#in this au last life pearl and scott were married :) neither of them remember it tho. the mind forgets. but the heart never does.

[teapot-of-tyrahn]

YAOI MAJORMOON / TRANSMASC PEARL PROPAGANDA : WARNINGS : /rom (mlm) majormoon , misgendering ( unintentionally ) , & internalised homophobia / queer impostor syndrome !!

Scott had always found it odd his soulmate had been a 'girl'. He knew platonic soulmates existed, that by definition soulmates weren't necessarily romantic partners at all: they were just people whose soul was carved out of the same substance as yours, two threads weaved out of the same yarn, the other half to your soul's unfinished set. But still, he'd always assumed his soulmate would be a romantic partner. Maybe it was because he was an idealist, a fantasist, a hopeless romantic, but whenever he'd imagined his soulmate, he'd imagined his future husband. A gentleman, a chevalier, a sweetheart who would sweep him off his feet and bring him bouquets and heart-shaped chocolates with corny love-notes scrawled on an attached note within. Even before Double Life, he had a feeling he'd always believed in soulmates... or at least daydreamed about the idea of having one. And who wouldn't? The thought of the perfect partner custom-fit to love him for who he was, designed to be the piece that completed his puzzle and made him whole, was an alluring concept. He wouldn't have to doubt if they were the one, if this was going to work out, if they were meant to be... because they had to be. They were soulmates... they were literally made to be each other's other half. They were made to be each other's forevers, their 'till death do us parts, they were made to love each other and get married and grow old together in a quaint cottage in a spruce forest. They'd get a lot of pets, and give them all silly names: like Binkie, or Barney, or Bucky... yes, Scott had already fantasized about what he had his future husband would name their pets, he was that down bad for a man he hadn't even met yet.

It wasn't hard to guess who it was, though. Especially after he'd run off to the Nether with Pearl. Everyone else had already found their soulmates, so it didn't take a genius for him and Cleo to figure out who their soulbounds were. He hadn't even met Martyn yet, but the guy really wasn't making the best first impression, making him take fire damage every two seconds as he galavanted about the most dangerous place in the world in the first session. Did he even have iron armour yet? He definitely wasn't giving off the kind, doting husband who'd kiss his wounds and tenderly wrap his injures next to the fireplace energy Scott had been hoping for, given he was the main inflictor of them thus far, and Scott couldn't deny that he was a little bit cross at Martyn for not bothering to even look for him whilst Scott had spent the entire day looking for his soulbound like a schoolgirl looking for their crush in a crowded hallway... but, he'd have to get over it, he supposed. He couldn't stay mad at Martyn for too long — he was his future husband, after all, and even if he wasn't acting like it right now by literally going to another dimension to get away from him... they were meant to be together. They were soulmates. Scott had been so smug when they went into to Lost and Bound, because the entire game was nugatory, because he already knew who Martyn's soulmate was; it's me, Martyn, can't you see? Can't you tell? It was so obvious, painfully so, he could feel his soul's connection to the blonde the second he laid eyes on him, like the universe was telling them they were meant to be, that Martyn was the one, it was so plain-to-see that it was idiotically endearing he couldn't tell his soulmate was obviously—  ...Pearl? His eyes had to be playing tricks on him - it couldn't be right. They couldn't be soulmates. Could they? There was no way. No, they couldn't be, it wasn't possible. Pearl wasn't the man of his dreams - for a plethora of reasons, the first being she wasn't a man at all. She couldn't be his soulmate. And, yet, she was. And all his hopes and dreams of romance and matrimony were shattered. He'd never wake up in the early hours of the morning to the faint scent of bacon and eggs in the air because his husband had decided to surprise him with a warm breakfast-in-bed, he'd never watch a movie on the couch with his husband caressing his hair gently as they laid on top of each other and cuddled before drifting to sleep in each other's arms, he'd never get offered a spoonful of his husband's in-progress meal as he cooked to test the flavour and get to sweetly tell him it was just right... he'd never be loved. Not the way he wanted - not like that. She couldn't love him in the way he'd always dreamed of being loved in, the type of love he'd always wanted to have, she couldn't love him like a lover could. Sure, just because his soulmate wasn't his lover didn't mean he couldn't have a lover... but it did mean he could never have a lover who was truly his. He could never have a lover built for him, a lover made to love and be loved by him, a lover he could marry without knowing in the back of his mind this wasn't the person he was made to spend the rest of his life with. He could never love without being afraid they'd realise he wasn't meant to be theirs and leaving.

Or... maybe she was meant to be his lover. His... wife. Maybe they'd been right; all the people who had told him it's just a phase, you don't really like boys, you're just being silly, you'll grow out of it once you meet the right woman... Was she the 'right woman'? The one who was supposed to fix him? Make him straight? Cure him of his sickness? The thought made him feel sick. He didn't want to be fixed. He wasn't broken. He liked men - he knew this. He'd never like girls; never had, never would, he knew who he was and he was proud. She couldn't fix him because there was nothing wrong with him. He wasn't broken; this system was. The universe was homophobic. And, so, he told the universe what he told all homophobes: Fuck you. His chosen soulmate wasn't a boy, either, but they weren't a girl, which was at least better than the alternative. And, besides, he wasn't attracted to Cleo romantically, their situation was less of an actual soulmateship and more of a mutual spite against fate, an attempt to try to prove this soulmate thing could be defied, an alliance against the universe. The universe, which he had learned, was only homophobic to him specifically, given every other soulmate pairing on the server outside of his and Cleo's were male-and-male. He'd been put in the only female-and-male pair-up out of all the soulbounds. The universe was definitely being homophobic to him. Had he done something in his last life to piss it off somehow? Whatever the reason, he refused to give in to its' will. He refused to give up on who he was, he refused to play a game rigged against him from the start. Besides, no matter what this soulmate system had to say, he didn't believe he and Pearl were actually soulmates. She was nothing like him: she was careless, reckless, stupid, obnoxiously infuriating in every regard... these weren't words he used lightly, but he could say with full confidence that he hated her. Detested, deplored, disdained... absolutely abhorred her. And that only got worse when he was forced to team-up with her. He'd spent the entire season avoiding her — both because she was insufferable... ...And because he was terrified of what might happen if he gave her a chance. If he allowed himself to feel anything other than hatred and distain for her existence. He hated her for the way she made his heart quicken, his cheeks redden, the way she made him doubt himself, made him wonder what if the universe was right? What if he she was the 'right woman'? What if he really had just been 'confused' the whole time? It was hard to keep his distance from her when they were both stuck in the same tower, forced to fight on the same side, mutual enemies on their tails meaning they had to put their differences aside and actually work together. And part of working together meant they could no longer hurt themselves just for the sake of hurting the other - this game wasn't just a game anymore, they couldn't be busy fighting each other when they had actual foes to fight, petty rivalry was a luxury they could no longer afford. But it seemed she really hadn't been getting the memo... because despite them both agreeing to stop with the axe-crits and the snow buckets, when his ribs began to feel like they were splintering into a thousand pieces, and he made the educated guess she wasn't holding up her end of the bargain.

"Pearl," Scott's voice was groggy, his lilt low and raspy with a mixture of pain, exhaustion, and anger. It was so difficult to breathe, as if a constrictor had wrapped around his chest and was squeezing the air out of his lungs, a subtle suffocation draining him of both breath and patience. "What did you do?" "What do you mean?" Pearl hummed, blithefully and blissfully, as if she didn't have a care in the world... he knew she had a high pain-tolerance, the hypothermia was enough indication of that, but the fact she could hum whilst her lungs must have felt like they were collapsing was just baffling. She was almost acting as if she was genuinely oblivious, as if she didn't have the slightest clue what he was referring to, even though she must have. "I'm not stupid! I thought we agreed we'd quit with the 'tickles'. My ribcage feels like it's about to collapse in on itself and skewer my heart." Scott couldn't quite keep the exasperated outrage out of his voice, even when she flinched - how could he? She was playing coy, and he didn't quite have the patience for her antics, because he was in indescribable pain and it was her fault and he really thought they'd finally been seeing eye-to-eye but then she just had to go back to her old ways didn't she? "Oh — oh!" Pearl gasped, as if she had just noticed the agony herself... Scott didn't see how she could have possibly forgotten; the pulsating pain was a pretty persistent reminder. "Oops — sorry! Sorry, sorry! I... forgot you could feel that, hah, my bad!" That seemed like a pretty hard thing to forget. Both the pain and the fact they were soulbound - now he knew she had to be playing games with him, because this was just ridiculous. "Jesus - Just make it stop! How are you even making it feel like my ribs are breaking without doing anything?" At least one of his ribs had to be broken. He'd tried to check by running his fingertips' along his skin to test for cracks, but he'd become nauseous with pain just doing so, so abandoned that venture quickly and decided it was safe to assume because properly checking would probably be enough to make him pass out. "Pfha, now, c'mon, Scott, I think you might be being a teeeensy bit dramatic, there," He was not. His ribs were on fire. How could she laugh? He could hardly breathe. "'m just wearing a binder!" His heart stopped. He couldn't tell if it was out of sheer shock or because one of his ribs had finally properly dislodged and stabbed through one of his ventricles. "You're... wearing a what?"

"A—! A... a binder?" her... her...? — Pearl's voice trailed off with abrupt hesitancy at the shock in his voice, their tone becoming a bit warier, quieter, as they noticed his change in demeanour. They became a bit more defensive, prickly and umbrageous as they prompted, slowly, "...Is that a problem? Gee, Scott, didn't think you'd of all people would hav'a problem with that—" "No!" Scott answered breathlessly on reflex, even though it was, in fact, a bit of a problem, because it still felt like he was suffocating to death, but he didn't want them to think for a second he was a bigot. They hated him, yes, but he wanted them to hate him for the right reasons, not because they thought he was a scumbag. "I — I just — I'm... surprised. Why? Are you... wearing a binder? It's not that you can't, you just — you told me... you were a cis woman, so, I don’t see... why you’d be… wearing a binder?" "Things change, Scott! 've been stuck in isolation for the last few months with nobody 'xcept me and Tilly, had a lot of time to myself, lotta time to think, experiment! Not much else to do when you've got nobody to talk, y'know?” They shrugged. ”Oh.” That was the dumb, numb sound that left Scott’s mouth. He didn’t know what else to say - his mind was reeling with the realization, his entire world turned topsy-turvy, because if they were saying what he thought they were saying... they hadn't been turning him straight; his heart had just known they were in the wrong body before he had. Before even they had, probably, his gaydar was so attuned it has sensed they were a man before they had even sensed they were a man themself. Scott powered through the turbulent turmoil in his mind to obligatorily ask: “What pronouns would you… prefer I call you, now, then?” Pearl hesitated for a heartbeat, as if surprised, as if those had been the last words they’d expected to hear leave his mouth - or, rather, as if it was a question they’d never expected anyone to ask. Let alone expected to have to answer.  “I… don’t really know? I think… I like being called he? Maybe? But, I dunno, hard to tell. It’s been difficult to test out pronouns, since there isn’t reaaaally anyone around to call me them…” He finally answered after a moment of introspection, voice softer, more vulnerable, laced and laden with the fervent confusion of somebody who didn’t know who he was yet - somebody who hadn’t quite figured out who he wanted to be. Scott knew the tone of voice all too well - it was one he’d spoken in before. He knew what it was like to be confused. To not understand who you were yet. To feel broken.

    “I know a guy,” Scott started, slowly, “His name is Pearl. He’s my crazy ex-boyfriend - he’s got a weird codependent relationship with his dog, and he loves to make my life miserable in any way he can think of. He’s reckless, has no sense of self-preservation whatsoever, is probably going to get us killed, and is definitely a bit off his rocker.” He teased him experimentally. Pearl’s eyes lit up, pupils bright like the full moon beneath his irises’ nightsky, and he giggled, unable to keep the euphoric grin off his face, “Pfth — yeah, I — I liked that. I like that a lot. That… that feels right. He feels right. I like he.” “He suits you,” Scott agreed. Scott had always found it odd his soulmate had been a ‘girl’. Now he knew why.

    

“But seriously, I’ve never had to bind before, but I feel like it shouldn't make you feel like your lungs are imploding — what’re you even binding with?” “Oh! Just ‘sum bandages and duct tape!” “PEARL!”

Round 2 Match 4

(all ships are ambiguous unless specified)

The ship that wins round two will have 500 word fic written by me!