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“I love you,” Theon tells Robb's crotch, with his head in Robb's lap. In the front, behind the steering wheel, Robb hears Jon loudly sigh.
He awkwardly slings an arm around Robb's waist, his nose nearly digging into Robb's seatbelt. He's ridiculously drunk, had just barely managed to drunk dial Robb to ask him to come and pick him up. Robb shouldn't find it as amusing as he thinks it is, but there's something about Theon when he's drank too much. He's not talking about his lack of inhibition (he doesn't have any when he's sober either), but he doesn't seem to be as sharp around edges, and truths tumble off his tongue more easily.
“Robb,” Theon says, and Robb glances down, where his best friend is peering up at him through too long strands of hair. “We should get married.” His grin is incredibly wide, as if he's just come up with the best idea of his life.
“You're drunk,” Robb tells him, “if Jon was the one sitting in the back, and I was driving, you'd have told him the same thing,”
“No,” Theon insists, “no, no, no. Stark. Robb. You're an idiot.” In the front seat, Jon barks out a laugh, and annoyed, Theon looks over his shoulder. “Why would I want to marry him, anyway? Besides, it's true. I mean, you keep your promises even when you probably shouldn't, and we're still friends even if you keep having to bail me out of jail, and you tolerate Snow's mopy face, which nobody should be exposed to if you ask me.” (“Hey!” Jon protests. “Do you want me to kick you out of the car?”)
Theon continues, unperturbed. “But, those are the things that make you... you. That make you Robb. And I like that. About you.”
“So you want us to get married? Because you like me?” Robb says, trying to hide his amusement but failing miserably; a grin tugs at the edges of his mouth.
“Well, yes,” Theon says, “why not? I mean, you'd get benefits, and we could buy a house, and we don't need to get a dog 'cause you already have one...”
“That's true,” Robb admits. “But people usually get married because they, you know, love each other.”
“Are you saying I don't love you?” Theon asks, his eyes narrowing.
“No,” Robb backtracks, “I'm sure you do, but you're not in love with me.”
“Says who?” Theon says. Robb blinks, and Theon grins up to him, triumphantly.
“He did say you were an idiot,” Jon chimes in. Robb really doesn't need two people ganging up on him right now, even if one of them is a drunken fool and the other is his half-brother who blushes when he so much as looks at a girl.
Robb sighs, and runs his hand through Theon's hair, who has settled down with his eyes closed. What is he supposed to do? It's no secret that Theon gets around, with more people than Robb has met, probably. He gets drunk and he gets high and if Robb knows Theon, some combination of those two as well. Somehow, though, no matter what he does, he's a constant in Robb's life. Theon's dedicated to making as few commitments as possible, but Robb turns out to be one of them. It's actually not that strange that should he want to settle down...
Theon suddenly scrambles up, and Jon nearly swerves his car off the road so they can stop. Robb opens the door just in time before Theon empties the contents of his stomach on the street, half his body hanging out of the car.
“I am never drinking again,” he groans against Robb's shoulder after he's pulled him back in, and Robb thoughtfully passes him a mint.
“You always say that.”
“I say a lot of things,” Theon replies, his voice muffled against Robb's shirt. “That doesn't mean I actually... mean them.”
“No,” Robb agrees, and sighs. He meets Jon's eyes, and his brother looks at him pointedly. Robb throws a tissue at his head in retaliation, while Theon drools on his shoulder, completely wiped out. Jon starts the car, and in Robb's ear, Theon whispers his name, softly.
*
“Have we met before?” Margaery turns her head to face the guy sitting himself down on the barstool next to hers, who looks as if he's racking his alcohol muddled brain as best he can to place her.
“Maybe,” she replies. He does look slightly familiar, but she doesn't where she could possibly have seen him before. It's her first (and probably last) time in this bar, and she has not desire to get to know any of the customers better. The only reason she slipped in was because she's sure Loras would skip this bar while looking for her, completely certain even she would not sink that low.
He finishes his drink, puts his glass and on the bar, and his chin on his hand. “I swear we've met,” he continues while he studies her. “I remember faces, and yours is too lovely to forget.” He grins, slightly crookedly, and asks the bartender for another drink when he passes them.
“Ah, but not lovely enough to remember my name, is it,” she replies and sips from her drink. She's met enough people to know his type, and he blanches, for a moment. He might be lying through his teeth, or confuse her with someone else he's met. She doesn't mind, however. She needs a distraction, and Margaery definitely likes a challenge. “Or is that because names don't really matter?”
“Well, if I had known I would run into you again I would've made certain I had,” he replies, not very fazed. “You don't happen to be called Jeyne, would you? That would be a coincidence. Everybody seems to be called Jeyne these days... On the other hand, I probably would have remembered that.”
“Not Jeyne,” she says, smiling into her glass. “Not even close. I do know a Jeyne, though.” He squints at her, and then his face brightens.
“I remember!” he says, and slaps his hand flat on the bar. “You were at Sansa's birthday party earlier this year, weren't you?”
“You were there as well?” she asks, surprised. Maybe that's why he looks familiar. “You weren't the stripper, were you?”
“What? No, I wasn't. And you hired a stripper? Awesome.”
Margaery grins when she remembers Sansa's face when her present literally erupted to reveal a very fit, very sexy, and definitely very hot young man. It does make it a bit hard to think of Sansa's present for next year, though...
“Oh, yes,” she replies, smiling widely.
“I would've liked to see that.”
“Even if it was a male stripper?”
“Even if it was.”
“Play on both sides of the fence, huh?”
“You could say that,” he says with a grin. “I never did catch your name, though. What was it?”
“That's because I never told you,” she says, and puts her empty glass back onto the bar. “It's Margaery. Will I ever get to know what you were doing at Sansa's party?”
“Nothing strange, if you were wondering,” he says. “Robb, Sansa's brother, is my best mate.”
“That makes sense.” She gestures to the door. Drunk or not, he's an amusing enough distraction for the evening. “Do you want to get out of here?”
He grins. “Only if you do me the honours and promise to say 'I do'.”
*
You should have known, Tris admonishes himself. You should have known, and that's the end of it. It really isn't, however, because that's his childhood sweetheart getting married to someone that isn't him. Angrily he wipes at his nose. He should be happy for her, he really should, but he's getting snot on the sleeve of his suit and it shouldn't hurt as much as it does.
Theon hands over a tissue, and Tris mutters a thanks, trying to not blow his nose too loudly (which he fails miserably at, of course). A priest stands on the beach, and reads the vows that Asha and Qarl dutifully repeat. Behind him Tris hears Balon Greyjoy sigh loudly, but at least he's not desolved yet into grumbling about the awful weather or the fact over half the guests are actually wearing ties.
Tris doesn't look over his shoulder, to stare at the uncles that also showed up last minute. They make him feel uneasy, especially the one that likes to wear an eyepatch over his left eye. (One day, when he and Asha and Qarl had been kids, he had shown up and convinced the three of them he had no eye in that socket, and ever since he has wondered what it looks like.)
“You may now kiss the, uh, bride,” the priest says, coughing into his hand. There's a moment where Tris considers looking away, but it's not as if he hasn't seen them kiss, and—Asha expertly hooks her foot around Qarl's ankle, and drops him into the water, and the priest flinches when some of it splashes on his robes. It's probably a good thing Asha wouldn't be caught dead in a wedding dress; it would've been ruined by the salt. Now, she just climbs on top of Qarl (or, he pulled her down, Qarl will swear later on) and kisses him silly, with tongue. Tris averts his eyes to the sky – a lovely blue, today – and ignores the hoots coming from the back.
“You look like you need a drink,” Theon tells him after the bridal couple has emerged from the sea, dripping wet, and he pulls him up by the elbow. Tris knows he doesn't just look like he needs one, he feels like that, too, as if he's a dishcloth someone wrung out too tightly.
He lets himself be dragged along, and Theon pushes a glass of champagne in his hand that he downs in one go. “What?” he asks when he sees Theon's raised eyebrows. “You said I looked like I needed one.”
There isn't nearly enough alcohol in champagne, he decides half an hour later. He can feel the buzz, sure, but it's not nearly enough to make him forget why he's drinking in the first place, and it doesn't stop him from stammering when he comes face to face with Asha, who looks decidedly pleased. “Um, congratulations,” he mumbles, staring at his feet, his glass dripping champagne into the sand when he accidentally holds it upside down.
“Don't be an idiot, Tris,” Asha says, and she leans forward and kisses him on the cheek. “I'm glad you're here.” Shyly, he looks up, just from underneath his lashes.
“Be happy,” he tells her, “for... um. Be happy, please?” He doesn't mean for it to come out like a question, but it does, and she laughs.
“Do I look unhappy to you?” He shakes his head, and she takes his champagne glass from him. “Don't drink too much,” she says, “you never could handle your liquor,” and he feels the blood rushing into his cheeks.
He watches her saunter off, watches her give her brother a one-armed hug, watches her unashamedly kiss him on the lips, watches her as she disappears into a crowd of people he barely knows. Theon appears by his side again, and takes in his forlorn expression. “Sorry to say it, buddy,” he says, “but you're seriously fucked.”
“Yeah,” Tris replies.
“Let's get drunk,” Theon proposes, and scrounges up a bottle of wine from somewhere. Tris doesn't know Theon very well, has maybe had three full conversations with him since he became friends with Asha, but he's a nice guy. Probably. (Tris is not the best judge of character, to be honest.) At least he knows the right thing to say at the right time, and doesn't react too condescendingly when they're lying in the sand and Tris is crying his eyes out and is wondering out loud why he even showed up in the first place.
“Cause you're one of her best friends,” Theon says, looking sadly at the empty bottle of wine.
“The best friend she didn't marry.” Tris sighs loudly, and buries his bare toes in the sand.
“To be honest, I'm surprised she even agreed to get married,” Theon muses, and sets the bottle down at last. “Doesn't seem like her thing at all.”
“She would've laughed in my face if I'd asked,” Tris says, and small smile appears on his face when he tries to imagine how Qarl proposed. She'd never said, but he guesses she'd probably laughed in Qarl's face too when he asked. If he was the one that asked. Asha isn't particularly conventional when it comes to these types of things.
“So at least you didn't embarrass yourself,” Theon wisely says, and nods to himself. “I'd offer to marry you myself, but too much hassle. And you'd probably get tired of my face within a week.”
“You.... would?” Tris asks, ignoring that last part. No one's ever offered to marry him before, not even as a joke.
“Well, yeah. I don't know. It's not as if I know that many people I'd marry, anyway. And they probably wouldn't want to marry me. Both of us are kind of.... the next best thing, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.” The bottle is empty, so it doesn't really matter that he's started filling it up with sand and is already halfway done. “Too well, probably.” He looks up. “Where'd everyone go?”
“Followed the booze, probably,” Theon says. The beach has gone quiet; there are no more laughs and booming voices, or people drunkenly going for a swim. “Qarl and Asha have fucked off, too. Probably to- well, to fuck.” He glances at Tris. “Hope they decide not to do anything on the beach. The sand gets everywhere.”
“And how would you know that?” Tris asks coyly.
“You don't want to know,” Theon replies, and then slyly grins. “But I can always show you, of course.”
*
Dacey yawns, and checks her mobile. It's three in the morning, and she's probably not going to get to bed tonight – not that she minds. Every night she spends with the girls ends like this, pleasantly buzzed, but not too tired. At least she hasn't dissolved into a giggling mess yet, unlike her younger sister, Lyra. She'd tried to convince Dacey to bring her along for weeks now, and had finally worn her down enough to get her older sister to agree.
She's currently lying asleep against Dacey's shoulder, her mouth slightly open, and Dacey allows herself a small private smile. Maybe she should spend some more time with her family...
A couple of boys laughing at the corner of the street catch her attention – well, boys? They're more like young men, who probably just got out of the pub and are now stumbling across the street on their way home. Or another pub. Two of them are hurriedly whispering at each other, one occasionally breaking out in laughter, while the third casually walks along with his hands in his pockets. Dacey narrows her eyes. That redhead, isn't that Robb Stark?
The duo abruptly stops when they notice her looking at them, and the third helplessly shrugs at her, as if he's trying to say he doesn't really know what's so funny either. “Well, there's one,” she hears Robb whisper to the other guy, who she doesn't recognise. “You said you would, now go on. Do it.”
“This soon?” the other whispers back – loudly enough for her to hear him. “I thought you said--”
“You said,” Robb interrupts, “you'd do it with the first girl we came across. There she is.”
Dacey can't help but be curious, now. She knows Robb Stark, has for years – she used to babysit him, actually, so it's a bit strange to see him all grown up. It's hard not to see him as a five-year-old with a penchance for getting into trouble. From the way he's gesturing in her direction, though, she doesn't think he's recognised her yet. He might have thought twice if he recognised her face – but Dacey can always use more blackmail material, so she leans back into her seat and waits to see what will happen.
Robb pushes the other guy towards her, and makes a shooing motion when he looks over his shoulder for-- what, guidance? “Uh, hi,” he says when he's finally standing at her table.
“Hi,” she says, and smiles. “Can I help you?”
“Actually, yes,” he fidgets for a moment, then goes down on one knee. She raises an eyebrow. “I know we've never met, but I've decided that I'd like to share my life with you, and would like to grow old with you and... whatever else married couples do. So. Would you marry me?”
She blinks. “I'd like to,” she says, “but unfortunately I only accept marriage proposals from people I'm on first name basis with.”
“That's too bad,” he says, and stands up, nearly falling over before he manages to right himself up on the table.
“It's fine,” she says, suppressing laughter bubbling up in her belly. “I don't get proposed to every day, of course.”
And then, of course, Robb is standing next to the unfamiliar guy, squints at her, and suddenly goes pale. “Oh my God, that's Dacey. I mean, you're Dacey. Oh. Oh shit. Fuck. Sorry. I mean, crap. Let's go, Theon.” She grins as she watches them leave. Theon, huh? Wasn't he that kid Robb used to follow around all the time? The girls will be in tears once they hear what happened while they were gone.
*
Although Sarella likes playing with people's expectations, and enjoys wriggling herself into positions she can barely manage to get out of; sometimes she just wants to shrug off her disguise, to see people's expressions. It's what she lives for, after all.
It's another night of sour faced Pate, however, and while she likes Mollander, Armen and Roone well enough, she doesn't really consider them her friends either ( even though it's always their faces she imagines when she's stepping out of her clothes at night, and crawls back into her bed and her own skin).
“I'm gonna get another beer,” she announces to the table while she stands up, “anyone else?” There's a murmured agreement, and she saunters over to the bar, waiting to catch the bartender's attention. She has all the time in the world, here, no reason to get hasty.
“Five beers,” she tells the man as soon as she has his attention, but he gets distracted by a fight in the corner of the bar and Sarella is back to waiting again. “Terrible service, huh?” A voice says next to her, and she turns around.
“Sometimes,” she replies. “I go here all the time; it's not always like this.” On the other hand, the guys refuse to go to any other place, they all like Oldtown the best. Sarella likes the Citadel more, to be honest. It's decidedly cleaner than this place.
“First time here,” the guy says, and sticks out his hand. “Theon.”
“Alleras,” she says after she's shaken it. “Care to join me and my friends, maybe?”
Theon looks over his shoulder. “Anything would be better than looking at Snow's sullen face all night.” He helps her carry the beers to their table, and Pate is the only one who raises an eyebrow at the newcomer.
“Who's this?” he asks, grabbing a glass.. “I don't remember inviting anybody else.”
“You never invite anybody else,” Roone says, and Mollander nods in agreement. “If our sphinx wants to have other friends, who's gonna stop him?” Pate frowns and takes a large gulp of his beer.
He looks as if he wants to say something, but instead settles for staring at one of the waitresses. Rosey, if Sarella remembers correctly. He's been pining after her since they started going here a while back. It's a bit sad, really, because he often looks like he has words lying on the tip of his tongue, but can't bring himself to say them.
Theon introduces himself to the other guys around the table, and they go back and forth for a while about where they come from, who definitely is not dead on next episode of The King Has Landed, and whether Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth are actually a couple or not (Sarella thinks there's an awful lot of unresolved sexual tension between Jaime and his sister, for one thing, but she never voices her opinion).
For some reason, the conversation turns to marriage, and everyone collectively sighs. “Who do you think is gonna want me?” Mollander says, nodding towards his foot. “I'm probably better off with you guys anyway.”
“I wouldn't say that,” Armen replies. “Besides, you never know what happens.”
“And you'll always have us,” Roone adds.
“You control your own fate,” Sarella resolutely says, and presses her knee against Theon's while she looks at him from the corner of her eye.
“Absolutely,” he agrees, and puts his hand on top of her knee, squeezing lightly. It's not noticeable for any of the other guys, and Theon's pleasantly leaning forward on the table, putting his weight on one hand. He turns his head to face Sarella. “What do you say, Alleras? Want to get hitched?”
“Maybe next time,” she replies, smiling, and her hand covers his own.
When they've finished discussing what hair colour is the hottest (seriously, this conversation was getting nowhere, quick), Sarella decides it's time to head home, and calls a taxi. “Wanna come?” she asks Theon, and he follows, his own friends long gone as well.
Later, when he's pressing her against the doorframe of her flat, and reaches down for something that's not there, she grins. “I have more than one secret, Theon Greyjoy,” Sarella says, and kisses him.
*
Theon's not nervous about this. He's been over at Robb's house so many times by now, he's lost count, but this time he's there for a reason. He takes a deep breath, and rings the doorbell.
Sansa is the one to open the door, her mobile pressed to her ear, her coat in her other hand. “Theon,” she says, surprised. “I wasn't expecting you.”
“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,” Theon replies, and mentally slaps himself when she just looks at him confusedly.
“Robb's in the yard, if you're looking for him,” she says, and lets him through, while she shuts the front door behind her. Probably off to see Jeyne Poole, he thinks. Those two are just as close as he and Robb are, if not even closer.
He makes his way through the house, says hello to Mrs Stark, stops temporarily to whisper hints in Rickon's ear about the videogame he's currently playing in the living room, and then slides open the glass sliding door to the yard. Grey Wind dashes over and licks his hand when he reaches down to pet him.
“I wasn't expecting you this early,” Robb says and greets him with a kiss when he's close enough. Theon swallows.
“Yeah, I wasn't as busy as I thought I'd be,” he replies. Usually he just has to open his mouth and words come out, but somehow, now that he has this planned, he's at a loss for words.
“I was just gonna take out Grey Wind for a walk, do you want to come along?” Theon follows Robb through the fence, and they walk side by side in the direction of the forest, the one with the creepy tree by the pond. No one will bother them there, though. Theon closes his hand around the box in his pocket. The last thing he needs is one of Robb's siblings bursting in the moment he's about to...
“You seem nervous,” Robb says, while he finds an appropriate stick for Grey Wind to fetch along the path. The forest starts just behind the Stark house, and Theon remembers playing there for hours upon hours as a child. Playing pretend with Robb, being knights and pirates and superheroes, making snowmen in the middle of winter, swimming in the pond when the heat got too much to bear.
“Nervous? Me? I don't know what you're talking about.” Robb gives him a weird look. Denying it is always the best course of action in order to not seem suspicious. Theon sighs. He has done this before, once. Well, perhaps more than once. He has the tendency to run his mouth off, to talk before he thinks. It gets him into trouble, occasionally – but then Robb is always there to save the day.
“You just seem jittery,” Robb says, throwing the stick away and Grey Wind sprints away. “Did something happen?”
“No,” Theon says, “nothing happened. I just...” It's really difficult to look at Robb when he's giving him that face, the one that says, I know something's wrong and I'm concerned for you, but you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. Theon's become a bit of an expert in reading Robb sometime during the last decade. It's easy when Robb is an open book most of the time, carrying his heart on his sleeve. When he smiles, he means it, when he's angry, something has really upset him off, and when he tells Theon he loves him, that's exactly what he wants to say.
Nine times out of ten, Theon thinks he got very lucky. (The other ten per cent, he thinks he doesn't deserve Robb.)
“I need to ask you something,” Theon resolutely says. Absent mindedly Robb takes the stick Grey Wind has just brought back for him and throws it away again, nodding to Theon.
“Go ahead,” he says. They walk along the path, straight to the pond. Theon can see the tree solemnly gazing at them, even if it's only a carved out face. “Or would you like to keep me waiting?” he asks with a grin.
“Remember that one time when I called you, and you and Jon picked me up?” Theon starts, because he has to start somewhere and that is as good a place as any. “ And I asked you something, in the car?”
“I... yes. But I thought you didn't remember that. You never said anything.” Theon gestures, and Robb sits down on the bench. Theon kneels down next to it, his hand tightly fisted in his pocket, and Robb flushes. “What are you...?”
“I called you an idiot then, didn't I? Well, it turns out that I'm the idiot. And you've... I really don't know what I'd do without you. Maybe waste my life away. I don't know. But I do know that I'm glad to know you. You're my best friend, and my anchor, and... I love you.
“And I wanted to ask you, properly, now.” De takes the box out of his pocket, swallows away the lump in his throat, and opens it. “Will you marry me?”
And Robb looks at him, his deep blue eyes wide, and for one long second, Theon is terrified – that he'll say no, that he'll laugh, that he'll call Theon an idiot.
“Yes,” Robb says. And he means it, Theon feels it in his bones, and his face is painted in broad strokes, in happiness and affection and whatever that thing is you feel when your heart feels like it's about to burst. “Of course I will,” Robb murmurs, his face close to Theon's, their lips barely touching. “Now, and always.”