Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Alright, this should do it…” Rhaenys mutters to herself, rising onto the step stool to carefully place another piece of tape over the corner of the banner. She holds out her free hand to shield her eyes from the early morning sun coming in through the window, trying to scorch her corneas as she puts the finishing touches on the decorations.

For nearly ten years, she’s been getting up before everyone else in the house—namely, her two brothers. Each morning, she cooks the three of them a healthy breakfast, checks that their schoolbags are packed, and throws leftovers into their lunchboxes if the cafeteria menu is nasty that day; she picks them up after the final bell, drives them to after-school practice, and helps them with homework in the evenings; and no matter how much they protest, she makes sure they’re in bed on time.

But today, Rhaenys graduates from guardianship, a decade of—with help from Uncle Doran and Uncle Oby—practically raising Egg and Jon.

Hopping off the stool, she takes a step back and admires her handiwork: a long banner hanging over the sliding door to the deck, announcing ‘Happy Birthday, Jon!’ in her best cursive.

“Not too shabby,” she sighs, surveying the rest of the kitchen. There are streamers hanging from the cabinets, a card on the table, and multicolored balloons scattered over the countertop—but not quite enough to satisfy her perfectionism. “Just a couple more…”

Padding over to the cabinet nearest the sink, she opens the doors and starts rummaging past toothpicks and coffee mugs and matches—only for an odd glint of white to catch her eye.

“What the…?” She closes the cabinet and looks out the kitchen window, trying to squint through the sun to discern the strange object floating in the pool. “Is that…? No freaking way!”

Abandoning her search for the balloons, she turns on her heel and marches across the kitchen, throws the door open, and stalks onto the deck.

“Arianne, what in the S’Hells are you doing?”

Discipline, consistency, and punctuality are three of Rhaenys’ most prized values—and her cousin possesses none of them. After her long-term boyfriend dumped her for an eighteen year-old, Arianne had a complete meltdown, dropped out of college, and hasn’t done much of anything with her life since. She’s couch-surfed through most of the family over the past few years: first her dad’s place, then with Tyene for a while—even crashing in the guest bedroom across the hall from Jon until ‘The Incident’ which forced Rhaenys to throw her out on her ass—before finally landing with Uncle Oby and his wife on the other side of town.

Needless to say, witnessing her cousin awake and out of bed before noon—much less 6:30 AM—comes as a shock. Under different circumstances, she might even be proud of her.

“G’morning, Rhae!” Ari chirps. Crossing her legs, she sets her drink—a margarita, by the looks—in the cupholder of her inflatable swan-shaped pool float, the same pristine white as her swimsuit. “I brought a whole pitcher, if you’re interested.”

Eyes shaded by a pair of aviators, she gestures to the cooler by the side of the pool with a flick of her hand.

“Uh, yeah…I’m good,” Rhaenys scoffs, hands on her hips. “So should I ask what you’re doing here, or are you going to start explaining?”

Adjusting the gilded ring which performs the noble task of holding together the two halves of her bikini top, Arianne sighs pleasantly and casts a glance at the second-story bedroom window above Rhaenys’ head.

“Oh, you know…just stopping by. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you three, and I wanted to say hi.”

Eyes narrowed, she raises a brow. “Okay, well, first off—Egg is away at KLU, and he’s been there all year…which you should know.”

“Is he really? Must’ve slipped my mind. Never was my favorite cousin, honestly.”

The candid comment bugs her not so much due to the derision of her brother—who deserves it, admittedly, considering how he called Arianne ugly when they were kids and has refused to apologize for nearly fifteen years—but because she knows all too well who Arianne’s favorite cousin happens to be.

And they aren’t related by blood.

“Jon’s still asleep,” she says, trying to keep her voice even. “Too bad you missed him.”

Arianne shrugs and lifts her drink from the cupholder.

“That’s alright. I’m happy to wait a while.”

“You don’t have anything better to do?”

“Pfft, of course not. My social life has been in the morgue for years, and I’m still looking for a job…well, not really looking so much as thinking about looking…anyway, I might as well kill some time.”

“Why are you killing it here, though?”

“You guys have a nice pool.”

“Not as nice as Uncle Oby’s.“

“Debatable. I suppose I needed a change of pace.”

“Is getting up at the crack of dawn also a change of pace?”

“For today, yeah.”

“Must be tough with a perpetual hangover.”

“I’ve been taking it easy on the booze lately, believe it or not.”

“I don’t believe it. It’s not even seven o’clock, and you’re already drinking.”

“Well, maybe I have a good reason? I could be celebrating something for all you know!”

Rhaenys’ nostrils flare, mild irritation suddenly inflamed at the implication.

“What could you possibly be celebrating today, Ari?”

She takes a sip and gives the glass a swirl, making the ice cubes clink.

“Hmmm…maybe I won the lottery?”

“Did you?”

“Not as far as I know, but I heard the Dornish Powerball jackpot is all the way up to $437 million and—”

“Don’t change the subject. Whatever you’re celebrating, can you explain what you’re doing in my pool this early in the morning? Just answer that, please.”

She shrugs and takes another sip. “Felt like the right time and place. Listened to my gut, ya know?”

“Really? Your gut?” Rhaenys snarls—knowing perfectly well that Arianne is listening to a very different part of her anatomy. She briefly indulges in the fantasy of kicking off her slippers, yanking out the belt of her fluffy blue bathrobe, and leaping towards the swan float to strangle her cousin where she lies. “So you have no idea it’s Jon’s birthday today?”

“Jon’s birthday?!” Her face lights up with feigned surprise, the whole act absurdly transparent. “Is it really? What a wonderful coincidence!” She flips her hair and extends a sleek, shapely leg while sneaking another look at the second-story bedroom window.

“Yeah. Coincidence. I’m sure.”

“How old is he today? Oh, let me guess! Is he…twelve? Thirteen? Fourteen? Fifteen? Sixteen?”

“He was sixteen,” Rhaenys growls, taking a step towards the edge of the pool, jabbing her finger at Ari like a hot poker, “when I walked in on you kissing him!”

“Ah, yes—I remember,” she sighs fondly, nodding her head. “Of course, nothing remotely illegal happened in that room, as I’ve told you a million times…except for you slapping me across the face, shoving me off the bed, and dragging me out of the house by my hair. That was definitely assault and battery.”

“You deserved it,” she fires back, fists clenched. “If you get half that close to my baby brother again, I’ll do twice the damage. He was just a kid, and he still is.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it!” Rhaenys is fairly sure she dreams of it all the time. “Jon and I had a few lovely afternoons together—such a sweet boy, and a wonderfully talented kisser—but after you gave me that black eye, I did some soul-searching and learned the error of my ways!”

“Good. It’s about time.”

“I decided it’s best to let him pursue girls his own age.” She toys with the little umbrella in her glass. “For better or for worse, the insurmountable social bulwark of ‘Age Eighteen’ lies between us, and as you so ruthlessly taught me, not even a few kisses should cross that wall.”

“Exactly right. You’re twenty-three. And he’s just turning…um…uh…” Forcing herself to trail off, Rhaenys fakes a few timely coughs. For a second, she entertains the delusion that Arianne is here by mere chance, that she can actually fool her cousin into abandoning what’s clearly a well-planned trap.

“And how old is your dear baby brother, if you don’t mind my asking?” Ari’s full lips curve into a smirk, devious and taunting. “I’m afraid I’ve lost track. He’s not sixteen anymore…and I don’t think he could be seventeen…so is he…? Oh my gods, he can’t possibly be eighteen today, can he? But that would make him an adult, putting him beyond your control and past the arbitrary legal line that says I can’t—hey, wait, what are you doing?! Put that down!”

While her smug nemesis was consumed in her own triumphant monologue, Rhaenys marched over to the garden hose coiled by the steps and cranked on the spigot. Now, with water surging through the hose, she’s fully armed—and, whipping around to turn on Arianne, twists the nozzle setting from ‘spray’ to ‘mist’ to ‘jet.’

“Celebrate this, bitch.”

“Rhaenys! Don’t you fucking—AGH! Stop! Stop! STOP!”

Grinning from ear to ear, she steps closer to the edge, closing the distance and improving her accuracy. She nails her cradle-robbing cousin right in the thigh, then aims higher to strike at her belly, and finally gets the angle just right to hit her in the face.

Arianne sputters and flails and screams, swinging at the harsh stream of water as if she can swat it away from a distance of fifteen feet.

“Damnit! I swear I’m going to—gack!” She wisely closes her mouth and turns her head to avoid another involuntarily drink from the hose. “…kill you…for this!”

“That sounds like a violent threat, Ari. Guess that makes us even for the assault and battery a few years ago, huh?”

Overcome with giddy, vengeful laughter, Rhaenys watches the inevitable unfold: Leaning away from the jet, Arianne keeps putting more weight on the far side of her float until the swan is sitting at an angle in the water—and, all at once, capsizes.

“YEEEEK!”

She tumbles into the pool with a wild splash as the bird flips, going belly up just like her plan.

“Now that’s a great way to start the day,” Rhaenys snickers to herself.

Admiring the carnage—the vague outline of her cousin regaining her bearings under the water, her spilled drink diffusing into a golden cloud, the swan floating ass-up—her moment of triumph suddenly falters as the door slides open behind her.

“Jon! What are you doing up so early?”

He staggers across the deck in his blue-and-grey striped boxers, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with both fists.

“I heard shouting,” he rasps, voice groggy from sleep. “Everything alright?”

“Uh, yeah…more or less…”

She grimaces as he joins her near the edge and blinks at the pool several times in a row. A look of mild concern persists on his face, brows scrunched.

“What happened here? Isn’t that Arianne’s swan? And that yellowish cloud…is that…piss…?”

“No, it’s a margarita.”

“Margarita?! This early in the morning?”

“Well…so, you see—”

“Rhaenys, you petty bitch!” Bursting out of the water, Arianne scrambles up the ladder on the right side of the pool, emerging much closer than where she went under and giving Rhaenys a start. “I’m going to tear your hair out strand by strand and slash your tires and burn your favorite—” The instant she pivots around on the deck and lays eyes on him, her fathomless malevolence converts into a breathless, girlish adoration. “Oh! Jon, I didn’t see you there!”

“Hey, Ari...” He turns a deep shade of red, awkwardly shifting his feet—clearly embarrassed about being seen in just his sleep boxers, not that Arianne and her wandering eyes seem to mind at all. “…didn’t realize you were hanging out in the pool.”

Gritting her teeth, Rhaenys holds her tongue as the two of them drift closer together right in front of her, making eyes at each other. In hindsight, she’s not so sure spraying Arianne till she flopped into the water was such a good idea; the way she’s dripping from head to toe, long wet hair draped over her shoulders, bikini soaked and clinging, does her all sorts of favors—not that she really needed any of those favors in the first place.

“It was supposed to be a surprise, you finding me out here,” she giggles, giving her head a coy tilt. “I just had to be the first one to wish you happy birthday on your big eighteenth!”

“Thanks—that really means a lot…especially because I know you’re not a morning person, Ari,” Jon chuckles—and, earning a laugh from her, dips his head bashfully, pushing back his mop of unruly bedhead curls. “It’s too bad we don’t see you more often these days...”

“My calendar is open for the foreseeable future if you’d like to do something about that.”

“…ha, well…I was thinking we could—”

“Uh, no. Not a chance.” Rhaenys can tell exactly where this is going, but she refuses to let it progress any further. She’s determined to shield Jon from Ari’s wiles and charms, stop her dumpster-fire of a life from catching him in its blaze, and save their whole family the fallout of the two of them becoming an item—then breaking up when Jon can no longer stand a relationship with a woman who lacks accountability in every sense of the word.

Rhaenys thinks of it as defusing a bomb right as the countdown begins.

For now, she’s willing to tolerate her little brother’s irritated frown (while reveling in Ari’s furious scowl) if that’s the price she has to pay to protect his heart.

“There’s a reason why we don’t see Arianne often—she’s the official black viper of the family.” Stepping between them, she raises her hands to maintain distance. “I can’t remember the last time she made a good decision, and I don’t trust her to change now—who even knows if she’s capable of changing.”

“That’s not fair, Rhaenys.”

She turns her head, surprised to hear such a firm retort from her brother.

“Fair? She doesn’t deserve to have that word uttered in her defense, Jon. Want to know what isn’t fair? She’s taken advantage of everyone’s generosity for years! We’ve all given her plenty of chances, but she keeps boozing it up and making a mess of things instead—and I’m afraid that’s all she knows how to do at this point. We shouldn’t expect anything else.”

“Hey, stop talking about me in the third person,” Arianne huffs, nudging her roughly. “I’m right here! If you’re going to insult me, do it to my face.”

Swiveling to look at her cousin, Rhaenys meets her glare with one of her own, eyes narrowed fiercely.

“Yeah, you are still here—and I have no idea why. You’ve done what you came here to do; you’ve wished Jon a happy birthday. Now leave before I have to get the hose again.”

“C’mon, Rhaenys…” Jon grumbles, placing a hand on her shoulder. “She’s family, isn’t she?” She ignores him.

“That’s alright, Jon,” Ari quips, taking a step back. “If your sister is going to insist on treating me like some sort of ‘black viper,’ so be it. Two can play at this game.”

“There’s no game,” she scoffs back. “And if there were, you’d lose.”

Briskly wheeling around on the balls of her feet, Arianne struts off across the deck, pausing only to pick up her cooler.

“Shame on you, Rhaenys. I even brought some cake for him.”

There might have been some question as to when Arianne learned to bake—having no experience in food prep nor the patience to make anything that would be considered edible—if not for the curly letters stitched across the seat of her swimsuit bottoms:

‘Happy Birthday Jon!’

“Classy as ever!” Rhaenys calls after her.

Arianne throws up a middle finger over her shoulder as she pushes open the garden gate. “This isn’t over, Rhae!”

“It’s been over for a while—maybe you’ll figure it out when you sober up in ten years!”

While watching her cousin disappear around the fence with a conceited sense of self-satisfaction—and some measure of inexplicable unease—Rhaenys catches Jon trudging back into the house.

“Hey, want some real cake for breakfast?” She hurries inside after him, closing the sliding door behind herself. Noting his slumped shoulders and bowed head, it’s all she can do to force some pep into her voice, trying to get his mind off Arianne. “I mean, today’s your birthday, so why not have a slice before school?”

“Sure, that sounds good.” He shrugs, glancing at the banner and balloons around the kitchen. When he smiles at her, it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I like the decorations—they look nice. Thanks, Rhae.”

Chapter Text

“You have arrived at your destination.”

“Uh…Jon, are you sure this is the spot?”

Rhaenys glances between the orange bubble letters on the front of the restaurant and her little brother sitting behind the wheel, pulling the car into a parking space.

“Yeah, it’s gotta be—the address was on the gift card, and I plugged it into the maps app.”

“The gift card you got in the mail from Honn Khers? The fancy new Ibben place that just opened up?”

“Yeah, Honkers. I’ve never heard of it before, so I don’t know what they have here.”

“Okay, well…” Eyebrow raised, Rhaenys watches a gaggle of inebriated college students swagger out of the front doors, laughing and slapping each other on the back—none of them dressed in anything more formal than board shorts. “…can I see the gift card?”

“Sure, just a sec.” He throws the gearshift into park and buries his hand in the pocket of his jeans, digging out a slim piece of plastic. “Here ya go.”

Taking the proffered card, she raises an eyebrow at the orange bubble letters:

‘Honkers’

“This isn’t for Honn Khers.”

“Uh…yeah it is. Says right there: Honkers.”

“No—this is a gift card for Honkers.”

“That’s what I just said.”

“Oh my gods…” She lets out a long, exasperated sigh and points to the squat, square building just fifty feet in front of them. “…all I’m trying to say is that this place is not a five-star Ibben restaurant.”

“I thought that Ibben place was opening near Downtown Sunspear? We’re in North Sunspear…so, like, clear across the metro area.”

“Yeah, well, I realize that now. I thought the gift card was for Honn Khers—”

“This is Honkers, Rhae.”

“—as in, the Ibben restaurant—”

“Oh.”

“—and not Honkers, the sleazy sports bar.”

Jon leans an elbow on the center console, studies the card in her hand, glances up at Honkers, then looks down to inspect the card again.

“Huh. Yeah. You’re right.”

“I know I’m right.”

“Aw, well. It is what it is.” He shrugs as he takes the keys out of the ignition, opening the door and stepping onto the asphalt.

“Wait—where do you think you’re going?”

He blinks at her. “Inside…?”

“No way,” she scoffs, shaking her head. “We’re not eating here.”

“Why not?”

“Because, like I said, it’s a sports bar—and not a family friendly one.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s called Honkers!”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“S’Hells, Jon…” she groans, dropping her head, “…you sweet, innocent child. Let’s just go. I’ll buy you a burger and shake at Hotpie’s on the way home.”

“And waste the gift card?”

“We can just give it to Egg. I’m sure there’s a Honkers near KLU’s campus, and it’s definitely more his type of place anyway.”

“The card is only good at this location, though,” he says. “The note in the envelope said that it could only be used at this specific spot on Garthsdays, Lannsdays, Durransdays, and Greysdays between 2 PM and 8 PM.”

“Huh…?” Rhaenys crosses her arms, raising a brow. “That’s oddly specific. Gift cards usually don’t work that way.”

“This one does, apparently…but there’s like fifty bucks on it, which should easily cover the two of us. And if it’s a sports bar, they have to have hot wings—so why don’t we head in there and give it a shot? Worst case scenario, we can eat a bunch of mediocre wings for free.”

Warily eyeing the orange letters on the building, Rhaenys grumbles under her breath—then hears her own stomach grumbling.

Wings do sound pretty good right now.

“Alright, fine. But I reserve the right to walk out at any time and sit in the car until you’re done eating.”

“Sure, fair enough.”

She steps out and closes the door, joining him as they cross the lot—and preparing herself for the ordeal of watching top-heavy waitresses flirt with her little brother. Jon attracting unsolicited attention from the opposite sex has problem for years—from grocery store cashiers to flight attendants—but as of a few weeks ago, she can’t even shoo them away by saying he’s under eighteen.

To some degree, she knows she needs to learn to tolerate it; Jon is going to fall in love with someone, someday.

Inside, they’re immediately greeted by a green-eyed blonde in a white tank top and orange shorts—and who, gratefully, is more reminiscent of the flat Dornish Marches than the mighty Red Mountains, at least by the standards of Honkers.

“Hi, I’m Myrcella! Just two tonight? Right this way, please!”

She gives Jon a smile before turning to lead them to a booth, but thankfully it’s a ‘You’re cute!’ smile rather than a ‘You’re a perfect candidate for my next baby daddy!’ smile.

As they take their seats, Rhaenys notices a soccer game playing on one of the dozen-or-so TVs posted around the bar, the Night Lions against the Black Goats—which suffices to distract her while Myrcella rambles through the appetizer menu, entrees, and the beers they have on tap.

“He’s not twenty-one,” she interrupts halfway through the lager list. “We’ll just take two Tyroshi Teas and two orders of hot wings, and that’ll be it.”

“Okay, sure! I’ll have that ready for you in a few minutes. If you need anything, just wave!”

“Will do,” Jon says, smiling politely. But as soon as Myrcella steps away, his gaze hardens on Rhaenys.

“Something wrong?”

“You just made me look like a little kid.”

“No I didn’t!”

“Yes, you did.”

“Jon, you can’t order a beer—it’s illegal for them to serve you alcohol if you’re underage.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he mumbles, eyes drifting off to a game playing in the opposite corner of the bar. “You just ordered for me. Maybe I wanted to try an appetizer? Or have something other than Tyroshi Tea? Or maybe I just wanted to, ya know, not be spoken for, for once.”

She leans forward across the table, narrowing her eyes.

“Are you being serious?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Seriously serious?”

“I don’t know how to be more serious than I am right now without raising my voice.”

“Alright, go ahead,” she huffs, gesturing to Myrcella ferrying drinks to a couple of truckers sitting a few tables over. “You can still change your order.”

He slumps back in the booth and shrugs his shoulders. “Whatever. It’s no big deal. I don’t want to be that kind of guy.”

“Okay, Mister Broody Pants. Don’t give me a hard time then.”

Jon simply snorts in reply and returns to whatever game he was watching—or just glowering into space, for all she knows—while she does the same to distract herself from the lingering awkwardness. Even when the Goats score a stunning goal from mid-field, she’s still thinking about how Jon has been increasingly grumpy lately, like a second wave of teenage angst—this time, more coherent and articulated, directed towards her than the world.

She wants him to be independent, but there still so much about life that he doesn’t know; if he can’t see, for example, that nothing good comes from being around Arianne, she’s not sure she can trust his judgement in other matters.

Out of the corner of her eye, she catches a white tank top blazoned with round bubble letters and snug orange shorts paired with tall white socks…

…but this time, it’s definitely not Myrcella.

“I’ve got two Tyroshi Teas and a basket of cheesy bread—on the house.”

In an instant, a pit forms in Rhaenys’ stomach, just as heavy and dense as the eye of a black hole, before she even turns her head to find her cousin reaching across the table to set down their drinks.

“Ari? I didn’t know you worked here!” Jon’s face brightens, smile wide—and, incredibly, he looks right past the absolutely ridiculous display of cleavage hanging in front of his face in order to meet Arianne’s eye.

“I didn’t know you had a job at all,” Rhaenys hisses, staring daggers as her cousin lingers there, taking her time putting Jon’s drink on a paper coaster. She kicks her shin under the table, earning a yelp from Ari; she promptly straightens up. “You haven’t been employed in…remind me…how many years…? Have you ever had a real job before?”

“Hey, there’s a first time for everything!” She drops the cheesy bread between them and strikes a pose, hands on her hips—as if it isn’t already enough that her tank top and shorts appear to be vacuum-sealed around her curves. “I take it you got the gift card I sent? They hand those out to top-performing employees, so I thought I’d surprise you guys.”

“That was you?” Jon laughs, lightly smacking the table. “Well thanks! We were so confused—at first Rhaenys thought the gift card was for that fancy Ibben restaurant opening up downtown, then we got here and realized it’s a cozy sports bar instead.”

“Cozy?” Rhaenys mutters. “Really?”

“Funny you say that, actually.” Arianne throws a curly lock of hair over her shoulder. “I applied to Honn Khers, too. Got the job, but the owner of that place, Mr. Baelish, is also the franchisee here—and he said I could make a lot more money as a waitress at Honkers.”

“How thoughtful of him.” She rolls her eyes.

Jon turns sideways in the booth, stretching a leg across the cushion to face Ari directly. He chews the inside of his cheek, glancing around at the predominately male clientele. “So you’re liking it here, then? Working at Honkers, I mean?”

“Ah, well, I think Honkers likes me more than I like Honkers,” she admits, shrugging. “There’s a lot of upside, though. Been raking in tons of big tips…but I do have to put up with guys writing their numbers on napkins...” For a second, there’s an odd beat of silence: Ari looking at Jon, Jon looking at Ari, both expressions unreadable. “…which I use to wipe down the bar at the end of the day as a little joke with myself.” She smiles, and so does he. “I have some nice job security, too—set to be Waitress of the Month as a rookie, and my manager, Ros, says there are two spectacular reasons why they’ll never fire me.”

“What’re those?” Jon asks, tilting his head with simple curiosity.

Rhaenys unfolds her napkin and finds a knife inside, brandishing it under the table for only Arianne to see. She notices and takes a heavy swallow.

“My…uh…passion for customer service…and my…persistence…”

“Persistence?”

“Yeah.” Her eyes lock on Rhaenys for a long, tense moment. “I don’t give up until I get what I want…which is a happy, fulfilled customer.”

Rhaenys flips the knife into a reverse grip.

“Why don’t you go check on our wings, Ari? They might be getting cold back there. And let Myrcella know we’d like a chance to look at the dessert menu.”

Stepping away, Arianne flashes a wry smile.

“I switched tables with her, so I’ll be taking care of you guys myself—whatever you need, just let me know.”

Both of them watch her go: Jon leaning out of the booth, smiling with a boyish fondness; Rhaenys rapping the knife against her palm, plotting murder.

“She’s great, isn’t she?”

“Yeah. Great at plotting, scheming, and cradle-robbing.”

“What’s that supposed mean?”

“It means we should leave.”

“Leave?! But we just got here! We haven’t even eaten yet!”

“Who cares? I don’t think anyone comes here for the food anyway. We’ll swing by Hotpie’s and—”

“I don’t want Hotpies,” Jon says, brow dark and voice low. “And I’m not going to just walk out and ditch Ari when she’s literally buying us dinner.”

“Buying us dinner? You mean with a gift card she earned by walking around with her boobs popping halfway out of her shirt?”

“So what? It’s still her money—when’s the last time she did something for us, huh?”

“What’s your point? That she’s a selfish, needy parasite who only exists to bring other people down?”

“No—that maybe she’s trying to change.” He folds his arms across his chest and straightens his back, looking entirely too much like old photos of their dad for Rhaenys’ liking—not in the coloring, but the angle of his nose and jaw and the effortless self-composure. “You ripped her to shreds a few weeks ago by the pool. Now, she has a job and she’s buying us dinner. Isn’t that something? Isn’t that the sort of ‘change’ you didn’t think she was capable of?”

Dragging in a long, coarse sigh, she glances over his shoulder, spotting Myrcella carrying a tray of beers to an obnoxiously rowdy table of jersey-wearing hooligans, shouting at the top of their lungs at a football game on TV; the poor girl looks exhausted.

“You don’t understand what Arianne is capable of, Jon,” she snaps, hitting him with a harsh, scolding look. “You don’t see her for how she really is because she already has you curled around her finger. Someday, you’re going to thank me for keeping her at arm’s length.”

His nostrils flare, but he pauses to take a long gulp of his Tyroshi Tea. When he sets it back down, Rhaenys spots a drip making its way down his stubbly chin; on instinct, she reaches across the table with her napkin to wipe it up—but in a flash, his hand catches her wrist.

“I’m eighteen now,” he drawls, gently taking the napkin from her hand before releasing her, “not a little boy. You want to keep Arianne at arm’s length? Maybe that’s really what you think is best. But it’s not your call, not where I’m concerned—my arms are longer and stronger than yours anyway.”

As he wipes his chin, they fall into a chilly silence, not even looking at each other; Rhaenys just stares down at her hands clasped in her lap, wondering how she went wrong.

If she leaves it up to Jon, he’ll do what any eighteen year-old boy would—let himself become entangled with the full-figured floozie who’s been trying to pull him into her orbit for years. She can’t let that happen. She won’t let that happen.

And so long as she’s present when Arianne and Jon are around each other, she’ll be able to act as a chaperone—and a warden, if need be.

The return of Honkers’ prospective Waitress of the Month interrupts her musings, setting down a basket of wings for each of them.

“Need a refill, Jon?”

“Sure, that’d be great—thanks.”

As Arianne dips forward over the table, bringing the pitcher to his cup rather than the cup to his pitcher (and thus presenting Jon with another opportunity to examine the pair of actual reasons for her perpetual job security, which he somehow manages to avoid by watching waterline in his cup rise towards the top), she discreetly swipes Rhaenys’ knife off the table and tucks it into the cash pouch around her waist.

“Think you guys will be interested in coming back? I’ll probably earn a second gift card at the end of the month if you want another free dinner.”

“Yeah, of course!” Jon chrips. “Thanks, Ari.”

Rhaenys shakes her head and grumbles lowly, “Not a chance.”