Disclaimer: Game of Thrones is D&D's property, after being GRRM's property. Or else, Lancel would be the happiest kid in Westeros, should it be mine.

Summary: It had started with a simple and harmless enough talk between those two.

WARNING! THIS STORY CONTAINS THEMES SUCH AS SEXUALITY, A MALE PAIRING ( A MAN LOVING ANOTHER MAN ). IF YOU DO NOT FEEL AT EASE WITH THOSE, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SKIP TO ANOTHER STORY.

The power of words

Chapter 4

"Are you okay?"

Theon raised an eyebrow as he was drinking from his can of beer. Robb was staring at him, concern painted on his face.

"Yeah I'm cool. Life's awesome. I'm here with my best friend, I get on well with my sister, I made a new buddy, the place is filled with hot chicks, everything's awesome!" He joked, his eternal smile on his lips

Robb's face didn't change, making Theon sigh. Robb had always known how to read him like an open book. Robb was actually the only person, along with his sister Asha, Theon felt comfortable opening to, revealing his fears, his weaknesses, his doubts. He was the little brother he never had when he incarnated the older brother Robb never got. He felt blessed to have such a unique bond with someone.

"What I am going to say..." He started, his voice becoming darker and serious. "It needs to stay between us."

His friend smiled, offering a pinky shake, like they used to when they were little.

"Have you ever felt attracted by a man while you know you are straight?" Theon bluntly asked

"Yeah, you."

"Romantically."

Robb let a "oh" escape his lips before he started thinking.

"I can't say it happened to me. But Arya said something clever once. She said that, while all human beings had their preferences, that they liked tall people, short people, white, black, tanned, in the end, going past their first physical attraction, what people fell in love with was the other's heart and soul. And those are genderless."

Theon nodded.

"That's deep. But I'm not talking about love, I'm talking about physical attraction."

"And who's the hot guy then?"

"Lancel Lannister."

Robb stared at him in silence before chuckling.

"Oh Theon I wouldn't worry if I were you! Lancel's a man but he looks girly enough! No wonder you felt confused."

Theon couldn't help laughing in return.

"Robb, you're so bad!"

"I'm not mocking him, you know me. I don't mean to be rude. But let's face it, he has more delicate features than some girls themselves! Compare him to Arya."

"Arya is cute."

"She'd confess it herself, she isn't really girl looking. Really, I wouldn't worry, finding him attractive. He looks like a girl so..."

Feeling relieved, Theon drank another sip of his beer.

XXXXX

"So, how is it going?" Theon asked Lancel who gave him the ghost of a smile

He looked tired, mentally tired.

"Do you have the entire night ahead of you? My life is so filled with drama I could live in Desperate Housewives." Lancel joked

"Take your coat." Theon ordered

Facing the younger man's incomprehension, he added:

"You need a good old fashioned bar session."

"I never drank in a bar before..."

"I'm sure you didn't, hence why I am correcting that mistake, let's go."

After a few minutes by feet, the men arrived in a bar downtown. When he passed the door, Lancel felt he was in a piece of time that froze. Everything just seemed stuck in the eighties! It was so cliché it was almost cute. Bikers were drinking at the bar or playing the billiard, some were making bets on arm wrestling, others were gently flirting away with the waitresses who playfully replied. One of them spotted them.

"Yo, Theon!" He greeted, soon joined by his pals who repeated his words.

Theon greeted them with a huge smile. It suited him, Lancel thought, to be so at ease in this kind of place. As for him, he felt out of place, as if his presence would disturb the general atmosphere. Too stuck up, maybe seen as too haughty. The Lannisters and the Greyjoys didn't have the same vision of life and amusement.

"And who's that guy with you?" He heard

"That's my pal Lancel!"

"As in Lancel Lannister?"

"Yeah! Be nice with him, first time."

The guys raised their glasses to him and the bartender insisted on offering him his first drink.

"Whisky? Damn, you start strong!" Theon teased

"Be grateful I didn't ask for vodka."

"To your first time here." He said, raising his glass

They toasted before they drank. Theon was amazed by the fact that Lancel actually drank his glass in one perfect shot. He wondered if he was a natural or if he drank in secret, avoiding shame on his uncle.

"So, what's the drama that makes you feel you are Bree Van de Kamp?"

Lancel stared at the ice cubes in his empty glass.

"Where to start..."

"I'll make it easier, how it is going with Joffrey?"

Lancel surprisinly had a small smile.

"It's getting a bit better actually. We talk a lot. Well, it's more him talking and me listening. I finally know now why he had that sudden change of heart. Me leaving, Margaery not able to hide her fear, Myrcella hiding things from him because she feared how he'd react... He doesn't want to change his personality entirely but he doesn't want the people he cares about being afraid of him. He... He and I went to see my uncle, his grandfather. Joffrey... Joffrey asked to be interned in a mental home. To discover why he acts this way, why he feels the way he feels, some urges and work them out."

Theon remained silent. Joffrey Baratheon admitting he had issues and wanting to work them out, so doing the mature thing and getting help? That was so unexpected he would have thought of an april's fool joke hadn't Lancel seemed so serious about it. He ordered two more glasses,

"He didn't ask his mother first?" He asked after a while

"Cersei had always closed her eyes on Joffrey's behaviour. He's her golden child."

Before Theon could reply, he added:

"Don't be too hard on her though. She has excuses for that. Joffrey isn't her first son. When she married Robert, they got a baby boy a year after their marriage but he died in infancy. Sudden infant death syndrom. It broke her heart so much we all feared for her life at some point. So when she got Joffrey, when it was certain he'd live, she doted on him. She loves Myrcella and Tommen too, but her story with Joffrey is special."

Theon nodded.

"Maybe it's because of that. To know he lives with the shadow of his older brother through him."

"He learnt of him when he was way into teenagehood. He was already troublesome back then."

"How did she react to his decision?"

"As expected, badly, this is why we sought Uncle Tywin's help. She thought we were trying to take her baby away from her. That Margaery brainwashed him. And that I betrayed her. She basically told me she hated me and wanted me dead. And wished my mother miscarried me."

Lancel had tried to chuckle but it was clear he was affected.

"Holy shit..."

"She forbade me from going to her house, from seeing Myrcella and Tommen, even from visiting Joffrey."

"I'm sure she didn't mean all of that, she was upset."

"Oh no, she meant every word."

Lancel drank his glass in another perfect single shot, then asked for another one.

"In the end, she too had to be taken for her own sanity, she was hysterical. I never heard my uncle give such an angry lecture at someone after she wished I was never born."

"What did he say?"

"That I was the reason he believed a little in the Seven Gods. I'm the Lannister miracle, remember?"

His voice seemed filled with irony.

"Born after sixteen years of marriage and thirteen years of unsuccessful tries, surviving childbirth and an illness that almost claimed my life before I could turn one."

"Well, you are his favourite brother's son."

"We wanted to be quiet, so the medias wouldn't be at our throat and with Cersei's explosion, it's an epic fail. All because I wanted to help Joffrey and help from my uncle because I'm powerless to do anything on my own."

Lancel was at his fifth drink. His cheeks seemed a bit red, and his eyes showed all the sadness he had kept inside. Theon could undertsand, at least he liked to think he understood. Lancel loved his family, he wanted to help his family, because he respected all the hard work his father and his uncle had put in restoring the family name, and with this story, he felt he failed them, that he was a failure himself. He ordered a sixth one.

"Sometimes, I wonder if Cersei was right. What difference would it have made if I died or if I was never born at all? Everything I try to do, I fail at doing so, or if I manage to do it, it's because I asked for help. I can't do anything on my own, I don't really have anything going for me and while I'm full of good intentions, I am so clumsy I mess up everything everytime."

His voice was low and so filled with his sadness Theon felt the urge to hug him, a urge he resisted.

"You managed to go to college." He tried

"Everyone can do that. If you have decent grades, you can attend. And for people who lack money, there are loans and scholarships. I was just lucky to be born wealthy as fuck and with a decent brain. Take my brother Martyn. He never got anything else but straight A's. Because he has an amazing brain."

"You strive for things. You work."

"Like everyone with a goal."

"You are handsome. You dated Amerei Frey, one of the hottest girls in high school."

"I just got lucky when my parents made me. And Ami... Ami was just being kind to consider trying with me."

"You made me change my mind on your family."

Lancel stared at him, clearly puzzled.

"I had always believed the Lannisters were haughty pieces of trash. But you... You showed me that you are way better than what people say of you all. Your family, while it has its issues like any other families, is so close together, so concerned by one another. You were concerned for a family member who made you feel like a prisoner for years, yet you forgave him and are now helping him. I cheered when my brothers died and thanked the Drowned God to have actually granted me a secret buried wish I was too ashamed and scared to admit I had in the first place. You're a great kid! You are more amazing that anyone gives you credit for, even yourself. Let Cersei spit her venom if she likes. Tommen and Myrcella, they can always go on campus and hang out with you. As for her house, I'm sure yours is pretty much the same, and lovely bonus, everyone in it loves you and is glad you're here."

"Thanks..."

Lancel raised his seventh glass.

"Cheers to that."

Theon toasted as he kept thinking Lancel was strong. He was strong, being able to carry all of it inside, never letting it show, not really, and putting on a good face. He was strong, being able to take in all these horrible words from a family member in the name of love, because he adored his family. He also kept thinking on his anger, why his rage towards Cersei didn't fade along with the drinks slowly starting to have an effect on him. He wanted to make her regret her words, how dared she say that to Lancel? To the guy his son trusted enough to open up to? If only she could have heard him, taking her defence, asking him not to blame her when she wished he was miscarried in the first place! He wanted to drown that bitch down the sea, let the Drowned God make her pay for her blasphemy. Why did he feel so protective of him? He knew he liked him, he was his friend so of course he wanted him happy, but to protect him? He sighed, drinking his last shot.

They were clearly drunk and it was highly time they got home.

Like Scarlett O'Hara, he'd think about all of that tomorrow.

To be Continued