#the double feature this weekend is probably going to have another surge in 2 weeks

[inflagrante-delicatessen]

&&

[tinytendril]

wanna dance with you, pt. 1 - robbaery au Summary: Drabbles or a collection of moments between Margaery and Robb, finding themselves unexpectedly drawn to each other over the course of the summer after high school graduation and the start of her college freshman year.  AN: Had a lot of fun writing this. And, still do. Waiting for the next idea to strike. Also, feel in the mood to listen to the song that has some ties to this story? Follow the link of the title of this fic above.

Robb

Everything seems to irritate her about him, if the wrinkling of her nose is any indication as she walks in tandem with him.

And she’s wrinkled hers a dozen times since they arrived at the King’s Landing Hotel. At his shoes, where he’s now more conscious of the fact that there’s scuffing at the toes. At his tweed overcoat, that she’s probably making note that she’s seen it before (it is his dad’s). At his stubble of which his attempt to look several years older than his actual eighteen years is making him fidget and scratch at his chin.  

He pushes these thoughts down before they rise, aflame, so they flicker and die on his tongue. ‘I need access to–’

Margaery Tyrell, and her perfectly manicured grasp, pulls him tightly to her side before he even finishes his demand of the concierge personnel.

‘Good morning, my boyfriend and I are after a city view, something romantic. It’s our anniversary.’ She turns, artfully concealing her wrinkling nose to smile prettily at him. ‘Don’t you think, sweetheart?’

‘Erm—aye, that’s…’ He watches her carefully, her grasp lightens on his arm and moves to fix his upturned collars with her hands splaying across his chest. He clears his throat and finally addresses the expectant man behind the reception desk, ‘Completely fine.’

There is some back and forth between Margaery and the concierge, Thomas, who is also having trouble with the way Robb’s ‘would-be girlfriend’ is making eyes and invading his personal space by leaning over the desk. She’s so at ease that she even points to a few options on the computer screen without reprimand, though Thomas could not protest when he’s eyeing her plunging neckline instead.

Like Robb, Thomas clears his throat and folds to her, ‘Miss, I hope you and your boyfriend enjoy the suite.’

She receives the keys in her hand, and pulls Robb against her again. This time, he decidedly lets go when they enter the elevator.

‘Will she be up there?’ He does not meet her eyes, but focuses on the lit button for the penthouse floor. ‘How could you be so sure?’

‘Joff has taken me here before.’

It’s his turn to screw up his features. ‘I could’ve gotten the information from Thom–’

‘Not everyone responds well to that salt-of-the-earth Stark charm,’ her lips try and fail to stop an upturn of a smirk. ‘Besides, I’m almost positive that Joffrey has tipped off his staff to not allow anyone access to his room if he hears anyone looking for him.’

He scoffs, ‘I don’t understand what Sansa was thinking. Even after you had dumped his gold-shiting arse, she thought, what? He could change?’

‘We all lose sight of our way now and again,’ she simply comments, and he turns to see her fix her own gaze at the button light too.

He considers her words, as he’s often considered Margaery for the better half of their childhood. As a girl who his sisters were drawn to, especially Sansa and even a reluctant Arya. As a popular girl at his sister’s boarding school, who deliberately curated her circle of friends, but somehow managed not to bring out any malicious rumours or thoughts by the student body, or so Sansa would gush to her family when she returned from school over holiday breaks. As a woman, as she had grown and introduced his sisters (Arya, for sure, since Bran had gotten a bruised arm for asking) to dressing for parties in the South, and he’s not pretending he’s not noticed her anymore than the next bloke. And as she’s grown apart from Joffrey.

From a very public break up on graduation day, not a month ago, he remembers the coolness of her voice in the courtyard, where others had gathered to watch their row. He remembers how he felt pricked with pride, and how affected he was when he found his feet reacting before he knew it, surging forward at Joffery’s sudden movement toward her. Though, her brother intervened first.

From this, and for the weeks that had passed through the summer of her finding reasons to visit Sansa at their family estate in the South, away from Joffrey and their decadent lifestyle of viral-videoed yacht parties and weekend trips to Dorne, he feels he knows very little of the youngest Tyrell now.

She must sense his staring, and he only realizes he is doing so when she turns to consider him too. ‘Then again, we don’t all have honour and good intentions running through our veins.’

‘You judge too easily, Marge,’ he replies, puffing out a weak chuckle.

‘And you haven’t done the same…to me?’ She fully turns, hands on her hips, seemingly amused.

He takes another long pause, and opens his mouth to say something about concentrating on the task at hand, that Sansa is currently holed up and taking up with Joffrey, just after Theon had tipped them off of Joffrey’s boastful plans to keep her holed up for a number of reasons Robb did not care to repeat. Uselessly, his mouth opens and closes without a word.

Thankfully, their attention turns to the opening of the elevator doors. Before them Sansa storms in, huffing and fuming, her fists pink and clenching.

‘Sansa,’ Margaery breathes, taking his sister’s hands in hers. Sansa winces at the touch.

‘Are you hurt?’ Robb’s blood rapidly boils to ask. ‘Where–’

Suddenly a drawn out groan comes from the end of the long corridor that Sansa had come from, and wrapping around the corner comes a doubled over Joffrey. He is clutching his left eye as if in pain, while the other seems to grasp at his side.

Robb guffaws, shifting his mood in a dash. ‘Didn’t know you had it in you, Sansa.’

Margaery punches for the elevator button to take them to the lobby, and she looks meaningfully over Sansa’s shoulder to Robb. ‘You judge too easily, Stark,’ she laughs alongside him.

-

Margaery

He took her with a glance.

They didn’t initially meet, but their eyes caught one another’s from across the hall now and again, through the dancing couples and passersby. A nod of a head by him at first, acknowledging her. A perfunctory smile next, by herself to respond. Then, she moves because it itches where she sits at a bar stool and she’s never been good at sitting still. She gestures for him to come.

They try to meet around the crowds of people, but are blocked on either side, so they try to intercept through the middle of the hall.

When they finally squeeze through the crowds to meet, as if on cue, a laguid, velvety songstress croons throughout the pub, slowing the tempo and frenzy of the previous song’s energy amongst the dancers. Tonight, the combination of the unusually warm summer air and Flea Bottom Pub’s 2-for-1 cocktails attracts many, and they are consequently pressed closely together. She can tell Rob was meaning for a friendlier interaction rather than this intimate one, but, she still itches to move, so she guides them to dancing with the throng of everyone else.

It reminds her instantly of Sansa’s games when they were younger, begging for Robb and Jon to help them play dragons, princesses and knights. She thinks of the time they had somehow gotten them to pretend to waltz during this game, and Robb hadn’t exactly known how to lead in a dance before, so his arms squared up and his hands had sat awkwardly atop her shoulders. At least, she compromises her memories with the fact that he’s gotten less grouchy about dancing.

‘Shouldn’t you be out with the lads tonight? Last few weeks of summer before we all start school, isn’t it? No Theon at the very least?’ She wonders, genuinely curious.

‘No.’

His hand is slightly pressed against her bare lower back, but, as if he is rethinking their closeness, it sometimes moves to not grasp her at all. He might as well start hovering his hands around her with how meek he attempts to be.

‘No Jon?’

‘No.’

‘Not even Dacey Mor–’

‘She’s not a lad.’

‘Still.’

‘Stop–’ he’s not gruffly stopping her, but he clearly wants to continue with hesitation. ‘Please don’t continue the list, I promise I’m here on my own. But, only for a little while, I was just blowing off steam since…’

She doesn’t need to remind herself of how long she’s known him, she can tell by the way he pauses awkwardly that he’s uncomfortable about explaining himself. But, she continues to watch him now, and she realizes that she’s often thought of him in a very limited context, as Sansa’s older brother, the eldest Stark, or the boy that would sometimes interrupt quiet gossiping with Sansa by whatever loud ruckus him and Jon had gotten into in the next room. So, as if it comes from a place of familiarity, she is curious to know what he is troubling over.

She’s always prided herself on her intuitiveness, so she knows not to mention why he isn’t here with his new girlfriend, Jeyne. Sansa’s mentioned her once or twice in their conversations. Whatever Jeyne has done, or he has done, she decides not to ask aloud. Starks and their tight-lipped brooding, she balks inwardly.

‘You don’t have to say,’ she steers the conversation to something more comfortable, herself. ‘You haven’t asked me why I’m here all alone.’

She feels herself trying to stifle a bubbling up of snickering from his mouth gaping open and then shutting a few times. She waves it off, ‘Nevermind. As you know, I’ve finally rid myself of a cankerous sore of an ex this summer. But, I can’t seem to shake whatever feeling is left from that horribly public break up. What’s worse is the pity I get from the girls. Though your sister and I have always had an understanding, her constantly apologizing for even thinking of taking an offer to go on a ‘friendly’ date with him to his bloody hotel, of all places, is getting on my nerves too.’

‘Joffrey,’ he says as he’s uttered a curse, and eases from his embarrassment to scoff.

‘You must have thought we were just awful, depraved even. Those parties he threw, I know Sansa has told you about. The things he did behind my back. Your sister’s face when she saw us back together even after the things he did.’ She laughs humorlessly.

‘I may have used a few more words, maybe stronger words to describe Joffrey.’ His grip does cinch her in closer, finally. ‘But, I never thought that of you.’

She attempts to respond flippantly, and almost rejects this, but his blue eyes, still bright in the gloom of the pub’s dim lighting, are conveying another familiar attitude of his–a kind of relentless optimism. More than that, she is inexplicably drawn back to an old memory. Of him. Of her. Of him and her. She cannot stop the way it warms her from her cheeks down to the pit of her stomach.

Though, as coolly as she’s practiced several times over, she musters another deflection. ‘What are we going to do, Robb? Our social life should not be this depressing.’

He seems to mock offence, ‘I am doing just fine, thank you very much. I’ll be busy at my dad’s office, finally taking that internship he’s promised me years and years ago, even when I assumed mining was about digging up long lost treasures instead of coal for the energy businesses in town. Jon and I are both getting a spot in the administration department, actually. Then there’s that film series I’ve been meaning to go to at the Smallfolk Theatre on Saturdays. Loras’ been bugging me and everyone he can talk to about it. He’s performing this weekend, right?’

She nods, smiling, finding it endearing how much Robb got on with her brother. Without her bringing him to the Stark estate, she’s sure both boys would have eventually found each other, and would still get on famously without her help. ‘Ah, Loras, there’s someone who never has terrible luck with socializing. My brother has been trying to recapture his stardom from the Reach’s theatre community since we moved here for uni.’

Eyes wide, an idea seems to inspire him. ‘Maybe I’ll catch you on the weekend. I can sit a few rows away so it doesn’t give you any more reason to complain about your lack of a social life. I wouldn’t want to ruin any chances for you…’

‘What–’

‘I’ve already counted a few blokes at the bar that were disappointed you came my way.’

Margaery does not appreciate the boys he’s insinuated she would appreciate attention from, a group of them leering at her, dressed in matching trackies and sporting ill-suited haircuts. Robb is finally truly loose from laughter at her horrified reaction, jostling her in his grasp.

‘How considerate,’ she rolls her eyes, but joins him in laughter despite herself.

-

Robb & Margaery

Margaery honestly thought he was joking. Robb must have thought she knew he was only half-joking, that is until they spot each other across the theatre on the weekend.

They sit, as Robb promised, apart. Margaery nearly gets up to join him, clearly irritated by his commitment to this joke, but she’s greeted and accosted by an unexpected group of familiar girls that nearly throttle her with their hugs and kisses, wanting to know everything about her recent decoupling from Joffrey.

He sympathetically nods her way when she relents to the gaggle of girls.

And he’s there the following Saturday, sitting next to her this time, and she can’t stop the ends of her lips curling upward in amusement throughout her brother’s play. She laughs at the off-colour comments he makes about Loras’ poor attempts at being professional with his scene partner he’s most definitely shagging, and his choice of costume, trying to mimic the way his tunic plunges toward his naval. She tuts him at each turn, but always poorly disguises her mischievous laugh.

Loras, mid-soliloquy, fiercely tuts their antics by the second act.

-

Robb

He’s not sure the internship is making him go utterly mad, or if it’s his dad or half-brother. Or, if it’s the fact that he’s not quite keen on going into the family business after all.

He does know, however, that Jon is taking on the role of the dutiful son and worker with more enthusiasm. Maybe that makes him grit his teeth more. True enough, he is proud of Jon for taking on the job with more positive recognition from his dad, more so than himself. He wonders if Jon had worried over this beforehand. Robb excelling at most things for as long as he could remember and the attention that it brought for their family is not lost on him, especially when Jon stubbornly and consistently conceded to this, unlike Bran, who openly challenged and pouted when things didn’t go his way. Most brothers would appreciate a little competition. But, he’s still wondering why he’s the only one that finds the mining business not at all what he expected.

‘You worry too much about what he thinks,’ Jon observes, knowingly, after a sip from his pint of lager.

Seemingly, these worries had bled into their lunches when they would nip into the pub around the corner from their family’s corporate office.

‘Pot. Kettle.’ Robb gestures to both of them.

Jon snorts into another swig of his drink, and they clink their glasses to cheers at this.

‘If you’re not happy, you can tell dad, you know.’

‘Right, he’s only groomed me for this job since I was old enough to fit into grandad’s mining helmet. It was easier before, when we played and pretended. But, now…’

‘Aye, and now, he wants you to take his place once you graduate from uni.’

Robb nods, sighing and drinking a long swig of his own lager. Then, he adds, ‘And I don’t even know what I would do without dad’s dream for me.’

‘Pathetic,’ Jon jokes, but he slowly sobers when Robb doesn’t laugh in return. ‘So, find your passion. Knowing you, you’re bound to find something dad will accept, and show all of us up in the process…as usual.’

Robb finally lifts his eyes from the bottom of his nearly empty pint glass, and doesn’t think twice to say, ‘Margaery says the same.’

Jon, frustrating him further today, raises his brows. ‘Does she now?’ He says, not at all trying to smother his amusement as he smiles into his drink.

‘Come off it,’ he says automatically, annoyed. It was not meant to mean anything when he brought up Margaery’s name, it felt harmless and normal to do so. Still, there is a look that passes between them. A look that is only readable between them whenever they start talking about their respective love lives, like when he first started dating Jeyne.

Jeyne. Oh. I’m a sodding idiot.

‘Since when do you and Margaery…erm…well, what are you two, anyway?’

Robb consciously straightens, hands off his drink and in his pockets. There is a large stone-like mass that seems to sink to the bottom of his stomach. Shame, he thinks, is weighing on him. Except, he frustrates over the fact that he shouldn’t feel shame for his newfound friendship with Margaery. Except, why did she come to the forefront of his mind in the first place?

Except. Except. Except.

Jon notices him, and continues as gently as he can with as little mirth in his voice as he can muster. ‘Something tells me you have a few decisions to make, Robb.’

-

Margaery

The Stark home and estate in the south is not as vast as the large manor in Winterfell. Both carry as much grand expense and gilded decor as a mausoleum, but that’s only because she’s grown up with Mace Tyrell and his affinity of adorning their own home with an overabundance of proof of their wealth and status. With the passing of her grandmother, Mace didn’t seem to change this habit either.

And where has that gotten us, father…

No, she quite likes the Stark children’s home away from home, even if she thinks the varying shades of grey and white remind her a dreary overcast sky. It’s where she’s spent so many summers meeting Sansa when they were old enough to bake Catelyn’s lemon cakes and braid each other friendship bracelets. Now, it serves as a home for Sansa as she prepares for their first year of university.

Robb and Jon are in the south for the summer too, both of them commuting back and forth from their internship in Winterfell, while preparing for their sophomore year at the same school.

Tonight, with Margaery, Loras, Arya, and Jeyne as guests, it seems like the house has come alive–Sansa’s prepared for one last summer party with her pretty pink dress, pastel coloured fixtures, with added touches to the house to allow for more colour to the space.

Margaery, herself, prepared by donning a summer dress of her own, and yet the dog days of August still seemed unforgiving. Even with all the windows opened, she feels like the thin straps of her dress are sticking to her shoulders.

Without meaning to, or maybe she’s been purposefully tailing their movements in the house because she’s played the game of reading lips with her brother countless times before, she watches Robb and Jeyne interact after dinner.

She watches Jeyne quietly admire Robb, as she sits at his feet, where he lounges on the armchair behind her. She watches Robb lay a hand on her shoulder, while he animatedly speaks to Loras. She watches Jon join in, and she can tell that they’re launching into a heated debate over their rival football teams.

Jeyne sits and sits, and sits some more, and it may have seemed like no one would have spotted it, but Margaery is always spotting things that might have gone missed–a glance, a furtive conversation said in haste, or the smallest touch. All of it meant something. It was Jeyne’s flickering sadness.

She watches until she feels herself invading this private moment, and she finds herself leaving the room.

Though, it’s maddening how curious she still is even after she’s alone. Would she miss a look from Robb to Jeyne that would completely contradict her theories? Would she see Robb tenderly kiss Jeyne, instead of the way their lips briskly pecked before eating at the dinner table? Was she even playing a game watching them? She ignores Loras’ curious texts as to where she had fled to, knowing full well that he would be the one to get to the bottom of the real reasons for her questions.

She almost misses the steady footfalls against stone behind her, stirring her out of her reverie. It’s Robb that joins her, at the top floor, mirroring her as she leans on the balcony’s handrail. When she turns, she sees him smiling at her. Under the moonlight, his russet curls gleam a bit lighter. If it were a touch lighter, he would look a bit like the first boy that stole a kiss from her in her sixth year, Harry.

She must be staring, because Robb gives her a quizzical brow.

‘You found me,’ she can’t help it, the way her phrases turn into the low, flirtatious tone it tends to dip into. She takes a drink from her whiskey sour, the glass almost empty now.

Maybe because Robb’s tendency to become monosyllable and flushed for her tone tickles her, she continues to not keep herself in check around him.

Stop, just stop, she chides herself inwardly, thinking of sad Jeyne. You horrible girl.

‘I needed some air,’ he says, looking away and into his own drink in hand. He pauses for a beat, before he adds, ‘I might have been wondering where you were, too.’ He nudges her shoulder with his, leaning over to clink his glass to hers, ‘Cheers.’

A part of her sees the way his eyes gleam under the moonlight too, the way it almost looks like he’s trying on a different look, maybe mirroring her in her teasing way. Though the other part of her feels sick to her stomach to make this kind, honest boy turn this way around her.

So, she leans away as slowly as she can, and decides to ask,  ‘Are you happy?’

Robb takes his time in drinking in his next sip, and appears as if she’s asked him a very complicated question.

‘Oh, erm, sure. I’m not exactly chuffed about remembering my course load for this semester. But, I can’t wait to show Sansa around the campus, and you can join in if you want, too.’

‘Are you happy, Robb?’

He appears concerned now, possibly ruminating over an answer he doesn’t want to say, ‘Marge…what’s this about?’

She draws closer to him, and reaches out. He almost seems to lean back, to her relief or disappointment (she’s not ready to decide which one she’s feeling more), when she reaches for his collar of his button down shirt, flattening them.

‘Why are you always concerned about the most ridiculous things,’ he releases an uneasy chuckle, gesturing to his clothes. His drink sits forgotten on the wide stone handrail.

‘Force of habit, I guess. Since high school, I’ve had loads of time to think about how good I was at seeming good for a popular vote. What we wear or how we present ourselves, I thought, was extremely important,’ she rationalizes.

‘You are good,’ he says, and reaches out this time, his hand on her arm.

‘And all those stories I told myself about who I was and why I did the things I did. There were so many lies in those stories,’ she adds, as if ignoring him. She especially wants to ignore the warmness of his hand on her arm.

Robb collects his thoughts after a moment of silence. ‘I never told you before. When I saw you and Joffrey in the courtyard, just after your graduation ceremony, I swear I hadn’t seen anyone more honest in my life. Not because you served that arse what he deserved, but because you threw everything on the line–your boyfriend, the friends that you shared, the life you knew. You were–you are incredible, Margaery.’

She wants to thank him, to let him hold her still, the urge to just let him is like a rising heat. But, as if she strains to will it, it stays stagnant for now, simmering. She moves away from his touch, and she relents, ‘Then, as your honest, good friend, I suggest you let your girlfriend know that you’re happy…she’s seems sweet and completely in love with you. But, you seem…distracted tonight.’

He looks as though he wants to deny this, but she’s ready with a pointed look. So, if there was something he wanted to say, to argue, it does not come. He tries to leave the conversation then, and only turns back to cast her sad smile (this, she thinks, is not something she’s ready to analyze either).

-

Margaery & Robb

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ She asks him, and sounds as though she’s scolding her older brother. She scans the block party before them, wondering if she’s being followed by any other family members.

She looks past his easy smile, eyes the way he’s put more effort in his newly trimmed and waxed to shape curls, and narrows her gaze even more at his shiny pair of loafers. She thinks they’ve been dusted off from last Christmas’ gift pile in his bedroom. Yes, she thinks, they are the same pair that she’s helped buy with their mum. Since when did he wear loafers instead of his sensible, worn-in desert boots.

‘Bored tonight, thought you could use some company.’

‘Robb,’ she gives him a dubious look. ‘Are you seriously trying to be that kind of brother tonight?’ Then, she follows his line of sight as it cuts through the crowd of freshers, straight through the parade of glittery-faced partiers, and finally reaches Margaery. He, of course, flits his eyes back to focus on his sister in time, a picture of innocence.

Something gnaws at her to question him again, but he tries to wave and laugh off her suspicious glare.

‘I told Jon and Theon to come, too. We could use a good night out. Are you here—’

‘With Margaery?’ She cuts in, and tries to glean information by testing him. She adds, ‘Yes, and she’s busy.’ She points to the boys surrounding Margaery, and they are making her shake with laughter as she receives a drink from one of them.

Sansa shouts to Margaery to give her a minute before she returns to her brother.

‘Yes, she is,’ he says slowly, and it startles her how intently her brother stares in her friend’s direction, and even more alarming is the way Margaery locks eyes with him before looking to her own company again. It only spurs on Sansa’s imagination.

Robb, much like herself, has always worn his heart so plainly on his sleeve. They have sometimes been mistaken as twins when they were much younger, for sharing their mother’s aurburn hair and Tully blue eyes, but this openness is something she understands as well as he does. It’s the reason she is contemplating how the mention of her friend’s name has left Robb slightly off-centre.

She carefully gauges him, and informs him as casually as she can, ‘I can’t believe the King’s Season and our debutante ball is at the end of the month already. It’s too bad her escort’s taken a nasty fall from his rugby practice. She must be pressed to find someone to replace him. But, nevermind that, I thought you and Jon promised not to hover after you toured me around campus. It’s hard enough making new friends with you two lingering, but for Freshers’? Really?’

His eyes stray again, but he makes an even bigger show of being interested in his sister’s conversation, saying, ‘Sure, sure. But, San, I’m thirsty. Look, I’ll buy you a drink, and then, we can look for prospects for you, too.’

Joke or not, she throws him a disgusted look at this suggestion, but he’s laughing to pull her to the Tiki-themed hut of a bar, already rattling off his drink requests to the bartender.

This almost frenetic, odd behaviour of his seems to taper for a time, when Sansa observes of her brother throughout the party, but her curiosity does not leave her just because Jon and Theon have arrived to seemingly keep him away. In fact, his distance stays even farther when she sees Margaery greet him briefly with a boy she does not recognize. She tries to not make eye contact with her brother as Margaery makes her way toward her to seemingly make small talk (and an unspoken ‘you owe me one’ passes between them, because Margaery plans on leaving the party early with said boy). She eyes the way Margaery’s hand clasps her hands with Dick (he introduces himself with a winning grin) to confirm this.

It wouldn’t be until the very end, when the strobe lights have waned and disappeared, and the street lights flood and reveal patches of littered cobble stone where crowds of people were dancing, that Sansa spots her brother, sitting alone on the stoop of a nearby chicken shop.

She makes a joke about his intention of ruining her new pastel mini-skirt just to sit on someone’s burnt out cigarette, before she sits on a less dirtied spot next to him anyway. He only shrugs in response to her arrival. There is something dejected about the way he nods, and she knows it has little to do with the alcohol she knows is wearing off for him as much as it is for her.

‘I thought you were going to spend the rest of the night harassing me and my friends, thanks for not embarrassing me.’

‘You’re just lucky Arya is not here egging me on,’ he amuses her, even if he’s stubbornly looking away.

‘Robb,’ she nudges him for his full attention, and smiles weakly when he gives it to her, his eyes slightly glazed from their night of drinking. ‘You looked nice tonight. And…I think she noticed.’

‘What–’

‘Stop being so damn mardy about it. I can tell when Margaery notices these things,’ she tells him earnestly, rolling her eyes at his soundless balking. ‘Don’t bother denying it, you fancy her, and it’s completely obvious.’

‘I don’t…’ he starts, futile in finishing his first thought. Until, he sighs to confess, ‘I don’t know what to do with that fact.’

‘The fact is you haven’t been very secretive about secretly taking one of my best friend’s affection away from me. I mean, I’ve noticed how most boys are around her, and I didn’t always put two and two together when you seemed to be hanging around us more. But, I just didn’t think it was this bad.’

‘How bad?’

‘How do you feel about her dating other people.’

‘She can date away, we’re just friends.’

‘Says the boy fuming as he says he’s just friends.’

Robb pauses as if he is mulling over the words, maybe he wants to repeat himself for good measure. But, he seems to decide against it.

‘Jeyne makes me happy and she’s so kind, so when she asked, I promised,’ he says, and it clearly troubles him to continue. ‘I promised her I’d meet her parents.’

‘You are hopeless,’ she says, and almost yelps out in laughter. ‘You do realize that’s the same thing as saying those three little words, eight letters that will definitely lead her on. I mean, more than you have already.’

‘A man–’

‘Must keep his word. Yes, we all know how much dad loves to tell us.’

‘I’m fucked,’ he gives a low groan. ‘I don’t know how this happened.’

‘Have you and Jon switched luck by any chance?’

Sansa puts an arm around her brother when he hangs his head low, and leans her head into the crook of his neck. ‘Do you remember that summer when Rickon was born, and Margaery came to visit. At eight, she wasn’t exactly the way she is now, so she had no worries bawling her eyes out in front of us. Something about her parents, I think. I swear I tried everything, but, somehow, you found the right words to help her calm down instead. She turned around completely that day because of you. You always know what to say, because you always follow your heart wherever–’

‘Don’t say it.’ He balks out loud this time, not wanting his own words to be directed at himself. He doesn’t let her stop holding him to her though, possibly grateful that she doesn’t tell him what he should do or what girl she is rooting for. Despite himself, he decides to let his sister continue to reminisce, about some of her memories with Margaery, some of them not.

-

Robb

He’s not entirely convinced by the charade of it all.

The wall that separates their common area and the university coffee bar, and a bookcase behind her study carrel. When they’re not in school, it’s the back door by the bottom of her apartment staircase, the perfectly placed trellis of roses on her balcony, and her closet doors. These hiding places were getting familiar, and he’s not happy that they’re always for him.

‘What exactly are we hiding?’ He asks after coming back from her balcony, his chosen hiding place when he heard unfamiliar footsteps treading across the adjacent room’s floor boards, just next to her bedroom. He casually thumbs through their school newsletter, while he lies on his stomach, sprawling on her bedspread.

He’s hiding a smile behind the newsletter when he catches her instantly pursing her lips at this query. It’s not the first time they’ve discussed this, or at least shared knowing looks when people have questioned their status as friends, especially when they’ve been mistaken as otherwise while together.

‘You know I don’t scare easily, but wherever we go, there will be someone who has questions.’

‘We’re friends is usually my go-to.’

‘Plausible, yes. But, we can’t entertain the idea of anything else, if we can help the pestering and prying of everyone.’

He cocks a brow, maybe because he loves the fight in her that rises whenever he challenges her. So, he gives her an expectant look, elbows propped to gain height and rest his face in his hands, newsletter forgotten. He might start their usual argument of who would have more to lose or gain if they had gotten together in the first place–normal, friendly small talk, he tells himself.

‘It’s one thing to make plans to visit the theatre, with Loras as a nice excuse for being seen together,’ she says, exasperated.

‘Or my brothers and sisters not being able to spot the difference of your regular visits to the estate,’ he offers, though he guiltily thinks of Sansa knowing better.

‘Or my mother and father hardly visiting me, so that nixes that fear.’

‘So…what are we hiding?’

She must feel his gaze is intent, not that he intended her to feel obligated to his question, not that he expected her to be so serious in pondering this question. But, she does drop her own gaze, and it gives him pause to think that there could be something else on her mind, and it surprises him to imagine that she’s holding back. And he’s holding his breath.

Her eyes only dart away for a moment before they stare back, questioning him in return.

‘How’s Jeyne? Sansa mentioned you’d be going to see her parents this weekend.’ He does not miss the way her tone changes to this, and he doesn’t miss the fact that Margaery hardly ever misspeaks unless she means to.

He swallows thickly, his tone changing too, ‘She’s in Crag visiting her nan for the weekend instead.’

Her eyes narrow at this. Gods. Her looks could kill, he knows this much, but sometimes he wonders how many boys had completely lost it by staring into those honey-brown eyes. Even at their meanest, they disarm.

‘Tell me the truth, Stark.’

‘We–we, erm, broke up last week.’

If he had blinked, he would have missed something dash across her features, changing and reverting back to its natural way. He’s just not sure what that something was.

She turns in her seat across from him, and stares at her reflection in her vanity mirror. She combs through her unbound, wavy tresses as if she hadn’t heard him.

‘Listen, I forgot, I promised my brother I’d take him to his doctor’s appointment. Do you mind if we raincheck on the coffee this afternoon.’

He sits up, taken aback, and maybe put out by the fact that he imagined this confession having more effect. He certainly thought she’d take him for coffee to talk about it at the very least.

So, he presses, ‘Marge, come on, you can’t just–’

‘Robb,’ she interjects, bringing her comb down on the vanity table, and turns to fully face him again. ‘I’m sorry, I forgot. Now, if you don’t mind–’

‘I was there for you, you know,’ he says quietly, abruptly sobered as he gets up from her bed. His throat feels thick again, and he feels flush too.

‘What?’

‘After Joffrey. Meeting at the theatre every weekend. Calling me all those times after you’d make me believe Sansa wasn’t answering your calls. Last minute coffee dates, and last minute cancellations. Supporting you when you’re feeling low…’

Finally, she cannot stand to look at him, ‘I can’t do this.’

Robb doesn’t recognize this demanding side himself, and he is already pressing further without a thought, ‘What do you mean this? Well, I’m sorry if being my friend is inconveniencing you. I’m sorry if sneaking around about who we are to each other isn’t what I usually do with friends.’

She rises to meet his tense stance, and though she is almost a foot smaller, she meets his gaze with equal fervour. ‘I’m sorry, Robb, but you need to go.’

‘This isn’t fair.’

‘Fair? One thing goes wrong for you, and it’s the end of the world? You have everything. You are the favourite child, you have the perfect family, you have opportunities, and every door is open for you. What’s fair about that? Well, that’s what the rest of us are thinking.’

‘You think I love the idea of my life decided for me? You think I enjoy the fact that my family expects me to be this certain person my entire life, without considering that people change–I changed. Gods…who would want that kind of responsibility? There aren’t doors for me…there’s only one, and I’m being shoved right through it.’

She must be able to tell that he’s about to argue again, but he does see her trembling from feverish energy. He wants so badly for her to just burst with emotion, to even yell at him, but her trembling reaches her eyes now. It’s enough, he realizes, to see that he’s prologing whatever is paining her.

‘I’ll go, if you want me to,’ he relents, and sighs as if he were holding in an extraordinary amount of air.

‘I–I just can’t do this. Right now.’

With that, Robb finally folds to her (as he finds himself doing so, more and more, lately), leaving her room, not caring who would be waiting, listening in on their row on the other side of her door.

To be continued-