Bond Brothers

Robbie makes and takes a bunch of inadvisable phone calls

A/N: Some WARNINGS in the End Notes!

Welp, my pants are officially on fire. Remember when I promised you a fluff story? In fact, I'm pretty sure my author's note after Robbie and Matt's post-heat confrontation assured you guys that it was the darkest part of the fic. Boy, I really ate those words. At this point, I've gone complete AWOL from the original story. It was under 35K too!

Anyyywayyyy, BIG THANKS to BeanSpouse for a super late-night beta reading sesh. Poor Beans can't catch a break. Our thoughts and prayers are with all legumes at this time.

Also, a big thanks to the rest of you lovely readers and commenters and voters!

Robbie spent the weekend packing up his flat.

Shuffling through the evidence of his years-long relationship with Matt wasn't the awful task he'd been anticipating.

Sure, he'd cried. A lot. But it wasn't so terrible.

He'd snagged some moving boxes from his neighbour who'd recently moved in herself (she'd said something about the rent being an absolute steal, which Robbie decided meant she was either the richest legal secretary to ever live, or she had a way nicer landlord than he and Matt did) and set about boxing up the evidence of his life there. Matt's possessions, furniture included, went to one side of the flat, and Robbie's things to the other.

As for the personal mementos from their relationship that neither of them had any real use for? Robbie couldn't bring himself to toss them. They went into a cardboard box that he pushed to Matt's side of the mess. He spent Saturday night rifling through the box after a (surprisingly brief) day of packing. Sweet notes they'd written to each other over lunch during their college days, cheap gags they'd exchanged for Valentine's Day, the pricey gifts Matt's family had given Robbie over the years that he'd made a point to wear even though he'd privately found them all rather gaudy. Robbie allowed himself the time to shed his tears over the collection, and then left it for Matt to decide what to do with.

If the alpha threw the box out without a second glance, at least Robbie never had to know about it.

Ultimately, packing up the remnants of their relationship hadn't been so bad, because it paled in comparison to the phone call he'd had to make first thing Saturday morning, while still mildly hungover and reeling from the information bomb Polly had dropped on him the night before.

"Hey," Robbie had murmured into his phone, bundled up on Matt's grey couch under a pile of his own clothes he'd barely started sorting through. "Thanks for taking my call."

"Yeah," Matt had replied, sounding extremely uncomfortable but committed to politeness nonetheless. "What's up?"

Robbie gnawed on his lip, anxiety swooping low in his belly. He'd practised what he was going to say a thousand times, but there was no helping the way his hands trembled and his voice hitched. He hugged a handful of clothes childishly and buried his head in them as if he could hide from his own phone.

"I'm moving my stuff out of the flat this week," he said hesitantly, his eyes peeking out to rest on a tiny snow globe across the room that they'd bought together just last Christmas. Robbie had liked the bright colours of the little houses inside it, and Matt had liked the way the tiny families looked so happy together. Matt always had been a sucker for the idea of perfection. "The rent's due again soon, so I'll be letting the lease expire," Robbie added, purposefully keeping his tone neutral, even if it did waver unintentionally. The urge to make a remark about being homeless because his roommate wouldn't be paying his half of the rent and hadn't granted him the courtesy of warning him was surprisingly close to the tip of his tongue.