Chapter Text
There's a special place in hell for couples who engage in never ending games of dice while on vacation.
Margaery throws the last of her drink back when the rattling sounds again, and signals the waiter for a refill.
She's probably had enough, but her judgement isn't the best tonight. Maybe not for a while. Her gaze draws over the couples cuddled up in the spacious bar. Some sit snuggling on two-seaters, others sit in spacious arm chairs, hands connected between them like some spatial separation for even the duration of an evening is more than their love can handle.
Albeit those adjoined by the hips are still a ton better than the Olympic dice players behind her. Margaery is half a drink away from spinning around and telling them that if they need the world to know that they’re fucking anymore, they ought to just stare in their phones like normal people.
“What may I get for you, ma'am?”
Margaery peers up at the waiter who just cut his tip in half. “One more Appleton. Straight.” Another obnoxious rattling sounds in her back and has her eye twitch. “Make it a double.”
“Some water with that?”
And there goes the rest of his tip.
She shakes her head and her glare lets him scurry off like one of those squirrels hasting around in the snow covered trees outside.
Her fingers fiddle with her bag. She brought her laptop. She could get some work done. Albeit, with three rum and two wine in her system it’s unlikely she'll produce anything useful. Some volatile typing would be a nice counter to the dice clutter in her back, though.
Sadly enough she’s not so drunk that that wouldn’t feel inappropriate. Gazing out at a beautifully illuminated winter panorama, amidst the ambient sound of soft piano music and a fire crackling, whipping out a laptop to fine tune a PowerPoint presentation is inappropriate.
Margaery slides lower in the soft leather and lets her eyes wander over the people—couples, it's all couples, almost like this place requires a wedding ring to qualify for check-in—around her.
After two days here she recognises most of them.
There are the newlyweds, who occupy the two-seater in front of the fire place; cuddling into each other, like hikers buried in an avalanche, relying on body warmth for survival. Margaery gets hot flashes just looking at them.
At the table by the large window front sits an elderly old married couple who look like a stock photo of well-read academics. They both have their noses buried in heavy books and are on their fourth bottle of Dornish Red.
On the opposite end sits a middle-aged couple holding hands, her with her eyes glued on him, spotting the most nauseating blissful smile while he mansplains something. Second marriage, if Margaery had to guess.
Beyond the glaringly empty armchair on her left, two men are so enamoured with each other, they haven't come up from their PDA for more than a second in the last hour. Their quiet chuckles in between smooching sounds are right up there with the dice players in her back, and have her tempted to hurl a hand full of salted peanuts in their direction.
Her phone vibrates with a notification and draws her away from her silent judgment round. Wiping away the message from her mom that asks for photographs, her thumb moves on its own to the Instagram icon.
She scrolls aimlessly through her feed for a moment before she lands on the search button in a newly obtained muscle memory. Her name is right there as the last search result and Margaery taps it against all better judgment.
The picture is still there in her latest story. She presses down on the screen studying it for the utmost time.
There's probably a limit to how much of a grudge you get to bear, over your ex, the ex you dumped—three months before the wedding—dating someone new. But there should also be a limit to how soon you're allowed to post pictures with a new girlfriend after said cancelled wedding.
Well, ‘girlfriend’. Arianne Martell is hardly that.
Pursing her lips Margaery hits the share button, and types the words down that have been building in her mind since she first spotted the image earlier.
I honestly expected she had higher standards than influencer starlet for her PR rebound.
“Daenerys Targaryen fan?”
The voice and the hand setting down her glass of rum, startle her so much her thumb slips in sending the DM to her brother.
Margaery stares at the bunch of hearts dancing over the image, and curses out loud.
Her fingers tap through the stories to undo it, but in a brain-body coordination that’s not responding well to her choice of substituting dinner with drinks, she ends up liking another story and a post from Dany’s November vacation.
“No judgment here,” the waiter says holding the receipt out for her to sign. “I’m a bit of a Targie myself. She’s super-hot.” He studies her for a moment. “Has anyone ever told you, you sort of look like—”
Margaery shoves the signed receipt into his hands. “Thank you. That'll be all.”
His eyes grow wide, eyeing the name on the piece of paper. Not in horror, much to her dismay, but very much intrigued. “Oh my Gods. Are you...?”
“I told you it was her,” comes a whisper from her left.
Margaery glares at the guy who's abandoned his husband's lips just long enough to look at her.
“Sorry,” the husband says with a smile that's not as bashful as it could be. “We've just been wracking our brains the last two days why you look so familiar.”
“Can I ask,” other kissy guy chimes in, “is she as nice as she seems?”
His husband slaps his chest. “You can't ask her ex that,” he whispers.
“Is she though?” the waiter chimes in.
On Margaery's phone a notification pops up. A comment response from Loras.
Guessing this was supposed to be a DM?
Margaery blanches.
Her phone vibrates once more. A DM from Loras.
You realise that those comments are PUBLIC, right? Also - little harsh given you left her, don't you think?
Another reply to her comment is not far off. This one comes from a username she doesn’t recognise.
Leave them alone and let them be happy, you sorry bitch!
It doesn’t stop there. Of course it doesn’t. No one works faster than the online Dany-defence squad. Or is more biased.
Lol! Bitter much?
PR rebound?! Excuse me?!
Looks like someone can’t handle her ex moving on.
So glad she dumped your ass. She was always too good for you.
You two were such a lovely couple. So sad to see you stooping so low. Starting to see why she called off the wedding.
GO DIE, WHORE!
Very mature, Marg. I honestly expected YOU had higher standards.
That last one is from Nymeria and jolts Margaery out of her state of shock. With her phone vibrating away with notifications, she swipes over the screen as quickly as she can—which is not very quick in her panicked, drunken state of mind—and deletes the comment. Not that it's any use. She would bet there are several screenshots going up on Twitter this very second.
And if that bitch Nymeria saw it it's sure as hell under way to Obara. And Dany. Fuck.
Margaery blindly reaches for her rum and sculls it in a single gulp. Another bad judgement. It’s got her throat burning and her stomach cramping.
Margaery rises to her feet with what’s left of her dignity and her sense of balance and sends the three man, looking at her as expectantly, as if she was the scheduled entertainment for the evening, a smile. “Have a good night, gentlemen.”
The thick carpet muffles her steps leaving the bar. Everyone is still busy reading, holding hands, drinking and playing dice, and yet she can't shake the feeling of having every single pair of eyes in the place directed at her.
There is being single in a romantic hotel on your own. There's being single in a romantic hotel that you booked with your ex. And then there’s being single in a romantic hotel, with the world knowing that your world-famous ex moved on.
The ice cold air that enwraps her as she heads outside feels like a slap, leaves her yet a little more dizzy and a shitload more wasted.
She's too drunk for a spa visit. She knows she is. There's a fairly good chance she'll drown in the hot spring, but that’s a risk she’s happy to take on. Just for the potential headline.
And for the prospect of not having to turn on her phone ever again.
The buzzing of incoming DMs, comments, texts and emails hasn’t stopped for a second in the last hour. She turned it off, somewhere halfway of working herself through the minibar and stuffed it into the safe.
Looking over the lavish outside spa with its steaming array of hot springs and saunas, fills her with yet a little more scorn for those idiot couples cowering around the fireplace playing dice.
It’s completely empty.
Granted its late, but what’s the point of paying a small fortune for a wellness hotel with a twenty-four hour spa and sauna complex when you’re not going to use it?
If she was here with—if she was here as part of a couple she would know better than to let it go to waste for the sake of that lullaby of piano music.
She’s not here as a couple, but she’ll make most of it still. Setting down the bottle of champagne that’s her chosen companion for the night, she slips out of her robe, and heads straight to the hottest pool available.
With the peril of slippery slate steps successfully overcome, she dunks in up to her neck and rejoices how the hot water takes her breath away in the same way ice cold water does. It's hot, way too hot, enhances the queasy feeling in her stomach and head, has her heart race, but she still forces herself to sit it out. Boiling herself alive is by far not the worst possible outcome of tonight.
Twenty minutes in, she feels hot like never before in her life.
Arms resting on the cold rocks, seaming the edge of the pool, and sips of chilled champagne are the last thin threads averting a heat stroke, and there are stretched taut to the breaking point. She still makes no move to get out. It’s uncomfortable, it’s beyond what she can handle, but with her body at its literal limit, her brain has at last lost its capacity for entertaining those circling thoughts, and that’s nothing short of divine.
The champagne flute in hand, Margaery brings it to her lips when the sound of a door opening derails her from her next life-sustaining sip.
The first thing she sees is a pair of feet; nails painted in a soft red, slipping into a pair of the hotel-own fluffy slippers.
Next are a pair of legs.
There's nothing for a while after that.
Just toned, fair skinned, glistening legs.
A towel slips in place before she can see where those legs conclude. She gets a glimpse of ass cheeks peeking out beneath that towel and praises all Gods for the northern custom of nude sauna.
A good way above the legs and an ass that looks just as toned, a long neck cranes and the bluest eyes Margaery has ever seen in her lifetime zoom in on her.
Margaery smirk comes on its own accord. Sly and flirty like it’s still the second nature it once was.
Long-Legs (working title) brushes strands of red hair clinging to her flushed, damp face back. “You look a little hot.”
The corner of Margaery's mouth quirks a little higher. “I was just about to tell you the same.”
Okay, not her best line, but given she’s working on limited mental capacity, no her worst either.
Sadly enough, Long-Legs ignores it and steps to the edge of the pool. It takes the last of Margaery’s willpower not to bluntly sneak a look up that ridiculously short towel. One would think a hotel like this would provide decent sized towels. Not that she's complaining.
“You know you're not supposed to stay in there longer than ten minutes.”
“I can handle it.”
“The colour of your face suggests otherwise.”
“That’s just the effect scarcely clad pretty girls have on me.”
Long-Legs ducks her head and Margaery’s smirk grows yet a little more courageous. Chances are low that a woman like this is here on her own. There's probably a partner waiting for her in their room or still in that sauna. But a little ego boost, knowing that she still has it in her to make girls like her blush and smile, a little harmless flirting can't hurt.
Or maybe it can. Being the ex-fiancée of the most well-known face in the music industry she knows all too well how much it can hurt, but with her mind enwrapped in steam and her brain soaking in the content the mini bar she frankly doesn't care.
“I'm heading over to the plunge pool,” Long-Legs says, tucking her towel in place a little tighter. “Why don't you join me?”
The prospect of dunking herself in ice cold water is not very appealing. Other than those legs, which are divinely appealing.
Margaery braces both hands on the edge of the pool and pushes herself up. What was an elegant, mermaid letting the waves carry her up on a rock motion in her mind, comes out closer to seal flopping onto the shore. The hot water turned her limbs into rubber and the booze does the rest.
She saves what she can save with a knee perched on the edge of the pool, and Long-Legs gets a hold of her arm in the very second she can lose her balance and tumble back.
“Give it a moment,” Long-Legs tells her, fingertips at her wrist. “If you get to your feet too fast you'll keel right over.”
There's a metaphor for the state of her life somewhere in there.
To be fair, as far as rock bottom goes, she could do worse than kneeling naked in the spa of a five star hotel.
Long-Legs appears not quite as content, checking her pulse. “Wait here. Don’t move,” she tells her—as if getting up was a physical possibility. She returns with a steaming glass of tea a minute later. “Here. Drink this.”
Margaery needs a moment to tear her gaze of the slate tiles. Between her body coming down from a near heat stroke, the numerous drinks and the scarcely clad redhead it’s hard to tell what’s the core root of her dizziness, but she doubts tea will help with either.
She gives Long-Legs a small shake of her head. “I think I'm warm enough.”
“It helps cool your body down.”
That might be, but the warm sugary beverage still has her grimace harder than the rum she downed earlier. Long-Legs smiles amused and doesn't let her get up before she's finished the entire glass.
Her hands are soft helping her stand, and Margaery thinks that it's been too long since she had physical contact with someone in this state of undress.
“Feeling okay?”
Margaery draws a tentative breath, because it's been even longer since a pair of eyes sparkled at her like that. “Still hot,” she quips.
Long-Legs smiles and nods to the plunge pool. “Let's see what we can do about that.”
“But you see that's just it,” Margaery exclaims, bringing the champagne flute to her lips. “She could have—If she wanted. It was all hers. The house. The fame. The privileges. The money. I could become the world's best paid publicist to ever exist—frankly for a while there I was—but it would never measure up to just a portion of her wealth. Or success.”
Propping an elbow on the edge of the jacuzzi, Margaery shifts so the nuzzle hits that tense spot at the base of her spine, and shakes her head staring down at the bubbles. Her gaze lingers on the smaller ones rising in the glass for a moment before shifting her focus to the bigger ones tickling her skin.
“You know what,” she goes on. “Come to think of it, it was worse than dating the president. Presidencies end. And afterwards if you don’t do half bad as First Lady you can strive for some political role yourself. This shit-show would have been the rest of my bloody life.”
Long-Legs—whose given name is Sansa, but Margaery’s brain is thoroughly stuck on Long-Legs, she likes Long-Legs, Long-Legs seems very much appropriate—waits for a long moment before she speaks. Either because she's contemplating, or because she isn't sure the rant is actually over.
“So that's why you broke up with her? The power imbalance?”
“I guess, yeah.”
“You guess? Breaking up with the most successful female artist of our time, one would think you're sure.”
“There!” Margaery says pointing her champagne at Sansa. “That! Just that. The most successful bloody artist of our bloody time. Nothing, absolutely nothing, I'll achieve will ever measure up or be as important. I saw myself five years from now, you know, and still trotting behind. Readily getting into the stirrups to carry our kids, because no matter what I achieved or would ever achieve would ever measure up to her career.”
“That would be difficult.”
“Algebraic geometry is difficult,” Margaery mutters into a generous swig of bubbly. “Getting out of that was the only logical decision.”
“Why get into it in the first place? I mean, as her publicist you knew what you were getting into?”
“Who's side are you on, Long-Legs?”
Long-Legs stretches out in the jacuzzi, bracing those neatly painted toes on the opposite side. “Her music has gotten me through some pretty bad times.” She grins. “While you've caused me nothing but trouble so far.”
Margaery scoffs into her glass. “Why of course you're a fan.”
Sansa smiles at the revulsion in her tone. “I’m sorry?”
She waves her off, craning over the edge for the bottle. “I can't even blame you. I was a fan. I felt raised into heaven getting that job as her publicist. And then she started writing songs for me, about me...”
She halts with the bottle propped against the glass and brings the bottle to her lips instead.
“Slow there,” Sansa prompts softly, trying to take the bottle from her.
Margaery shakes her head. Fuck slow. “The really fucked up thing is that this is just the start. The next song she’ll write about me will probably win her a bloody Grammy.”
“You think she'll write about the breakup?”
“I’d be shocked if she has less than five songs recorded to date.” Margaery tilts her head back in another small sip. “In a good six months I won't be able to go to the supermarket without listening to all the ways I wronged her and disappointed her every hope and dream.”
“You could always sue her for royalties.”
“Can't. NDA covers that.”
“Seriously?”
“They added that in the third revision.”
Sansa stares at her. “There're revisions?”
“Annually. Like the world's shittiest anniversary present.”
“So all you just told me...”
“...has me bankrupt if you breathe a single word to anyone.”
“That's a lot of trust to put in a stranger,” Sansa says smoothing her hands over the water surface through a small smile.
“Yeah well.” Margaery shrugs. “I'm drunk and you have nice tits.”
A laugh bubbles out of Sansa. “And here I thought you considered my legs my best feature.”
“I can’t see your legs right now.”
Her gaze drops to the swell of breasts looming right beneath the water surface. There isn't much to see there either, but she got a fairly good look earlier during the body rub and the steam bath. Plus, the smile that meets her when her eyes find Sansa’s again isn’t half bad either.
Sansa shakes her head, still smiling, still spotting that most gorgeous blush. “You're trouble.”
“You have no idea, Long-Legs.”
With a motion rendered somewhat swift by the slippery bench, Margaery sets the bottle aside and scoots closer. Not quite close enough to touch, but not missing much either. Blue eyes watch her closely, not unintrigued. “Care to take this somewhere more private?”
Sansa quirks her brows, not unintrigued once more. “I really shouldn't.”
More encouraged than she should be by the words—shouldn’t, isn’t can’t—Margaery touches fingertips to her shoulder. “Why not?”
“Because you’re drunk.” Sansa returns, a soft flutter to her lids when Margaery skims over her collarbone. “Not to mention clearly hung up on your superstar ex.”
“I'm not hung up on her. Other than what her PR machine wants you to believe—I broke up with her.”
“And yet you've been talking about her non-stop for the last two hours.”
Margaery shifts yet a little closer, the lengths of their arms pressing together. “I could have told you all about the TED talk I’m to give in two days, but I doubt that would have left you nearly as impressed.”
Sansa's draws a shallow breath. “TED talk sounds pretty impressive.” Her thigh presses against Margaery’s beneath the water. “What topic?”
“Crafting the perfect public persona in PR.”
“How will you handle that without violating your NDA?”
“With very,” Margaery breathes a kiss to her shoulder, “very careful, lawyer approved wording.” She peers up at her. Finding that soft, slightly intrigued smile looking back at her, she dives in once more, and sets an open mouthed kiss to the crook of her neck. She tastes like salt water and smells of that lemon body rub. Margaery licks and sucks until a soft moan falls from Sansa’s lips—and yeah she still got it.
“You’re trouble,” Sansa breathes heavily.
Her hand slings around Sansa's waist beneath the water and traces the subtle muscles beneath soft skin. “I didn’t get the world's most famous woman to sleep with me, just by my superior skill as a publicist.” She grins resting her chin on her shoulder. “Though that too.”
“Your humility is astonishing.”
“I don’t do imposter syndrome.” She cradles Sansa's waist. “I know what I'm good at.”
“I have no doubt.”
She smirks, nuzzling her nose to Sansa's cheek. “Come up to my room?”
Sansa's chest expands under her embrace. “I shouldn't.”
“Shouldn't or can't?”
“You're drunk.”
Margaery places a long lingering kiss to her neck, one that she knows has her toes curl beneath the water surface. Then she pulls away, pushing to her feet. She stands there for a moment, water swapping and bubbling around her hips. Sansa's eyes remain on her face for a good two seconds before they drop lower.
With a smirk, Margaery grips the cool metal of the stainless steel banister. “All the more reason not to let me walk back all on my own, wouldn't you say?”
The persistent ringing of a phone pulls Margaery to consciousness. Though perhaps consciousness is exaggerated. Vaguely aware of her physical existence is more fitting. She only moves with the goal to make the ringing stop, probes over the night stand for a small eternity in search for her phone.
The phone is nowhere to be found.
It occurs to her after a small fight with sheets, wrapped around her like the world's most peril swaddling, that it’s not her ringtone either. It's the phone over on the desk. The landline.
Folding a pillow over her head drowns it out a bit. But not enough to go back to sleep her hammering head demands. The ringing doesn't do much for the hammering either.
It still rings after the test to her patience and motor skills untangling herself from the sheets turns out to be.
“What?” she barks into the phone more aggressive than one should standing butt-naked in front of wide open curtains.
“Good morning to you too.”
Nausea surges up in her hearing the last person she wants to talk to with this hangover from hell.
“What do you want?”
Obara clicks her tongue. “Not to be working on a Sunday morning.”
“You picked the wrong profession, sweetling.”
“You really think you're in the state to lecture me about our profession, Marg?”
Margaery drops on the cold wood of the desk chair. She won't have that child who she taught everything she knows, lecture her about a profession she has a total of five months in experience in. “What do you want?”
“I guess you know why I'm calling?”
Reaching into the mini bar for a bottle of water, it slowly comes back to Margaery. That damn comment on Instagram. Fuck.
She brushes her hair back, and glares at the wall. “Need my advice now you have some real work on your hands?”
“Funny,” Obara drawls. “I'll need you to post an apology. Publicly. Nothing extensive. Just the standard, you're happy for her, wish her all the luck in the world, will forever be grateful for the great time you had together, should do.”
Margaery huffs. “Go fuck yourself.”
“You breached your NDA.”
“I hit a wrong button. I thought I was sending a DM. And deleted it as soon as I noticed.”
“A DM discussing your relationship is considered a breach of your NDA.”
“It's not.”
“Want to take that up with a lawyer? Because the papers are ready to be filed.”
“You won't keep your job very long, if you're only move is to threaten with lawyers as soon as something doesn’t go according to plan.”
“You have until tomorrow at noon,” Obara says in that bratty-kid tone. “Or I'll make sure you don't only have a lawsuit but every reporter in the closer area at your heels.”
“Fuck you.”
Margaery slams the receiver down. A few more vile curses die on her lips, spotting a head of red hair sticking out from white sheets and the pair of tired blue eyes watching her.
Suddenly the prospect of a lawsuit seems ridiculously insignificant as the other half of her night rushes back to her.
The spa. Hot springs. Long legs. Long-Legs. Dumping her entire messed up relationship on a complete stranger. Mounting said stranger in the jacuzzi. Inviting her back here and... Fuck.
Just... fuck.
Sansa quirks her eyebrows. “I'd say good morning, but that didn't sound good whatsoever.”
Margaery slumps, rubbing a face that feels swollen in the most unflattering way. “Yeah, no,” she says with a pained smile. “My successor just isn't very good at her job.”
Sansa sits with her arms wrapped around her knees and takes her in silently, maybe waiting for another word vomit like last night. Margaery has no intention of providing that. In the light of day the degree of talkativeness from last night has her all kinds of horrified.
Even worse are the images flashing through her mind. Stumbling into the hotel room, propping herself on the bed, with some more of that ridiculous talk that she considered sexy last night and that has her wish the ground would swallow her whole this morning.
Even worse is that Sansa's even prettier in light of day. She's someone Margaery would hope to have a shot with, who she'd pull up her a-game for. Last night decisively wasn't that.
“Listen,” Margaery starts, “I think I owe you an apology. I wasn't quite myself last night and if I made you uncomfortable in any way I'm deeply sorry.”
A small smile plays on Sansa's lips. “You didn't.”
“No?”
“I’d hardly still be here if you had.”
That lets Margaery dare a few tentative steps towards the bed. “Good. I'm.. that's good.” Her eyes catch a few of the hickies on Sansa's neck. “I'm mortified to ask, but did we...?”
Sansa eyes her amused. “I didn’t think you were that drunk.”
“I wasn't. I think.”
“We didn't,” Sansa confirms. “Not for a lack of trying on your end.”
Margaery groans burying her face in her hands.
“Aside from that it was all rather... Well not quite PG, but not fully X-rated either.”
“I'm really sorry.”
“You don't have to be. I had... last night was a lot of fun after a thoroughly shitty day. If anything I should thank you.”
Margaery searches her mind, for any details to what made Sansa’s day bad, but finds she doesn't know. She doesn't know much about her at all. Other than her name. Because she spent the night dumping her life story on Sansa, without even bothering to ask her ... anything.
“How about breakfast?” Margaery offers, grabbing the room service menu from the nightstand. “I can order us something.”
“I'm afraid I can't.”
“Please don’t tell me you have a husband and kids waiting in your room.”
Sansa laughs. “I don't. Just an important appointment.”
Margaery frowns. “It's Sunday. And you're on vacation.”
“I wish.” Long legs swing out of bed and the rest of her body disappears under her fluffy robe. “Maybe I'll see you in the spa tonight?”
Blue eyes looking at her with that soft spark have Margaery smile despite her immense disappointment. “Count on it.”
Sansa sets a chaste kiss to her cheek, that sends a surge of heat through her entire body. “Pleasure meeting you, Margaery.”