you've got to promise not to stop when i say when

pt vi

Theon felt half embarrassed by how quickly he'd texted Robb back at the invitation to have lunch. When he looked at the timings of the texts, they'd come within the same minute as each other. The excuse he gave himself was it was a dull day at work, fuck all to do, and it was definitely not out of guilt. Definitely not because of the internal panic that he'd never get to spend time with Robb alone once the baby came.

"Where'd you wanna go?" He sent a second text.

"I need a burger." Robb replied equally quick to his second text, so he felt calmer. Robb never had anything to be guilty of. He often felt jealous of that, when he felt guilty of his own existence.

"I'm in"

Nobody shopped for fishing supplies in the morning and watching the clock was painful. He struggled not to think about the pictures he'd seen the night before, but he tried, watching gaming videos on YouTube until his lunch hour, pausing every now and then to stare at his saved messages on Snapchat and considered messaging Sansa, but she'd made it clear she didn't want that.

Robb was already sat down when he arrived at the burger joint they'd agreed on. It was their usual, the one where they'd spent many a drunk night needing a late night meal. Theon realised it would be day time meals from now on, and tried not to be disappointed by it. He was nearly twenty eight, after all.

Ordering was almost unnecessary, the waitress knew them and their orders, but they went through the rigmarole anyway, considering the menu despite both knowing they'd order the same as they always did.

"Y'alright?" Theon asked, because truly, Robb didn't look it.

Their drinks were placed down, coffee for Robb, Sprite for Theon. He could've scoffed at Robb's attempt to be grown up, but then he always had been.

"Yeah," Robb answered quickly, tipping a creamer into his cup. "Actually." He sighed and ran a hand over his face, and that's when Theon started to worry. Usually Robb only stressed internally, so seeing it written all over him was cause for concern. "I got this voicemail from Sansa last night."

Shit. Shit shit fuck and shit.

"She was completely wasted, I'd never heard her like that before."

Theon swallowed hard and tried not to let the panic show all over his face but it wasn't easy. He lifted his glass and held it in front of his face as he spoke. She wouldn't have said anything about them, right? "Oh? What did she say?" He sipped and set the glass down, but almost immediately started toying with his watch.

"It was long and she was slurring her words so it was hard to understand. She wasn't really making much sense."

"But you got the gist of it?" Gods, if Robb was about to rip him limb from limb then his dragging it out was plain cruel.

"She was crying and she said something about cooking and cleaning and dressing up and he kicked her out and weren't boyfriends supposed to like suprises like that. Said she was an embarrassment and a shit girlfriend."

Theon let out the breath he'd been holding but it was only partial relief, the rest was still worry for Sansa. Robb hadn't specified a time so he couldn't figure out if the photos were done before or after, but the idea that she had been crying either side of sending nudes to him, and he'd used for his own selfish needs, sent self hatred washing over him.

"I'm such a shit brother." Theon hadn't seen Robb so rattled in years, not since Robb had seen Theon getting bullied as a child, both at home and at school. He'd had to hold the younger boy back from going off on both his father and Ramsay Bolton. He couldn't see him become the target too.