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“We should just forget it,” Theon says for the umpteenth time. “Really, it’s fine, we can just look for another place –”
“You like it.”
Robb says it as if it’s that simple – yeah, right, Theon likes it, he likes it a lot, but if the owner isn’t renting the house to anyone if they aren’t married, then they should just leave already.
“Fine, I do, but you heard the estate agent – we’re just wasting time.”
Robb stares at him, completely unimpressed, and Theon doesn’t even know what else to do short of dragging him down the stairs and out of the complex. Pity, because the flat they just saw was perfect – equal distance from both their colleges, big enough for two people with a third guest room, nice spacious kitchen and living area and pretty cheap all things considered. It’s on the second floor of this little suburban house just outside Edinburgh with a small garden to be shared with the people living downstairs which is everything he’s been hoping for in a place since forever – it’s everything his family’s cramped flat in a huge and badly kept apartment building wasn’t, and Robb knows that. It even allows pets.
But one has to be fucking married to get it, and saying ‘we’re best mates and we’ve moved here from Glasglow and it’s pretty much the same also because I might have feelings for him but he doesn’t know’ probably doesn’t cut it.
“Robb –”
“I think I have an idea,” Robb says then, grinning a smile that Theon isn’t sure he likes.
“… What?”
“Just wait.”
A moment later, the estate agent comes back to them. “So, did you read the conditions?” She sounds bored and ready to dismiss them – it’s obvious they can’t rent this place.
“Yeah,” Robb says. “And I was wondering if the owner might make a small exceptions for fiancées?”
Theon doesn’t shout what did you just say at Robb just out of sheer force of will, and then Robb moves closer and takes his hand and what the hell he’s doing?
“It’s just,” Robb starts with his most honest expression, “we’ve been together for a few years now and known each other for a lot longer, and we already know we’re tying the knot after university, but well, it seemed a bit early to do it at nineteen, you know? And we’re staying here for the next four years at least, so there wouldn’t be an issue with us possibly bailing.”
“Well,” the agent – a Barbrey Dustin, he thinks that was her name – starts. “I guess he might make an exception. Wait, I’ll call him. Mr. Baratheon? Yes, the two kids who wanted to rent the second floor apartment. Turns out they’re engaged and they want to know if you might make an exception for them. Hm. Hm, all right. Yes, I see. Thank you.”
She closes the call.
“He’s willing to meet you – he lives in the next house over. If he’s convinced he might.”
Theon just lets Robb lead – he’s too surprised to do anything other than going with it. He nods along in all the right places as Baratheon stares down at them and confirms Robb’s story – thank fuck it’s really different from the real version in the ‘we got together when we were fourteen’ department, never mind that Theon wishes they had. But Robb’s really… very much heterosexual, from what he knows – and he’s known Robb for all of his life pretty much – so it’s completely useless to go that route.
“And how do you know you’re not going to break up and leave?”
Robb smiles all over again. “We were best friends before getting together. I don’t think that would change at any point. I mean, we met when we were three.”
Theon sends Robb the sappiest look he can muster up. Baratheon stares down at them some more, grits his teeth, and then.
“Well, seems to me like you’re not getting a divorce. Or like you won’t, after you tie the knot. Fine by me – you can have the house. I expect you to follow the rules to the letter.”
“Of course,” Robb replies, looking so very excited, and Theon can’t help smiling back – shit. It worked.
It worked, and – he’s sharing a proper nice house with Robb in a new city where no one he’s related to lives, which is good enough on its own, and it’s pretty much everything he’s ever wanted –
And right, there’s the part where they have to pretend they’re together, damn it, and –
Robb kisses him on the cheek without a blink and tells Baratheon they will sign and leave him a lease right now if he likes it better.
Theon signs a moment later.
Yes, he can’t help thinking.
--
It lasts for exactly five minutes, which is when he realizes that it’s gonna be harder than he thinks. First of all, he’s just sworn himself to celibacy, or at least around the house, because if they’re engaged he can hardly bring girls home. Or mention sex anyway. And they’re going to have to pretend in public at some point, because if Stannis drops by they will have to be convincing. And –
And the thing is that he’s been having daydreams about being in a real relationship with Robb for four years, and his only salvation will be that a lot of things they already do could be mistaken for PDA without much imagination, but if they have to kiss for real –
Theon tries not to think about it. If they do, he’ll just enjoy for what it is.
He needs to focus. And the thing is that for the first time in his life he actually has everything he wants – he’s going to do something he really likes for the next few years, he’s going to live with the only person he knows he actually wants to live with and who’s also the only reason he actually said fuck you to his dad and enrolled in drama school the way he always wanted, and he even has the suburban little house. Which would be considered a sin, where he comes from, but he can’t care less – he’s always wanted something that was the complete opposite of everything he’s known until now and that’s it, and he’s going to seize the opportunity with both hands.
If it means trying to hide how painful it will feel to pretend that they’re together, fine. He’s done worse.
--
To his credit, the first six months go over swimmingly.
Until they make friends.
Thing is, Theon never was big on that – he had Robb for some kind of miracle, and then by proxy he knew people that Robb knew, and Robb was always popular but also kind of a loner and he tended to be friends with Jon’s or Sansa’s or Arya’s friends rather than getting some more on his own. But now that they’re away from home and on their own, after the first few months where they need to adjust to the new schedule, realize how to split housework and so on (for the first time Theon is happy that he was the one doing the laundry at home, because after Robb ruined three of them Theon just tells Robb that he’ll take the laundry and Robb can clean up after dinner), since they’re going to different schools – well, it’s not that hard anymore. And – he’s in drama school. He has to communicate with people, willing or not.
So they end up having a fairly small circle each, and of course they invite them over and get invited over. And at that point, they have to go big or go home, also because of course Robb ended up making friends with the resident gay couple of the French Lit department, and while Robb must have fed them some story about Theon not being too big on PDA, whenever Renly and Loras are in the vicinities they have to up their game a bit.
The day Loras comes up to him and tells him that he and Robb are precious Theon doesn’t know if he should cry or not – he wishes they were precious.
He really wishes they were. Of course he also lies to his own friends, which he kinda feels bad about – the first people he connects with since he was three and he has to lie through his teeth about how happy he is with his boyfriend. And thing is, it turns out he’s abysmally bad at it because one day Brienne asks him if he’s actually not telling the truth, and he has to admit it to her, but to his surprise she just shakes her head in sympathy and tells him that she gets it.
“Even if I wish I was in that position sometimes,” she sighs, and – right, she’s a very good actress but she’s nowhere near pretty, and they might have bonded over piss poor experiences in school when they had to rehearse together for a workshop two weeks after lessons started.
“You don’t,” Theon sighs. “Especially not the way I am.”
“Right, but – you do know that – well. You know,” she says, and Theon just looks at her not hiding his confusion.
“What should I know?”
She stares at him for a moment, then she shakes her head. “Never mind. You’ll figure it out.”
Well, that so was not confusing, except that it was. Theon doesn’t inquire forward.
--
And the more the year goes on, the more Theon realizes that the universe hates him. Turns out his friends know Robb’s friends – turns out Renly and Brienne used to be classmates in middle school, and then there’s a lot more coincidences that make Theon wonder what did he do to deserve a >healthy social life, like his counselor in high school would have called it. Healthy social life means that there’s always someone around the house, and that they have dinner out every other weekend, and all the time Robb will just behave as if they’re really fiancées without blinking. They’ll hold hands, they’ll kiss, they’ll touch a lot, sometimes Robb will kiss him and some of those times it won’t be exactly chaste, and throughout all of it Theon just feels terrible about it, because at one point it’s going to have to end, and at the end of the day they’re sleeping in separate beds.
He doesn’t wake up with Robb next to him the way he might have dreamed more than once, they don’t exchange kisses for their eyes only over breakfast, they don’t undress each other, they don’t do anything that people in relationships do when they’re not in front of other people, and – the sad thing is that he hasn’t even had sex with anyone since they moved in together.
And good grief, he’d be fine with giving it up forever if it meant keeping up the charade for the next twenty years – it’s still more than he thought he’d get.
--
In June, he doesn’t know if he agrees – the frustration is reaching horrid levels, and the easiness with which Robb takes everything is endearing on one side and unnerving on the other. The first is because Theon knows that the only reason why Robb came up with the deal in the first place is that he knew Theon liked that place so much. The second is because – whenever Theon asks, he just always seems to not mind at all.
He’ll ask if Robb doesn’t mind not getting laid, Robb will say he can do without it never mind that he has to keep his average vote up, so he doesn’t really care. Or if he minds kissing if they’re not together, and he says kissing people doesn’t have to be a chore or extra special – you can kiss people you care about, right? Whatever Theon asks he just seems to have an answer and to be perfectly fine with everything as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.
He wishes he knew how Robb does compartmentalize it. Because he can’t, and he’s going to give himself out at some point, and if he does –
Better worry about the play the first year students are supposed to put together at the end of July and that is worth half his grade.
It’s not that he’s worrying because it’s Greek tragedy. He likes Greek tragedy. He thinks it’s hella cool. And he likes the Libation Bearers a lot. He might be worried that they cast him as the protagonist, and he’s not going to dwell about how happy Robb had looked at the news – he had dragged him out for drinks and for an evening it had been back to their last days of high school, when they’d be off alone having a drink and Theon would be ridiculously happy, because after then they’d go to Robb’s and they’d share the bed and he wouldn’t have to think about the disaster that most of his family was and about his father insisting he’d help his brothers with the family’s fishing business. And it had been nice. Anyway, it’s not that he’s nervous because if he fucks it up he’s in big trouble – after all, he’s the protagonist, right?
More than that, what bothers him is that they cast the creep.
As in, until now he’s Orestes and Brienne is Elektra – he has no clue of who thought they’d make passing brother and sister, but he figures that if it’s just for show the teachers don’t care, and the two of them are the best of their class after all. Pylades is this Gendry kid to whom he doesn’t speak much but with whom he’s always been friendly, so until now everything is good. The problem is that no girl volunteered to play Clytemnestra, and of course the director, this girl named Margaery who’s very competent and very good at it but who has too much of an imagination had gone and said that hey, in ancient Greece it was men playing every part so whatever, Clytemnestra could be a dude.
Of course the only volunteer for the role was this Ramsay Bolton guy who Theon is sure got in because of a bribe, because he doesn’t really give a shit about most of the work, behaves like a creep with everyone and can’t even act, but he figures his father has enough money to put him through school regardless of grades – good for him. Theon has to keep his damned scholarship and only cares about passing the year.
And it means that for the next month he has to spend ten hours each day rehearsing and considering that one of the two most important scenes is, well, Orestes killing Clytemnestra, he has to rehearse with him.
Who definitely has a very incestuous idea of the character, and sadly Margaery agrees with it, and so he has to relish every second he spends rehearsing with Brienne or Gendry or the chorus because just having Bolton grope him is hellish.
The fifth time, he snaps. “I have a boyfriend, you know,” he says.
“And why would you inform me of that?”
“There’s acting and acting,” Theon hisses. “Just don’t go overboard, Bolton.”
The creep smiles and makes it worse, and of course Margaery likes it – ‘course. It makes Clytemnestra look even worse, as if there’s the need. He really hopes that the second and third year classes that have to put up the other two parts of the trilogy do a better job than they are.
So he comes home every day dead tired and feeling like he needs a shower.
“Hey,” Robb tells him after a week,” are you sure you’re all right?”
He puts a hand on Theon’s shoulder and Theon would like to just turn around and kiss him like real couples do, but –
“Just one of the other actors. He’s being a jerk. Never mind it.”
Robb doesn’t press it, but that evening he makes up some bullshit excuse – we should do a sleepover, we haven’t done that since we left Glasglow, at which Theon had said because we live together maybe? , but didn’t oppose the idea further – and so they sleep in the same bed like they used to when Theon spent the night at the Starks’, and he commits every second to memory.
It’s not going to last, he knows, but he might enjoy it as long as he can.
--
That’s until he comes home with a black eye.
“What’s that,” Robb says, and he doesn’t sound just livid – for a moment Theon thinks that if the Hulk existed in real life he’d sound like Robb did just now.
“Uh. Told you about the guy who’s playing Orestes’ illustrious mother?”
“You did.”
“Er, he says he got carried away with trying to defend himself. Well. His character. While I have to kill him. And since it’s, er, modern setting the director bought it. And he just – he keeps on groping like no one’s business, and I told him that I’m – well, in theory, that I’m taken, and I can’t complain to the director without filing it before because the rules are idiotic, but I filed five complaints and no one’s said anything yet, and –”
“I see,” Robb interrupts, his voice sounding so cold it almost scares Theon. “Do you think you can invite outsiders to rehearsal?”
“Sure,” Theon says, “it’s open to the public. Some relatives show up once in a while. Why?”
“I’m coming tomorrow.”
“Robb –”
“I’m coming.”
Theon doesn’t tell him no and Robb does in fact come. He says hi to everyone he meets, keeps a possessive arm around Theon’s waist that Theon entirely does not discourage and goes to watch the show from first row. Of course, Ramsay Bolton doesn’t look too happy that Robb is here, but he grits his teeth and shakes his hand. They both look equally revolted, Theon can’t help notice.
Anyway, the rehearsal goes fine as usual until he and Gendry leave Brienne behind and move on to the supposed royal palace, where Ramsay and the poor Patrek kid stuck playing Aegystus are waiting to enter the scene. Margaery harps at him because he suddenly doesn’t look concentrated anymore – right, how could he with Ramsay pretty much touching his ass in front of Robb, that’s a nice question – and then she harps at Ramsay for overacting and they have to redo that part ten times, and then they finally get to the killing, good, great, except that then as he dies, sort of, Ramsay reaches up with a hand, grasps at his neck with entirely too much violence and –
He drags him down?
Theon’s kissed the guy – or better, Theon is forced to kiss him – for about one second before pushing him off.
“What the fuck?” He screams.
“That’s called improvisation,” Ramsay says. “Well, sort of. I might have asked the director, of course.”
“What?” Theon turns towards Margaery. “And you didn’t see fit to warn me?”
She shrugs, apologetically. “It makes sense with his character interpretation. But if we told you the effect would have been ruined, never mind –”
“Excuse me,” Robb interrupts as he walks up to them from the first row he’s in, “while I won’t tell you that acting means compromises and shit, he’s told me that spiel enough times, maybe it would be ethical to discuss limits before then?”
“This goes into a competition,” Ramsay snorts back. “If people can’t be uncomfortable on stage, they’re never going to go far in life, will they?”
“Yeah, well, I might object to my boyfriend getting sexually harassed daily, though.” Robb is hissing by now, and at that point Margaery seems to get it.
“Wait, did you file a complaint?” She asks Theon.
Seriously?
“I filed five,” he said, “and then I stopped because I guess you didn’t care?”
She glares at Ramsay. “Right, but I think a friend of his volunteers at the students’ office. Bolton, I might agree with your take on the character but I think the three of us should go into a private room right now, and if when we get out this isn’t settled, I’m recasting you. I said now.”
“Wait,” Robb says. “Just one thing.”
And then he moves up to him, grabs Theon by the lapels of his modern day costume suit and drags him down for a kiss which is –
Nothing like they pretended until now – it’s a real kiss. Tongue, hands in his hair, Robb pressing him up against the wall and everything, and Theon can’t help it – he kisses back as fervently, just in case he doesn’t have other occasions in the future, but Robb looks delighted when they part and Theon just hopes that he survives the day, because it’s been too many surprises and it’s not even five PM.
Theon can barely breathe as he follows Margaery out of the room and to one of the empty classes.
By the time they’re over, Margaery has heard his side, apologized profusely and called some female friend of hers in year three to substitute for the part, and Bolton leaves fuming, but Theon can’t bring himself to give a shit.
“Go home,” she tells him after Ramsay storms out. “Really, you look shaken and I can only guess why. Take the day off, I’ll just rehearse with Brienne for today.”
“Really? It’s okay, I don’t need –”
“Go home and get your real boyfriend to ravish you,” Margaery tells him as she pushes him out of the room, and Theon is about to say I wish, and then he’s face to face with Robb who looks – mortified?
“What’s wrong?” Theon asks.
“I’m a fucking idiot,” Robb replies before moving right up in his face.
“… No, you’re not? Actually you just saved my ass, so –”
“After you three left, Brienne comes up to me and says that it’s ridiculous that I still didn’t get it.”
Shit.
“Robb –”
“But I could say the same.”
“… Sorry?”
“Theon, damn it, do you think that I would have taken stuff so nonchalantly if I actually, you know, didn’t want to be with you?”
Theon thinks he could hear a pin drop in the silence that follows.
“You – want to?”
“Since we were fifteen or something? Fuck, of course I do, do you think I pretend to be fake engaged to someone and keep on going with it for a year out of the goodness of my own heart?”
“… Knowing you, you just might?”
“Theon, damn you, I’m nowhere near that selfless,” Robb laughs, and then he reaches back up for the sides of his face and drags him forward and –
And he kisses him again same as he had before, just with even more fervor and the first time they part he takes a breath before diving in again, and again, and after the fifth kiss Theon is so breathless he can barely speak – his lips feel numb in the best way, Robb’s hands are on him and they’re real and they aren’t pretending, and he can’t help feeling so giddy he could cry with it.
“Wow. Wow, that was –”
“I know. Now, what do you say, should we go home for real? And by the way, I said we were going to get married at the end of university because it made sense and I thought you were playing along, but you know, once Rickon asked me when I was going to get married to you. And I was sixteen.”
“Are you saying –”
“I’d totally marry you tomorrow if you wanted. Not that I think we should because maybe we should, y’know, date first, but –”
“Yes,” Theon answers, and he can barely remember ever sounding this giddy in his life. “I mean – you’re right on both things, but – yes, let’s just go home for now.”
“Good,” Robb smiles back and threads his fingers with Theon’s and it’s real this time, and they’re really going home and it’s not fake anymore and –
Theon might be smiling as much as Robb is right now, which is a whole damn lot, and –
Maybe they’ve both been idiots, but he absolutely looks forward to catching up with the time they wasted playing house when they could have been doing the real thing.
End.