#i got this number and immediately got so much jules inspo

[endfght]

☾   surprise  me

                        meme   ↷   accepting   ↷   @hallowburnt​                                              #  165 .

      𝐧𝐨𝐭   𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐞   𝐡𝐚𝐝   𝐣𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐬   𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐝   𝐭𝐨   𝐛𝐞   𝐭𝐡𝐞   𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭   𝐬𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫   𝐢𝐧   𝐭𝐡𝐞   𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝      (  at  least,   not  in  the  face  of  her   family  ),   and  while  she  may  not  have  always   been  there   for  stefanie,   in  life,   she  was  generally  perceptive .   that,   and  curt’s  brother  was  the  complete   opposite   of  her  sister,   spilling  the  details   --or   lack  thereof--   of  their  relationship  to  him  without  second  thought .   with  the  stories  she’d  heard  from  them  and  what  she  could  piece  together   herself   from  her  sister’s   self - isolation,   she  was  beginning  to  spiral  into  a  hole  that  would  only  be  harder  and  harder  to  pull  herself  out  of .

      𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡   𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫   𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬   𝐠𝐨𝐧𝐞,      jules  found   now   the  best  opportunity  to  try  and  speak  up,   an  intervention  of  sorts .   ❛   keep  it  up,   you’ll  die  in  pain .   ❜   brows  knit  together,   with  her  arms  crossed  over  her  chest  jules’  toes  push  stef’s  bedroom  door  fully  open .   an  invasion  of  her  privacy,   not  that  a  closed  door  had  stopped  her  in  the  past,   she  takes  a  few  steps  in  before  clearing  her  throat .   ❛   you  can’t  just   ice  him  out,   stef .   at  least  send  him  a   text   or  something,   just  say   it’s  over   and  block  him   --it’s  not   fair   for  you  to  keep  matt’s  hopes  up  if  you  don’t  want  to  be  with  him  anymore .   ❜   no  other  way  for  jules  to  get  her  point  across  than  to  be  completely   blunt,   she  stops  at  the  foot  of  her  bed,   fingers  tugging  lightly  on  the  comforter  covering  her  body .

[waveridden]

FIC: one page at a time (true colors)

The story of four people, who are and are not Autumn’s soulmates. 2k, Autumn/Reina, Autumn & James, mentioned James/Cib.

AUcember || title lyric || inspo

Thank you to Elena, Jules, Mag, Jill, and Gracie for feedback on the colors!

#

Autumn meets James when she’s eleven years old and the foster parents don’t work out, again. She gets moved to a different group home this time. The nice lady from foster care tells her it’s so she can make friends with new kids. Autumn thinks they just don’t know what to do with her anymore. It’s her third foster family that didn’t work out. Three strikes, and all.

She also thinks it’s the soulmarks. The stories say that when you meet a soulmate, someone you’re going to love, you leave a mark in the first place you touch them with your hand. She’s old enough now that she should be leaving the marks, but she hasn’t left one yet. You’re not supposed to let that bias you, as foster parents. But it does. Every time they say they can’t take her in because it just wasn’t meant to be, she knows that’s what they mean.

And so she’s back in foster care again, in a new place with no friends. With adults who give her civil smiles and don’t expect anything from her.

She’s in her third week there when she finds a boy about her age sitting under the staircase, holding something in his hands.

“Is that yours?” Autumn asks. The boy nods. “What is it?”

“Mine,” he mutters.

Autumn really doesn’t have much else to do, so she crawls under the stairs and sits next to him. “What is it?”

He turns away from her, cupping it close to his chest. “I said it’s mine.”

“I know, I just wanna see!” She leans over his shoulder, trying to get a look at whatever his secret treasure is, only for one of his hands to fly up and hit her square in the forehead. “Hey!”

“Sorry,” he says, but he doesn’t show her what he’s holding. Autumn scowls and swats at his hand, hitting the back of his wrist. “I said sorry!”

“What is it?”

The boy sighs and holds it out. It’s a little ribbon, orange and red, that says WARRIOR on it. “It’s mine.”

“Whoa,” Autumn whispers. “Water warrior?”

He nods, looking suddenly shy. “I wasn’t supposed to keep it. No one knows.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“We had a water warrior visit a few years ago.” He looks up at Autumn for the first time, and his mouth falls open.

Autumn frowns. “What?”

“You-” he reaches a hand out, dropping the ribbon in his lap, and traces something on her forehead. “You’re orange.”

“I’m orange?”

“You’re orange,” he repeats. “Have you always been orange?”

“No,” Autumn says, heart pounding for reasons she can’t quite understand. “What do you mean, I’m orange?”

“I mean-” he moves his other hand, and Autumn sees a flash of something green. “You’ve got-”

“Let me see your hand,” Autumn says, and grabs it, pushing the sleeve of his shirt back. There’s a streak of dark, vibrant green on the back of his wrist where she smacked him, splotchy and undignified.

“Whoa,” the boy says, and then looks back at Autumn’s forehead. “Is that- did I-”

“I think you did,” Autumn says, still holding his wrist. “Do we… tell someone about this?”

“I think we have to.”

“I’m Autumn.”

“I’m James.”

“Cool,” Autumn says.

They do tell an adult, because there are all sorts of rules about adopting soulmates together or separating them, but they spend the rest of the day gripping each other’s hands and not letting go. Autumn doesn’t get to a mirror to see her own mark until right before bed. There’s a mostly-square splotch of golden orange on her forehead, just above her right eye. It’s so bright it almost hurts to look at.

It’s a weird feeling, Autumn thinks, not being alone in the world anymore.

#

They don’t get adopted. They figure out fast that their brand of soulmate isn’t romantic, but not a lot of people want to adopt a pre-teen brother and sister, or teenagers. But Autumn gets a job as soon as she’s sixteen and starts saving every cent. It pays off when James gets into film school, even with all the scholarships. She works, and works, and she’s in the front row cheering when her little brother graduates.

#

The apartment door swings open, and James shouts, “Autumn!”

Autumn doesn’t answer, just waits for him to sweep into the kitchen, all bustling energy. “You cooking?”

“Mmhm.” She stirs the pot of pasta sort of absently. “What’s up?”

“Look!”

She looks up just as James turns his back to her. “Uh-”

“Look,” James repeats, and tugs the hood of his hoodie down to one side.

And on the back of his neck is a blue handprint-shaped blob, almost as vibrant as Autumn’s green on his wrist.

Autumn’s eyes widen. “Holy shit.”

“I met another soulmate!” He spins back around, practically bouncing on the spot, more or less beaming. “He’s amazing! He’s funny, a little weird, but I think I’m okay with that, and he has my mark too!”

“Did you get his name?”

“Cib.”

“Cib,” Autumn repeats. “And you have a way to… meet him again?”

“Swapped numbers.”

“Wow,” Autumn says quietly. This is the first time either of them have had a soulmate other than each other. They have friends, sure, but that’s not the same. It’s just not.

“I know.” James’s smile goes soft. “I can’t wait for you to meet him.”

“Yeah,” Autumn says, and goes back to the pasta, trying to figure out what the weird buzzing inside her chest is. “Yeah.”

When Autumn meets Cib, he has tiny, pale spots of color all over his body. They’re all weak, the way that soulmarks are when the bond isn’t strong. Autumn leaves a pale green on one arm, and he doesn’t leave anything on her. But there’s a golden spot on his cheek, nearly as bright as the gold on Autumn’s forehead. And he looks at James like he’s something remarkable, and that makes him pretty great in Autumn’s book.

#

Cib drags his friend Steve over one day. James high-fives him hello, and Steven’s palm comes away bright, glimmering orange.

James holds his hand up to Autumn and wiggles his fingers, now coated in pink. “What does this look like?”

“Like you dipped your hand in strawberry ice cream,” Autumn says, and James laughs. She looks over his shoulder towards Steve. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Steve says. “I’m only here because of Cib.”

“Yeah, you are!” Cib grins. “Steve was my first.”

“You lost your virginity to him?” James says.

“Not that,” Steve says, unfortunately just as Cib says “yes, dude.” Steve glares; Cib shrugs. “First soulmate, I meant.”

“Cool,” James says. “Goes three ways, huh?”

“Just like the average dog,” Cib says wisely.

Everyone mutually ignores that, because that’s what you have to do with Cib sometimes. Steve looks at Autumn. “What about you?”

“James is my brother,” Autumn says, and she doesn’t feel like she has to elaborate. James slings an arm around her shoulders to punctuate that.

Steve looks between the two of them, and she can see the same thing everyone thinks: they don’t look related, but he’s not going to be the asshole who asks about it. “Cool,” he says, and Autumn is sort of viciously glad for it.

(Two weeks later, Steve touches Autumn’s elbow by accident. Nothing’s left behind. She taps his arm out of curiosity and leaves a simple green dot.)

#

“Do you ever wish you had more people?” James asks her. He’s been dating Cib for four months, practically inseparable from Steven for two.

“No,” Autumn says, and it’s mostly true. James was enough, when all they had was each other. But now he has more than just her. And that’s fine, except for the moments when it’s starkly… not.

“Okay,” James says, and she wishes she couldn’t hear the doubt in his voice.

“It’s okay,” she says, a little forcefully, and they leave it at that.

#

Steve drags Autumn out to lunch, because he says it’s important for them to spend time together, or something. She thinks he has an ulterior motive, because it’s maybe the most un-Steve thing he’s ever done.

When she tries to call him on it, the first thing he says is “What? No.” The second thing, after Autumn glares for a second, is, “Okay, maybe.”

“What is it?”

“It’s nothing- well, mostly nothing, but-” he taps his fingers on the table, looking around.

Autumn gets it immediately. “You’re trying to set me up with someone?”

Steve sighs. “That’s a strong- yes, okay? I think you’d like each other.”

“Dude,” Autumn says, “I don’t need anyone new.”

“You don’t,” Steve agrees. “Listen, I get it. There are two types of people in the world, there’s you and there’s Cib. There’s the people who go around with a little bit of everyone’s colors on them, and then you’re going to end up with, like, four. Tops. But they’re going to mean a lot, right?”

“I don’t need you to get fake deep at me.”

“Oh, fuck you, it’s real deep.”

“Sure.”

“Anyways,” Steve says. “My point is, maybe you’re not going to give your heart away to every person you meet, that’s fine. But you can still like us, or whatever, if you want.”

Autumn stares. “Are you… upset that you didn’t give me a mark?”

“Cib is.”

“Well, yeah, it’s Cib.”

“And you should meet people,” Steve adds. “It’s better that way. The people you meet by accident matter a lot.”

“Fake deep,” Autumn says again.

Steve rolls his eyes. “Whatever. I’m just a placeholder, because guess what, I’m setting you up. I’m just here until- Reina!”

Autumn turns and follows his eyes to a short blonde woman, who’s beaming as she goes to hug Steve, making cooing noises. And on her wrist, plain as day, is a band of Steven’s pastel pink.

“It’s so good to see you, Steven,” Reina says, sounding like she passionately means it.

“I saw you yesterday,” Steve says, but he’s sort of smiling like he doesn’t entirely mind. “Reina, this is Autumn, I’m setting you up.”

“What?”

“He didn’t tell me either,” Autumn mumbles.

Reina stares between the two of them before whacking Steven in the arm. “You couldn’t give a girl a little warning, Suppy?”

“I’m going to leave before you assault me more,” Steve announces. “Bye, have fun, or don’t! It’s really not my problem.”

Reina waves him off and slides into his seat, ignoring him as he leaves. “He’s kind of a piece of work, huh?”

Autumn snorts. “A little.”

“How’d you meet him, anyways?”

“My brother’s one of his soulmates.”

“Whoa,” Reina says. “So you’re in-laws, or something? Is that how that works?”

Autumn shrugs. “Does that make us in-laws?”

Reina makes a face. “God, I hope not. I wouldn’t want to date my in-laws.”

“Who would?”

“Nobody, I think.”

Autumn nods, and Reina smiles at her, cocking her head. Some hair falls into her face, and she goes to brush it out, and Autumn - well. She’s not impulsive, but she finds herself reaching across the table, like she’s being drawn to it, and brushing the hair back herself.

And then there’s a streak of forest green running across Reina’s hairline.

“Oh, shit,” Autumn says.

Reina frowns. “What? What is it?”

“You’ve got a little-” Autumn motions at her forehead. “I think I just… marked you?”

“Really?” Reina gasps and pulls out her phone to examine it, tilting her head. “Okay, that’s… wouldn’t have picked you for a green, but I can make that work with my makeup routine. That’s fine.”

“Your makeup?”

“That’s the second most important question of the moment. The first-” Reina narrows her eyes consideringly. “Where do you want to test this?”

“Uh,” Autumn says. “Anywhere except my face? Because I’ve already-” she gestures at her own forehead splotch.

“Roll up your sleeve?”

Autumn does, and Reina reaches out and trails two fingers down Autumn’s forearm, zig-zagging from elbow down to wrist. And sure enough, as they watch, a streak of bright lavender follows behind, painting Autumn’s arm violet.

“Cool,” Autumn whispers, and she doesn’t really know what else to say. But judging by the way Reina’s beaming at her, that might be enough.