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I. BLUE
Blue is the sky as she stares up at it, hair spread out in the grass beneath her, attempting to determine whether throwing an apple core on the ground of the park is really littering.
"You're the girl from the gym, right?"
She prides herself on not startling as he sits beside her, and she wonders if he lives near her or if he followed her here, but he doesn't ever seem to have a lot of will within himself, so she doubts it's the latter. Blue is the color of his hair and she wonders why, but doesn't ask because they don't even know each other's names.
"I'm Arya," she tells him, but it doesn't seem like he's listening any more, his eyes are glassed over and unfocused, threatening to roll back into his skull. But he can speak.
"That's nice," he says absently, still staring into some invisible void.
"And you are?" she asks impatiently, wondering if he was high.
"Oh," and his eyes snap back to their rightful places, his whole body doing a bit of a shake as he returns to himself, "oh. I'm Aegon."
She wants to ask him why he has blue hair, but she doesn't, because she figures everyone asks him that, and if there is one thing Arya Stark isn't, it's just like everyone else.
Maybe she'll ask him at the gym tomorrow.
II. RED
Red is blood strewn across the lawn of their parents' house, her sister collapsed and sobbing out front, red is what gets on Arya's feet as she rushes across the dark lawn and grips her sister tightly as the carcass lays in front of them, gleaming red and gold in the moonlight. Her shirt will be streaked with mascara, her pants will be stained with grass and blood, her fingers will be numb from the cold, her shoes damp from the dew, and Arya never even got on with Sansa, yet they hold each other until the sun rises and their father stumbles upon them, unaware either of them had even planned to wake him up this morning with breakfast in bed for father's day.
"Never again," Sansa mutters all night, a broken record, clawing at her sister's fragile skin. "Never again, never again."
Only as Arya leaves the next evening, dropping Sansa off at her own apartment, does her sister tell her exactly what the phrase pertains to. "I told him to leave. I think he left the city altogether. I told him no for the first time, and I will never again say yes."
Sansa exits the car and pulls her hair over her shoulder, and only then does Arya notice that red is the welts along her sister's neck and down her back, as well.
III. GREY
Grey is the miniature casket she goes to the funeral parlor to pick out with Robb, grey is the sky as they bury the golden retriever. Grey is the screen of Sansa's phone when it used to be alight with messages and photos, and grey are the hairs she notices upon her father's head as they all don dark clothes for the funeral of a dog and the end of an era.
IV. BLUE
Blue is his hair on the floor of his apartment as he throws a ball at the ceiling, pretending to be bored and unimpressed as she relates why, exactly, she had blown him off at the gym every day for the past week. The sky is dark outside his window and he can tell that she can tell that he's trying too hard to be nonchalant, and blue is the color of the ball he throws against the ceiling. Blue is the twinkle in his eyes whilst he wonders how she found out where he lived.
"Come throw this ball with me," he says to her when she's done, patting the hard floor beside him. "The objective is to get it in the dead center of all four lights. You'd think it's hard but you kind of lose your sense of depth when you're down here. C'mon."
She plays the game with him, and figures this is how he speaks, without words. Well, not without words -- just without words that matter. Blue is what stings her hand every time she catches the ball and wonders why.
V. RED
Red are the color of her sneakers as he stands outside her apartment door and knocks once, shakily. Red is the color that seeps up his neck as she opens the door just in time to see him hitting himself in the head, flushing his checks and making him hot. He knows the look on her face, the look that says wow, I didn't know people legitimately hit themselves in the head constantly, but he doesn't know her very well yet and can't tell how she's going to react yet and he can feel the red radiating off of his skin and goddammit, he should probably open his mouth now.
"You left these," is all he can manage without embarrassing himself completely, and then he begins to wonder how much his face clashes with his hair right about now. But then he notices she's giving him that look, the look he knows, the look people give him when his eyes have glassed over and he doesn't seem to be present, so he snaps back to her. She thanks him and invites him in for a drink and he nods and feels the red seep out of his skin.
VI. GREY
Grey upon yellow is her brother's wedding save-the-date that she receives during a Saturday morning jog with him, and she stops suddenly and nearly drops her phone and he touches her elbow in a silent question.
"Robb is getting married," she says faintly, and he remembers Robb is one of her brothers but he can't remember if he's the oldest one with the drinking habit or the second oldest one in the army.
Grey is the color of her eyes, accentuated by the surprise in them. Grey are the clouds and the shadows of the trees beside them in the park, as they continue on their jog as if nothing has happened and he wonders what kind of a brother doesn't tell his sister directly that he's getting married.
VII. BLUE
Blue is the color of his mother's eyes, he sometimes likes to imagine when he sleeps, and red is the color of his father's. He isn't a boy anymore but he still very much acts like one when it comes to his deceased parents. He isn't an idiot and he knows that eyes can't be red, but his eyes do have that mystifying purple tint that leaves everyone skeptical. He let it slip one day as they played Light Ball in his apartment, that he's an orphan. She'd just listed off every one of her siblings and what they were doing right now and their phone numbers and their social security numbers and where they were this very second, basically, and he'd just let it pop out, as if the sentence "I'm an orphan without siblings and no idea if I have any blood relatives" was the socially acceptable answer.
The best was that she had just shrugged and kept blabbering on incessantly, and he gave her his widest smile, and he watched her eyes widen in surprise because he usually didn't care about anything enough to show emotion, and blue was the ball as it bounced against the ceiling as she grinned away from him.
VIII. RED
Red is the color he sees peeking out of her closet as they grab a late breakfast at her apartment in the early summer, and when he questions it her red lips curl in a scowl as she tells him it's for the wedding in three months. He figures it's an odd color for bridemaids to wear, especially since near half of their extended family had red hair and the photos would be kind of shocking, and when once he voices that opinion, that's when she grumbles that she had picked the dress out herself.
"Oh, I -- I mean, I'm sure it won't clash too much, I was just -- just saying that cause it's sort of a unique choice, you know. Unique in a good way, of course --"
"Save it," she tells him, getting up and dragging it out of the closet. "It's only going to be in the family photos, and I'm going to be the only one wearing red, because I'm not a bridesmaid."
Oh. "Oh."
"Yeah." She shows him the long black dress she's supposed to wear for the rehearsal dinner and the short black dress she's supposed to wear in two weeks to the engagement party at her parents' apartment. And then she shows him the red dress he'd seen, and it's kind of ugly on the hanger, but he only realizes this when he catches himself itching to see what it would look like on her.
Red is the color of her face as she asks whether he'd want to come with her to the engagement party, and red are the blaring neon signs screaming idiot! in his head when he replies with, "Why?"
She raises an eyebrow at him. "Friends? Not my forté. My brothers wouldn't believe you exist if you didn't meet them sometime, let alone believe that you have blue hair."
She remembers that she never asked him about that. She realizes she doesn't care anymore.
IX. GREY
Grey are Jon Snow's eyes, she imagines, as she speaks to him over the phone. But she hasn't seen him in a year and a half and she won't see him again for another few months, and he could have contracted fucking jaundice and just not told her, and his eyes could be yellow for all she knows. She thinks about how she couldn't really know for sure and frowns, and Aegon's upside down head smiles back at her from where he stands above.
"Hey, move, I'm playing Light Ball here."
"What?"
She lets out an aggravated grunt. "Not you, Jon."
Aegon laughs. "I'm starting to think we should have named it, 'don't-hit-the-light-ball', since you obviously aren't grasping the main concept here."
She snorts and rolls her eyes even though she knows he's right, but Jon barks out a laugh and asks her if that's the friend she told him about last month.
"Yeah, I told him all about you," she tells him. "Aegon, say hi."
"Hello, Jon! Nice to meet you!" Grey are the colors of his socks as he squeezes her head with them until she releases the ball for his own amusement.
"Sansa and everyone get to meet him next week, but you won't get to meet him until you come home … I'm sure he'd love to go out with us that weekend, he -- oh, alright. Okay. Talk to you later." A beat. "I love you." The words sound fragile from her lips. "Yeah. Bye."
Grey is the screen of her phone for the rest of the evening because Arya Stark drives away all of her friends and her siblings don't really appreciate her anymore.
X. BLUE
Blue is the color of his tie that he's tugging nervously at because no one else is wearing a tie.
He'd met the whole immediate family as soon as he'd walked in, all full of skeptical looks, and he'd thought Arya had been exaggerating when she said they'd ask him if she was paying him to pretend to be her friend, but she wasn't. The Starks were the hustling and bustling type, and although it seemed a family-and-close-friends-only occasion (plus himself, though he guessed he and Arya were now decidedly close friends) the five Stark children flew about in a frenzy, and before he knew it, Arya, in all of her short black dress glory, was gone.
They cornered him one by one.
First was Rickon, asking how he knew Arya and how he could stand her and if he knew Robb and why was he wearing a tie and Aegon began to sweat just thinking about this kid who either had ADHD or a serious drug problem. But Rickon, and the prowling monster of a dog by his feet, seemed satisfied with the vaguest and easiest of answers, and Aegon had to remind himself that this kid was a senior in high school and not some hyperactive nine year old.
Robb was next, but he seemed to only be interrogating Aegon because Sansa wanted him to at least act like he cared (which he so obviously didn't), leading to the most half-assed investigation he'd ever experienced. Sansa came to follow it up in mile high heels and a practiced smile on her face, and though she asked Aegon the most innocent of questions -- "Where are you from?" "What do you do?" "How long have you known Arya?" -- he could see that her lack of originality was just that, and definitely not a way to pretend as if she gave a shit.
Ned and Catelyn came together, amicably on the surface but suspicious underneath, but they asked about him -- what neighborhood did he live in, what did he do for a living, where did he go to school -- and for that he was glad. With only six people to talk to the entire night, it was nice to let loose for a change, and although Robb still seemed convinced Arya was using him as a friend-prostitute, the Stark parents seemed pleased. Blue was the twinkle of Catelyn Stark's eyes that reminded him of Arya. They didn't share the same eyes but the kind challenge in the older woman's eyes was omnipresent in her youngest daughter's as well.
Bran was last.
"Arya doesn't have a lot of friends, you know."
"So I've heard. A bit hard to believe, don't you think?"
"How so?"
Aegon froze. Isn't it a bit hard to believe that anyone didn't have friends? Yes, yes it was, and he was really planning on saying just that, but that wasn't what slipped out of his mouth.
"Well, she's pretty great, isn't she?"
With Bran still giving him a look that made him queasy, Arya dragged him out the door and called back to Bran that they could talk later.
Blue was the color of the tie strewn across the backseat as he drove her home.
XI. RED
Red is Jon's face when Aegon tells him that he met a girl.
He'd grown up jumping from home to home as a foster child, but he was an adult now and lived on his own. When he'd moved in with Jon and Ashara he was already seventeen, and he'd never really considered them as authority figures as much as friends. He'd clicked immediately with Ashara, but although Jon eventually warmed up to him, the man was cold as stone. They weren't his family, but they were … enough. Red are the placemats in their dining room that Aegon is staring down at when he tells Ashara and Jon he met a girl.
She's not his girlfriend, he's hasty to explain, though Ashara has that knowing smirk upon her face as if she can read his thoughts. Jon mumbles incoherent phrases, red as a beet, and Ashara tells him to bring her over for dinner.
Red go the tips of Arya's ears when he invites her to meet his pseudo-parents.
XII. GREY
Grey is his new favorite color, he decides.
XIII. BLUE
Blue is Ashara's dress. She's always wearing dresses, so it isn't weird for Aegon, but by the way Arya's eyebrows have surpassed her hairline in height he can tell she feels underdressed.
"Don't worry," he whispers to her, and his heart beat screams as he places a hand on the small of her back and pushes her into the house.
It's not as big as the Stark estate, not by a landslide, but she doesn't seem to notice. She's polite but honest with Ashara, and he knows that means she approves. But she's challenging and demanding with Jon Connington and Jon's a bit offended, but he shouldn't be. That means Arya likes him. He'll need to tell him so later.
Blue is the hair her big eyes flick up to every time she feels nervous, he notices by the time things are wrapping up. Her pupils trail down his face, quickly, and then she's fine again, replying to whatever it was that had made her anxious -- five siblings, really? Your brother's pet is a what? Do you really fancy that awful blue hair? Her constant glances are making him queasy.
Blue is the ball he flings at the ceiling that night, eyes glazed over, wondering if he's fallen off the deep end.
XIV. RED
"I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!"
Red-rimmed are her eyes as she sobs. But Arya Stark doesn't cry.
Maybe just this once.
She'd barely spoken with Sansa before the Joffrey era, she hadn't spoken to Sansa at all during the Joffrey era, but at some point during Sansa's post-Joffrey-depression, she'd developed the urge to cry into Sansa's shoulder.
"How dare he not make me a bridesmaid! I don't even want to be a bridesmaid. But I want him to make me do it, anyway! And you're a fucking bridesmaid, Sansa -- now that's ridiculous. Your hair is red, it'll clash all the photos up." She hit Sansa when her sister began to laugh. "It's true! Aegon told me so. I don't want to be in any stupid photos with stupid Roslin, anyway. You know why? Cause she's a bitch. That's why. The only reason I'm not skipping town for this wedding is cause of Jon."
Sansa attempted to keep her laughter down, resulting in a red tinge on her face. "One, Roslin's not a bitch. She's a bit of a slut, I'll give you that, and she's obnoxious, too, but she isn't outright mean to anyone. Two, Robb didn't want to make even me a bridesmaid. But mom made him, on account of all the shit I was going through. And three, don't be so sour -- the wedding's gonna be great. And you get to wear that amazing red dress."
Arya sniffled and smirked. "I do look really hot in that dress, huh?"
"Oh, shut up. You know you do. C'mon. One month to go.
XV. GREY
Grey are Sansa's eyes when he sees them in daylight for the first time -- not actually. They're blue. But he can't help but see Arya's eyes every time he looks at one of her family members, he can't help but compare her to them and wonder why they don't see how much she cares.
She'd been in the neighborhood and stopped by Arya's apartment unannounced. Arya is in the shower and he's waiting for her, sitting on her kitchen counter eating cereal right out of the box.
"Oh," Sansa says, both their faces turning pink, and once she sticks something to the fridge, she's off. Aegon hops up and inspects the sticky note.
Arya- three weeks. Try not to run away before Jon gets here. I'll see you soon -S
(In grey pen.)
XVI. BLUE
The screen lights up blue. "Will you get that? Probably just Sansa."
"Hello?"
"You're not Arya."
"You're not Sansa."
"Aegon? Who is it?" She comes out in her blue towel and he begins to surreptitiously hyperventilate.
"I think it's Jon." She doesn't come as close as he'd like when she snatches the phone from him, but he can pretend she does.
"Jon? What's up? Mhmm? Yeah, that was just Aegon …"
He tried to picture what Jon Snow looked like in his head. Arya but a guy, with overgrown hair and more puppy dog eyes, that's how she'd describe him. But he was in the army, and according to Sansa he was moving up in the ranks pretty quickly, so he couldn't imagine a little thing like Arya. He looked tough and mean in Aegon's mind, ready to beat him up if he even looked at Arya funny.
Two weeks.
Blue is the ball against the ceiling.
XVII. RED
Red is the button on Sansa's phone as she presses down on it, informing Arya her sister has her full attention.
"He's not gonna like me," she complains.
"He loves you, Arya."
"No, he's only just nice. He only pretends to like me because I never got on with any of the rest of you. But now we're close and you know how he's always around Robb, and Robb and I aren't getting along, and I even have a friend now, so he's gonna think I'm fine and he doesn't have to pretend to like me."
"Shut up. You know he loves you, more than the rest of us, even. You're just nervous. It's been three years. It'll be fine." Arya sighs. One week. After three years, just one week.
She can't believe it either, but red strands sift through her fingers as she braids her sister's hair.
XVIII. GREY
When she opens the door to a pair of grey eyes, nothing else seems to matter.
XIX. BLUE
Jon stops dead in his tracks.
Jon's heard of Aegon countless times, over the phone, over email, Facebook posts on his sister's wall. She'd just failed to mention his hair was blue.
His handshake's alright, Jon supposes, but he looks nervous as fuck, as if he's at an interview or something, and that's when Jon realizes that this kid wants to date his sister.
Jon shows no emotion all through dinner but he's raging on the inside, his feral instincts regarding the protection of his little sister raging inside him. But he doesn't think Arya will appreciate that. He's nice -- he makes small talk, schools his features to look genuinely interested in what Aegon's saying. He has the decency to blush when Aegon tells him he's heard a great deal of things about him from Arya, and even some from Sansa. Jon plays it cool.
That doesn't stop him from daydreaming about plucking each and every one of those obnoxiously blue hairs out of that prick's head.
XX. RED
Red is the tie he wears this time -- and a jacket, and everything. She's wearing that long black dress that makes her look infinitely tall, even though she's not even close to his size. The restaurant for the rehearsal dinner is huge and it seems like every rich person in the country is there, from CEOs to congressmen to movie stars.
Arya sits with him in the shadows of the dark corner, avoiding interaction as much as possible. No wonder I'm her only friend, he muses.
Sansa comes over sporadically, always with a friend; first it's Jeyne Poole, then it's Margaery Tyrell, and then it's Mya Stone. Jon comes over frequently to check up on her and cast Aegon a sullying stare before sauntering off. He asks Arya to dance at one point, at which Arya pours her drink all over his shoes and Aegon stifles his laughter. Theon, her foster brother, comes over and starts hitting on her before she shoos him away, and Arya explains to him that Theon will hit on her father if he's drunk enough. Theon's not the only one who hits on Arya that night, but Aegon just tugs at his red tie and ignored it. But most of the time she's all his, her lips red as she complains about all the prissy people here, her eyes narrowed at the crowd.
Red is the loosened tie around his neck as he drops her off and dreams about what she'll look like tomorrow in that red dress of hers.
XXI. GREY
Grey. Her eyes follow him.
Oh, she looks gorgeous in the dress -- stunning -- impossibly beautiful. Her lips match the color, her eye makeup is dark, her nails painted black. She looks like a goddess. That's not what worries him.
Her eyes don't leave him, not for a second. She mingles the crowd, sometimes with him in tow, sometimes wandering off on her own, but he always feels those wild grey eyes upon him. It's unnerving, to say the least, especially when he's in the middle of a conversation with somebody like her father or one of the Frey sisters. He twitches self consciously all night as she tracks him.
He finally comes up with the brilliant idea of escape, bursting into the men's bathroom only to find yet another pair of grey eyes, and he yelps in surprise.
"You clean up nice," Bran says with a laugh. Aegon's starting to feel nauseous. "What's got you in such a hurry?"
Aegon mumbles a nothing, feeling his cheeks pinker as he struggles to hold eye contact with those grey eyes that are so similar to the ones that have trailed him all night long.
The silence is kind of awkward. Bran decides to fill it with some sage words of advice.
"She could do better," he announces promptly, and Aegon lets his mouth drop open. He doesn't know what to say.
"But not by much."
He lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding as Bran Stark exits the bathroom.
XXII. BLUE
Blue are Sansa's eyes still, shining vibrantly as she partakes in her favorite pastime. Gossiping.
"He isn't perfect, not nearly," Arya informs her sister, sufficiently drunk. "He's a follower. He isn't dumb but he's not creative, I don't think. And he's a whiner, too -- he's always whining when he doesn't get his way. And don't forget about the hair -- god, the hair. Suppose I'll just have to let that one slide."
Sansa never used to talk about Joffrey this way. She could never see his flaws until it was too late. It seems like the opposite is true for Arya. Perhaps that's a good thing.
Sansa doesn't let herself get all melancholy. "No," she retaliates, "no! You can not let that one slide! You're not going to be with a guy with blue hair, Arya!"
"I'm not going to be with him," Arya barks back, but even Sansa can tell it's halfhearted. Maybe she should get drunk with her sister more often.
"What color's his natural hair, d'you think? Bet you it's dark, brown or black. Or he could be a redhead -- oh, then he'd fit in perfectly!"
"Saw pictures of him from high school," Arya slurred, smiling at the recollection. "He's super super blonde, almost white, turns-you-blind-if-you-stare-for-too-long blonde."
"Why'd he dye it?
"I … I dunno."
A man with blue hair has been on her mind all evening. She could have noticed how many men were eyeing Sansa, how Robb didn't even come up to say hello, how highly people were speaking of Jon, how few adults had noticed that Rickon brought Shaggydog. But no, she'd been thinking of a man with blue hair and wondered if he'd ever considered growing back out the blonde.
XXIII. RED
Red is the interior of the coffee shop she met him at for brunch the next morning at eleven. She was hungover, he could tell, and her face had bits of black smeared across it, remnants of her makeup from the previous night. He'd told her to sleep in. They could talk later. She'd said no.
Her face reddens when she asks, "Why is your hair blue?"
He snorts, and she glares at him. "My friends pulled a prank on me in college, with dye in my shampoo. It just kind of stuck."
That was it. No mystery. No secret about his past, no hidden meanings.
"You should grow it out blonde."
He touches his scalp self consciously. "Why?"
"Why not?"
She knows he will. He's never been much of an independent thinker.
XXIV. GREY
Two pairs of grey eyes swimming with tears face each other form across security as he turns to check his luggage.
"You're crying," he informs her politely as he wraps an arm around her shoulder and steers her towards the parking lot.
"Fuck," she mumbles into her hands. "Fuck."
Grey eyes in need look up at him from the passenger seat of his car, and she grips at his arms on the steering wheel as they drive away, reminding herself as always that this could be the last time.
XXV. BLUE
Her fingers run through his blue hair and he shivers, and as she tugs her lips from his she figures she could get used to this.
She knows he would have wanted their first kiss to be something big, a picnic at sunset in the park or something, but he doesn't look like he's about to complain as she climbs off him, leaving him on the wooden floor, blue rubber ball still in her hand. She throws it up at the ceiling, and it bounces back down onto his stomach and he lets out an oof!
"My aim's improving. Are you proud?" she teases.
She's in the kitchen now, grinning at him as he clambers up, letting the blue ball drop to the floor, and rushes over to her. He hesitantly places a hand on her arm, and she suppresses the instinct to roll her eyes. She can tell he has no idea what he wants to say. It's endearing. She watches him struggle for words.
"That was --" he begins, shaking his head a bit to rid his eyes of their glaze. "That wasn't just a thing, was it? Cause -- cause I don't want it to be just a thing, you know? I want it to be like a permanent thing. I mean, I don't want it to be a thing at all. I want it to be a -- a kiss. Cause that's what it was. A kiss."
She does roll her eyes now. "Yes, Aegon, that was a kiss."
He grunts in frustration. "I mean, I want it to be -- I --"
"Yes," she tell him, answering his unspoken question. "I want it to be that too."
He has that stupid grin on his face and she runs her hands through his blue hair once more.
XXVI. RED
Red hair splayed around her, Sansa giggles at her brother on the phone.
"I knew it," Jon growls through the phone, red hot fury in his voice. "I knew that son of a bitch had the hots for her. I am going to pummel him if he even touches her. I am going to beat him to a pulp if I hear one word --"
"Stop it," Sansa commands, laughing. "Shut up, Jon, and face the facts. You're ecstatic, and you know it."
She hears a grumble form the other end and remembers the night when her sister found her covered in red blood. That had been when everything had changed. Her nightmares were still shrouded in red, but when she had people like Arya during the day, it didn't seem so bad anymore.
XXVII. GREY
Grey eyes confront him, inches from his own. "You're not so scary, you know," he says.
It bares its teeth and growls and Aegon yelps at a pitch higher than he'd previously thought possible.
"That's a lie," he confesses. "You're pretty fucking scary."
Rickon laughs from behind the wolf. "Better get used to him, Shaggy. Looks like Aegon's gonna be around for a while."
Grey eyes watch him from across the yard and he smiles. Looks like he's gonna be around for a while.
XXVIII. EPILOGUE
"You've got to come over. Hurry, hurry, before he runs off!"
Sansa snatches her bag up and speed walks her way to Arya and Aegon's apartment, opens the door, and --
"Holy shit!" And Sansa never curses.
He's sitting on the counter, arms crossed, a morose expression on his face. "I don't feel like me," he declares haughtily, chin up. He brushes the locks of silver-gold hair from his eyes.
"Nonsense," Sansa argues, giving Arya a successful smile. "You look great. Besides, Ashara and Jon are gonna love it. How'd you convince him to do it, Arya?"
"I told him they wouldn't let him apply for a marriage license if he looked like he ran away to the circus."
"Oh, yes," he replied sarcastically to them both, "coming from the family that has a sixty year old monk trapped in a teenager's body, a foster brother that fucks anything with a heartbeat, and a kid with a wolf for a pet. I'm the one who ran away to the circus."
"Of course," Sansa told him playfully. "You're the circus freak. We're your circus."