Prologue

It was finally the end of a long day. Online exams were over and I could finally rest on my sofa knowing there wouldn't be much to do now but wait for results and hope I got a passing grade on all my classes.

"Rough day?" came a voice on the other side of the room.

"Eh, could be worse, at least exams are over you know." I replied, "how about you Charles?"

"Could be worse as well, gave my project in this morning, hell of an uphill battle if you ask me." He answered. "Do you know where Albert and Hugo are at?"

"I reckon Albert is still on his PC while Hugo is likely finishing another book of his, probably Doyle this time around, you want me to call them up?"

"Yeah, I mean, we all finished our exams now, I think that causes for a little celebration, and while we can't go out and have a drink due to quarantine, we might as well celebrate here."

I agreed and went to get the two others. It had been a while since we'd been friends, beginning of middle school actually. We all graduated high school together, and all managed to get accepted into colleges not that far from each other, on very different subjects. And tonight, well it was the end of our third year of university, so we'd damn well have a small drink together before we'd all be going home due to the virus outbreak.

And we did, lying on chairs and sofas and talking about life, school and exams. There wasn't much to do apart from listening to what shenanigans they put up with or what videos they watched lately. Voices died down, until a voice spoke up.

"You know what I'd love right now?" said Albert, breaking the long silence, "that Martin could finally release The Winds of Winter so I'd have something good to read."

Hugo laughed. "You know the literary world isn't filled with Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones, there's much more you can explore, and like."

I finally spoke up, being the socially awkward guy, I wasn't used to speaking this much but whatever. "Hugo, I think it's damn time you got into reading those books. You've only watched the show and being a literature fan, I can't believe you still haven't read them."

"Not my favourite genre but I'll get to it eventually." He answered.

"Hey you might actually have something new to read on that matter, I've been stuck reading self-inserts and other fanfic for six years since I finished the last book." I replied.

"What's a self-insert?" said Charles.

"It's when an author decides to put himself in a character's shoes and goes on from there. A lot are actually pretty fun. I can give you a set of recommendations." I answered.

"Concept sounds fun. Although let me tell you, to survive in Westeros you might want to have a background in finance, history or engineering otherwise you're done." replied Albert "I mean if you dropped us four, a zoologist, a game designer, a computer scientist and whatever Hugo finds in his books, we'd be fucked."

"We'd be the goon squad." Hugo replied "Could be funny."

"Not that funny I think actually, but it'd be fun to see how long we last. Anyways guys I have to go to sleep, need to call my mom tomorrow to get tickets home."

With that I left the common room, got into my pyjamas and finally descended into a peaceful slumber
The sunlight shone right into my eyes, waking me up slightly. Groaning, I pulled the pillow over my head to block out the incoming annoyance

Oh, come on, just another few minutes, what time is it?

I left my phone on the desk when I slept, and it could very well be past eleven by the intensity of the sun outside. I reached for it, but my hand went wide, straight into nothing.

For god's sake, where did I put it?

Struggling to get up and with mist in my eyes, I scratched my head. Wait a fucking second. I do have curly hair but to that point it's kind of ridiculous. Also why is my chin itchy? I could have sworn I shaved yesterday morning. God dammit, I guess I'll have to go shave now.

I lept out of my bed, and suddenly terror shook my body. This wasn't my room.

Shit, shit, shit, shit. Where am I? Did I get kidnapped? And hang on a second what in the name of god is this white stuff? I poked at it and suddenly it came to life revealing a pair of red eyes staring into my very soul. Shit.

Heart racing and I struggled to come back to my senses. This was a large room. Larger than my student accommodation for sure, by the looks of it. And damn it was decently furnished as well, but shit, I need a mirror.

I saw what seemed like a small glass on the corner of a large desk, and peaked into it. The reflection that stared back at me wasn't me. It was a man, bulkier than my skinny ass by a lot, with black curly hair strongly resembling…oh no… no no no no no no no I refuse. No. Please don't tell me I'm an SI. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

Right I need to get out, calm, deep breaths. Oh, who the hell am I kidding.

I left the room totally panicked, so much that I hadn't changed out of my bed clothes, wandering around the halls of well…Winterfell, I guess. When suddenly I ran into someone.

"Shit." I swore. The man that had been pushed to the ground swore as well.

"Putain."

"What do you mean, putain?" I inquired.

"Uh no nothing." The man looked as terrified as I was. He was large, bulkier than me for sure, with a well-trimmed resembling…oh. It didn't take a long while for me to realize I barged head on into Robb Stark, my supposed brother, well no actually, my cousin. But what struck me about him was his short black hair resembling more Richard Madden than what the books described. Had I been dropped into the TV series instead? No matter for now, but I had to get to the bottom of that swearing.

"What do you mean nothing and how the hell do you know how to speak French?" I replied

"How the hell do you know what French is", Robb quickly answered.

Then the realization hit us like a truck. Oh no, oh no no this was hilarious.

"Hugo?" I whispered.

"Good try but it's actually Albert, you?"

"Alex, but please keep your voice down, if we get caught it's going to be a hell of a story to make up."

"You're good at making up stories though."

"Not good enough. Now as far as I'm aware you are Robb and I am Jon, understood?"

"Right."

"Right, and I'm Theon."

The sudden voice caught us by surprise.

"Salut, c'est Charles, dites…"

The man who had spoken bore not much resemblance to Alfie Allen from the show, meaning we were probably in the books, or so I hoped. Ignoring the rest of Charles' tirade, I was dumbstruck, the silly conversation we had, well, "yesterday" had suddenly come to life. There's no way in hell this was coincidence, no way both book Robb and book Theon knew how to speak French, let alone the german we used to double check his intentions. Robb/Albert and myself looked at each other and started laughing. Quickly Theon/Charles started laughing as well and we all turned into a group hug, laughing and nearly crying at the situation. We are so fucked.

Hey guys, had this one in the bookshelves for a while now. The conversation is actually real, and occured a month ago before quarantine was enforced in the UK and was my inspiration for this story. I had thought about posting it earlier but was put off by certain comments on other stories. Therefore I'll give a few warnings beforehand:
A. This is my first fanfic, if I have stuff I can improve on, let me know, it will help me get better.
B. I've read ADWD recently but my other books reading starts dating back a bit, as such there might be characters I'm not on point with, feel free to voice your concerns.
C. The concept isn't really original, Stark SI and such, but I thought It'd be fun that instead of one SI we had four of the most useless professions in the world of Westeros.
D. Every SI has a reason he was dropped into one character and not the other. This will be explained in the next chapter.
E. Finally, myself am Australian, but Albert and Charles are both french and it is why we can talk like this to confirm our identities. Hugo is swiss and speaks fluent german and french, which is what I thought we'd use to reveal who we were. From now on I'll use the book names, but if you are confused:
Alex (Myself) = Jon
Albert = Robb
Charles = Theon
Hugo = well, you can probably guess.
That's it for the intro, hope you enjoy it nonetheless !