Chapter Text
Jon had been friends with Gendry for years. It was a friendship forged in the horror of school. Being the only openly queer kid and the only non-white kid in their stuck-up private school had brought Jon and Gendry together. Their friendship had been strengthened throughout the years, by bad haircuts and bad breakups. It was almost impossible to think of his life without Jon as his friend. But it was impossible for him to imagine his life now without Arya and how happy they had made each other.
He couldn’t keep him and Arya a secret from Jon, and he definitely couldn’t keep his sexuality to himself after years of discouraging Jon from doing the same thing. He needed to tell Jon everything.
Gendry came into Jon’s room without bothering to knock. He wasn’t concerned about what he might walk in on and needed to say what he wanted to before he lost the courage.
Jon looked up in surprise when he saw Gendry enter his room with a determined look. He was idly plucking out notes on his guitar and the noise stopped abruptly.
“Hello, Jon. It is your good friend Gendry, may I please come into your room? Why of course Gendry! Thank you for asking, my lovely polite friend,” he said, to himself and picked up where he left off on his guitar.
“Jon, I need to talk to you.”
“Sure. What’s up?” Jon said, setting aside his guitar to sit up on his bed.
“You know how when you came out all those years ago you told me that you told me first because you know you could trust me not to freak out about it?”
“Yeah…”
“Well. I kind of need you to not freak out about what I’m about to tell you. Promise me you won’t freak out.”
“Of course, man. Say what you want to,” Jon said.
“I don’t think I like girls. Romantically, yes. Sexually… not really.”
“... Alright. I’m glad you felt like you could tell me that.”
“That’s not all.”
“Gen, you’re not going to tell me you fancy me, are you? I already told you, you’re not my type, mate.”
“No, I don’t fancy you, dickhead. I don’t like guys either. I’m asexual.”
“Oh,” Jon said and raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, gods, you’re gonna hate me,” Gendry muttered to himself.
“Gendry, being the way you are is nothing for me to hate you for-”
“Fuck. That’s not why you’ll hate me,” Gendry said and rubbed a hand over his head, raking his fingers through his short curls. “I’m also kind of dating your sister.”
Jon stood up quickly.
“What? Since when did you fancy Sansa?” Jon said. The frown on his face grew deeper as he grew more confused.
“What? Sansa?” Gendry looked up in confusion too. “Arya. I love Arya.”
Gendry winced as he watched Jon’s expression change from understanding to anger.
“What?”
“Fuck, Jon, don’t kill me. I’m dating Arya,” he got out quickly. He knew if Jon tried to fight him he could probably take him, but he really didn’t want to fight with his best friend.
“You’re dating Arya,” Jon said slowly. He clenched his fists at his side.
“Yes.”
“But… you don’t want to have sex with her.”
“No,” Gendry said. He felt relief at the look on Jon’s face fading from anger to something else.
“And you came here straight away because something just happened and you just got together within the past few days.”
“Uh…”
Jon sighed. “How long?”
“Remember how we agreed we were gonna be cool about this?”
“Uh, bro, that was before I found out you’re going out with my baby sister. How long?”
“... Five months,” he said uneasily. Jon drew back his fist and slammed it into Gendry’s nose with a crunch. Gendry had been expecting the blow and manage to stay on his feet.
Jon flexed his hand and looked at it with slight disbelief as though he didn’t quite believe he’d done it.
“You should probably go,” Jon said, and added with a sigh, “I’m not mad at you, though.”
“Uh. I kind of feel like you are. I’m also pretty sure you just broke my nose.”
“I’m not mad at you for dating Arya I’m mad at you for not telling me. And I’m pretty sure I just broke my hand, asshole,” Jon said smiling.
Gendry laughed, almost forgetting that his nose was bleeding.
“Well… uh… I’m gonna go. I’ll leave you to, uh, think about it,” Gendry said, his voice strange as his nose was oozing blood. He poked at it once or twice, wincing in pain. He backed out of the room and shut the door behind him, leaving Jon standing there with a concerned look and deep in thought.
When he turned around to leave he saw Sansa waiting for him on the floor outside her bedroom door opposite Jon’s. She wordlessly handed him a wad of paper towels and inspected his nose.
“Thanks, Sansa,” he said.
“You know, you should probably go to the hospital for that,” she said with concern.
“Nah,” he said. “10 years of rugby. I’ll be fine, I’ll just set it when I get home. Broken noses are my speciality, wish the wanker had let me take my septum ring out first, though.”
He thanked Sansa once again for the support and turned to leave the house.
“I know you’ll be good to her,” Sansa called to him. “You might look like a dickhead, being built like a brick shithouse and all, but I know that you’re kind.”
Sansa remembered when she had dated Joffrey, how she’d had to watch his rugby matches. She’d sat there hoping that Joff would get his face smashed in in a bad scrum, but whilst she was there she’d noticed Gendry. He’d always been nicer to the younger players, helping them out when he could and never raising his voice at all like Joffrey did.
Gendry nodded at Sansa and made his way out the door.