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Sansa’s brows furrowed as Archie and Veronica sat across from each other at Pop’s Diner on-screen, stage-whispering about ‘juicing’ and how Archie had accidentally killed some guy in the ring while trying to become a professional boxer. Between Veronica owning a nightclub and Cheryl and Toni joining a cult, Sansa wasn’t sure what to make of Riverdale anymore. It had been her guilty pleasure for years but was becoming increasingly difficult to follow, especially now that Veronica and Reggie had broken up. How was she supposed to deal with the realities of her real life if she couldn’t even escape into fantasy without getting her heart broken?
She winced as Veronica said something long-winded on-screen, wondering if the writers of the show had ever met a teenager in their lives. Just as someone had the nerve to say the names ‘Juniper and Dagwood’ (as if anyone in their right mind would name a baby either of those names) Sansa was snapped out of the episode by the blaring ringtone of her phone.
Momentarily, she forgot why she had even set it in the first place before remembering that it was to remind her to get her laundry out of the washer. Ever since her roommate had gotten yelled at by some asshole down the hall about leaving her load in the dryer for hours, she had been extra conscious to get everything down to the minute just to be considerate to anyone in their hall who had to use it after her. The dorm housed about five-hundred people, so she couldn’t be too careful, even if Margaery was surprisingly lax about leaving her laundry in for hours on end.
Sighing, Sansa practically vaulted off her bed so that she could just get her clothes into the dryer and get the tediousness of doing laundry over with. It was an early Saturday morning and one glance to the side showed Margaery sleeping as soundly as ever with her girlfriend’s arm wrapped around her carelessly, her bleached white hair splayed out over their pillow whereas Margaery’s was neatly braided to mimic waves when she would brush it out later.
It was a good thing that they were such good friends to Sansa, or else she might have been more inclined to gripe at them for the distinct lack of consideration they had for Sansa whenever they would stealthily have sex under the covers as if they thought she wouldn’t notice the sound or smell of people having sex. She supposed she was happy for them if a little envious that they had managed to find each other so soon into the second semester of their sophomore year.
God, it was only January and Sansa was already praying for the semester to end.
She tiptoed across her double, sliding on her slippers and grabbing for the ID card and lanyard sitting on her desk before leaving the room. Checking the time on her phone, she exhaled slowly. She was procrastinating writing an essay for her psychology class—which she was only taking because the classes she actually wanted to sign up for were all filled up— but couldn’t find it in herself to even want to look at the prompt for the assignment, let alone begin writing it.
It was only noon. She had time to do this, especially if she opted out of lunch for a microwavable burrito or some of Dany’s leftover pasta from her and Marge’s date night the evening before.
Calm, Sansa, calm, she reminded herself as she turned the corner at the end of the hallway, breezing down the stairs as she thought through a game plan that she likely wouldn’t be sticking to if she kept binging Riverdale on Netflix anyhow. By the time she got to the laundry room, she was almost composed enough that she felt like she could even get some Uber Eats and treat herself to some McDonald’s instead of chowing down on some frozen shit or leftovers.
Opening the door, Sansa’s smile froze in place at the sight that greeted her.
Her clothes were distinguishable, what with the bright pink bedsheets she had decided to wash with her dirty clothes and the embarrassing abundance of lacy underwear on top of the washing machine. They were sopping wet; that much was clear even from a distance away.
Stalking up to the machine, Sansa’s jaw ticked, wondering who had the nerve to take her laundry out a minute after it finished, before the sound of a ding made her jump out of her skin.
No.
Sansa could feel her nose flaring as the washing machine slowed its machinations, an indication that the load it was washing had just finished up. Her mind jumped to the obvious conclusion—between the clothes set on top of the machine and the slowing of somebody else’s washing load in the machine, there wasn’t really anything else to assume anymore. Someone had stolen her cycle. It was only worth $1.25 but the sentiment behind the action was enough to infuriate her.
Now she would have to put it back in all over again and waste another dollar, just because some cheapskate thought their laundry was more important than everyone else’s in the dormitory.
She wouldn’t let them get away with this.
In a fit of anger, Sansa flung the washing machine’s circular door open, reaching for the clump of wet t-shirts and fish-patterned boxers (what was this kid, twelve?) before gathering them all in her arms. It was getting her uncomfortably wet and smelled faintly of the flower-scented Tide Pod she had put into the machine earlier, but the realization that it was her detergent that made his clothes smell that was just spurred her on to act as impulsively as Robb would in her place.
What an asshole.
She struggled with the load of laundry, barely able to see over them as she stalked toward the closest exit she could find. Socks and underwear fell off of the pile as she made for the door, but she couldn’t focus on anything but her own wrath at whatever entitled prick thought that messing with her laundry this morning was a good idea. She wasn’t in the fucking mood for this.
Sansa inhaled sharply as a gust of cold air smacked her in the face. She could only manage a few steps out of the door when her slippers became uncomfortably encased in snow. Why did it only ever snow like this on weekends or holidays? She deposited the clothes on the ground, smirking smugly at the sight of the loser’s Aquaman socks sitting on top of a mound of snow. Just for extra measure, she compromised her own body heat for pettiness and leaned forward, getting as much snow into her arms as she could manage before throwing it on the clothes carelessly.
That would show the culprit not to mess with Sansa Stark.
She did it again and again until the clothes were sufficiently covered with enough powdery snow to satisfy her, and so she retraced her steps and picked up all of the laundry that had come loose and fell on the ground in her initial trek outside. She threw them on top of the rest, just six steps from the entryway to her dorm and left with her lust for revenge sufficiently sated.
Sansa wasn’t so cruel that she would leave the mystery thief to wonder where his clothes had gone, however, so she returned to the scene of the crime and gingerly put her clothes back into the washer, swiping her card on the screen attached to the wall to get her washing started again. She impatiently inserted a quarter into the machine beside it to get a pod of washing detergent and shoved it in after her clothes, pressing the ‘normal’ button before going back to her mission.
Luckily enough, there was a sharpie on a table where someone had written a sign to remind people not to leave their laundry in the washer or dryer overnight, though there wasn’t any paper to accompany it.
Frowning, Sansa realized that going all the way back to the third floor and back would just ruin her momentum and would risk her getting caught in the act of getting her vengeance. She looked around the room desperately for something to write with. Eventually, she settled for tearing the edge of a discarded plastic bag pinned inexplicably to the notice board in the room.
She yanked the top of the marker off before getting to work.
To:
The person who stopped the washer in the middle of my wash cycle and took my clothes out to wash yours…
YEAH, YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE .
Unfortunately for you, so am I. You can find your wet clothes frozen outside in the snow.
Any problems? Come see me in 301.
It wasn’t her best—or subtlest—work for sure, but it would do the trick. Besides, there was no way that the thief in question would have the gall to actually show up to her room anyhow; if he did, Margaery or Dany would scare him away quick enough. Pleased with her note, Sansa glanced around the room for a decent tape substitute so that she could put the message up on the wall in her own idea of a public shaming that would last the culprit a lifetime.
She thanked her lucky stars at the sight of a bandaid pack left behind by the RA on the first floor, grabbing at the first one she could find in the pack. It was covered in smiley faces, though Sansa supposed that it gave off a rather nice impression of passive aggression when paired with the note. It was perfect and exactly what she intended when she shoved the loser’s clothes outside.
Whistling on her way out, Sansa immediately felt better upon leaving the room.
It took three hours for her reckoning to greet her, accompanied by a dozen furious raps at her door. The person didn’t cease in their vigor, practically knocking the door down in their haste.
Sansa sighed, figuring that Margaery had forgotten her keys when she left to whatever restaurant she and Dany brunched at on weekends. They had only left ten minutes ago, so her roomie was the obvious suspect. She dragged herself out of bed, pausing the episode of Riverdale (why did she insist on torturing herself like this?) so that she could enable her best friend’s forgetfulness.
“The fuck is this note?” An angry-looking man held out the very message she had scrawled for (presumably) him a few hours prior. He was tall with tired eyes and his mouth set into a hard line. She had never seen this guy before in her life, but then again, the campus was big enough that most people were strangers to her. “You did this, didn’t you?”
Straightening her posture somewhat, Sansa lifted her chin at him defiantly in her best impression of that one Ariana Grande meme she aspired to mimic perfectly when it came to dealing with entitled, pretentious assholes who didn’t realize that washing machines weren't just up for grabs. “Yeah. What about it?”
His brows furrowed as he shifted from one foot to the other, almost like he expected her to deny it or apologize. Why should she? He started all of this in the first place. “You think this is funny? I had to spend half an hour getting all my shit out of the snow.”
“Don’t tell me the fish underwear got lost in the storm,” she mocked him, unable to resist but embarrass him as much as she could now that he was at her doorstep. “It was so tasteful, too.”
“Nah, I saved it. No thanks to you.” He crossed his arms over his chest, unyielding to her insults. “I bet all your underwear’s some boring shit anyways. Five bucks says it’s all beige.”
“What?” Sansa reeled at his line of questioning, her eyes flickering to her drawer of clothes unintentionally. “What’s wrong with beige?”
At that, the asshole from the laundry room barked a laugh. “Of fucking course it’s all beige. Should have guessed it. Mine might be childish or whatever, but at least I don’t have a stick up my ass. Any problems? Come see me in three-oh-one.” His voice lifted comically as he imitated her as poorly as anyone had ever done. “Seriously? What are you, forty-five? Who even leaves passive-aggressive notes anyways? Dick move, three-oh-one.”
“Hey, I’m not the asshole here,” Sansa defended herself, flustered that she was arguing with some stranger in her pajamas while he was fully dressed. “You stole my load!”
“I needed to use it,” the man shrugged as if he hadn’t stolen over a dollar from her. Not that the money mattered, it was just- it was a respect thing, and he clearly didn’t have any for her. “Looks like you managed to get your second load in fine.” She narrowed her eyes at him before he rolled his eyes. “I didn’t do anything to it, God. Unlike you, I’m not petty as fuck.”
“So what,” she scrambled to find something to say that would talk some sense into this guy. It seemed like he was just trying to think of ways to antagonize her, though she supposed getting your clothes dumped where they shouldn't be did that to a person. If he hadn't done it to her first, maybe he'd be having a better day. “I should have just let you get away with taking my clothes out of the washer?”
“Do you want me to Venmo you or some shit?” He sighed, whipping his phone out and unlocking it carelessly. “Whatever, I can Venmo you. Fuck, you’re such a-”
“Don’t even think about finishing that sentence or I swear to God, I’m going to-” Sansa warned him.
“What are you gonna do?” The thief smirked at her in what she would have thought was a twisted form of flirtation if she didn’t know any better. He opened Venmo up on his phone as if he was actually serious about getting the money back to her, as if that was what this argument and the note were about in the first place. “Tattle on me to the RA? You don’t even know my name.”
She pursed her lips, unimpressed, before leaning over and glancing at his phone. It was open on his profile page on Venmo. “Let me take a wild guess, mystery thief. It’s Theon Greyjoy?”
So he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.
“No,” his voice dipped awkwardly as he attempted to lie his way out of this. “It’s uh… Robb Stark. This is just uh- it’s my friend’s account, you know. Linked to my… bank. We share one. Me and Theon do. You know, that’s how you know a friendship’s for real, three-oh-one. When you take the plunge and uh… open a bank account together.”
Now that was a development.
“You share a bank account,” Sansa huffed a laugh, wondering how the hell this guy even knew Robb well enough to use him as a cover. “…with my brother?”
The look on Theon’s face was priceless.
“What?” He responded dumbly as if his brain had short-circuited at the question. He floundered for a moment in the entryway of Sansa’s room. “No, I… your brother?”
“Unless I forgot what my own brother looks like then yeah,” she cracked a smile. “I kind of grew up with him.”
“No,” Theon shook his head in denial as if saying she was lying would make it true. Sansa was half-certain she was hallucinating now as the man who had stolen her cycle began trying to convince himself that she was pulling his leg. “I met Robb’s sister. You’re just fucking with me.”
“First of all,” she started, pointing a finger in the air as he stared at her like he had been caught stealing from the cookie jar (or the washing machine). “You just admitted that you’re not Robb, so good going there, champ. Secondly, you do know he’s got two sisters, right? I’m Sansa.”
“Sansa,” he repeated before smacking himself in the face like a cartoon character. “Shit, Sansa.”
“Yeah,” she snorted, unable to conceive that her brother had actually befriended someone this dumb. He needed a better vetting process for his friends if this was the kind of guy he took under his wing. She tried to recall the last time she had spoken to her brother, thinking it was probably a week or two ago; they studied at the same university but barely ran in the same social circle. Ever since he had started dating Myrcella, he had practically gone off the grid anyhow. “Robb’s gonna love hearing about this.”
“No, shit, don’t,” Theon stepped forward as if he was about to get on his knees. “Come on, Sansa, please. Robb’s gonna give me so much shit if he finds out I bullied his little sister. He barely forgave me for breaking his lava lamp a couple weeks ago and even that one was hard to wrangle. He's gonna take the piss out of me if he hears about this. C’mon, have a little pity. I’m really hungry and I’ve got fish-patterned underwear. Don't I have it bad enough?”
What?
“How do you know him anyway?” She looked him up and down, trying to pinpoint if she recognized him from any of Robb’s Instagram stories over the past few months. She probably would have paid more attention to them if not for the constant screaming and laughing that took place in his drunken posts. She was honestly surprised he hadn’t joined a frat by now.
“We’re roommates,” Theon sighed, accepting that his lies were all but exposed now with a slump of his shoulders. “C’mon, do you need me to beg? I’ll beg if you want me to.”
Leveling him with an even look, Sansa sighed. He clearly wasn’t threatening or menacing in any sense of the word. She caved, her undone essay prompt sticking out to her in the back of her mind as a cause for concern. “Venmo me five bucks and we’ll call it even.”
“Five bucks?” Theon protested. “It was only like a dollar.”
“A dollar you didn’t pay,” she pointed out to him, a smile curving on her lips despite herself. At least he was making the afternoon entertaining for her, so she decided to have a little mercy on him and compromise. “Four dollars and I’ll make you some toast and jam.”
He hesitated for a moment before giving in. “What kind of jam?”
“Strawberry,” she responded immediately, stepping aside so that he could come in.
Absentmindedly, she texted her brother the closest thing she could to snitch on Theon without breaking her word, to which Robb responded almost immediately.
Sansa: Your roommate’s a dumbass.
Robb: LMAO you’re telling me
She was almost about to follow it up when she got a notification on Venmo. She had been paid the money she had requested in exchange for her silence, so tattling now would just be a bad look. Besides, she had heard about the elusive roommate for months on end and how he was some idiot who tried parkouring onto the roof of their dorm once and broke his arm on the fire escape; if Robb kept him around after that, Theon would probably be by his side forever. She shot him a smile as he closed the door behind him, figuring that she might as well hold up her end of the bargain.
“Is that Riverdale?” Theon cut in, making a face as soon as he caught sight of her abandoned laptop resting atop the twin bed on the lefthand side of the room. “You made fun of me for my underwear but you’re watching Riverdale? Double standards much, three-oh-one?”
“You know my name so you can stop calling me that already,” Sansa cut in defensively, unable to justify watching the show at this point. With a villain like ‘the Gargoyle King’, there wasn’t much to defend about her choice in television anymore. “I hate-watch Riverdale. I’m not like… a fan or anything. It’s just- I don’t need to explain myself to you.”
“You’re right,” he put both hands in the air as he settled on the chair beside the island countertop. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. I’m just gonna assume you’re one of those fangirls who runs an Instagram account dedicated to the show and obsess over it twenty-”
“Shut up,” Sansa interrupted him as she shoved two pieces of sliced bread into her toaster angrily. “I’m seriously going to kick you out if you keep talking, Theon. Besides, it’s not that bad a show if you just give it a chance.” She turned around to fetch the jam out of the mini-fridge and when she turned back to him, his gaze was fixed lower than was deemed socially acceptable. Was he even listening to her? Suddenly, she was hyper-aware of the fact that she was wearing her most worn-out pair of shorts, tattered from years of use. They weren’t even her cute ones. Not that it mattered, considering this guy was a virtual stranger to her. Not to mention the fact that he had cost her $1.25 by being a complete asshole that morning.
“Are you checking me out?” Sansa asked disbelievingly, gaping as Theon’s eyes snapped back upward guiltily. He had the decency to look sheepish at getting caught, at least. “Seriously?”
“What?” He shifted uncomfortably under her scrutiny and averted his eyes from her. “You’re hot, dude, sorry. I mean, you're Robb’s little sister anyways, I could never-”
“I’m literally a full-grown adult,” Sansa countered as he continued babbling on.
“-think about someone who’s related to Robb like that. Besides, he-”
“You just called me hot,” she raised her brows as the toast popped out of the machine, to which she grabbed him a plate and shoved the bread onto it. She slid it over to him along with a plastic knife, since all the metal ones were dirty. He was actually kind of cute when he wasn’t being a mega dickhead. “So you’re telling me if I asked you out that you’d politely decline?”
“Aw, are you asking me out, three-oh-one?” Theon smirked then, all of his protests from a few seconds ago seemingly forgotten. He glanced down at the bread he had just begun slathering with strawberry jam and feigned surprise. “Or is this our first date? Was the note just a way to lure me in so you could-”
“I’m this close to kicking you out,” Sansa tried to stifle a laugh, her cheeks warming as the conversation took a turn for the flirtatious. “Tread carefully, Greyjoy.”
Leaning across the counter, Theon smiled at her as if he had known her for years and not ten minutes. Unbidden, her gaze traitorously flicked from his eyes to his lips. “Make me, Stark.”
For a few moments, the silence between them was palpable.
She almost considered doing something brash and reckless and stupid, like leaning over and kissing him or shoving his face into the toast or batting him on the shoulder or jumping him… she merely cleared her throat and looked away, thinking about busying herself with getting some orange juice before a movement to her left caught her eye. He was standing up.
“Thanks for the food, Sansa,” he smirked at her before mock-bowing. “Until we meet again.”
Before she could do so much as blink, he was opening her door and disappearing back into the hallway that he had come from as if the last two minutes hadn’t even happened at all. He had taken the paper plate and plastic knife with him, though she would have just thrown it away if he had left it there in the first place. She honestly wasn’t sure what to make of the interaction.
So she settled back into bed and pressed the space bar to her laptop, ready for whatever hell Riverdale was about to inflict on her psyche now that she was on the episode before the finale.
When she glanced down at her phone, she clicked on the notification from Venmo to see it for herself. He had paid her $3.99, a fact that made Sansa roll her eyes, but the subject line for the payment was a phone number. She scoffed with disbelief at the sight of it, equal parts flattered as she was confused by the fact that someone so annoying could make her feel this excited.
She copy-pasted the content of the message into her contacts before typing up a message and then deleting it and then typing it up again before pausing. Fuck it, she thought as she read over the message one more time and sent it before she could second guess herself.
Sansa: Dinner tonight?
Theon: thought you’d never ask. 6 ok w you?
Sansa: Perfect. See you then.