as she eyed the silver-haired student sitting at a table with Missandei, Arya recognized.
Inhaling a much-needed breath, Arya willed her trembling legs to move her body forward. This is stupid. I’m not in the 3rd grade anymore, Arya told herself along with another mental slap to the face.
As she approached the lunch table Daenerys and Missandei were playfully laughing and joking with each other until the brunette spotted her and nudged her friend’s shoulder, pointing to herself as Arya pretended to just ‘casually’ walk over to them.
Daenerys looked over to where Missandei pointed and immediately stopped laughing and began whispering to the woman beside her. Arya took a risk and looked Daenerys straight in the eye, effectively shutting her up.
She briefly heard Missandei make up an excuse to leave, gave Daenerys a quick thumbs up, then made a mad dash to the lunch line, leaving the terrified looking woman alone at the table.
Arya ran a hand through her hair and pulled at the bottom of her shirt, trying her best to look all right; after all, she was walking up to the famous person at college who’s had a major crush her ever since she arrived in America.
Daenerys looked down, covering part of her face with her hand as smooth as possible, probably thinking she would just walk by without stopping to give her just one look, but Arya didn’t walk by, she stood as close as appropriately possible to her, then taking the tiniest step back, losing a little bit of her confidence.
Arya cleared her throat loud enough for Daenerys to hear over all of the students talking. Sure enough, the seated woman’s head snapped up to meet the steel grey eyes nervously staring down at her.
“H-i.” Arya almost whispered. She was doing something she never thought she’d do, talk to someone she swore she wouldn’t talk to.
Daenerys just looked at her sort of flabbergasted. Nobody ever had that reaction to her, so of course, Arya didn’t know what to do, so she said the first thing that popped into her stupid brain. “Can I sit here?”
Daenerys seemed to snap out of her little trance and nodded, pointing to the bench across from her. Arya quickly sat down, both of them way too deep in shock to notice each other’s awkwardness.
“You were amazing on Friday.” Daenerys blurted out suddenly, looking down briefly at her lap, taking a deep breath.
Arya bit her tongue to shove her blush back to wherever it came from. “Thanks.” she smiled, the butterflies in her stomach bordering on painful.
A surprisingly comfortable silence hung between them as they both avoided each other’s eyes, only to lock them together every now and then. When it became too much, Arya quickly spoke up, really not knowing what to say to this person.
“A-Are you gonna grab lunch?”
“Are you?” Daenerys questioned, her expression surprisingly… hopeful?
“Uh, yeah-yes.” Arya cursed her mouth for choosing to not work at this exact moment.
“Okay.” Daenerys sounded so incredibly shy that Arya just had to help her out if it was the last thing she did because for some reason nothing else mattered at the moment.
She got up and walked over to Daenerys and extended her hand to the woman, once again surprising both of them. “Let’s go.”
Daenerys quickly grabbed Arya’s hand, letting the brunette pull her up out of her seat. How can someone’s hands be so damn soft? Arya kept note of that in her mind.
As they sat in line Arya and Daenerys talked. Just getting to really know each other, enjoying the company. Arya quickly looked over Daenerys’ shoulder at the long line in front of them that kept them apart from their food. “Better than that air vent.” She muttered under her breath.
“Hmm?” Daenerys couldn’t hear exactly what she said, thank goodness. That would be a story for another day.
As they finally got their food and sat back down, continuing to chat together about nothing, in particular, Arya has a funny feeling in her heart.
Maybe getting stuck in that air vent wasn’t so bad after all.
But she still wasn’t going in there ever again.