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Arya blinked as Gendry came up to her and held her shoulders with two sturdy hands, bending over until they were face to face. “Would you believe me if I told you woodland creatures are stalking me?” Distantly, Arya could hear the rest of the school move past them toward end of the day freedom.
Arya almost with responded with Am I that obvious? but managed to throw out a confused, “What?” instead.
He released her instantly and scrubbed his face tiredly. “I’m going insane but I swear rabbits and deer and shit are following me around.”
“What?”
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” Gendry looked at Arya suspiciously.
Actually, no, Arya didn’t think Gendry was crazy. However, she would have preferred if he used the term “protecting” rather than “stalking” because there was a difference. Gendry just wasn’t paying attention. But seriously, a number of times Arya saved his stupid ass…well, Gendry should be thanking her. Seriously, it had been her unofficial job for the better part of a year. It was almost sad that he was just now noticing.
“I think you’re paranoid,” Arya corrected. Or you should be because either you have a death wish or the universe wants you gone.
Gendry sighed again and looked at her with a troubled expression. “I told Hot Pie the same thing this morning and he laughed right at my face. This is why you are my favorite.”
A giddy feeling filled Arya’s chest but instead she said, “Well, Hot Pie’s my favorite because he bakes me bread. What do you ever do for me?” Besides almost getting killed every single day.
Gendry grunted but a small smile came to his face. “Come on, aren’t I good company?”
Arya didn’t answer as she followed the flow of the rest of the students towards the exit of their school and began to walk off. She had only been waiting to say her goodbyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Waters!”
Gendry waved off and began to walk to his car. Arya continued walking until she turned the corner and waited until the street was empty of cars and students. Then she hastily threw her backpack under the bushes lining the sidewalk and double checked once more to make sure she was truly alone.
Once she knew the coast was clear, Arya closed her eyes, focusing her energy on feeling the bones in her body shrink and thin out as her skin shredded away into black shiny feathers until where there had once been a teenage girl was a tiny black raven. With a loud squawk, Arya flew up into the sky and scanned around for Gendry’s beat-up green truck. Following it, Arya wondered if Gendry noticed the tiny black raven in his rear view mirror. If history had anything to say about it, probably not.
Arya had spent three hours watching Gendry, shifting from the raven to a squirrel and now a tiny mouse that was hiding beside Gendry’s toaster. Today, it seemed like Gendry’s choice for unknowingly putting himself in deadly situations was going to be a grease fire. Fun.
Arya could see he was trying to cook something but she couldn’t tell what the hell it was. One minute he was mixing an egg into flour and the next he was pouring sugar over milk and cornmeal and then decided to toss both mixtures away. Either way, when the fire started from (are you fucking kidding me?) greasy, unwashed pans, Gendry’s first instinct was to pour water on it. Seriously, it was amazing he wasn’t dead yet.
The fire spread with the introduction of water and as Gendry panicked for what to do, he raced into the garage leaving the fire un-fucking-attended. Arya swooped, shifting from mouse to owl and using her wings to blow the flour that was haphazardly poured all over the counter, on the fire until it was snuffed off. Arya quickly shifted into a moth as Gendry returned, fire extinguisher in hand as he stared down at the smoking, but fireless pan. Thankfully, he had enough sense to turn the stove off before leaving the fire.
Setting the fire extinguisher down, Gendry began to clean the mess, cursing under his breath while Arya fluttered to the light fixture to watch and make sure he didn’t catch anything else on fire. As he was cleaning, Gendry paused and picked up a brown owl feather. Arya froze and Gendry examined it before shrugging and throwing it into the garbage.
Not even two hours later, Gendry nearly killed himself again. Normally, Gendry limited himself to one life-threatening incident a day, but it wasn’t unheard of for him to have multiple.
This time, he was outside chopping wood for the fireplace since fall was setting in. Arya had positioned herself as a chipmunk, hiding in the bush directly behind Gendry, waiting to see what would kill him this time.
He was in the middle of chopping a large chunk of wood when a clambering of hooves could be heard. Arya could easily identify it as deer, stags even, and multiple. Gendry, however, could not and peered into the dense forest in confusion.
Arya barely had enough time to shift from chipmunk to Great Dane and pounce on Gendry, knocking him out of the way as a wayward stag burst through the forest and raced on past them. Arya didn’t wait a second later to see Gendry’s stunned reaction, racing off and yipping all the same.
It wasn’t until nightfall had hit and Gendry was finally going to bed that Arya could rest easy. The likelihood of Gendry killing himself in his sleep was near zero since the guy slept like a rock but Arya didn’t leave until he was fast asleep, making sure he didn’t kill himself while changing or taking his evening shower. And no, she was not ‘sneaking a peek’ as Sansa had often accused her of.
Arya was positioned in the trees as a raven when she heard a flutter of wings land beside her. Arya didn’t need to turn to know one of her family members had come to bring her home for the evening and wasn’t even surprised when Jon cawed from his crow beak.
Arya squawked in greeting and followed Jon out of the tree, leaving Gendry to sleep and hopefully make it through the morning without injury. They flew until they reached the school where Arya had left her bag to follow Gendry and Jon’s motorcycle rested. They had done this song and dance many times.
“You got to stop doing that,” Jon said immediately and Arya rolled her eyes. If she wanted a lecture, she would have preferred it from Sansa. She was much better practiced and Jon wasn’t very convincing. Especially when he had his own hero-complex.
“I know,” she muttered, squatting to grab her bag before climbing onto the bike and wrapping her arms around Jon. “He’s just so…useless.”
“I believe the phrase we should be using is ‘natural selection is trying to do its job and you are getting in the way.’”
Arya made a face. “How come I get so much crap for it when Robb did the same thing for Greyjoy for six years straight? You even helped Ygritte once or twice.”
Arya didn’t need to see Jon’s face to know he was scowling. “It was one time and she asked so there is a difference. I haven’t changed my opinion on that either. You and Robb are ridiculous.”
“He almost lit himself on fire,” Arya insisted.
“Then I will be the first one there with the fire squad.”
“Yeah, well, if I’m not there to make sure he doesn’t kill himself, then-”
“Then what? It can’t be your responsibility forever.”
Arya pouted as she rested her head against Jon’s back. “I know.”
In the morning, Arya and Hot Pie waited outside the school for Gendry. Every morning, Arya felt the terror of wondering if Gendry made it through his morning without falling into some abnormal death experience. Thankfully, his truck pulled up right on time and he appeared unscathed.
“Let me guess,” Hot Pie grinned brightly, “an army of squirrels chased you out of the house this morning?”
Gendry glowered and Arya produced at fire safety pamphlet that Jon had given her from his work at the department and shoved it at him. “Seriously?” he raised his eyebrows.
“You shouldn’t tell me these things if you don’t want me to help you,” Arya shrugged, although she hardly needed a text from him last night for Arya to think he still needed to extra fire safety.
“What did you do?” Hot Pie groaned.
“He almost burned down his kitchen,” Arya filled in, happy that she had the excuse of Gendry’s text messages rather than having to explain her first-hand experience.
“Doing what?” Hot Pie frowned. “You can’t cook.”
“I realize that,” Gendry huffed.
“He’s right,” Arya nodded as she produced the baked goods Hot Pie had given her this morning. “Best leave that to Hot Pie.”
Hot Pie smiled smugly and even went as far as to stick his tongue out at Gendry because, you know, they were mature. “Best do that, Waters.”
“Oh scram, don’t you have to meet Mr. Seaworth about your grade recovery?”
“Shut up,” Hot Pie fired back as he left the two of them and headed in the school.
Arya watched Hot Pie go for a moment before turning back to Gendry. “So, you want to tell me what you were cooking last night that almost caused you to burn to a crisp?”
“No,” Gendry rolled his eyes as he swung his arm around her shoulders. “Come on, let’s go. Classes are starting up soon.”
Arya couldn’t believe the sight before her as she tailed Gendry at the supermarket. She was shifted into a mosquito and was buzzing around him as she watched him fill his cart of groceries. Most of the purchases seemed normal but this time, instead of one bag of flour, he had bought three. Great, more near-death-experience coming from Cooking with Gendry.
Even on the way home, as Arya flew into his truck and hid on the rearview mirror, she wondered what the hell Gendry was trying to do and how many more kitchen fires was he going to start before he killed himself and the neighborhood.
As he unloaded groceries, Arya shifted into a tiny tabby cat and sat on his cracked open window silt. She watched him carry in the groceries and put them away and fearfully watched as he started the oven. Today, Gendry decided to use a recipe, although Arya could see what it was for. Hopefully, that would go better than the last time he attempted cooking.
And it did! Until Gendry, for gods know why, went for the pressure cooker. Arya didn’t know what he was cooking, why he needed the pressure cooker or thought to wonder if he even knew how to use it. All she knew was that she wasn’t even going to wait to find out and have Gendry set off a small bomb.
Using the crack in the window, Arya nudged it open enough for her to slide under. Once inside she jumped to the floor, knocked against his legs and ran. Just like she thought, Gendry dropped the pressure cooker with a loud clank and was racing after her.
Taking her chances, Arya darted for his sofa and climbed inside. At least that’ll keep him busy until his mother came home and knocked some sense into him.
She managed to slip out the front door as Gendry went to the garage to find some spare catnip to lure Arya out. She was gone before he came back and positioned herself in the tree outside his window. Thankfully, after she had thoroughly distracted him, Gendry didn’t have a desire to continue cooking this evening.
Arya had been lazing on the branch, watching Gendry surf the web when she heard a canine whine.
Turning, Arya nearly rolled her eyes at the grey wolf standing there. Shifting back into a person but remained sitting on the branch, Arya waited for Robb to do the same.
“You know there are other things to turn into instead of a wolf. Every. Single. Time.”
“Mom wants you home for dinner,” Robb ignored her comment but fixed her with a pointed look. “I hate to be hypocritical, but this is getting out of hand.”
“Robb,” Arya jumped from the tree so she was leveled with her brother, “he tried to use the pressure cooker today.”
Arya could see the understand flit through Robb’s eyes. “Gods, he’s worse than Theon.”
Arya wasn’t so sure about that since Theon was the same kid who broke half of his ribs from falling from a tree just so he could climb into Robb’s window when the front door was readily available for him. Either way, Arya didn’t get to say anything as the window to Gendry’s room opened and Robb and Arya shifted immediately. She was rather thankful her brother went the tasteful route and rather than his usual wolf form he decided to be a little more discrete and shifted into a field mouse. Arya was a rabbit but under the cover of night, Gendry didn’t see any of them and went back to his computer.
Arya figured Gendry wasn’t likely to kill himself for the rest of the evening and shifted with Robb into wolves and raced him through the forest until they reached his car. Once inside, neither of them further discuss their hero-complexes, but they sure had a lot to say about Jon’s.
“Well, shit,” Hot Pie muttered in amazement. “Gendry actually killed himself.”
Arya slapped Hot Pie on the back of the head. “Shut up. Just because he is late, doesn’t mean he is dead.”
Hot Pie threw Arya a look of keep dreaming and grabbed his bag. “Either way, I’m not waiting out here for him.”
Arya watched Hot Pie go along with the rest of the student body inside. Arya didn’t follow, sinking down to the bench in front of the high school and waited. Whenever a school official came by, she simply shifted into a grasshopper until they disappeared.
It wasn’t until second period was well underway that Arya saw Gendry’s truck pull up. Rushing quickly over to it, she found Gendry frowning inside, his hands tight on the wheel. She opened the door and slide in.
“You’re late.”
He didn’t look up to greet her. “Yup.”
“Why?” Arya asked carefully.
“Under your seat,” was all he said, still frowning.
Cautiously, Arya reached under the seat to find a Tupperware container. She lifted the lid to peek inside and found a burnt cookie of some sort.
“It was the best I got out of the batch,” Gendry muttered. “It’s the only one that the fire department didn’t ruin. By the way, Jon says hi.”
She was about to say something about how Jon and the fire department probably saved Gendry’s home but she kept her mouth shut about that. Arya put the Tupperware aside and looked up at Gendry. “Why were you making cookies and burning down your house?”
She noticed a slight pink color touch the tips of his ears. “Just wanted to do something nice…for you and bake you something…like Hot Pie.”
Arya blinked as the same old giddy feeling hit her in the chest and realization came quickly after. Gendry nearly killed himself these past few days because he wanted to make her something…because of her stupid joke about Hot Pie being better because of the baked goods. Gods, boys were stupid. With the speed of a bird and the lightness of a mouse, Arya pressed a small kiss to Gendry’s cheek.
“Thanks, but really leave the cooking to Hot Pie.” Arya sighed for a moment before glancing over. “A movie would be an okay supplement.”
Gendry blinked and darted eyes over at her, smirking slightly. “Want to go now since school is a bust?”
Arya grinned evilly. “I can sneak us inside.”
And it was true. No one noticed the tiny fly flutter through the theater into the bathroom where a small girl emerged and opened the side entrance and Gendry didn’t even care to wonder about the particulars. After all, it was still a free movie.