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Arya wiggles a book back into place and huffs. She has been re-stacking books for twenty minutes now and the pile loaded onto the cart doesn’t look any smaller than it did when she first started. She honestly wouldn’t mind the mindless task of re-shelving books but the librarian and her assistant hadn’t even bothered to group them together by genre. Arya is pretty sure Cersei Lannister has something to do with it.
And the fact that she’s only serving after school detention every Wednesday afternoon for two months because she taped Joffrey to a pole.
Still, it seems a little unfair that she has to look at the number on each individual book and then comb the stacks to get them back to their proper place. Practically inhumane. The punishment far outweighs her actual crime.
Arya re-homes another five books before she decides fuck it and abandons the cart. She quietly slips towards the back of the library and hides herself away into the corner meeting room, one of the only places completely hidden from the librarian’s desk. She puts her feet up on the chair next to her and pops in an earphone, hitting shuffle on her playlist.
She listens to The Direwolves of the North for about fifteen minutes before she is startled by the sudden appearance of a tall, dark-haired guy. She’s pretty sure that she’s been in one of his math classes before but she can’t remember his name or anything else distinctive about him.
“Can I help you?” She asks.
The guy frowns. “Mr Davos didn’t tell me our lesson room was changing.” He grips his books a little tighter. “I’ll go-”
“No!” Arya blurts out. “I’m, uh, actually hiding from the librarian. I’m meant to be re-shelving books but Mordane didn’t organise them in the cart so I gave up. What are they going to do? Give me more detention? I’m here for the rest of the semester.”
Recognition lights up the guy’s face. “You’re Arya Stark! You taped Baratheon to the pole.”
Arya grins. “Liked my work, did you?”
“I’ll help you next time if you need someone to keep him still.”
“I think I should probably know the name of my new accomplice.”
The guy coughs. “Gendry Waters.”
“Nice to meet you,” she says honestly. “So, what voluntarily brings you to this place? You do know that school ended half an hour ago, right?”
“Davos helps me once a week with my reading.”
Arya’s eyebrows raise. “You can’t read?”
Gendry scowls. “I can read. I’m not stupid.”
“I’m not judging you,” Arya raises a hand in surrender. “Just surprised because I’m pretty sure we shared a math class.”
Gendry throws himself into a chair across the table from her. “I’m on a modified curriculum. I understand numbers pretty well but sometimes I struggle a bit with the English side of things. I still take all the same exams but someone reads the questions to me. We don’t all have rich parents who can pay for people to fix us.”
Arya’s a little surprised by how open Gendry is being about the whole topic but she can tell by his tone of voice that he’s had more than one confrontation about this. He’s not ashamed though and she actually admires that he’s trying to work on what is holding him back. “It’s nice of Davos to help you.”
“Yeah, he’s pretty great. He’s usually not late though.”
Arya tucks her phone away and drops her legs off the chair. “Do you want to read with me? I’m probably not going to be much help but if you want to do whatever you normally do I could listen?” Gendry doesn’t look convinced by the offer and Arya gets it. She’d probably tell someone to piss off if the tables were turned. “I’m not going to judge you or make fun of you to anyone later. My youngest brother has dyslexia so I get it.”
Gendry lets out a deep breath and reaches for a book in the pile he had brought with him. “It’s kind of a kids book. It’s The Sea of Monsters. It’s a-”
“Percy Jackson book,” Arya finishes. She grins at him. “I stole the first book from my brother Robb and read it to my brother Bran when he was in the hospital after his accident. I love Annabeth.”
Gendry opens the book and slowly starts to read out loud. Arya notices immediately when he starts to struggle because he begins to frown. His fingers tighten on the book and words start to drop from sentences as he goes from trying to guess the word to skipping past it completely. She asks him if he minds her sitting next to him and moves around the table when he pulls the empty chair out next to him.
She reads along with him in her head as he tries to read the sentences out loud. Every time he struggles with a word or missing something she points to it on the page. He tries to sound out the words and he’s not too far off the mark with most of them. There are some words he stumbles over multiple times and she steps in before he can get too frustrated.
It’s slow going. By the time Mr Davos shows up with an apologetic expression and a harried look on his face, it’s been seven minutes and Gendry has just finished a page.
“Sorry, lad,” Davos apologises. “I got caught up.”
Gendry smiles. “It’s fine. Arya’s actually helping me.”
Davos chuckles. “Ms Mordane is looking everywhere for you.”
Arya groans and slumps back in her seat. “She’s got it out for me.”
Gendry looks down at his book. “Thanks for helping me and, you know, not thinking I’m stupid.”
“Joffrey’s face is stupid,” Arya retorts. “You just need some help. I’d much rather be in here with you than stacking books.”
Davos looks between them. “Gendry, would you like to read with Arya more in the future?”
Gendry glances at Arya and nods. “She’s cool.”
“I’ll be back in a minute.”
Davos disappears and Arya asks Gendry if he wants to keep reading. Part of the reason for her question is the selfish desire to continue avoiding work but she also really wants to keep listening to him. Gendry has a nice voice and she likes the triumphant little smile he gets when he manages to get through a sentence without help.
Gendry manages through a whole paragraph by the time Davos comes back. The man looks like he could do with a good long Robert Baratheon drinking session. “Ms Mordane wasn’t happy about it but I’ve managed to get you off the hook for today, Arya.”
“Really?” She asks.
Davos nods. “If you’re interested I’ll go and speak with Mr Lannister tomorrow about permanently moving your detention to working with Gendry. As long as you are both okay with that of course.”
Arya’s stomach lurches a little and she feels oddly nervous about what Gendry is going to say. Helping him for a few minutes doesn’t mean he actually wants her around. He could just be humouring her. “It’s up to Gendry.”
“How do you feel about saran wrapping Joffrey’s car?”
Davos coughs. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”
Arya gives Gendry a feral grin. After school detention suddenly wasn’t looking so bad.