#i've got 32 more wips so i'm going to queue these

[wetwellie]

I am really in the mood for a soulmate au so here’s a fun little concept: Imagine that like...soulmate names just popped up on mostly everyone overnight out of nowhere.

    It happened in the middle of the night for some. Those who were sleeping off a drunken stupor would wake up at an hour that is apparently far to early would stumble into their bathrooms and find names scribbled on their skin. It would not wash off no matter how hard they desperately tried to scrub. “Just how drunk was I to get a tattoo of a stranger’s name?”

  However, Eric Bittle didn’t get his soul mark in the quiet of his sleep. It was about 4:45 in the afternoon. He’d had a rough day at school, and had opted to ignore his homework in order to work on making a chilled pie instead. 

   He had been rolling out the dough when he felt a sharp tingle across the inner part of his arm--right on the edge of where he’d tucked his shirt sleeves. He didn’t think anything of it except for mild discomfort. Nevertheless, it was far too hot and humid to have to be uncomfortable while baking in his own home. Bitty shed the button-up shirt and discarded it onto the nearby dining table. He returned to the kitchen without any worry, and went back to baking.    In retrospect, when Bitty sat in class the following day, he wondered if his peers were lying about immediately spotting their new marks, or if he had just caught on very slowly. In his defense, Bitty gets very focused when it comes to baking. Also, how often does one take to look at the underside of your elbow? Not often at all. The pie crust was already chilled, then taken out of the fridge, then weighted down, and baking in the oven when Bitty even noticed the bold writing that had taken up space on his arm. 

  In retrospect, he wished that he had checked the news or youtube or twitter or facebook before he tried to waste an entire bottle of handsoap in a futile attempt to wipe the new addition to his skin. He had opened his phone to Google “how to remove sharpie” when he saw the news alert and the texts and the tweets. 

  Everyone had them. All around the world. From babies just minutes old, to the elderly who have seen decades come and pass. They were all names. They were all unique. And they were all just not even an hour old at this point. 

  The world, which Bitty could only observe through the screen of his phone, was going absolutely mad. He couldn’t take his eyes off of it. The answers that could be answered were, and the new social rules around it seemed to be debated and established in the form of a collective livetweet. He could only slump onto the floor of the kitchen and continue to scroll for what seemed like an eternity. 

  Bitty’s pie crust burned that day. He couldn’t be bothered to care. He threw away the crust, washed the pie tin, and looked at the name again. It was a simple enough name, but to have it literally written on him filled him with a sort of queasiness. It was undeniable. 

  That didn’t stop him from grabbing his button up and putting it back on before his mother got home from Aunt Judy’s.   In the rest of his time living down in that small Georgia town, Bitty never once told someone the name that rested on his arm. He never told anyone at school, even when people were finding their supposed match. He never told his parents, even though their marks made a perfect pair. He never told his vlog. (He did talk a lot about Beyonce’s song named after her own soul mark, though) He never even said it out loud. 

 He waited until he was already unpacked and settled in the room he would call home for the next year. He waited until he had a basket full of mini pies ready to gift to his new teammates. He waited until he saw said teammates ravenously devour those pies in record time. He waited until he got claps on the shoulders and casual introductions from everyone on the team. He waited until he had skated onto the ice for the first time, silently praying for these folks not to get too close. He waited until being introduced briefly and in passing to the captain of his team.   Said captain paused, made no effort to smile or exchange pleasantries of any kind, and simply nodded and moved along.

 He waited until he was free to go to his dorm room, shut the door, and change out of his button up. He looked at his soulmark. It’s something that he had on his skin for less than three years. Bitty brushed his fingers over each letter of that simple,but unforgiving name. Three years. He’d been afraid to say that name for three years.  His voice was soft, but steady, when Bitty read the name out loud for the first time. He was met with no answer. He said it again and again, until the weight and the meaning and implication eroded from it. His throat was hoarse when he finally finished. 

The next morning at breakfast, he sat across from his captain.  “Good Morning, Jack” He said evenly.  Jack didn’t look up from his plate, but mumbled a dismissive “good morning” in response.