Author's Note: Let me start by saying I am SO sorry this took a million and a half years to get posted. I realized that a lot of my writer's block was coming from trying to cram too many events into one chapter, so I've decided to split this story up into more parts and just write things in smaller chunks. Hopefully you'll never have to wait more than a month for an update again!
When Robb wakes up the next day, he realizes he has no bloody clue how fake dating is supposed to work. He's not even really sure how real dating works in a castle where you can't leave but once a month; it's not as though you can take someone out and show them off, or even go anywhere to buy them things.
There's more to it than that, sure, but Robb's never liked anyone enough to find out what that more is. Well… no one except Daenerys Targaryen, and obviously that can't happen now that Jon likes her and she seems to like Jon.
Margaery, fortunately or perhaps unfortunately, seems to know exactly how to handle their brand new situation. She swoops over to him at breakfast, where he's squished into the Gryffindor breakfast table near Jon, Arya, and a couple of other returning members of the Quidditch team.
"Darling! Good morning," she exclaims as she looks at the lack of seats and chooses to drape herself over his lap instead. She presses an enthusiastic kiss to his cheek, and the action is so unexpected that Robb feels the skin under her lips tingle slightly.
A dopey grin spreads over his face — she really is good at this, and there's an audience watching them so she can't even be smug about it for right now.
"Disgusting," he hears Arya mutter as he wraps an arm around Margaery's waist to help keep her balanced as she reaches daintily for a muffin. Robb does the same, because it's a little hard to use silverware when there's a pretty girl perched on top of you, but he can live without the finer breakfast foods for a day without grumbling too much about it.
It's hard to grumble when he sees the puzzled look in Jon's eyes and realizes that their plan is already working, after all.
It's a bit surprising to Robb, the way that Margaery seamlessly blends herself into their breakfast conversation. Jon and Arya are bickering about what Quidditch team will sweep the league this year, and she chimes in with a surprising amount of confidence. Robb never thought about her knowing her Quidditch before, but she does have three older brothers; maybe he should have considered it.
Arya complains about getting detention for being rubbish at Transfiguration, and Margaery has a wicked smile on her face as she tells her that she didn't much like transfiguration, either , until she'd realized how fun it could be to change her ex-boyfriend Joffrey Baratheon into a ferret someday. That had gotten Arya's attention, and suddenly she seemed to find Margaery more interesting and less disgusting than she did a few minutes ago.
His family seems to like this fake girlfriend of Robb's, and everything's going smoothly until Dickon Tarly stands up from the seat next to Jon, and Sansa slides into it, having come down late for her meal.
"Oh!" she squeals excitedly when she notices Margaery on Robb's lap. "I knew you were only complaining about her so much because you liked her! Oh my gosh, Robb, when did this happen?"
Robb blanches at the question. He'd thought he'd just need to show up, act like a doting fake-boyfriend, and that would be that. He hadn't considered that they might need to have an entire imaginary backstory so that the people around them would be satisfied with their coupling.
Margaery, however, doesn't miss a beat. She wiggles on Robb's lap in a way that makes him have to grit his teeth and think about something else entirely, turning to face Sansa directly. He can only imagine that she's got some dreamy, far-off look in her eyes, because that's how her voice sounds when she starts speaking.
"Oh, it was just magical . He found me by the lake yesterday — he's been doing that more and more lately, you know, only talking to me in potions class just wasn't enough for him anymore! And he admitted he simply couldn't stop thinking about me, and how I'd really just gotten inside of his head," she doted, her voice like a song as she turned back to Robb. She placed a delicate hand on his chest, saying, "I rather think he meant his heart , but I'm just ever so happy he's gained some sense and stopped pining for the wrong person when the right one was there all along."
Robb has to hand it to her; most of what she's said isn't even a lie . Just half-truths; he had been finding her outside of class, but it had been to talk about Jon and Daenerys. She had gotten inside of his head, but only because she'd pointed out the obvious connection between his cousin and his crush that he'd been too stubborn to see, and he hadn't been able to stop mulling it over. The last bit's an exaggeration, but it seems to make Sansa happy, and his sister sighs and says, "Who knew Robb could be so romantic?"
While the others are looking at Sansa like she's grown a second head, Margaery winks at him, and Robb thinks that maybe this plan isn't just to help Jon out. Maybe he and Margaery can really have some fun with this, after all.
Robb expects Margaery to leave and go back to the Slytherin table long before the meal is through, but instead, she lingers with him until it's done. It's only when they stand up and he's about to offer to walk her back to her common room that her usual gaggle of giggling girls arrive, whisking her away swiftly — though not so quick that she can't press a kiss to Robb's cheek before she flounces away with them, taking her spot at the head of the group like she always does.
"You've got lipstick on your cheek, you wanker," Theon laughs as he passes by, smacking Robb lightly on the cheek. Robb rubs at it, but the tingling sensation there lasts even as he does an about face and drifts towards the Quidditch pitch, where he and the team have morning practice.
Practice goes decently, although at one point Arya, who's a bloody Seeker , catches the Quaffle and whizzes it right past Robb's head as he guards the goalposts.
"Stop daydreaming about your girlfriend and get your head in the game!" his little sister shouts at him, and Robb rolls his eyes.
"I'm not thinking about Margaery, you're just not supposed to have the Quaffle! Is that even legal?" He bets Daenerys would know. It's the first time he's thought about the strikingly beautiful Slytherin girl in a few hours, but she's captain of a rival team, of course it makes sense to think of her now. Robb knows he should be working on banishing thoughts of her from his head, if his plan's going to work and he's going to recall his dibs in order to give Jon a shot with her. Still… then he really does go a little bit dopey, losing his concentration and nearly getting hit by a Bludger that Dickon Tarly sends whizzing by.
Practice wraps up, and Jon's the last one out of the showers. The rest of the team has dispersed, but Robb's still wrapped in his towel, sitting on a bench in the locker room and studying some of the plays they'd been running. It went well enough, but that was playing against each other — their opponents will be tough, and he's thinking of reworking some of them to make them even better when he can sense his cousin hovering behind him, like he wants to say something to Robb but doesn't quite know how.
Jon gets like this sometimes; it's nothing unusual. Most days they can joke around and take the piss out of each other, but when Robb has something on his mind, he moans about it often and loudly, making sure the whole family knows about his minor inconvenience. Jon's not like that; he keeps things to himself, he mulls them over, he overthinks them — or he broods , as Margaery likes to say. He's brooding now, and Robb turns to him with an amused look in his eyes.
"Spit it out, then," he says, as Jon rakes his bottom lip between his teeth then ignores Robb's invitation to speak. He heads to his locker instead, swinging it open to find his regular clothes, and Robb is just burying his head in his playbook again when Jon finally seems to find his voice.
"I thought you liked Dany," Jon finally says, and Robb waits, to see if there's a question that goes with it or if that's all Jon's going to say. Nothing else follows it, though, so Robb prompts, "And?"
"And now you're dating Margaery? You've been interested in Dany for ages, and now you just… forgot about it?" Jon sounds skeptical, and Robb surprises himself by thinking, what would Margaery do , if she were the one in this situation.
Everyone else has taken their relationship at such face value so far, has just easily believed that Robb would bounce from being interested in one pretty girl to being interested in another. Robb would almost be offended by it, if he weren't so worried that Jon was about to expose them for the frauds that they were.
"The heart wants what it wants," Robb grins, shrugging his shoulders as if it's the simplest explanation in the world. He thinks Margaery would be proud — he thinks he's coming across as smitten but mysterious at the same time, answering the question without over-answering it, and he looks at Jon expectantly, to see if he buys it.
Only Jon's being slow about getting dressed, like he doesn't want to meet Robb's eyes, so all he's met with is outline of his cousin's back as he buttons up the clean shirt he's putting on.
"Like it wanted Roslin, until you realized you still liked Dany more?" The nickname keeps rolling off of Jon's tongue, so casual, so like someone who's intimately acquainted with the girl that Robb's mostly only admired from afar.
And that's when it clicks. Jon isn't on to the fact that his relationship's a sham — he seems worried to get too attached to Daenerys, only to have Robb toss Margaery to the side and announce that it's still been the stunning blonde Slytherin who's had his heart after all.
He can't wait to tell Margaery that he's the brilliant one for a change, figuring out a matter of the heart all on his own without her help.
"Nah, mate, it's not the same. Margaery's — she's really something, you know? She might even be the one."
It's the kind of over-the-moon thing he hears guys say in the locker room all the time, the statement of a lovesick teen, and Robb thinks that he's nailed this. Jon seems satisfied with his answer, and he'll never have to know that Robb's just selling an act, that he never really believed he had some connection with Margaery that at all.
"Well, congrats are in order then, I guess," Jon says, finally dressed. He claps a hand on Robb's shoulder, and Robb grins up at him. He hopes he looks like someone who's happily in love — feeling smug that his plan is working has to be the same general kind of facial expression, right?
"Absolutely! I only hope Daenerys isn't too heartbroken when she learns she missed her shot. I really hope she finds someone else — you know, who'll be as crazy about her as I am about Marg," Robb hams, stopping himself just short of shooting Jon a wink.
"Yeah, I'm sure she's devastated, mate," Jon chuckles, shaking his head at Robb as he heads back up to the castle and leaves him with his playbook.
The rest of the day, Robb was always peering around the hallways of the castle, looking for Margaery. On his way in to lunch, he tried to spot her; on his way to the library to work on a Defense Against the Dark Arts essay, he was trying to spot her, he even craned his neck to try and see down a dungeon hallway when he went to meet Theon for a game of Exploding Snap.
"You're a bit pathetic, aren't you?" Theon chuckled, although there was something in his smile that made Robb think his jabs weren't meant in earnest. He seemed more amused than appalled, not like Arya with her fake gagging anytime someone — usually Sansa — tossed the word love around.
"It's okay, mate, I'll let you being all lovesick slide. Isn't that what we all want, anyway? A beautiful girl to look at us like we made the sun shine just for him?"
Robb blushes a little at that, because it's so ridiculous. The idea of him and Margaery Tyrell being that compatible, that she'd sit around like some simpering idiot thinking about him, and like he couldn't go five minutes without thinking of her?
But it was working, and he brushed Theon's comment off, saying, "Oh, what do you know about it, anyway?" as they headed towards the Great Hall to get a game in before dinner.
Margaery didn't turn up at dinner, either, and Robb was getting impatient, trying to find her. After dinner, he sat in the Gryffindor Common Room as Sansa and Jon played Wizard's Chess, scribbling on pieces of parchment, planning to send her a bloody owl if he had to. Owls could find the Slytherin Common Room in the dead of night, couldn't they? It felt like a good enough plan to Robb as he tried to write down his conversation with Jon earlier so that he could tell his fake-girlfriend just how brilliant the two of them were.
Only he couldn't capture just how smart he'd felt in that moment in words, and Robb kept tossing bits of parchment into the fire and starting over. Sansa looked up after a while, giggling at her brother's frustration.
"Are you trying to write Margaery a love letter? Oh, or are you writing a poem about her? I want to read!" Sansa gushes, because of course Sansa, with her soft romantic heart, would assume that Robb's just pining for a girl he saw at breakfast this morning.
"Shuddup," Robb protests, as Sansa flashes him puppy-dog eyes and begs to see. Instead, Robb tosses another piece of parchment into the fire and calls it a night, heading up to his dorm.
As he goes, he thinks he hears Sansa saying something about how wonderful it is that Robb's happy now, too, drift his way, but he closes the door behind him instead of lingering to find out what she's on about.
When Robb does finally find Margaery again, he's stumbling into the Great Hall for a late lunch after Arya's spent half the morning practicing hexes on him, and he almost misses his fake girlfriend, standing just outside of the entrance. She's not with her normal group of girls — the reason she slips past Robb's gaze is because she's standing with Sansa , giggling and gossiping like she always is, just with different company.
"There you are, darling," Margaery coos while Robb catches his breath, and she reaches out to take his hand, drawing him closer to her and his sister. "Sansa was just telling me all about your attempts to write me poetry last night, aren't you wonderful?"
The way she's gazing at him fondly, he almost forgets that it's fake for a second — that she doesn't really adore him, she's just acting. But then he does remember, and he has things he wants to talk to her about that his sister can't hear.
"Go away, Sansa," he grumbles, and his sister pouts at him.
"Oh, don't be like that! She thinks it's cute," Sansa protests, misreading his reasons for wanting her gone.
"She thinks I'm cute, and if you don't go away I'm going to start snogging her in front of you, even you don't love love enough to watch that," Robb declares, and Sansa lets out a noise that he can only describe as a squeal.
"She's right, boyfriend Robb is cute! You two have fun," Sansa calls happily as she heads down the hallway, off in the direction of the library, he's sure.
"Well that was lucky, I'm sure you would have quite hated it if you'd had to actually snog me in front of her," Margaery teases, not dropping his hand. It makes sense — people are still watching them, they'll expect a fledgling couple to be all over each other every chance they get, and Robb uses their linked hands as a way to tug her off towards somewhere private, his lunch completely forgotten.
By the time they're back on the bank of the lake, Robb finally drops her hand, only to wrap his arm around her instead. There are still people walking the grounds, he reasons — it's one of the last days where it'll be nice enough to be outside, and just because their classmates are too far away to hear doesn't mean they can't still see them. Margaery hums happily as she leans into his side.
"You've gotten quite good at this since yesterday," she teases him, and his chest swells with pride. She'd probably thought she was going to have to do all of the work, convincing people this was real between them, but Robb's not a total slack-off. He can do this, for Jon's sake if nothing else.
"If you think that's good, wait until you hear about my conversation with Jon. That was what I was trying to write to you about yesterday, it's not like I was sitting around waxing poetic about how your eyes are as brown as… I don't know, a chocolate frog or something."
Margaery laughs that melodic laugh of hers, saying, "Good thing, that. If your poetry was comparing my eyes to frogs of any sort, I'm not sure I'd have appreciated it very much. We'll have to find you some better metaphors, before you start writing a girl poetry for real."
"I'd write a great poem if I was trying!" Robb scoffs, feigning offense at her words. She may be his fake girlfriend now, but she's still Margaery Tyrell, still sometimes too annoying for words, and he can't let her be all smug, thinking he's bad at something.
"I'll look forward to it, then. If you manage to write one for me, I'll draw hearts all over it and frame it where Daenerys Targaryen can see it and realize what she's missed out on," Margaery informs him, matter-of-factly. The mention of Dany snaps Robb back to attention, and he shakes his head.
"Only if you tell her Jon wrote it for me," Robb reminds her, and Margaery nods her head solemnly.
"Oh yes, of course. It's much more believable that her handsome, brooding Potions partner would write poetry anyway," she agrees.
"Her handsome, brooding future boyfriend, don't you mean?" Robb corrects, then belatedly pouts, "And I'm supposed to be the handsome one, how ever will our fake relationship work if you're talking about my cousin like that?"
His feelings aren't really hurt, of course; Robb doesn't care if Margaery thinks he's the more handsome one or not. But he has already lost one girl he was interested in to Jon. Margaery could at least coddle him and let him think she's on his side.
"Of course , most handsome of all sixth year boys," Margaery laughs, leaning her head to rest on his shoulder as her brother Loras waves at her from across the lake. He's on the arm of some brunette boy, and Robb doesn't remember hearing that Loras was dating someone, but good for him.
"Handsome and brilliant, can't forget that," Robb says smugly. He's been brimming with excitement about his talk with Jon since yesterday , and he finally starts telling Margaery all about it, how Jon seemed to want to know more about their relationship to feel out if Robb was really over Daenerys, and especially focusing on how he'd hinted to Jon at the end that Daenerys deserved to be happy with someone who appreciated her the way Robb appreciated Margaery.
"Brilliant indeed," Margaery chimes, and he can't tell if she's serious or sarcastic, but for his own sake, Robb chooses to believe she's serious.
"They'll be together in no time, and then you won't have to keep cuddling up to me in your free time, isn't that great?" Robb asks, and he swears Margaery tenses slightly next to him.
"Well, we can't break up immediately after the two of them pair up, that'll be too obvious," Margaery informs him. And it makes sense, it does, but then she keeps going, gazing across the lake to where her brother and his beau are now kissing as she admits, "Besides that's not the only reason we're fake dating."
"That's news to me," Robb says, his eyebrows arched in surprise. Margaery uses the arm that's not tucked to his side to smack him lightly in the chest.
"As noble as it is that you want to take yourself out of the picture for the sake of your cousin's love life, I need something out of this relationship, too. I won't hold you hostage forever, of course, but well — even if Jon and Daenerys were to fall in love tomorrow, I'd hope you'd give this a bit more time for my sake," Margaery admits, and he thinks it might be the most sincere she's ever sounded. Normally they're all teasing and games, but not now, and Robb feels like an asshole, for not even asking before what she was getting out of this.
"Well, I guess you're not awful to be around," Robb jokes, trying to turn things light again. It falls flat, though, so he turns to look at her curiously. The softness in his own voice surprises him as he asks, "Why did you want to do this, anyway? I'm sorry I never asked."
Margaery sighs. "I'm not sure if you realize this, but my breakup with Joffrey was a bit humiliating . He was never particularly kind to me, but we were together for status, I supposed, and I thought that maybe… well, I thought with time he'd learn to treat me a bit better. And then he broke up with me, quite loudly , in front of the whole Great Hall last year."
Robb remembers hearing about it. He hadn't been there, that day, but Sansa had been horrified on Margaery's behalf, thinking that chivalry was dead and that true love was a lie if two people who she'd believed to be the most solid of couples had crashed and burned in such a public manner. He'd brushed it off at the time, but now he actually knew Margaery, and he could imagine how that must not have been very fun for her.
"So you want me to… make him jealous, or something?" Robb asks, not quite getting her logic, and she picks her head back up off his shoulder so that she can shake it in disagreement.
"No, no, nothing like that. I've gotten that out of my system already, by dating his uncle Renly over summer holiday," Margaery informs him, and Robb thinks he vaguely remembers that, too. Renly Baratheon's always seemed like a nice bloke, good-spirited whenever Robb's talked to him, and he and Margaery were in The Daily Prophet a couple of times over summer, photographed in the gossip columns that Sansa loves to read.
"So…" Robb tries again, still not quite following. "You're dating me to prove that your type's more than just Baratheons ?"
Margaery huffs lightly at that, but Robb swears she's fighting back a laugh more than anything. "There aren't many more Baratheons to choose from, thank you very much, although Myrcella is beautiful, it's a shame I didn't flirt with her in the first place," Margaery deadpans, and Robb agrees.
"I'd date her," he says, and receives another playful smack for it.
"Don't let other people hear you say that, they'll think my fake-boyfriend's looking to step out on me already," Margaery scolds him, but she sounds a little bit less burdened now, even if Robb still doesn't understand.
"So what was wrong with Renly?" Robb asks her, and she gestures across the lake, where her brother is still getting intimately acquainted with his companion.
" That's what's wrong with Renly. He wasn't actually interested in me, he just wanted to spend more time with Loras. He came out at the end of summer, and well — there he is, see for yourself."
Oh . So that's who the indistinguishable brunette with Loras is, and Robb feels a surge of protectiveness towards Margaery, wanting to keep her from having any more jerks using her.
"It's not that I was that attached to him, you know, we were very surface level — I was trying to be spiteful towards Joff, truth be told. But it's still… embarrassing. First to have a long relationship end the way it did, then to have someone I was spotted with so publically choose my brother over me. I'm very happy for him, but… well, maybe you can relate just the teensiest, tiniest bit?"
He thinks of Jon and Daenerys then, how he hardly even knows the girl but he's admired her and wanted her to admire him back. He spent all that time hoping, thinking that maybe he'd catch her eye, and then for it to be his cousin instead… It did feel lousy, when he thought on it too long, and Robb presses a kiss to Margaery's hair, hoping that Loras and Renly have seen.
"I promise you and I can have the world's least embarrassing breakup, when you're good and ready," he promises, and Margaery smiles warmly at him, a real smile instead of the teasing twitch of her lips he usually gets.
They linger there a while longer, Robb's arm wrapped tightly around her, before finally heading back up into the castle.