Just the Same
Lestappen x Reader (Part 1)
Summary: After many years, you finally found your soulmates, but what happens when they're in an already established relationship and you become the odd one out?
Word count: 4.7k
Tags: Female reader, established Lestappen, soulmate AU, angst, daddy issues, trust issues, max is a lil mean (he's overwhelmed), not beta read
Relationships: Lestappen x Reader
Notes: Thank you so much to the anon who sent this request! I'm sorry it took me so long to finally get to it, but I was writing it slowly. Anyways, here it is, part 2 is halfway through so let me know if you want to be tagged and what you would like to see in it! Comments and feedback are appreciated.
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You always had that emptiness of missing your soulmate. It was an uneasy feeling, not too painful, but still it was a feeling that was always lingering there, somewhere deep down. It got worse as you got older, and you saw your friends, family, everyone eventually finding their halves, falling in love, getting married.
It got particularly hard during holidays, when you’d sit around with your family and their soulmates, and you’d be all alone, wishing and praying you’d find yours.
Eventually, you’d find yourself browsing the government website where they talked about what to do if you never find your soulmate, support groups and the last resource, medicines to deal with soulmate absences. Many people lived a good, healthy life even if they never got to meet their soulmate and you started to try and make peace with the fact that you never might.
You laid awake, staring at the soulmate tattoo on your wrist. It was a monogram of your initial and the initial of your soulmate, but it only had your initial and it’d be complete the moment you and your soulmate first touched. You had looked at your parents’ tattoo many times when they weren’t looking, too busy staring lovingly into each other’s eyes to notice you.
-
You were walking the shore, it was a warm summer night, you had just watched the sunset by yourself, sitting on a bench with an ice cream cone. You felt the hairs on the back of your neck prickle, and you quickly looked around trying to find the reason for that strange feeling. The pier was considerably full, people coming and going, a lot of locals and tourists, so it was hard to tell where that feeling came from. You kept walking and looking around when you stumbled into someone, hard. So hard it had you falling on your ass on the ground. You looked up to see one of the most handsome men you had ever seen.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” He said politely, offering a hand to help you up, but as soon as he pulled you up, you felt your soulmate mark tingle, and when you looked, a letter C showed up on top of your own initial, and as you looked at his wrist, both of you shocked, your initial showed up on top of his own monogram.
“Oh, my god…” You whispered, noticing his monogram wasn’t just his initial, it had another one too, an M, “What…?”
“I think… we might be soulmates…” Charles said with a startled giggle, “I’m Charles, by the way.”
You said your name back and offered a hand, exchanging a handshake and it felt good, a special kind of warmth spreading through your chest.
“I- I thought I already had found my soulmate…” Charles said, suddenly, “but…” He touched his own tattoo, “we might be a trio.”
Charles smiled as he offered his hand, and you took it, letting him guide you wherever. It didn’t matter when the feel of his touch was so soothing, so right.
Trios of soulmates aren’t common, but they’re not exactly rare. You had met a few through your lifetime, and your own grandparents from your maternal side were a trio of soulmates. Charles seemed eager, happy, and you allowed yourself to be just as giddy, he spoke fast, in a heavy accent looking like he was besides himself for having found you.
“I… I had always had this lingering feeling that something was amiss, even after I met Max, but I thought it was just my mind playing pranks on me… Oh, by the way, Max is my boyfriend and soulmate, and he’s probably yours too!” Charles was speaking a hundred words per minute and you could only smile at him, as he invited you to his car, to drive you to his boyfriends’ place, for you guys to meet because he could bet Max’s initial would join his on your soulmate mark.
When you arrived at a fancy building, Charles guiding you to the elevator, you two looked at each other. Charles was flushed and breathless, looking happy.
“Max, mon coeur!” Charles called out as he dragged you into a big apartment, your hands intertwined together.
Max was a big guy, blonde, tall and handsome and his gorgeous eyes had your breath hitching on your throat when they met yours for the first time, the same feeling of the hairs on the back of your neck prickling. He had a confused face as he came out of one of the rooms, his eyes immediately dropping to Charles’ hand around yours.
“What is this, Charles?” His face was stormy, like he was getting angry.
“She is it. She is our soulmate…” Charles said, tugging you forward, closer to Max and you could see his contempt, like he didn’t like that one bit, it made you cringe internally, wanting to look good, to leave a good impression.
“I don’t think this is right…” Max said, carefully picking his words. You could sense his hesitation but you could also see how he was being careful to not hurt Charles’ feelings.
“It is, look!” Charles showed his soulmate mark, your initial now engraved on top of the C and the M.
Charles, for his part, looked so excited that he failed to notice the tension, Max’s hesitation and you with your stomach dropping to your feet. You felt crushed, the giddiness and the happiness you had felt meeting Charles now dampened by Max’s evident displeasure with all of it.
Despite being painfully aware of Max’s dislike of the situation, for a while you thought it was just the suddenness of everything, of him being used to only Charles as a soulmate. You attributed it to him being caught by surprise.
So you gently removed your hand from Charles’ and offered it to Max in a handshake. He hesitated, taking a couple of steps back, pretending to be busy with something else. You dropped your hand back to your sides.
“It’s nice to meet you,” you said with a tentative smile, despite the weird feeling of a knot in your chest tightening, making your insecurities bloom, your eyes meeting Max’s again.
-
Slowly, you started to be included in their routine. You knew that if it were by Charles’ decision, you’d probably have moved on day one. But you needed the space to adjust to the idea, you spent so long thinking you would never find your soulmate that finding out there were two of them was a little unnerving. And also, to let Max adjust to your existence, as he seemed a little reluctant still.
So you started getting to know each other every Wednesday night, when you usually went to their places, and you ordered food and chatted about life, about childhood, family, everything and anything.
And so, Wednesday dates became twice a week, and then two dinners and a lunch, and soon, you were part of each other’s routine. An intricate routine was built as it went, your meetings, your dates, they flying you out to the places they went for pre-season.
Despite integrating into each other’s lives fairly quickly, you still were keeping a safe distance, you had not kissed or even made love yet. You knew you had to take things slow, adapt to the change as much as you wanted to jump in head first. Max was… trying. You could tell he was trying, but he had a hard time adapting to abrupt changes. Charles called you over one time, alone, to explain that Max needed some time and patience, and even when they first got together, he had a hard time adjusting to a soulmate, to feeling them, to get familiar with the person and the avalanche of emotions that came with them.
It took a couple of weeks for Max to touch you, for your soulmate marks to grow complete.
You were flying overnight with them in Max’s private plane, you, reading a book in one of the seats, Max across from you on his phone. Charles was long gone, lying on the bed inside the other room, sleeping soundly for a couple of hours, through the night flight. You could feel Max’s gaze on you every few minutes, sometimes you looked back at him with a lazy little smile. You had put on a few of your PTOs to accompany them to the first race of the year, to try and get yourself immersed a little more in what seems to be a great part of their lives.
You tried staying awake, shouldering through the pages of your book, forcing yourself to read it. But the exhaustion was slowly creeping up, the letters starting to blur.
You blinked, and when you realized, you were waking up, feeling your soulmate mark tingling slightly. You looked up, Max was carrying you, the strong scent of his cologne filling your lungs, his warmth around you as you blinked again, confused.
“Sleep now, I’m taking you to bed,” He muttered, and it was the softest you’d ever heard his voice address you as.
You didn’t say anything as you felt him place you on a soft bed, low lights as you closed your eyes, feeling Charles’ warmth again. After a little sleepy scooting, you were half asleep between both Charles and Max. Charles’ legs between yours, his cheek against your shoulder on the right side, Max to your left side, pulling a blanket on top of you three. His arm reached across you, laying on your middle and his hand landing on Charles, like he wanted to feel both of you in your arms. Before fully falling asleep, you stared at his wrist, your initial finally joining his and Charles’ on his skin.
With a soft smile, you felt the happiest you’d ever felt, cocooned between the two loves of your life, relaxed as you fell asleep.
When you woke up again, a few hours later, Max wasn’t in bed, he was back at his seat, talking on his phone, while Charles was awake beside you, lazily doom scrolling, his legs still tangled with yours.
“Slept well, mon coeur?” He asked as he noticed you waking up.
“Yeah, I did…” You mumbled, rubbing your face, “Did Max sleep?”
“Yes, for a couple of hours. He doesn’t sleep much during flights. Why?”
“Did you see?” You whispered, almost giddy as you raised your hand to show him your wrist, mark now complete as Max finally touched you. Charles smiled softly, pulling your hand and placing a gentle kiss to your soulmate mark.
“See? He’s warming up…” Charles whispered back, eyes shining.
When you arrived in Australia, going straight to the hotel, smiling with Charles as Max made the check-in, your stomach dropped when the receptionist talked about “Two rooms”, not just one for you three. You gulped as Max gave you one of the keys, took the other one as he took Charles’ hand in his.
Your eyes dropped to their hands, and when your gaze met Charles’ he knew, you could see the same hurt in his eyes as in yours. You followed them into the elevator, and your room was right beside theirs. With a lump in your throat, you didn’t trust yourself to look at them one last time before entering, so you just didn’t, the first tears falling down your cheeks as the door clicked shut behind you.
After a quick shower, you sat in bed, wrapped in a robe telling yourself that this was fine. You’ve met them only a couple of months before, it was natural that they’d take time to adjust to you. Despite reading and hearing all about things like once you meet your soulmate, you never want to be apart from them, nor them from you.
It’s fine, you whispered to yourself again.
Around an hour later, Charles texted you to get ready for breakfast, and the puffy of your eyes was long gone as you dressed in a casual little dress and went downstairs to the restaurant to meet them.
Both were already there as you joined, walking towards them, you noticed how they checked you out, and that was almost enough to forget the fact you weren’t sharing a room with them, you chatted some more over breakfast. Despite Max being still slightly distant, you could see he was trying. Trying to talk to you, actively listening to your answers, joining in conversation.
Later that day, they ended up having to go to media day, which they asked if you wanted to go with. They said there wasn’t much going on, and for that exact reason you decided to go, it’d be better to get around the paddock on a day that it wasn’t full of people.
They showed you around, and that moment Max was slightly more talkative than he’d ever been, probably because it was a comfortable subject for him, talking about racing, about cars and tracks. You loved hearing him explain, talk about his passion, what he did on the daily and his routine there.
At some point, Charles left to record something with his team, but you and Max barely noticed his absence as you listened to the champion talking. Then, someone found you two and said Max had to go.
Max left you at the hospitality.
“Will you be okay here?” He asked, reaching into his pocket.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. If anything happens I’ll text you or Charles,” You said, and he held up your paddock passes, gently placing the string around your neck.
“If anything happens, you can go back to my room. You remember how to get there?” Max said, pulling your hair atop the strings of the passes.
“Yeah, I’ll be okay. Thank you, Max.” You whispered with a soft smile and he nodded, seemingly hesitating to hug you or something like that. You watched as he stepped back and went with the team person.
You ate, drank and opened your ipad to do some work, sitting in a far corner of the hospitality room, hoping the headphones would tune out the loud noises of the paddock.
Charles found you first after a couple of hours, he crouched before you, hands on your knees, looking soft.
“Tired of waiting?”
“I’m okay,” You said, reaching for him, gently brushing his hair that was out of place.
“Do you want to go back to the hotel? We might take longer here…” He offered, and you hesitated, despite wanting to stay, you were still somewhat sleepy from the overnight flight.
“I guess I could use a nap, and I might need to go shopping. I didn’t bring many weather appropriate clothes.”
Charles had a driver take you back to the hotel, after a short nap, you went out in the city to buy some clothes for the following days. During your shopping spree, you ended up going to a salon to do your nails, and on a whim, you decided a change would do you good and the boys might appreciate it, and you had the hair stylist darken your hair, and you chopped it off, shoulder length, a cool and fresh haircut.
When you arrived at the track, Charles was the first to greet you, a gentle smile as addressed your new look.
“Oh? Changed your hair? It looks nice, it’s so pretty.”
“Thank you, I thought it was about time I tried something new…” You preened under his praise, turning to Max, hoping to please him somehow.
“You look good,” He said with a little smile while Charles rolled a strand of your hair on his finger, softly feeling its texture.
You don’t tell them you did it to somewhat look more like Charles, to get Max to like you. And the way their eyes lingered softly on you… it meant something. Something that had you feeling a nice little warmth in the pit of your stomach.
Over a couple of days, you three grew more comfortable around each other, especially as you were the one coming into an already established relationship. So you really wanted them to naturally grow easier around you, you didn’t push, but every morning you had breakfast together and dinner too. You liked it, the routine, the softness of easy conversations about life, learning more about theirs, making plans for the future.
That same weekend, the race was… bad. Really bad for both of them, but especially for Max. Charles had started P5 and unfortunately ended P7. But Max… Had started P2 and due to a couple of race incidents and one 10 second penalty, ended up P13. According to what you heard from the race commentary it was his first actual bad race in quite some time. And you could see in his eyes the way he was fuming post-race.
During their post race commitments, you stayed out of their way, you knew they’d have press and meeting with their team, so you stayed at the Ferrari hospitality, grabbed a bite while you researched some way to help their de-stress later, maybe a swim in the hotel pool, or just soaking in the big jacuzzi in their hotel room.
After a couple of grueling hours, you decided to go find Charles first, since he’d probably be in a slightly better place mentally than Max. You went to his little room, but he wasn’t there. A helpful member of the staff said he had gone to see Max, and suggested you went there too.
You made your way through the maze of people towards them, grabbing a couple of small chocolates to give them. Charles had mentioned once that a little sweet treat would always lift their moods after a tough day.
As you arrived at his room, you could hear their voices through the thin walls, and it took you a few steps to notice they seemed to be arguing. You stopped before you could make your presence known, standing behind the door.
“-Look, I know you’re frustrated, the race today was fucking nuts…” Charles started, apparently trying to calm down Max.
“All of this sucks. But you don’t understand… because you’re you…” Max replied, still agitated, “You are kind and welcoming, but this is not cool with me, okay?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t do changes like you, Charlie…” Max sighed, seemingly unable to put into words whatever was plaguing him, “I feel so… I don’t know. I just hate that my car changed, that I’m battling it as much as I’m battling other drivers week in, week out. You’re also changed, Charlie, and I’m- here. And there’s…” Max’s voice died for a moment, and he whispered your name. The sound of it, the contempt in his voice… it had you rooted to the spot.
“What about her?” Charles asked, his voice almost shaky, as if he knew exactly where this was going.
“It was better before!” Max snapped, his voice an octave higher because of the outburst.
You froze, the weight of his words landing right on your chest like a deep, dark blow. Dread filling your lungs and aching like acid as you held onto the wall.
“You don’t mean it,” Charles whispered, sounding disappointed.
“It was, you know that! N-now because of her, we have to rearrange our schedules, and adjust our whole lives to fit her. When it was perfect the way it was before!”
“Don’t say that, Max,” Charles muttered, sounding hurt, “that’s awful.”
“Don’t pretend like this isn’t a lot of change for us, Charlie. We have the same life, we travel the same places, we are almost always in the same time zone, the same bed, face to face. She is not from this life. And now we have to stretch our already packed schedule and life to accommodate her. Do you think this is fair to me?”
Silence. A silence that spoke volumes, a consenting confirmation that Charles probably felt the same. That all your trying, all your efforts amounted to nothing in the grand scheme of things. You were just you and they were Max & Charles, 2-in-1, soulmates, halves of a whole. There was no space for you, there was never another spot available in their midst, in their bed. You were always set to fail, to be the stranger in their relationship.
You stepped away from the room, unable to put yourself through hearing more, walking aimlessly through the paddock. That had been enough for your heart to take, to understand its place in all of this. Even in their lives, there would never be any space for you. You’d never mean to Charles the same as Max, and you’d never mean to Max the same as Charles.
Trying not to cry, you swallowed the thick, painful lump in your throat, eyes red as you fought the tears, to not pull any unwanted attention to yourself as you blended with your surroundings.
You were like one of those sad soulmates stories you had read in forums on the internet, the loose string that would never fit with their counterparts. They could even love you as any soulmates did, but did they like you?
How long had you walked aimlessly? You didn’t know, but eventually, you heard your name being called by Charles, and you turned in time to see them waving you over. Max seemed moody, still, but slightly calmer, controlled.
“We were looking for you,” Charles said with a soft smile, one that made you break a bit more inside.
“I was a bit lost…” You said, unable to hide the redness in your eyes and nose.
“Are you okay?” Charles asked, and that caught Max attention, who stared at you more attentively.
“Yeah… just sleepy, I guess.” You lied, which they seemed to buy.
You three ended up going back to Monte Carlo a couple of hours later, both of them not finding any reason to stay there any longer. You kept quiet and distant most of the time. You sat in your seat, trying to read a book but your mind was elsewhere. Your mind was in the decision to make knowing you’re not wanted somewhere and make yourself scarce.
“Hey,” Charles said, and you looked up at him, “We’re going to bed to catch some sleep,” He pointed towards the small room with the big bed you three had slept on, on the way there, Max had changed from his t-shirt into a fluffy sweater, “Wanna come?”
You shook your head softly, “Let me just go through some more of my book. I’ll join you later, okay?”
He nodded, a gentle squeeze to your shoulder as he went to bed. You watched over your book when he joined Max on the bed, both of them cuddling softly, whispering things you couldn’t hear, intimacy you weren’t privy to.
The odd one out.
You stared at them for a few minutes as they fell asleep, Charles’ face tucked into Max’s neck, his arm around the monegasque, pulling him flush to his side. A blanket pulled up to their waists, cocooning them in warmth and affection. Sharing something you would never be part of.
Your eyes watered as you looked away, trying to tune out the ugly envy that wanted to rip through your chest and flood you. Because you wanted that, so much that the knowledge you won’t have any of it, made your chest constrict in tiny little pieces. The tears fell down after the first hour of their sleep, a sob ripped through your chest but you quickly covered it with your balled up coat, trying to breathe through it, to tone it down. You cried silently for the next few hours, trying to force yourself to stop, but every time you remembered Max’s words, a fresh wave of tears came over you.
Eventually, before sunrise, you managed to go to the bathroom and pull yourself together just enough to let the swelling in your face go down. You managed a nap in the reclined seat, never daring yourself to go to bed with them, despite how much you wanted it.
You woke up with Max touching your arm to wake you up, saying something about putting the seat belt to land. You walked with them quietly to the car, letting them sit together in the back seat while you went to the passenger seat. Max noticed, but he didn’t say anything as Charles sat down beside him, leaning against his shoulder.
You met his eyes through the rearview mirror, looking away after a second.
Whispering, you told the driver the address to your place.
“You’re not coming with us?” Max asked, and you just shook your head.
“I have some work things to fix.” You lied, not looking back at him.
It worked differently with trios. If the three parts were apart from each other, then they all would suffer those symptoms. But if two out of three were together, it didn’t matter much. The two would still feel the lingering absence of their third but they could ultimately live a comfortable, happy life. Your own grandparents, back in the day when Grandpa Joe passed away unexpectedly, your Grandma Everly and Grandpa Harold still managed to live together comfortably despite feeling the absence of their third.
So in a way, you knew Charles and Max would be fine without you.
You, on the other hand, would take the worst of the pain.
And you were already feeling it, the shake of your hands as you stepped out of the car, quietly. Unnoticed. There was a tight knot coiled in your chest, and as they drove away and you went back home, you could feel it about to snap. You held back as best as you could because you knew the moment you got home it would snap. And break you forever.
And break you it did.
The moment you walked inside your place and the door was safely locked, your first sob ripped through your throat like a thunder, and you allowed your legs to wobble until you slid your back down the wall, until you were nothing but a pool of tears and heartbreak.
It’s a complicated thing, this feeling, this urge to be with them bellied your need to make them happy. But the knowledge that they were happy before you… without you… it stung. And if that was the way to make them happy, you’d do it and bear the short end of the deal. You’d take the pain if it made them happy.
That alone was enough to ease the burning pain in your chest.
So you pulled away.
Forty minutes later, Charles texted you wanting to know if you were still coming over for dinner as you had mentioned in passing during the trip. You lied, telling him you had a family problem to solve. Charles, bless his heart, got worried and offered help. You lied some more saying it wasn’t a big deal.
That’s how you started pulling away, the race two weeks later you had agreed to come, you canceled, saying you had work piled up and you’d have to stay back.
You progressively reduced texting with Charles, deciding to go slow, weaning, so he wouldn’t notice. His calls grew shorter and far between. The wave of heat and comfort you felt hearing their voices, seeing their faces made it worse when you had to hang up the call.
The pain got worse as you stopped talking with them. Your chest would hurt, a pointed pain that came in waves and made your hand press into your chest in a soothing massage.
The less you spoke with them, the pain grew to the point you had to find a doctor. A soulmate doctor who you told you lost your soulmate. Initially she prescribed heart medication, a pill you’d take every morning to ease the aching in your heart. She said that if at any point the pain got worse than the pills could prevent, you’d have to change to the medicine implant.
Soulmates were a complex thing, many times each case bringing complexities of their own, but overall, treatable. The medicine would considerably ease the pain to a liveable point. The depths of their absence will become something manageable, something you’d learn to live with.
edit: guys, everyone asking to be tagged in the comments, will be tagged! just letting y’all know bc I won’t have time to reply to everyone!
