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Jon: I’m having an existential crisis.
Sansa: What kind today, love?
Jon: The romantic sort.
Sansa: Ah.
Jon: How does my soulmate hate me already? It’s not fair. And if that’s the case, maybe all this soulmate business isn’t what we’ve been told.
Sansa: A government conspiracy to distract the people from social issues by making us believe in love?
Jon: Yes, exactly.
Sansa: But some of the greatest advocates for change - health care, women’s rights, trans rights, all our rights - are people who’ve met their soulmate.
Jon: Yeah, there’s that. But they never get much done, do they? It’s the same push and pull and five steps back for every step forward. They’re outlawing abortion in some states!
Sansa: I’d say that has more to do with men’s desire to control women than soulmates. Anyway, your words don’t carry the tone. It could be the most affectionate telling off said on this side of the Atlantic.
(Five minutes later)
Sansa: Jon?
Sansa: Jon, are you getting weepy?
Jon: I don’t weep. I consider the purpose of life outdoors for aesthetic purposes, and the wind makes my eyes well up.
Sansa: *hugs* It’ll be alright. Only two more days to go. I’ll meet mine tomorrow, and you’re just the day after. Maybe they’re my soulmate’s sibling… That would be something.
Jon: Something, lol. Can’t wait.
Jon slips his phone into his pocket and wipes at his eyes. He does get a bit weepy about it. Who wouldn’t? He doesn’t let himself get down on himself for his sensitivity over them considering some people even write full books rashing on their soulmates because of their words. He’s sure it’s awkward when they actually fall in love. Maybe at a book tour.
He sighs and gets up. He doesn’t even drive, so he can be sure not to crash into his soulmate’s car. Sansa says that’s silly, and he ought to live his life like he would without trying to be his very best for someone he doesn’t even know. She’s always right, but it doesn’t mean he listens to her as often as he should.
Take their completely platonic relationship. Or… mostly platonic.
Sansa doesn’t believe in waiting on anything. She’s dated, had her heart broken, had sex, all without her soulmate. She even shared a flat with a particularly foul-mouthed man, Harry, who she kicked out after he went in on Jon for being a sensitive twat. His words, not Jon’s. She laments losing the good sex sometimes but says she probably couldn’t get off with someone who talked to someone she loves like that anyway.
Then, a few months later, a leak sprung in Jon’s apartment. As he’d been staying at Sansa’s more often than not, she proposed that he just move in. The second bedroom could remain a workspace and they could have a good cuddle before bed, wouldn’t that be nice?
It’s torture is what it is. Jon wakes up with Sansa’s lavender-scented hair in his face, her legs tangled with his, her head on his chest, and he doesn’t see why they can’t be soulmates instead of whichever nameless ass is going to be mean to him straight off. They touch all the damn time - brushing each other’s hair from their eyes, a hand on the back as they move about the kitchen, a hand on the arm while they tell a story, and then, of course, there’s the outright cuddling during movies and getting ready for bed and when one of them has had a terrible time of it at work.
He’s drawn the line at anything sexual, though. He’s a virgin at 28, and he’s determined to stay that way until he meets his person. He doesn’t want to give his soulmate any reason to say these words to him which is foolish and completely pointless. Once they’re written, they can’t be changed. It’s done. His soulmate is going to call him that, and they’re going to fall in love anyway. Or he’ll end up part of one of those soulmate pairs where there isn’t love at all and it’s just some companionship bullshit. That’s all good and well for the asexuals, but Jon has always imagined copious orgasms, both the giving and receiving. He’s spent too many hours on the couch listening to Sansa go at it with her vibrator to not want to make her his soulmate sound like that someday.
Some asexuals fall in love and others have sex, he remembers reading. Maybe he could negotiate.
Besides, it could be worse, he reasons. If Sansa is right, and she usually is, he’ll have to watch her with some idiot for the rest of his life and not even be able to badmouth them to his own soulmate because it’ll be their sibling. Fuck.
So distracted is he by his miserable thoughts that he doesn’t look left and see the minivan barreling towards him.
It’s all very scary: the blurry look of the sky, people’s gasps of fascination and faint concern, the ambulance lights. He hasn’t stood up. Someone yelled at him not to try. He lifts his hand to his head, and it comes away bloody. So, he’d dying then. But he’s supposed to meet —
When he wakes up, he’s in hospital. The lights are bright and it takes his eyes several blinks to adjust. He’s scared and confused. He looks to the side, and Sansa is there. Her face is splotchy red, her eyes puffy, and she’s shaking her head down at her phone. She looks distraught, and he guesses he really is going to die. His breathing gets heavier, and he closes his eyes again to focus on the 4-7-8 breath count that helps him keep his anxiety at bay.
Sansa’s looking at him when he’s done. Her face is mutinous. She’s never looked at him this way before. He’d take a step back if he wasn’t lying down and, therefore, unable to escape.
“You absolute berk.”
He croaks, “You should be nice to me. I’ve been in accident.”
The fury falls off her face, and she stares at him with wide eyes. Her mouth falls open. His own eyes open further in response. She shakes her head with a chuckle. She stands up and pours him a cup of water, plopping the straw in it and bringing it to his mouth.
“I felt it buzz, but I wasn’t paying attention. I wasn’t exactly in the right state of mind to meet my life partner with you laid up in hospital.” She runs a hand through his hair.
“What?”
She lifts up her wrist and shows her zeroed out timer. Above it are the words: You should be nice to me. I’ve been in accident. “I should’ve realized.”
He looks down at his own wrist to his own zeroed out timer and the dark words that have haunted him for the past sixteen years. “Why did you have to call me a berk?”
“Because you are one,” she says, remembering her anger. “You died. Twice. They weren’t sure if you’d survive the night and all because you were so worried that your soulmate would be too much of an idiot to realize how fantastic you are.” Her hand clutches his. She is everywhere as she always is.
“This means —“ he clears his throat and tries again. “This means we can have sex.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Her eyes darken, and she looks down at his lips. He thinks she’ll kiss him now and maybe make one of those soft whimpers she does. “Not ’til you’re out of hospital, though.”
He leans back onto his pillows, fingers caressing hers. “So, I must have been unconscious. You saw me, and I woke up today and saw you. Who designs these timers anyway? We ought to file a complaint.”
“We ought to become anti-soulmate advocates. Not really anti, more… Don’t put your life on hold waiting for the one. We’ve been in love with each other for years. The only thing stopping us was the thought that we weren’t endgame. We could’ve had years together.”
“We did, though. Have years. Just without the, ahem, and I must not have become the right one for you until I died. That’s strange, that. Maybe I’ll be different now, more well-adjusted.”
“Doubtful. It wouldn’t make sense regardless. I find your idiosyncrasies endearing.”
“It could happen,” he argues.
And then she does kiss him. It is soft and tender and quick like she’s done it every day for the past ten years. The look in her eyes, though, that’s lingering and holds a promise. She lifts up and presses the call button, her other hand bringing his to her lips.
“Let’s hope not.”