#my fave sunshine boy! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ladycatofwinterfell · 2 years

Text

Raindrops, snowflakes, sunshine, part 8

Summary: Catelyn meets a northern boy in her algebra class during one of London’s many rainy days. Initially she doesn’t expect much, but this boy brings her a surprising amount of sunlight.

@leialannister and I discussed Scandinavian Starks and I realized I really wanted to write a fic so that’s what I did. Swedes depicted in media makes this Swede happy, and NedCat also makes me happy so why not combine it and publish him for everyone to see?

Happy one year to this! It’s my favourite!

It rained, but it wasn’t one of those light rains that Catelyn enjoyed so much. The sky had opened, and rain was pouring down. It was as if a giant and endless bucket had been emptied over London. And of course Catelyn had forgotten to bring an umbrella that morning.

She probably looked like a drowned cat when she opened the door to the building. She felt like she had stepped into the shower with her clothes on, and she could squeeze water out of her hair. Catelyn hadn’t squeezed water out of her hair after a rain since she left Ireland. London felt a little bit more like home when it rained, even when it was annoying and nothing but a bother.

When she reached the door of her home, Catelyn opened her bag and reached into it to take her keys out. Though no keys could be found. They had probably disappeared underneath all the other stuff she had in there, it wasn’t a problem. She thoroughly searched for her keys, and still she was met by nothing.

With a sigh she emptied the bag on the floor. They would definitely turn up if she just sorted everything out. But they didn’t. They fucking didn’t. Catelyn had forgotten her keys at home that morning. She hadn’t thought about them, Ashara and Cersei had been home when she left and therefore she hadn’t locked the door. But they weren’t home anymore. The only thing still in the flat was Catelyn’s key to get inside.

She was ready to cry. She could almost feel tears rising in her eyes. She didn’t have time for that. She really didn’t have time to be locked out of her own home.

With all her things still on the floor she took up her phone and called Ashara, who answered almost immediately.

“Hey, Cat” she said. “Do you need anything?”

“I was just wondering when you would be home” Catelyn said. “I left my keys inside this morning, so now I’m locked out.”

“I won’t be home for another three hours, at least. This is taking longer than we expected.”

She was helping Elia move into her new place that day, Catelyn knew.

“I’ll have to check with Cersei, then” Catelyn said, tried to sound like it didn’t bother her in the least.

Except for that it did bother her. It bothered her so much.

“If she can’t come home anytime soon you can come join us.”

Catelyn couldn’t claim to really want to carry furniture.

“That’s really nice of you, but I need to study.”

“Alright, see you tonight, then.”

“Bye.”

Catelyn tried calling Cersei and was met by nothing. She was in a lecture, Catelyn realised when she looked at the time. Cersei wouldn’t be home in a long time, several hours. She couldn’t sit in the stairwell for several hours and wait for one of her flat mates to be home.

She had an idea, and pressed the screen before she could regret it. A few signals passed before he answered.

“Hello, Cat.”

She felt stupid when she started smiling just from hearing his voice. She really had to stop with that.

“Hi, I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“Not at all, I wasn’t doing much anyway.”

To her own defence he did have a really nice voice.

“Are you home?” she asked.

“Yeah, why do you ask?”

“Uhm, I’m locked out of my flat and Ash and Cersei won’t be home for hours. So I was just wondering if I could come over.”

For some reason she felt nervous about his answer. The worst she could get was a no. Then she’d just have to go down to a café or something instead, it wasn’t a catastrophe.

“Absolutely” he said. “I need to study so I can’t promise I’ll be great company, but maybe I’m better than sitting in the stairwell.”

She could hear from the way he sounded that he was also smiling. It made her warm inside.

“I won’t disturb you, I promise.”

“If someone’s gonna keep me from studying I would like it to be you.”

“Awesome, see you in a bit.”

“Bye.”

Catelyn had to stand still for a while and collect herself before she could begin picking up all her things from the floor so that she could leave. Notebooks and pens and a textbook and a thousand other things.

And the it was out into the hellish rain again. But it was somewhat easier when she knew that she would get to see Ned once she managed to reach his home.

It seemed like an eternity before she got there. She was a wet street rat, miserable and cold. She had tried to stay out of the rain as much as possible, but at certain points it had been impossible.

When she managed to get to his porch and took up her phone to text him that she was there she found that she already had a text from him. It consisted of nothing but four numbers, but Catelyn smiled when she saw it.

Bent over her phone so that it wouldn’t be destroyed by too much rain she quickly typed out a text.

I’m honoured to be trusted with the code

Then she pressed in the four numbers and a small green lamp let her know that she could open the door. What a victory.

She practically ran up the stairs to the third floors so that she would get some heat up. She hadn’t realised that she was shivering before she got inside.

“Oh wow” were Ned’s words when she knocked on the door and she opened.

He was quite good at hiding his surprise when it came to his facial expression, but his eyes gave him away.

“It’s raining” was all Catelyn could say.

“Yeah, but I don’t think I realised how much. Come on inside.”

“Give me a moment.”

She crouched down and took off her shoes before stepping inside and immediately placing them in the she rack so that she wouldn’t ruin his neat floor. It was enough with all the water that dropped from the rest of her.

“I’m so sorry” she said, feeling how her cheeks were heating.

She didn’t feel like a very good guest.

“You can’t control the weather, can you?”

“No, but I’m bringing all the bloody water with me inside, am I not?”

“I’m guessing you didn’t have much choice.”

“Stop being nice to me and just be annoyed” she sighed. “Please.”

All he did at that was laugh before going to sit at the kitchen table. Books and papers were spread out over it. Despite that it looked like a mess at first there was also some structure to it. It was almost unsettling.

It was nice to be back in the small flat. Even better was seeing Oden again. He was spread out on the couch and didn’t pay her any mind, just continued to peacefully rest.

“I’ve given up on excusing his bad manners, you know just how he is at this point” Ned said when he noticed how she looked at Oden.

“He’s the only dog I like, it’s fine.”

There was nothing to excuse. And also maybe she wouldn’t have continued talking to Ned at all if it hadn’t been for Oden coming to her when she was at the book shop.

“Speaking of nothing, do you have a hairbrush I can borrow?” she continued.

As she had been taking her shoes and her coat off her hair had fallen into her face. And when she tried to sweep it back she noticed that the heavy rain had made it very tangled to the point where she struggled to run her fingers through it.

“There’s one on the counter in the bathroom” he told her.

She would never again visit a person that didn’t have long hair. Thank God for both Ned’s hair and his hairbrush.

It was so incredibly hard to keep herself from poking around in the bathroom when she was in there. She wanted to know what he had in his cabinets. But she didn’t she just took the hairbrush and began doing what had to be done.

It was strangely intimate despite that he wasn’t in the bathroom with her. But the feeling of standing in his home, in front of his mirror, using his hairbrush to work through her tangled hair. She was surrounded by his things and he was just outside. If she poked her head out through the open door she would see him sitting at the table.

Maybe the rain wasn’t so terrible, after all. And maybe it wasn’t so bad that she had forgotten her keys at home that morning. Both those things had brought her to where she was at the moment, and it wasn’t a bad place to be.

“You’re a saint” she said when she left the bathroom.

While her hair was still damp it wasn’t tangled, and she was feeling like a completely new person. A better one than she had been a few minutes earlier.

“The requirements for sainthood must be terribly low nowadays” he responded, not looking up from his notes. “If all it takes is owning a hairbrush.”

“Do you know how many people that rules out?”

“I guess.”

Catelyn would have liked to sit on the couch, but there was a huge dog there. So she went over and sat across from Ned at the kitchen table.

“Do you want anything?” he asked. “Coffee? Tea?”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not a problem if you do want something.”

“I’ve already had coffee today, but thanks for offering.”

It was so stupid that she felt all cozy inside only from him offering her coffee. Everything about how she felt when she saw him or talked to him was stupid. There really was nothing special about him. Except for that everything was special about him.

“So if I tell you that I’m making myself some tea, do you still not want some?” he tried.

The hint of a smile that was on his face when he looked at her was unbearable. And also quite the look on him. Damnit.

“Are you trying to poison me or something?” she chuckled, trying to distract herself from his smile.

“If I had been trying to poison you I would have done so with the soup on New Year’s Eve. Now do you want tea?”

“Yes” she sighed.

“I unfortunately don’t have anything else to offer you, I’m really bad at making sure I have things at home.”

“And I don’t have any biscuits in my bag this time, but I think we can manage without it.”

While he started preparing tea for them she looked at all the notes on the table. Page upon page of both printed things and what seemed to be his own handwriting. It was quite neat, though somewhat pointy and far from perfect. It was clear they were purely for himself and not for anyone else to read.

It wasn’t all text, though. There were pictures, as well. Those she understood much better than the text. As she looked at it all she realised that some of them had been drawn by Ned. Ranging from messy sketches to finished drawings in colour.

“Do you draw when you study?” Catelyn said.

While doing so she took the liberty to reach for one of them so that she could take a closer look. The one she took was of a white house. It was a large house, seemingly two stories and an attic, with a large porch and high windows. It looked old, she would have guessed nineteenth century, but she wasn’t quite sure. It all was surrounded by tall firs. If she had been told it was an illustration from a fairytale she wouldn’t have questioned it, it was a beautiful drawing of a beautiful house.

“Not while I study, but it’s a nice way to clear the mind when I’m taking breaks. The one you’re holding now has been an ongoing project.”

She wished she could have drawn gorgeous things when she was taking study breaks.

“This one is fantastic” she said. “You said you weren’t good at drawing anything but people. You liar!”

There were so many little details in it. Light reflecting in the windows, wind blowing through the firs, a German Shepherd was resting on the porch.

“Once again I feel like you have incredibly low standards” he responded.

“I’m complimenting you, Ned, just take the compliment.”

He leaned against the counter after he had put on the kettle. When he did so he had his back to her so she couldn’t see his face. But she believed she knew him well enough at that point to know the expression on his face.

“That’s my parents’s house back in Sweden” Ned said instead. “I grew up there.”

Catelyn couldn’t help the chocked noise that escaped her.

“What?”

“Yeah.”

“This is where you’re from? Why the hell would you leave?”

She supposed that house wasn’t terribly different from where she was from, but it was larger. And absolutely gorgeous.

He glanced over his shoulder at her.

“What was I supposed to do? Stay there forever?”

“I would have.”

How was one supposed to leave a house like that?

“Not if you had my siblings, you wouldn’t.”

“How bad can they be?”

She had siblings. And they had absolutely driven her up the walls when she still lived at home.

“Well, you’ve already met Brandon, and together with the other two he’s ten times as insufferable. And Lyanna is Brandon, but a girl. Benjen is okay, though.”

The urge to curl into a ball when she heard Brandon’s name was strong. She didn’t want to think about Brandon, she wanted to avoid Brandon until the end of time. But that was very hard to do when she was with Ned. Why did they have to be brothers? Why had she even met Brandon in the first place? The universe was playing a cruel trick on her and she wasn’t in for the ride.

Though that definitely wasn’t the time to think about Brandon.

“When I talk about them it sounds like I hate them, I don’t, I’m sure you would get along well” he continued.

“If they’re even a little like you I think we would get along really well.”

She must have got along with Brandon at some point considering how it turned out, even if she didn’t remember it, so the other two couldn’t be that hard. If she ever got to meet them, that was.

“We share a surname, but that’s about it.”

“A shame.”

When he returned to the table he placed a mug in front of her.

“I should have asked about what you wanted, but I took a guess and made the same as last time you were here” he said.

Catelyn couldn’t have cared less about his assumption, it was the end that caught her interest.

“You remembered how I take my tea?”

She was more flattered by that then she should have been.

“Of course” he said and looked at her as if it was obvious.

He made a move to sit opposite to her, where he had sat before, but then hesitated. And sat next to her instead. Catelyn definitely wouldn’t complain about that.

“That’s very sweet, thank you” she said.

As he sat he accidentally moved aside one of the papers with his arm and under it was another drawing. As it was still partly covered she couldn’t quite see what it was.

“What’s that one of?” she asked, nodding towards it.

Ned frowned and looked down at everything before them, his eyes searching the table for what she meant.

“What?”

When she tried to reach for it so that she could show him he grabbed her hand to stop her.

“It’s nothing” he quickly said.

Catelyn had intended to keep trying to take the paper, but instead she froze right where she was. His hand was so warm against hers and despite that he had been trying to stop her he held it ever so gently. It reminded her of when he had been teaching her to draw. The closeness, the way her heart beat in her chest, the scent of his cologne and her hand in his. Though that time she had kept her eyes steadily on what they had in front of them. Instead of doing that she looked up at him, met his eyes.

For just a moment and against her will her eyes darted downwards. And she believed her heart skipped a beat when she noticed how he did the same thing.

Suddenly the air around her felt almost electric, and the silence was no longer comfortable, but something else. She didn’t know what that other thing was, but she could have touched it if she wanted to. And so she decided to just do it.

She began closing the distance between them, and to her delight he met her halfway. When their lips connected in a kiss she could feel her whole body tingle, all the way out to the tips of her fingers. It was as great as she had imagined it would be. And it got even better when she felt how he cupped her cheek with one hand.

When they parted she could feel her face heat and she imagined her grin looked kind of stupid. But it was hard to keep it away. Her whole body was butterflies.

And nothing got worse from seeing the hint of a blush on Ned’s cheeks behind the beard. She had waited so long for that, and it really had been worth it. So why stop there? Why not just push a little further?

“Would you maybe want to go on a date with me?” she got out. “I mean like a proper date, not a friend date.”

The moment of silence seemed to last an eternity. They just sat there, looking into each other’s eyes. She could only hope he had liked it as much as she did. And that he liked her as much as she liked him.

“I would love to go on a date with you” he said.

“You free on Friday?”

“If I have anything I’ll cancel it.”

Before she could respond to that his phone started ringing where he had left it on the kitchen counter.

“Men för i helvete” he muttered. “Excuse me for a moment.”

It was hard to deny the disappointment of their moment being interrupted. Suddenly there was not as much magic in the air anymore. Suddenly she was just sitting on a chair in his flat and watching him answer his phone.

“Hi, Nan” he said, and the irritation in his voice was very obvious “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

He leaned against the counter while he was speaking and Catelyn couldn’t claim to hate the sight of that. She really couldn’t. It didn’t seem entirely appropriate to focus on that, but it was hard to control her thoughts.

“No, I’m not alone” he sighed, raising one hand to rub the back of his neck. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Despite his initial irritation she believed she could see an amused sparkle in his eyes.

“Yes, yes, I’ll be down in a minute.”

Then he hung up.

“There’s an old lady living in the flat above mine, her name’s Nan and sometimes she has trouble getting her bags up the stairs” he explained. “I just need to go down and give her a hand, I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Alright.”

At that point Catelyn didn’t really know what to do with herself. Why had she not started dating him earlier? Obviously he was the sweetest person to have ever set foot on the island.

The moment he was out the door she had her phone in her hands and was frantically typing in the group chat with Cersei and Ashara. Several times she had a full sentence done and then deleted it because it didn’t properly express what she was feeling. It was killing her, she would explode. In the end she kept it simple.

I kissed Ned

Or he kissed her. She didn’t know who had been kissing who, but they had kissed.

Not a second later a bubble popped up to indicate that Ashara was typing.

fucking finally

She didn’t know what she had expected, but that wasn’t it. Maybe she should have considering what Ashara and Cersei’s attitudes had been like from the very beginning.

Instead of acknowledging Ashara’s answer she dropped the second part of what had happened.

and then I asked him out

That time it was Cersei that responded.

if he didn’t say yes i will kill him

Catelyn smiled to herself as she responded.

we’re going out on Friday

She heard someone just outside the door and quickly put her phone down again, ignoring the buzzing that indicated that her friends had sent more messages.

To her great surprise it wasn’t Ned that opened the door. It was a small and very old woman dressed in a yellow raincoat.

“She’s pretty!” she said over her shoulder after she had looked at Catelyn.

“Nan, please” Ned’s exasperated voice came from behind her.

“Are you dating her?” Nan just kept going.

The initial surprise was entirely blown away, and Catelyn struggled to hold back a laugh where she sat. It was impossible not to smile though.

“I guess now he is” she said in Ned’s stead.

Nan’s face lit up at those words.

“Lovely!”

“Nan, leave Catelyn be.”

“I’m just trying to make sure you’re not lonely, lad” Nan responded. “You spend too much time with that dog of yours.”

As if Oden could understand them he raised his head and looked at Nan. Catelyn heard the rhythmic slaps of his wagging tail hitting the couch.

“It’s my dog, what am I supposed to do with him?” Ned asked.

“It’s a dog, you need human interaction.”

Catelyn liked Nan more and more for every passing second. Mostly because she didn’t seem to give a damn about what she was saying.

“You don’t need to worry, ma’am, I’m keeping him company” she assured her.

“Excellent, excellent.”

As Nan backed out Catelyn saw how she patted Ned’s arm before she continued up the stairs. Ned was carrying two bags full of groceries. They looked like heavy bags, how had the little woman even managed to get them from the grocery store?

“I’m sorry” he sighed. “I tried to stop her.”

“It’s fine” Catelyn smiled. “I don’t mind.”

They always seemed to get interrupted whenever they did something, she was used to it at that point. And worse things had happened to her.

#catelyn stark #catelyn tully #ned stark #ned x cat #my fic #raindrops snowflakes sunshine #the fave swedish boy is back to give you what you have waited for #in the middle of his country being cancelled #im sorry the rich are assholes i promise he is not

13 notes · View notes