A/N: I wrote this one during my own finals last month. It's heavily based on my own life. Enjoy!

It didn't take him long to figure out what she was there for. The laptop, the notebooks, probably even the English paper were an elaborate pretense. Well...nearly. The paper was still due the next afternoon, but she wasn't there to work on it. Not really.

She stood in the doorway, her short brown hair fluffed up from stress. Her makeup had probably looked much better that morning, and he could see she was wearing a laundry day shirt under her cut-up, ironic sweatshirt. "Can I help you, m'lady?"

"Very funny, Gendry." She pushed past him, letting herself into his apartment and going straight to the kitchen. "What do you have to eat? By the way, I brought my homework because it sure as hell wasn't getting done at my place. Have I mentioned how much I hate my roommate? An entire season of Glee in our fucking kitchen without any goddamned headphones. It'd almost be defensible in court if I killed her."

"My day was fine. Yes, I missed you, too," he joked, following her into his home and lacing his arms around her small waist, lowering his head to kiss the top of hers.

She tilted her neck back to glare at him.

"I take it the paper writing isn't going as well as planned?"

Arya gave a humorless laugh and dug through a cabinet. "Paper? What paper? Surely if I had a long and important paper due tomorrow, I'd have started it by now instead of wasting my life blogging and eating and watching old anime. Ha! Paper!"

He pulled down the applesauce he knew she was reaching for (it was hers, bought by him when she'd stayed at his place while sick with the flu and was unable to eat anything else for what felt like a month but was actually just less than three days) and shut the cabinet. "Not sure what you came here for. I haven't had to write a paper since my Tech Writing class, and even those were awful. I don't know that I'd be of any help–"

She pulled out of his arms and opened the flatware drawer, extracting a spoon before slamming the whole thing shut with her hip. "I didn't come here for help, stupid," she explained, peeling back the foil lid on the plastic cup, "I came here for quiet and the occasional bout of emotional support. And I know those were terrible, because I proofread them. Why don't you keep this stuff in the fridge like I ask?" she demanded, pointing at the applesauce with her spoon.

Gendry rolled his eyes. "As m'lady wishes," he said sarcastically, grabbing the half-empty package off the counter and walking towards his refrigerator with it.

"Wait! Leave one out. I'm not done stress eating yet. Also I've decided I'm sleeping here tonight."

Gendry shook his head, but did as she said.

An applesauce cup and a half later, she was sitting on his bed with notebooks and novels spread around her and her laptop open. "Fuck this class. Why did I take it? I didn't even need to take this fucking class. This is such horseshit, Gendry."

"Would you like me to remind you in the future not to take classes because you have a crush on the professor?" He turned away from his work, half-smiling.

"No. Maybe. I don't even think he's that hot anymore. This is total bullshit. What are you working on?"

"Some Circuits homework, and a little reading for Solid State after that. D'you need me to take a break?" he asked, genuinely concerned.

"No," she answered weakly, "you've got your own finals to worry about. Oh, and PS, I need more help in my other awful bullshit hell class this week."

"Economics?" He got up from his desk anyways, stretching before joining her on the bed.

"What d'you think I meant, fucking Spanish? Of course Economics. Also get your fat ass off my notebook."

"Have I ever mentioned how mean you are?"

"Quit whining."

"What are you writing about?" He leaned over, peering at the mostly-blank Word document on her screen.

"Well, I want to write about how fucking terrible this book was, but I can't, so I'm sort of making this up as I go."

"I seem to recall you trying that once. I don't think it worked out."

"No, I do this every time. Last time I got a 60 because I was asleep when I finished the paper and didn't realize I'd put some really stupid shit in it. It wasn't even a real 60, H'ghar just gave me a D because he knows I can write better than that. It was probably like an 80."

"He expects better from his future wife, I guess."

"Will you leave me alone? I was super flu-sick when I said that. I didn't even know what I was talking about." She shoved him a little, but he laughed and kissed her cheek.

"You're ridiculous. I love you."

"I hate you."

Gendry reached around the back of her and began to rub her shoulders the way she liked when she was upset. "You don't hate me," he corrected softly. "Now tell me what your argument is for this one."

Arya gave a few unintelligible mumble-sighs, then launched into an explanation. "It's a novel, so it's fiction, but nine chapters in the author announces it's all actually true and a memoir, even though it's definitely not, because one of the characters has the same name as the author but their life histories don't match up. Also, he didn't finish writing it before he died, so the whole thing is a jumbled mess. And it's all about taxes."

Gendry whistled slowly. "That sounds terrible."

"It's not, though!" she protested. "Some parts of it are really brilliant, and there are really interesting supernatural elements, like ghosts in the IRS building and psychic employees. The whole thing probably would have been really neat if it were finished. Anyways, my paper's probably sort of going to be about how making it a "memoir" of the 70s and 80s actually gave the book the ability to openly criticize our modern culture. And stuff."

"Sounds thrilling."

"It's not. Also I have another paper due tomorrow. Also a test."

Gendry pinched the bridge of his nose. "You have a problem, you know."

"Shush. It's alright, though! Look!" she said, proudly displaying the list of blocked websites on her anti-procrastination browser extension. "Even the shopping websites, so I can't buy a paycheck and a half worth of combat boots and ironic shirts when I feel vulnerable."

"That's an improvement, I guess. But you still haven't gotten anything done, have you?"

"Well…no. But I spent a lot of time putting things in place so that I wouldn't waste time. I also ate a family box of macaroni."

He sighed. "What's the other paper?"

"Just three pages of bullshit about the news media for my Government class. I've decided it's called "Fair, Balanced, and Funky Fresh."

"Sounds like a winner. Why don't you work on that for a little while if you're stuck on the other?"

"Okay, I guess. This paper is also equally horseshit."

Gendry nodded, watching as she wrote her first paragraph and changed all the punctuation to size fourteen. "Well, I believe in you."