#soulmarks au

[honora-antares]

Close to a thousand years ago, right after the Rune Wars, Runeterra was left destroyed. Countless myths and histories forever forgotten in meritless conflict . Innumerable lives lost in quests for power. The lands permanently changed. In a desperate attempt to stop their own destruction, Runeterra itself awoke, creating what is known as Soul Runes.

They appear on the inside of a being's left wrist in the form of their soulmates name the first time it is written by their hand. Perhaps, in a way, this should dissuade Runeterrians from killing eachother in fear of losing their Soul.

What a pity that some nations took to searing their marks. Others ruthlessly cutting off flesh to prove themselves unswayed by personal matters.

Most, at least those who wished differently, simply took to binding their wrist.

Like that of one Jayce Talis.

Or,

When nineteen year old Jayce woke up with a name on his wrist, he didn't think twice in running to show his mother.

[lemonhitsu]

My second piece for the @strangerthingsbigbang, for the story Branded by Destiny by @kayleeofcamelot. I had such a good time working with Kaylee and I'm really happy we got paired up thanks to this event and that I was able to bring her ideas to life💖

A steddie fanfic about soulmarks and finding your soulmate in between the Upside Down. Happy ending guaranteed!

Read it here🔥

Also the banner I made and the (spoiler) soulmark version of the art under the cut~.

Socials: beacons.ai/lemonhitsu

[greyskyflowers]

I have all these half hearted soulmate AU ideas and I hate to just delete them, so I'm just going to post what I have and roll with it. Please enjoy some rough draft soulmate AU ideas that I'll never finish ~

💙

Visible soulmate marks

Strings - brook

All his strings are tangled in his rib cage.

Vivid red that's thickly woven and caught between several ribs, always moving and pulling Brook forward.

Dark green tangled up, knotted and fraying in some places but still one of the strongest looking strings he has.

Grey blue that's tied securely towards his inner ribs, usually tangled up with the dark green, and close to where his stomach would be if he had one. Yohohoho

Shimmering orange ribbon that shines on the edges and doesn't pull so much as guide with gentle tugs.

Brilliant yellow in twine, multiple smaller pieces braided into one larger stand and tried off on the bone is a messy knot.

Peaceful pink that's carefully tied with a bow and drapes in gentle loops to a lower height before fading.

Deep purple silk thread, it's thin and slides like water over bone, deceivingly sharp to the touch.

Neon blue wire that's bent on a few places but strong, wrapped over bone in multiple coils.

Flower tattoo - robin

Sunflowers cover her back in messy lines, sprouting into long leafy stems and then giant detailed blooms, a heavy and bright presence always at at her back.

Gladiolus grow up her left forearm in thick inked lines that intersect with fine perfect ones, and lush blooms, one of the larger blooms sits where her arms cross.

Blue stars cover her right forearm with elegant and surprisingly subtle line, the most stunning one parallel to the Gladiolus and they meet when her arms cross.

Dahlias grow around her ankles, beautiful and healthy with lines like a rough sketch, looking wind swept and rain drenched.

A mix of peonys grow on her collarbones, they're sweet and inked in childlike handwriting, the blooms hide playful behind each other in a bunch of petals

Clematis bloom on her chest, they're the largest bloom and are messily arranged, the lines are reminiscent of blueprints with scales and measurements.

Daffodil climb up her left side in elegant white ink and tangle together in all stanges of life: bud, bloom, and wilting with petals dropping.

Marigolds cover her right side in ink that mimics paint strokes, the blooms more detailed than any of the others and look like something from an old gardening book.

Color spots - luffy

Luffy is cover in color, everything from pale, watercolors to vivid metallic

Green covers his right hand and forearm, always visible and on the side that he throws the first punch with.

Pale blues mix on his left hand and forearm, intermixed like different depths of water.

Gold drips down the right side of his chest like spilled ink, a shine to it that catches the light and gleams.

Yellow shines like sunlight on his left knee, it's a burst of courageous color and quick to draw the eye.

Pale pink is whispy on his lower back like cotton candy, edges soft and happy.

Crisp, black is in sharp lines against his left ribs. They site between each rib like a shadow and curl like skeletal fingers.

Purple stains his fingers dark like fruit, it finds its way into his finger prints and trace the shape like it's memorizing it.

Solid grey wraps around his ankles like bands, gleaming like metal and strong looking against his skin.

Moving tattoos - zoro

Zoro is full of life, even when he's fast asleep

A sun, filled in with all the colors of a sunset and whispy, white clouds that roll lazily over the design before fading away and reforming again on the other side. The only mark he ever wants on his back

A part of a map wrapped around his upper, left arm. It flutters like it's catching the wind and the edges shine vivid gold and copper.

Flowers bloom on the back of his right hand, they drop petals that fade like they're sinking into water before the flower starts as a bud again.

Gears turn on his left side, little blue stars tumbling between them before flickering out and reappearing at the top.

The going merry circles his left ankle, it bobs happily under a half circle shape with 5 prongs on the inside.

There's a sheet of music wrapped around his upper, right thigh. Binks Sake, the notes jump like they're being played.

Smoke curls around his right forearm, spitting embers and flashing flames in dark smoke before settling back into a gentle grey.

Hoof prints walk in happy, steps around on his right ribcage. They're there and gone in quick black prints like soot in snow.

Names - nami

Luffy curls around her right wrist, vivid red ink that forms the letters in playful strokes.

Zoro is inked on her lower back in a strong, green.

Sanji rests in greyish blue under her left collarbone in clean, neat lines.

Chopper is a warm brown that wraps around her left ankles, the O replaced with a little hoofprint.

Usopp wraps around her right ankle in messy yellow like paint.

Robin is on her right ribs in dark purple, it's a beautiful cursive.

Franky is neon blue and sits on the back of her neck in block letters.

Brook is one her left ribs, black ink spelling his name in thin, curling strokes.

Usopp - constellations

Taurus in red like blood across his collarbone, a rough circle with proudly raised horns growing off to the sides.

Scorpio in black ink around his upper left arm, razor thin lines that raise high and curve before dropping back down and closing off in an arrow.

Cancer like copper coins behind his ear in tight, storming swirls and long tails.

Pisces in silver around his upper right thigh, two curves back to back and gleaming.

Aquarius in pearl around his fingers in waves that creast in points.

Capricorn in bronze on his right ribcage dripping down and up before curling into a circle and trailing off

Pisces in cobalt on his left shoulder blade, a second pair of curves sliced through but this pair is has thicker lines.

Aries in platinum down his spine, the curve starting by one side of the neck before dropping all the way down his back and back up to the other

Something from home - Sanji

A jungle tree cover his right arm, a small treehouse tucked in between all of the leaves and branches.

The outline of a small building rests on his lower back, the large doors are open and even though he hasn't seen it in person he knows it's a dojo.

A orange tree has roots on his right ankle and grows up his leg into a tree baring healthy, ripe oranges.

The outline of a snowy mountain covers his left ribs, the tops snow tipped and the shadows adding a depth.

A whale rests on his left hip, it's got a scar and a sprout of water above it

A trains follows it's tracks in loops around his left ankle and up to his kneecap

Another tree grows on his left leg, smaller around the base and larger around the middle with little dots like windows in the trunk.

The going merry sits between his shoulders, she's bittersweet but he's honored to have her on his skin.

Franky - bands

Red band that ties like an anchor hitch knot and the edges are wavy like the sea

Green band that's frayed and threadbare in some spots with 3 razor sharp lines carefully cut

Gold band with a little bow and faint maps designs almost light enough to overlook

Purple band with a design like lace, elegant flowers and hearts mixed in

Yellow band with textured like a rope and a little ship he knows but never met sailing on top

Brown band that looks like gauze and just barely covers a little hoof print behind it

Blue band that looks like fish scales and has smokey edges

Couldn't decide what to do for Chopper so let's just say his fur covers them 😀

💙

Soulmate AU ideas

Where you share parts of everything with your soulmate. Random thoughts, wounds, knowledge, etc will sneak through before disappearing

Luffy saying something he absolutely should not know and Robin grinning

Nami sharing in the heavy sleeping feeling from Zoro

Usopp showing off the brief wounds he gets from Sanji like they're his own before they disappear from his skin

Chopper being musical in a way someone with hooves shouldn't be

Franky having medical knowledge that a cyborg doesn't have much use for

They all know they could weld Zoro's swords if they needed. None of them trained in any type of swords style but they can feel the ache of the repetitive motions that come with training and way it feels to attack with the intention of killing. His swords are weary of them, aware of the power soulmates have. They all know what happened at Thriller Bark, felt the acceptance of death because it meant their captain wouldn't have to.

They all love Ace as their own immediately, memorizing everything about him in the way you do for a loved one. They have a fondness for Shanks and others that they've never met besides in stories. Their hands have been busted again and again, the skin splitting over broken bone. They've felt fire in their chest, a loss far deeper than skin.

They've all felt wind against exposed bone, even with there own safety wrapped in skin and muscle. They've felt strings under their fingers and hum melodies they've never heard. There's a loneliness in their heart that speaks of a lifetime lost, one they never lived.

They all felt the foreboding feeling of knowing a storm is coming while looking at clear skies. They wipe at their fingers like ink stains them and there's an itch that only comes from old scars that always sits on their shoulder. They trace maps in their heads and itch for a pen, calculations springing up in their minds for properly scaling.

They've all had situations where their hands knew what to do before they did, their eyes tracing over someone and seeing all the injuries like it was written on their skin. They've felt their noses itch with a influx of scents, knowing immediately what belonged to who. They've felt the zip down their spine of that animal instinct when in the presence of a predator.

They've all felt the feeling of being too big, metal where skin should be and a loss of nerves. They've felt the heavy satisfaction of building something new and impressive, constant bigger and better in their minds.

They've all spoke of books they've never read and place they've never been. They have felt multiple spines break and necks snap under their hands. There's knowledge in their heads that feels heavy and overwhelming, it wants to spill out from their mouths to make room. They miss a place and family that they never knew.

They've all had that vicious huger, the desperation only caused by starvation. They've felt the fleeting attraction to a stranger and also the beauty of genuine love. They have the itch for nicotine, lungs begging for something they've never had.

They've all had times where the day is clearer, a haze they didn't realize was there lifting off their eyes and letting them see further than they had before. They've felt the snap of a slingshot and the swelling urge of creation in their chest.

They never held Zoro's swords

They never mourn the loss of Ace the way Luffy has

They never taste a storm on the back of their tongue the way Nami has.

They've never aimed with the knowledge that people will get hurt if they miss like Usopp has

They never felt hunger as fiercely as Sanji has

They never saved someone's life with enough confidence the way Chopper has

They've never ran their fingers over the last of something the way Robin has

They've never traded skin for metal the way Franky has

They've never met death quite like Brook has

💙

Soulmate String of Fate AU?

Strings tangled in or around:

Zoro's swords

Luffy's hat

Brook's ribs

Robin's fingers

Sanji's wrists

Chopper's antlers

Franky's arms

Nami's bracelet

Usopp's hair

[unfinishedslurs]

soulmarks (stobin)

Robin is born with bruises on her knees. 

Her parents tell the story all the time. We were so worried, they say, but the doctors told us it was normal. Her soulmate must have just been learning to walk. That poor boy must have been quite the adventurer, the bruises never ceased! 

As she gets older, the odd marks keep showing up. On her hips, her arms, her shins. She’s sure she’s leaving her fair share of marks on them, too. They’re clumsy, both of them. 

When she’s eight, a set of fingers are clear around her wrist. Her parents look at each other sadly and murmur about things Robin doesn’t quite understand. 

They ask her to tell them if she ever gets a mark like that again. None ever appear. Their relief is obvious. 

Her mother sits her down. “When you meet your soulmate,” she tells Robin, “make sure he knows he is always welcome in our home.”

Robin thought it would be obvious. What’s hers is theirs, after all, and vise versa. Two halves of the same soul.

As she gets older, the idea rakes at her. Make sure he knows, her mother said. He is always welcome. 

She doesn’t know if it would be the same, if her soulmate was a girl. They have to be. After all, Robin is realizing, there’s no way her soulmate is a boy. 

When she’s fifteen, bruises appear on her face and knuckles and her mother shrieks at the sight of her. Robin just sits, quietly reeling. Girls don’t get in fights like this, she thinks numbly. Girls don’t…

That evening, three gashes scar across her body. Somehow she already knows they’ll be permanent. She cries herself to sleep. 

She keeps her head down, and barely even hears about the fight Steve Harrington got into with Jonathan Byers. It doesn't matter. She’s got bigger concerns than Steve Harrington. 

Things are quiet for the next year. Hardly any bruises, which makes her happy and upset in equal measure. She doesn’t know why the universe would do this to her. Why would it give her someone she can never fall in love with? Maybe the universe is homophobic, she thinks, but doesn’t laugh. It sure fucking feels like it. 

She tries to leave less bruises on them, too, as an avoidance technique. It doesn’t work. She’s got soccer practice, and marching band, and she runs into a pole when a pretty girl smiles at her across the street. Dammit. 

November comes back around, and with it, new marks. 

They’re awful. 

It starts out with a couple of scratches that look similar to the three from last year that she still wears. Then her mom has to watch, horrified, as new bruises appear on her face. When she pulls her shirt up, they’re on her ribs. Worse than they’ve ever been. 

She pretends to be too sick to go to school for the two days it takes for them to fade, to avoid the questions and the gossip. Last year was bad enough, after someone started a rumor her soulmate was in a gang. 

Something that doesn’t fade is the thin scar along her hairline. She pulls her hair down to cover it, and swears quietly at whoever the universe decided to gift her. 

(She worries about them all the time.)

[nat-20s]

For the ask meme: pov?

POV — something that’s already happened, retold from another character’s perspective

MARTHA TIME BABEY!! this is set in season 3!! also this got longer than i was anticipating so uh readmore time <3

Martha knew about the (in her opinion, a bit on the nose) rosebush that resided splayed across The Doctor’s ribs, and how it didn’t used to have thorns wrapped around it. She obviously knew of and thought fondly about the caduceus snuggled to his clavicle that matched her own. (and oh, how she remembered that day, him and his confusing heartbeat and his eccentricities, including pulling down the collar of his shirt with an enthusiastic “This one is you, isn’t it!”.) She was even aware of the swirling vortex wrapped around his wrist that faded in and out, belonging to one Captain Jack Harkness. That one was..interesting, to say the least.

But The Doctor tended to stay rather bundled up. Logically speaking, it was entirely possible that he had several more marks that she would never bare witness to. She just kind of assumed otherwise, though. The Doctor hardly seemed the type to accumulate soul marks willy nilly, and even when he did, they didn’t seem like they would be all that private. Definitely not a soul mark on the upper thigh type bloke, by any means.

Then he had to go and get himself shot. Sure, she wasn’t an expert in xenobiology (yet- she had some plans), but generally speaking, large wound treatment was the same regardless of species. Step 1: get them into a position where you can accurately assess the wound, for the love of god, Doctor, stop being a baby, take off your shirt, and stay STILL. Step 2: Stop the bleeding. Luckily the shot through the shoulder had been from laser fire rather than a bullet, cauterizing the wound. Clearly meant to injure rather than kill, thank god. Step 3: If bleeding is under control, clean the wound. She didn’t have all the resources she’d like, but the Tardis did provide a fairly extensive first aid kit, including sterilizing wipes that The Doctor, uh, probably wouldn’t have a bad reaction to. Hopefully. Step 4: Make the open wound no longer open: aka bandage it up and threaten to put a cone on him if he starts messing with it.

The final step, which was really only in this specific case, was stop focusing on the wound and see a large dark spot out of the corner of her eye. Curious, and just a tad worried that there was some Other thing going on, Martha actually studies the blotch between his shoulder blades. It’s not a blotch, or a wound, or a rash, but rather the spitting image of a beetle. Oh, interesting. Clearly a soulmark, though the color is slightly faded, and she couldn’t think of who it might go to. Swallowing down just the ever so slightest twinge of jealousy over The Doctor being connected to yet another someone, she couldn’t help but ask, “So who’s this one then?”

She even threw in a slightly cheeky grin, because she genuinely was more curious than anything. Instead of direct response, of course, The Doctor only replied with a “Huh?”

“The beetle? Smack dab in the middle of your back? You know the one!”

With a scoff, The Doctor hastily puts his (first) shirt back on, and sucks in a breath through his teeth as he pulls on the brand new bandaging. “I most certainly do not know the one. I don’t have a mark on my back!”

Martha rolls her eyes at him. “Do you really not know? It’s not exactly subtle.”

The Doctor turns to face her, stares for a moment, then...sonics his own back. Apparently that does something for him, because as he squints down to the readout? he lets out a classic, “What?”

“I mean, it’s not that odd of a mark, is it? Almost terrestrial, for you.”

“No, that’s not. It’s not the mark itself, it’s, well, I don’t know who it belongs to.”

“Wait, I thought you had this sort of thing all, I dunno, cataloged out? Filed and color coded and everything.”

“Yeah, I mean, it could be her-”

Martha’s eyebrows raise and she covers up another of the littlest, ittiest, bittiest pang with a teasing, “Oh her? You’ve got a mystery woman out there? Or should I say another one?”

“No, no, no, not like that, just someone I ran into-”

“Yeah, right, someone you ‘just ran into’ is someone you have a soulmark with.”

He grimaces ever so slightly, at it’s not from that stupid shoulder of his. “Yeah, you’re right. Can’t be...Well, should be interesting to find out, anyway. Now, where were we? Trensalor, right?”

He’s dashing off to the Tardis console before she can respond, and she lets out a sigh. She knows full well this conversation isn’t getting anywhere any time soon, so might as well go with it. Privately, she hopes that whomever this mystery person is that is now written on The Doctor’s skin is decent. Maybe even someone she could get on with, ideally.

She hasn’t yet discovered the beetle wing on her back.

[lunar-serpentinite]

heheh soulmarks au but harry doesn't know what his soulmark is, because dudley burnt it off his skin when they were children :3 meanwhile draco's soulmark has been dulled and smudged since he was a child. what a weird coincidence, am i right ? >:3c

[vaidatriedwritingonce]

Marked for you; Erased in Red

Minsung fic, Soulmate au; Spinoff of the Seungjin fic, set in the same universe; Ongoing fic, 1k+ words (As of now)

Plot Summary:

Jisung has no soulmark.

Minho has no soulmate.

Two kinda-sorta lost souls meet in a planned setting, that leads to something unplanned. And wonderful.

Like the closure and erasure that tethers at Minho's horizon, and the connection and warmth begging to be let in Jisung's walls.

Mentions of drinking, clubbing and mild sexual content.

Implied one night stand, but nothing explicit.

[crimsonlyinglilly]

Soulmarks Master list

Summary: Since Celeste's death Elijah had only had her name, reburning itself onto his skin every few years, he took the pain in penance of her death however after her final death he discover the two new names that should have appeared decades ago.

Andréa Labonair and Jackson Kenner.

Pairing- Hayley/Jackson/Elijah

In Order

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Interrogation

Interrogation part 2

No Time to Rest

Contained Violence

[babybatscreationsv2]

Marked ch 4

Marvel | Starker

When Tony's soul marks first appeared he was afraid he wouldn't be good enough for his soulmate. When Peter's marks appeared he was afraid of what the blood and bruises meant. Now they're left dealing with the consequences of a dangerous lifestyle and a lot of distrust.

Warnings: violence, murder

It felt weird inviting the man into his apartment. He was a complete stranger and yet sitting across from him felt like the most natural thing in the world. Their souls really did know each other. Peter was nervous, sure, but it felt right to be here with him. Yet, it felt so strange. Truth be told, he didn't know how he felt. He felt too many things all at once.

Peter looked at Tony from across the coffee table. He looked so out of place on his faded second hand couch. Him and Ned had gotten it off of Craigslist. Same with most of the other furniture here. The stained coffee table between them held a stunning bouquet of flowers. Nothing about the scene added up in Peter's head.

"How did you find me?" He asked. His voice interrupted the silence, but it did nothing to dissolve the tension.

"It's what I do," he answered plainly. Peter could see how guarded he was. Even his voice was masked. Just the way he sat as if claiming the couch, leaning casually against the arm, it was all calculated to give a certain impression.

"You find people?" Peter raised his eyebrows. "What are you, a detective?"

Tony smiled. "Not exactly."

Peter took a breath. He clasped his hands together. "Everyone thinks you're trouble. Ned and Mr. Octavius. I don't even dare show my aunt the bruises."

"I'm sorry about that. I'll try not to get punched in the face next time." He smiled apologetically.

"Did someone attack you?"

"Would that bother you?" His voice remained measured but Peter caught the excitement in his eyes. Still, he didn't know this man and he wasn't going to be talked in circles.

Peter scowled. "Has anyone ever told you that it's rude to answer a question with a question?"

Tony smirked. "It's a good way to get answers though isn't it?"

"And I suppose you're in the business of getting answers, too?"

"Now you're getting closer."

Peter ran his palm down his thigh. He hoped he wasn't visibly sweating. They weren't getting anywhere and if anything the tension felt worse. "Yeah, it would bother me. Just like it bothers me when they all tell me you're trouble. But that's crazy because I don't even know you."

Tony sat back. "I feel the same way. Only I know a lot about you and I guess that's not really fair is it?"

"No, it's not."

His mouth twitched like he might smile again. He was an awfully smiley person for someone covered in scars. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

"Why don't we start smaller scale?"

"What do you do for work?"

"Something else."

Peter rolled his eyes. "Fine. Where do you live?"

"Manhattan," he answered too simply.

Peter narrowed his eyes.

"I have a condo," he relented. "I've lived there about six years, it's a fairly new building. Of course I move around a lot anyway."

"For work?"

"You're not ready to know what my job is, Peter." The first real frown crossed his face.

"You're an assassin?" He said it like he was teasing, but he half meant it.

Tony leaned forward. His expression was firm, serious, urging Peter to take him in. "I'm never going to lie to you. So I need you to stop asking for now."

Peter sat back in his chair. "So they're all right about you then. You're not a champion boxer."

Tony laughed. "Is that what you thought?"

"It's what I wanted to believe, but I'm not stupid. I wanted to believe it was paint on my hands, but I know blood when I see it. And you're covered in a lot of it sometimes."

"You know a lot about blood, do you?"

"I fall down a lot."

"Is that how you got that scar on your knee?"

He nodded. "Tired to jump a staircase." He grimaced.

"Why?" Tony laughed.

Peter shrugged. "One of my friends said I couldn't. Guess he was right."

"Sounds like you need better friends."

"Do you have many friends?"

Tony thought for a moment. "Not many, but the ones I keep are loyal."

Peter huffed a laugh and shook his head. "Everything you say is so ominous."

He smiled softly. "I'm not making a very good first impression."

"No, it is good. You seem like someone who doesn't usually get nervous." But he was nervous about talking to Peter and nothing could be more flattering.

Tony just looked at him. He looked as if Peter had seen into his soul. Maybe he had. Maybe that was how all of this worked. He wanted Tony to see him, too.

"Let me take you out."

"Like a hit?" Peter drew back in mock surprise. "I was right!"

Tony smiled. "I'll pick you up tomorrow after work. We'll have dinner."

Peter crossed his arms. "Will we?"

Tony held out his hand in appeasement. "Excuse me. Would you please join me for dinner tomorrow?"

Peter smiled. "I would be honored, Tony."

----------

He had to make the right impression. Something impressive, something honest, something Peter would enjoy. He was used to simple things. That didn't mean he wouldn't enjoy a grand gesture. Besides, Tony liked expensive things. Dressing down and taking the guy out for a cheese burger wasn't his regular type of outing. Not if he was looking to have a good time.

He put on a suit, but left the tie behind as a compromise. The restaurant he'd made their reservation at didn't require them, but he was certain it was still a nice place. Definitely outside of Peter's budget. He had to admit it was thrilling to know he had the honor of treating his soulmate to all the things he'd been missing in life. Fancy food, expensive clothes, he'd give him everything. But he had to do it right. Desperate wasn't a good look on anyone. Or was it? Maybe Peter was into that. Damn, he hadn't been so nervous since he had to tell his dad that he crashed the Ferrari. At least this was guaranteed to have a better outcome. They were soulmates after all. He'd never seen soulmates that didn't work out in the end.

Tony took a last look in the mirror. The sight of his aging face made him hesitate. Peter was giving up a lot by choosing an old man. What could they possibly have in common with an almost 30 year age gap? Yikes. He sighed. His head fell forward, hanging down between his shoulders.

On his forearm little black lines began to appear. They swirled around and twisted into the shape of a rose. Then a sunflower. He couldn't help but smile. Who was he to decide for Peter that he wasn't good enough? He was happy. He was excited for their date. That much was clear. So, what the hell?

He took the elevator down to the garage. Steve and Bucky were hanging out, two of the few allowed anywhere near his home.

"Good luck, tonight," Steve called.

"I look alright?" Tony did a turn before he passed them.

Bucky looked at his watch. "You got time to change?"

"Watch it, Barnes."

"You look great, Tones. Go get him," Steve called. "Just don't lay it on too thick. You'll scare him off."

"Glad you're both so supportive," he scoffed.

"Happy to help, boss."

Tony climbed into the car and started the engine. He wrapped his hands around the wheel giving himself a moment to relax. It was practically a done deal yet the anxiety wouldn't leave him. He'd dreamed about having a soulmate once and he'd given up on it. He couldn't mess this up.

He left early. Maybe too early. Peter wasn't outside yet when he pulled up in front of rec center. A few kids were wandering out the door. He hoped Peter wasn't far behind. He found a spot to park on the street and sat with his leg bouncing impatiently. The awkward phase couldn't last forever, right? He couldn't believe he was nervous, but then again when was the last time he actually wanted to impress someone?

When Peter came outside, Tony's heart skipped a beat. He grabbed the handle of the car door and stepped out. Peter smiled when he saw him. He had a gym bag on one shoulder and his hair was damp. The outfit was barely going to make the dress code for the restaurant, but no one was going to say anything to the man on Tony Stark's arm. Still, he was gorgeous.

Tony walked around the car and met him on the sidewalk. "Ready to go?"

Peter nodded. His cheeks were blushing the prettiest pink. "You look great," he said.

"You look amazing," Tony answered. He took a step back and grabbed the door handle to open it for him. It was so sweet the way he blushed and ducked his head as he clambered into the car.

"How was work?" Tony asked as they pulled away from the curb.

"The kids wanted to play dodgeball, today." He laughed. "There's always the one kid, Grayson, who's afraid of getting hit."

Tony smiled. "Sounds like a sweet kid."

"Yeah, they're all great. Some of them have problems at school. Or at least their parents keep saying they do, but I don't see it. They're good kids."

"Maybe you bring out the best in people."

"Nah, I don't think it's me," he said, but he turned his head towards the window as if he were embarrassed. "What did you do today?"

Tony hesitated, realizing that the honest answer was wait for you to get off work. "Lots of boring phone calls."

"Must be nice to get out of the office then." He caught Peter looking at him, trying to gauge his reaction. He couldn't help but smile. He was too curious for his own good.

They pulled up to the restaurant and Peter gaped. "Here? I've never been here before."

"I thought a first date deserved something special."

"I'm not really dressed for this place. Don't they have a dress code?" He looked at the crowd walking into the building. "Everyone's wearing a tux. I can't go in like this."

"Hey, am I wearing a tux?"

Peter looked at him. "Well no, but still..."

"Trust me, alright?"

"Okay..."

Tony stepped out of the car and left the door open for the valet. The man greeted him and stood patiently to the side as another valet ran to open Peter's door. Tony offered his arm to the blushing young man. Even dressed down as he was, he was still far more beautiful than anyone else there. Even as they entered the building and walked beneath a dazzling gold and silver chandelier and over white marble embedded with gold and past a water fountain with shimmering orange and yellow fish, Peter was the most beautiful thing in the room.

The hottest spotted Tony and quickly stepped up to greet them and lead them to a table. Tony preferred the tables that were tucked against the far wall. There was a fire exit nearby if needed and they were more quiet than the tables at the center. She led them over to one before disappearing, only to be replaced by the sommelier. He'd barely spoken when Tony realized how overwhelmed Peter was.

"We'll pass on wine for now, thank you," Tony said. The man gave a small bow and hurried away. Peter visibly relaxed.

"You don't drink?" Peter asked.

"I thought you might like a moment to settle in. Someone will be by with fresh bread, they won't mind taking our drink orders."

"I'm okay, don't worry about me."

Tony reached across the table and took his hand. "You don't have to be anything you're not Peter. If this is too much for you, we can leave right now."

"No, I love it! I've just never been to a place like this before." He ducked his head a bit. It was so enticing watching him speak with his lips nervously bitten red, looking up through his lashes. He was beautiful in pictures, but in person he was enchanting. "Maybe you could order for me?" His laugh was self-deprecating. "I can barely read the menu, it's all in French."

Tony paused, debating whether or not to tell him that it was actually Italian. He looked so uncomfortable already.

"You're in good hands," Tony promised with a squeeze to his fingers. He took his hand away as the promised bread arrived. The comfort of warm bread seemed to help Peter relax. Tony led the conversation, keeping to light and easy topics. Peter talked so easily once he was relaxed and his inability to stay on topic was charming. He said every thought that came into his head and he didn't seem to know how unusual that was. No wonder everyone adored him.

They were getting their meals in front of them when Peter frowned. He was looking over Tony's shoulder.

"Do you know that guy?"

Tony turned to look. His heart caught in his throat. Fuck. That cheap suit and greasy hair. Quentin's people were here. He turned back and spared the dining room another glance. Sure enough, three more pairs of eyes were on them. Mother fucker.

He took out his phone and sent Happy a quick SOS. On the outside, he kept his expression calm. He put his hands flat on the table so they wouldn't shake.

"Peter, listen." Peter's eyes met his. He watched them wide slightly as he caught on to the grim energy surrounding them. "Remember how I can't tell you what I do for a living?"

He nodded.

"That's because it's bad. I didn't want you to think less of me before you even got the chance to know me. But I need you to trust me now. Can you do that?"

Peter glanced behind him again. "Tony what's going on?"

"Don't look at them, look at me." He paused while Peter turned his eyes back to Tony's face. "Can you trust me, Peter?"

"Of course. But what-"

"Get under the table," Tony cut him off. There was Quentin. He'd been sitting at the back of the room hidden behind a woman in a wide brimmed hat. He stood now, sharing a slimy smile with her as he walked towards their table. They were surrounded.

"What?"

"Down. Now!" Tony pulled the gun from his jacket, adrenaline pulsing through his veins. He upended the table and Peter sunk down, using it to block them both in. Their backs were to the wall and either side was Quentin and his people.

Tony shot the guy at the back, the one Peter had been staring at. The first shot was good, but the panic in his heart had the second going wide as he shot at the next guy. He'd never felt like this before. Was he having a panic attack?

He looked at Peter, crouched low, trying to make himself small even though he was all gangly limbs. He wouldn't let anything happen to him. Not to him. No matter what.

Shot hit against the table and the wall behind them. Tony took a breath to slow his racing thoughts. There was a fire exit behind Quentin. He would have men at the door in case Tony got out. And a car for a quick getaway. Getting out wasn't going to work. But Tony had loyal bodies in the kitchen. That's why he came here.

He grabbed Peter's arm. Peter looked at him with terror. "Listen to me, you listening?"

Peter nodded. It worried him that the man wouldn't speak, but there wasn't time for worry.

"I'm going to draw them away. When you see an opening, run for the kitchen. Tell them Tony Stark said they're to protect you. Understand?"

He nodded again. Then he swallowed. "Yeah, okay."

"You'll be alright. I promise." It hurt to fail like this. To fuck up such an important moment. He didn't know how he was going to fix this, but he'd find a way. For now, he just had to get them both out alive.

Tony looked over the table. A shot grazed his forehead and landed in the wall behind him. He fired once at the guy left blocking the kitchen and he went down. Then he looked at Quentin. Just him and three of his men. None of Tony's had made it in yet. There must have been fighting outside.

He vaulted over the table and used the next to jump over the dividing wall that separated the back dining area from the front. A hail of bullets followed him just a hair too slow, but he swore he felt the heat of them at his back. He spared a glance to make sure they followed him, but he didn't dare look at Peter and risk reminding them that he wasn't alone.

Another shot, another one down, but he was still outnumbered. Where the fuck was Happy?

[chacusha]

Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Odo/Quark Summary: An AU where everyone has a mark that designates either their greatest love or their greatest enemy. For Quark and Odo, this… doesn't change much. Word count: 5649 words

[honora-antares]

That future scene in Of Foxtails and Antlers

In a world where your soulmark manifests in Soul Dreams. James Potter walks in a field of foxtails and comes to a stop. Up ahead runs a small animal. Gray and yellow in color with a pale belly and black legs. James doesn't know how exactly he is able to see the small creature so clearly, but he just can. A long fluffy tail follows its body, tip tinted in black, James takes a step and the creature stops in its track. It looks up. One would think its most noticeable feature would be its raccoon-like face markings, but James's attention was caught a bit more upwards. Its ears, just like its legs and tail, were edged in black; they were big. Bigger than its head. Like a bat.

It slowly treaded over the field of foxtails, coming closer to James, so he followed its movements; he can feel himself smiling. And just as he was about to reach the creature, a massive shadow loomed over it. James stood still in fear and watched in complete horror as the shadow took the creature by its throat with short-blunt teeth. The sound the creature made was harrowing and James could. not. move.

He wakes with a start. Cold sweat drips down damp hair, he's shaking. Then, he hears commotion outside his bedroom door. James lifts aside his covers with a trembling hand, stumbling through the darkness of his room. He wants out. He wants away from the shadows on the walls. Opening the door James walks out and catches the end signs of green flames from their fireplace.

"James? Love, everything alright?" His mother, lovely, wonderful, ever collected Euphemia Potter, looks distraught.

"Uh-huh - yeah, mom, I - you. . . Dad, where?" James is stammering. He is still in the dark hallway, he walks into the family room. Farther away from the shadows.

"Auror business, nothing to worry about, here," Euphemia takes is hand in hers. Its still shaking. He is still shaking. "Sit, James. Merlin, you're freezing!" She leaves him on the tan orange settee as she moves towards the fireplace to block the Floo channel and snaps it to life. A thick blanket is summoned from a cupboard, sinking over James's trembling shoulders. He grips the softness, willing himself to calm.

"Dad... he said Cokeworth... That's - Lily lives in Cokeworth." But its not Lily that's on James's mind. He remembers her words. When they were left alone after Snape's father had picked him up from Manchester Piccadilly Station.

"If a slap in public is all he got, just imagine what he does to his family behind closed doors."

James's father was head Auror of MAC. If Cokeworth was his destination then - could Severus have...?

Euphemia stills, eyes clenched shut, nose scrunched in distress. Then, she faces him, cold and collected, brown eyes shinning with frozen rage. "Lily is not the only one who lives in Cokeworth that you know of, is she James?"

He flinches at her glacial tone, swallows, and answers. "No."

A small creature with black legs, black tail, and black bat-like ears, attacked by a massive shadow... it couldn't be.

James's ribs burn and he screams. Euphemia runs to him and lifts his night shirt up revealing a leaping small creature. Black legs, black tail, and black bat-like ears.

It couldn't be.

Severus.

[bluemari23]

remember our touch || bangtan

summary: you try to push away your bad memories and your soulmates help you replace them with good ones.

pairing: idol!bts x reader

genre: soulmates, soulmarks, soulbands, angst, fluff

warnings: past depressed reader, bad memories, bad family, insecurities, anxious reader,

word count: 1.9k

masterlist

---------------------------

You remember feeling so lonely, watching all of the couples in your family get together, dancing under the moonlight as another love song comes on through the speakers. Every wedding you could remember, after you were old enough, you always wondered if you would every find your soulmate, the person you were destined to be with. 

Your soulmark showed up when you were twelve; you even remember the exact moment. You were in your advanced world history course, learning about the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the specific impact it had on North Africa when you felt the immense burning on your left forearm, directly under your palm over your main artery. 

You remember crying out in pain, a sob breaking past your lips as you fall back into your chair, toppling back and hitting your head on the ground. You remember your classmates trying to help you, but your teacher’s words held everyone back. 

“It’s the soul burn initiating.” You remember freezing, despite the burning pain, and moving your hand away from your forearm, only for a line of foreign letters to stare back at you, blacker than the night sky without stars shining down.

The intensity with which you stared at your soulmark was nothing compared to the loneliness you began to feel as more than one line of letters began to appear, the burning intensifying until you promptly fainted from the pain. 

Then you woke up in the hospital, hooked up to fluids and receiving a visit from a Soul Specialist who specialized in multiple soul bonds. She was there to comfort you, to give you pamphlets and tell you how they identified your soulmarks to be Korean, that you were likely the youngest, given the intensity of the soul burn you felt when your marks came in. 

You were a rarity, having multiple bonds. Three bonds were an uncommon occurrence, but having seven was a one-in-a-million statistic. Your mom was handed a card with her number on it, in case you felt anymore burning in your marks, or if one of them disappeared, which you wouldn’t know the significance of until you were nearly 16. 

You remember the looks of disbelief changing to looks of disgust as you grew older. The way some family members would tell you that you didn’t deserve that many people to love you. That you weren’t important enough for it. And you remember the way your mother would defend you despite everything. 

And you remember how she was the one to push you to find your soulbonds when you turned eighteen, fresh out of high school from your small little mountain town. It would take you another almost six years before you were able to meet them, the burning in your arm leading you to them; the black, slowly turning, silver soulmarks the closer you were to them in proximity. 

You remember your first glance at two of them, in a shopping mall of all places. You didn’t get a glance at their faces, only at the way they also clutched their forearms, panic and alarm shown through their eyes as they looked down at you clutching your own in pain. 

It would take another day for you to meet the rest of your soulmates and activate your bond. You couldn’t believe your eyes when you stared up at the faces of BTS, your soulmates, in the middle of their living room after you were taken home from the hospital after fainting at the touch of your first soulmate. 

That was over two years ago and nothing could have made you happier than the way they looked at you; so much love and adoration in their eyes. You never would have thought you would meet them, but now you wish you looked for them sooner. 

-*-*-

You couldn’t help but to stare down at the invitation again, lost in your memories of the last family wedding you went to with your mother before she passed away. You sat towards the corner of the room, against the wall as you watched the DJ play another love song and asked for all the “lovely soulbonds” in the room to get up and dance. 

You were in the middle of the deepest depression you had ever experienced and couldn’t fight the amount of loneliness and despair you felt after coming back from yet another discussion of why your soulmates wouldn’t want you by one of your random great aunts. Your grandma had come and sat with you, held your hands and made you cry all in one sentence. 

“Your soul was split into eight because the fates new how much love you had to give.” 

That was the first time your view on your soulmates had changed, that you felt worthy of the names imprinted on your skin. 

“What are you thinking about, baby?” Jimin’s asked as you felt his arms wrap around your middle, leaning his chin on your shoulder after giving a soft kiss to your neck. 

“Just thinking about the last time I went to a wedding.” You whispered, still caught in your memories. Your soulmates new all about your history of depression and didn’t treat you any differently because of it. 

In the words of Taehyung, “That just means we are meant to be there for you and give you all the love you deserve.” 

And they did, every second of every day. 

“Well, this time, you need to make time for seven soul dances, don’t you?” You could practically feel the grin on his lips as he kisses your naked shoulder, his hand messing with the top of your towel. 

“Jimin, we don’t have time to mess around right now. Our lovely little soulmate needs to finish getting ready, as do the rest of us. We only have about an hour before we need to leave.” Namjoon makes his way in from the bathroom, catching you and Jimin by the dresser. 

“Yes, Sir.” You and Jimin’s voices mesh together, mischievous looks aimed at your older soulmate knowing what the title does to him. The look in his eyes only lets you know just what punishment you were going to receive when you got back to the hotel later. 

Once everyone was ready, you made your way downstairs to the reception hall, decorated in light blue and white almost resembling what Cinderella’s wedding would resemble. You held Jin’s hand as you walked up to the small table by the entryway, folded pieces of paper organized on the table with names and table numbers. 

Your table was just you and your boys, the eight of you found yourself in the almost front and center, feet away from the long table where the bride, your cousin, and her soulmate would be sitting with their wedding parties. 

You knew why. Despite your family’s belief before you found your soulmates, once they found out you were bonded to seven extremely famous and rich men, their views changed. Now you were the favorite cousin, favorite niece. The one they always called when something went wrong and they needed money. 

“We could always just kidnap your grandma and go have dinner somewhere nice.” Jungkook leaned over and whispered in your ear, holding your hand so that you didn’t continue to pick at your nail beds. You didn’t even realize they were bleeding until he held them, using one of the napkins from the table to gently wipe the blood away. 

The boys, despite only meeting your grandma a couple of times, fell in love with her the moment they met. She had slapped Jimin with her purse when he didn’t pull your chair out for you. Apparently, all the boys needed was to see Jimin get hit before they loved someone. 

“Yeah, baby. Just say the words. Or even hit Jimin with your purse.” That earned Yoongi his own slap from the offended man. 

As nice as that sounded, dinner with the loves of your life and your beloved grandma, you knew you needed to be here. Even if you may not have wanted to come in the first place. You needed at least one good memory from a wedding that wasn’t your own. You needed to fight your own anxiety and bad memories. 

You needed to create new ones. 

Jungkook and Hobi both held your hand as the ceremony proceeded, squeezing every so often when your own grip tightened with anxiety. Weddings were a source of anxiety for you as it was the one place where all your depressive thoughts stemmed from. Just having them here, holding your hands and whispering sweet things into your ear was already a huge help to you. 

The real anxiety inducing moment was when the ceremony ended and the reception started, giving your family the perfect moment to rain down comment upon comment about your soulbonds. 

“You know, we used to think her marks were drawn on.”

“I told her before that she would never meet her soulmates and now look at her!”

“We always used to joke that her soulbond was a prank by the fates. I mean, seven soulmates. That never happens.”

“It’s a good thing her marks were real, or she’d be alone after her mom died.” 

That last comment was the last straw for you and your soulmates. Your older cousin, even if only by a couple of months, was always the one who started the jokes about your soulmarks. Even once dousing your arm in alcohol to “reveal the skin underneath”. 

You could vaguely hear the DJ announcing a soul dance and then the soft beat of another love song when Yoongi’s cold voice broke through his scarily calm demeanor. 

“Don’t ever speak about her mother again. Our soulmate has been through enough without you bringing in her mom as an offhanded comment.” Despite English being his second language, he was surprisingly good at coming up with amazing comebacks and defensive statements. 

“Now, if you don’t mind, we’re going to go and dance with our lovely soulmate and shower her with the love and affection her family should have shown her.” Jungkook finished Yoongi’s words, his piercings and tattoo’s coming off incredibly intimidating to your religious cousin. 

Taehyung led you onto the dancefloor first, right on the edge where your soulmates could stand next to you both. He cupped your cheeks, holding you close as he wiped away your slow-falling tears. 

“None of that. I want your next memory of a wedding to be a beautiful one, filled with the love of your soulmates. I want you to remember our touch, how we held you close and sang into your ear.” Taehyung was passionate in his beliefs, and it was hard to shake his mind when he believed in something, no matter how powerful that belief was. It was one of the reasons you loved him. 

You spent the rest of the reception being held and twirled on the edge of the dancefloor, experiencing the love you always dreamed of and wished for in the past. The touch of your soulmates keeping you grounded and reminding you what love was supposed to feel like. 

[caffeinatedvigilantewriter]

Soulmark AU again

So in this AU, Dani was born to look 8 (I never understood why she looked 12 but whatever. Danny was 14 in this AU) and Damian arrived at Gotham when he was 10.

Dani traveled the world for around a year before she meet Damian when they were 9. Damian is with the League at that time

Obviously, they are soulmates. You can decide their mark.

As per League custom, any heir must kill or destroy any distractions.

And that includes Soulmates (because Ra’s is an ass)

So, Damian’s first solo mission, he has to track down his soulmate and kill her.

But when it was time, he couldn’t do it.

He let her go, telling her to never contact or try to find him, and he would do the same. Dani leave, very angry (Poor Baby bat didn’t think he had another option)

He burned the body of a dead deer, and told his mother that he scattered Danielle’s ashes in the river.

Years go by, Damian moves to Gotham, and never mentions Danielle to his family. He didn’t even tell them that he knew who they were. He was ashamed 9f what he tried to do. Even if he didn’t manage to succeed.

When they’re both 16-17, Damian comes across Danielle in Gotham (she doesn’t know he was there. She never tried to look for him)

And because she was left dry by her soulmate when she was 9, she’s kind of bitter.

So she leaves, but she told him he would have to deal with her presence because she and her older brother are in Gotham for the foreseeable future.

Damian sees this as a golden chance to get her forgiveness and gain her trust.

The only way for that to happen is if his family doesn’t meddle. The only ways that’ll happen is if they doing know.

So Damian never tells them.

Dani doesn’t tell Damian she’s a ghost, nor why she and Dante are in Gotham (GIW got a hold on Danny and he’s healing in the GZ)

Dani attends Gotham Academy with Valds money. And she and Damian share a couple of classes. Meanwhile, the GIW is in Gotham searching for the High Princess and High Prince. Siblings of the King.

Shenanigans include

-Damian and Jason becoming a regular at the bookstore Dani works at, but they come at different times.

-Steph and Cass are on a date when they run into Damian and Dani, also on a date. It quickly becomes a double date.

-Alfred and Clockwork are old friends and Alfred is either a ghost or extremely liminal.

-Titus and Cujo friendship.

-Wiggles the dragon. I recently found out he existed and live him already

-Bruce getting shot while on Patrol and the closest place was Dani’s and Dante’s apartment

-Peopel can sense when their soulmate is about to die/get extremely hurt. Dani senses Damian is in danger and kills(?) (at least gravely injured) his attacker

-Sam visiting Gotham and strangling the Joker with Undergrowth powers

BONUS!!

Each member of the Royal family needs their own Knight (typically their soulmate/lover of choosing. Sometimes not)

Dante decides to have Fright Knight as his Knight (as soulmates or friends you chose)

Danny has Sam and Tucker, so he’s extra safe.

Dani has Damian.

The reason this is funny is maybe there’s a trademark summoning scene and maybe the knight shows up with the royal member, or maybe they show up first to scout if it’s safe.

So there’s a summoning and Damian pops in the middle of the circle looking confused

If he didn’t know he was Dani’s knight, even better.

[fangirlingpuggle]

SVSSS Soulmark AU/fic prompt where Shen Yuan and Airplanes world has soul marks but PIDW doesn't.

When Shen Yuan and Shang Qinghua are transmigrated there soul marks come with them.

Shang Qinghua is very much in denial that his soulmark is for Mobei Jun, after all it's not like to literally wrote Mobei Jun as his ideal man/soulmate, nope no way didn't happen.

Shen Yuan has been in denial for a long time since when he first read PIDW and LBH demon mark description looking down between his mark and the description and 'It's a coincidence totally my soulmate isn't...no he's not real this is stupid' and then after being in world is just in deeper denial.

LBH seeing mark after falling into abyss and remembering the mark he saw and Shizun and being like ...wait what?

Just LBH and MBJ trying to figure out about the marks while SQH and SQQ are like 'this is fine! I mean it can't mean anything right?? soulmarks aren't a thing here we can't be...can we???'

[hitlikehammers]

steddie ✨soulmarks✨ except that they spell out your soulmate’s last words 💔

(‘make him pay’ = epically lame iteration of this heartbreaking phenomenon)

From the minute he learned about soulmates as a kid, Steve knew not only that he wanted one—of course he did—but that he was absolutely going to get one. Didn’t matter that they were rare as hell, didn’t matter that every year fewer matches were reported: nope. Steve Harrington had a soulmate, and he was going to find them. When he eventually found out the tragedy of it all, the reason people were celebrating fewer instances of soulmates finding one another, Steve’s feelings on the matter didn’t change. At all. The words that appear to signal your match being the last words they’re meant to speak, before they die? Fuck that.

rating: m ♥️ tags: mid-s4 final battle, canon divergence, eddie says the soulmate words on steve’s skin that double as his last words, steve is having absolutely none of that, canon fix-it, romance, steve stays with eddie to prevent his untimely demise, dustin henderson: surprisingly good with molotov cocktails, happy ending ♥️

for @steddielovemonth day twenty five: “He is half of my soul, as the poets say.” ― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

Steve hears it, nods even and makes to step away—he hears it, but like, it takes a second to sink in.

But once it’s all sunk in, saturated in his cells, his bones?

“Change of plans,” he calls out, and gives a total of no shits if anyone has an objections.

“Henderson.”

Dustin perks up; he might have been playing tough about rolling his eyes over not being a hero but he’s predictable—he likes being important enough to get singled out.

“You think you can hit a target with a flaming bottle while a vine, or a tail, might be trying to strangle you?”

Steve wouldn’t have even had to look to know Dustin’s up for it—suspicion, confusion, those too of course but at least not outright resistance because, again.

Predictable.

He does look at Dustin anyway, though.

Mainly because he knows he won’t find such easy acceptance in any of the other faces gathered around, but like…

Here’s the thing.

From the minute he learned about soulmates as a kid, Steve knew not only that he wanted one—of course he did—but that he was absolutely going to get one. Didn’t matter that they were rare as hell, didn’t matter that every year fewer matches were reported: nope. Steve Harrington had a soulmate, and he was going to find them.

When he eventually found out the tragedy of it all, the reason people were celebrating fewer instances of soulmates finding one another, Steve’s feelings on the matter didn’t change. At all.

The words that appear to signal your match being the last words they’re meant to speak, before they die?

Fuck that.

They said you got the words the year it’d happen, first day. No sense of when, just before the year was over. So, like, it was super simple. Steve would just find them, protect them, make sure they say something else as soon as possible to negate the…the curse of it, save them, and then ride into the sunset. Easy.

And actually, he thought it was pretty fucking stupid that people really bought into the whole thing being, like, a guaranteed recipe for heartbreak. If even Steve could figure out how to navigate the rules that easily.

By high school, he learns that people have tried—which is reassuring, that everyone through all the ages wasn’t that stupid or unimaginative, or so easily resigned to the worst—and they’d failed.

All of them, apparently.

Allegedly.

That part is more of a bummer. But Steve Harrington has known he’d find his soulmate his entire life. And he will. So while now he knows he’s up against almost impossible odds, if the stories are to be believed?

He spends high school practicing. Knowing none of these girls are his forever but learning the long way what works and what doesn’t, how to treat someone with care, how to please someone without question. He gets his reputation: Casanova, but not for keeps. He’s good with that.

By the time the Upside Down had entered his world, it was both the worst thing, and the bestthing. Because alternate dimensions were impossible.

Yet here they were.

And what else had he always been told was impossible?

So it could—would—be possible, too.

Steve wasn’t sure he realized how thin of a thread his hope had been hanging on until it rebuilds in chainlinks the more he sees of the impossible, the more he knows again with all of him that when the time comes, he’ll save them.

Make Him Pay was a weird mark to find on his skin in the early hours of 1986, but it meant that he was right. He had a soulmate.

And he had a whole year to find them. And save them. And ask if they’d like a forever, too.

And how fucking lucky, that it barely takes two months.

Impending apocalypse aside, of course. But those were just details. Practically routine, at this point.

So, again: it takes a couple seconds to sink in. For it to make sense alongside the fluttery feeling he’s been having off and on from the base of his throat to the pit of his stomach, since probably somewhere around the boathouse. He almost gets a full step away, even.

But he doesn’t.

Because this, this right here?

This is what Steve Harrington has been preparing for his whole goddamn life.

Robin—the only other person in the world who knows what’s scrawled on his skin—was too far to hear for herself but he taps the inside of his elbow where the words are branded when she looks at him, flooded with questions but her eyes go wide, she picks it up fast as the answer to basically all of them, then turns to Eddie and they stare at each other, exchanging unspoken confirmations for more wonderings until Robin squares her shoulders, nods at Steve more than once so he knows she’s not just committed to figuring this out with him, but that she supports him, maybe even approves of these cards he’s been dealt to save the beautiful curly haired weirdo standing between them.

Fuck, but he loves her. So much.

“He’s soft on you, Henderson,” she cuts in, takes the reins; “convince me. You any better than you were last summer with squeezing out of tight spots? Particularly, you know,” she flicks her eyes meaningfully over to the angry red lines on Steve’s neck; “those involving psychic sorta-vines, or bat-tails trying to hang you?”

“I…” Dustin still looks a little thrown by the team shakeup but he’s a smart fucking kid, and a quick study when he wants to be: “hypothetically?” He chews on his lip, strokes his chin like he’s putting in real thought, here. “Like, with my cleidocranial dysplasia—”

“Your shoulder blade thing?” Nancy pipes up, a little incredulous, and Steve almost feels for her; she hasn’t spent enough time with Dustin to not only know that she’s wrong, but to know how he reacts when people whose intelligence he respected at least a little bit are the ones who are wrong.

“Collarbone,” he eyes her ruthlessly, wholly unimpressed, then turns back to Robin alone; “but, might be able to wiggle out better?”

Robin nods, considering-like, but Steve can see she’s trying not to laugh a little at how Nancy’s now incredulously gaping at them.

“And how’s your aim?” she asks, a little doubtfully—Dustin doesn’t exactly strike…anyone on-sight as being particularly good at throwing shit and making sure it hits a target.

As in, an intended target.

“I smoke everyone at Front Line,” Dustin announces with absolute confidence before twin snorts come from Steve and Eddie in near-tandem, and he glares hard but admits: “except Max.”

“Oh my god, are we seriously,” Nancy can only be heard if you’re listening close and know what her under-the-breath-disbelief sounds like, not just that they’re having this conversation but that they’re having it, as she says, seriously. And Steve would have missed the sound of it too, save that try as had might have in the most awkward days following the implosion of…everything, with them—he hadn’t forgotten.

But honestly, kinda just…screw her. He won’t pretend it’s not a little fucked that they’re playing a life-or-death battle like it’s picking teams in gym class, but it’s only flippant on the surface. Steve would never, would never trust Dustin where he really didn’t think he could handle himself—maybe it’s not ideal, but he does trust the kid, much as he wishes he could keep him from the frontlines, protect him and let him be exposed to the worst of the horrors as little as possible; but Steve also wouldn’t ever risk Robin, or hell, even Nancy, to himself being as distracted as he’d be not knowing that Eddie was safe.

None of it’s ideal. But what about anything with this monster-mash-realm shit ever has been?

And it’s not like Nancy knows that Steve even has a soulmate. She definitely doesn’t know that he’s just found said soulmate, on his way to the gallows on a coin-toss—and sure, yeah, they all are. But there…it’s just…

There was nothing in this dimension or any other that was tearing Steve away from him, and making damn fucking sure he got to ask that question.

Would he also be interested, as in—would he, too, like a…like a forever.

With Steve.

“Also very much top-three at skee-ball,” Dustin’s adding to his battle-resume; “including Max, there.”

Robin pretends to consider; she looks to Steve—reassures him. She understands, and believes they can do this. That they’ll all be okay. He even thinks—beyond wishful thinking—that her bad feelings about all of this aren’t in play right now in this shakeup. He…breathes a little easier.

“You’re with us,” Robin snaps her fingers and waves Dustin over to her and Nancy; “get ready to light the fucker up.”

“Dustin,” Steve calls the kid back before he can scramble away too quick—way too enthusiastically. He turns, still confused about the change at large but in the moment confused why Steve needs him back but he’s gotta say it, one more time:

“Don’t be a hero,” he says, gripping Dustin’s shoulders and shaking him just a little, squeezing tight before he leans in, stares eye to eye before he pulls the most important card he’s got:

“You die, I die.”

He holds Dustin’s gaze until the kid seems to get that Steve’s as serious as Dustin’s ever been and likely more; until he nods, slow and deliberate and says solemn, like a oath form his dweeb books:

“Okay.”

Then, just as he makes to let go, Dustin’s clamping a hand over one of Steve’s on his shoulder and narrowing his eyes:

“Same goes for you, remember that,” he scolds in advance, because of course he does; “plus, on top of that,” he squeezes Steve’s hand as he uses his free one to shake a pointed finger at him:

“If you told us nothing cute, you can’t change the rules now that you’re staying behind.”

Steve wants to laugh. Wants to bend the rules of the universe so none of them have to separate from each other. But…he trusts the others. And he trusts Robin to understand that he’s not just staying with his soulmate, he’s staying because the die was cast to fight for him, against the end for him, and Eddie’s green to this bullshit where they’re all seasoned vets—he trusts her to take care of herself as he’d take care of her, as half his brain cells and the better half at that, and to make sure the rest of them are as safe as they can be, too.

“Noted,” is all he ends up saying with as reassuring a grin as he manage before giving Dustin a shove toward Rob and Nance that definitely isn’t halfway just so he can keep hold of him a millisecond longer. “Get going,” and he tells himself it’ll be okay; doesn’t know if the toothy grin and the snarky double thumbs-up he gets helps or makes it harder to swallow.

He forces himself to toss a salute toward Robin and turn the fuck away before he ruins his own fucking plan of action by demanding that they all find a way to stick together, restructure from the ground up but really fucking quick—

He forces himself to turn back.

To Eddie. Who is staring at him, a little gape-mouthed. A little fast-blinking.

“The fuck was that?”

Which, okay. Okay, that…that is very fair.

But Steve needs a second. He needs a second to soak in the words, from Eddie’s mouth; to pretend to itch near his elbow to see if the words had changed: no.

No, they’re still the same, and he…right. The words were said. His soulmate’s last words had been said, and now his soulmate has said more words.

Right. He’d managed this much—the hardest part, and he had thought it’d unclench the vise in his chest a little more than this but: fine. Fine, he’s over the biggest hurdle. Keeping Eddie safe is in hishands, now, like he always planned—how could you not save your soulmate—and now he just, he…

He just has to make sure Eddie doesn’t fucking say them again before this is over, and then maybe they’d have a chance.

Maybe…maybe they could even have a forever.

He can fucking do this. He was goddamn born to do this.

Steve takes a deep breath and meets Eddie’s questioning gaze.

The fuck was that, he’d asked. Ha.

“You want the heavy version now, or after?”

Eddie narrows those dangerous fucking doe eyes at him, looks him up and down: sees him.

Steve kinda wants to give in to the urge to shiver for the way that gaze sweeps down him across maybe twenty whole heartbeats and Steve feels more deeply known than he thinks he’s felt…ever. Like this.

Eddie heaves a very deep breath and concedes:

“Guess ‘after’ is fine, given we appear to be on a time crunch.”

That’s the right answer—and it’s enough to spur Steve into immediate motion.

He’s already grabbed Eddie by the frayed edge of his vest and is dragging him into the trailer where he lets go, pauses, zips Eddie’s jacket up all the way to the chin, then starts making his checks.

“The hell are you doing?”

Eddie sounds genuinely baffled, more than anything. It would sound adorable in any other moment.

(Goddamnit, but it still sounds adorable, now.)

“You’ve lived in a trailer,” Steve says as he jumps from one side of the very trailer they happen to be in—one that maybe Eddie used to live in, or maybe just a shell, an echo, a carbon copy—fuck if Steve understands what the Upside Down really is on that level;

“But I used to dream of buying an RV,” he tries to underscore the was of it, the used to: the very intentional past tense.

What he wants now is…a future. Almost any future. With this man. With his soulmate.

Eddie.

What he wants is for Eddie, to want to be his Eddie.

And to want Steve, to be Eddie’s Steve.

“They’re not entirely different, but,” Steve pulls furniture out to aid his manic quest, hears Eddie’s voice stop and start around words, mostly only settle around befuddled noises and squeaks; “one thing all the magazines said to watch for is—”

And then he sees it. Grins like he found the…holy-cup, thingy. World Cup?

The really important thingy.

“The ventilation.”

He points and turns to Eddie with what has to look like the grin of an absolutely crazy person but he doesn’t care one fucking bit.

He is somehow more relieved than he thinks is probably necessary to have found them, but like:

“The vents are often overlooked.”

All the RV magazine made comments about ventilation somewhere. He even read about improperly cleaned vents causing a fire, once.

But now he can cover all the bases. Now, he can protect Eddie. Now he has a fucking shot.

But first:

“We fortify this thing like Fort fucking Knox.”

Eddie takes him to where his uncle keeps most of their home improvement type supplies, which turns out to be under the couch and in various random places in the kitchen. He carries an arm full of tape and scissors, hammers and nails over toward the vents before going back for trip number two.

Eddie’s pulling another roll of duct tape out of another mystery drawer in the kitchen—Steve would ask what they needed so much of it for in ‘83 but it’s working for them, so he keeps his mouth shut—for them to block all possible creases and crevices, top to fucking bottom.

Which is exactly what Steve makes damn fucking sure they do.

“Do you really have to play, like, live? Outside, I mean,” Steve asks from focusing on his tape-job, before he starts boarding up the last possible point of entry, as Eddie starts hooking up the audio for the, y’know, the original diversion part of the plan; “or can you rig it to play like a tape, or something,” he’s grasping at straws, pulling too violently at the tape as he sticks another layer on, maybe the fourth by now and it still feels inadequate; “or can you play from in here—”

“Steve.”

He doesn’t expect Eddie so close, close enough for him to grab Steve’s elbows and still them.

To move his hold down Steve’s forearms. Like…deliberately.

“Let me lure them from out there, at least to make sure they’re taking the bait,” Eddie says, those eyes like the ocean in the dark, near-black and fathomless, but also safe and true and right; “and then we can swap a tape in, we can set that up now real fast, so it’s a quick-change?”

Steve blinks, stares down at Eddie’s hands on his, unexpected but right in a way Steve hadn’t even thought to anticipate, for if he ultimately found that soulmate he was after.

“I need you to stay safe. Please.”

The words catch in Steve’s throat, entirely unplanned, and rip rough over gravel on the way out as he looks up, then, and holds Eddie’s gaze with a level of intent he wasn’t sure he had in him before this very moment:

“Promise me.”

And there’s a second where Steve thinks that’s too much, that it goes too far—

“I swear, Steve,” Eddie barely breathes, but those depthless eyes almost seem now to glow: “I don’t understand, but I promise.”

And they let go of one another, and get back to work but…it all feels more vital now. More charged and absolute.

So when Eddie picks up his guitar, fiddles a little and checks the amps, ensures that this’ll shatter eardrums like it’s meant to—Steve pulls him by the collar, and re-zips every layer on him straight to the top.

“No being cute,” Steve reiterates, but even firmer this time; “no trying to be a hero.”

“Told you that wasn’t my area of expertise,” Eddie smirks enough to hollow a dimple.

“Fuck off,” Steve shoves at him, but not toward the door; not yet; “but you’re already plenty cute, so,” he reaches and straightens Eddie’s battle gear one last time as he takes a breath, clears his throat:

“Stick to the plan.”

It must feel as real in this moment to Eddie as it does to Steve, as final and as much of a risk as anything could ever be—or maybe Steve hadn’t cleared the heart in his throat, seizing up a riot, well enough to hide because Eddie stills, goes very suddenly very deathly pale, and blinks too fast to a long stretch of seconds before he’s the one clearing his throat, stumbling over words at a pitch at least an octave too high:

“Which was?” he asks, shaky, like he’sgrasping at straws now, or else: maybe just grasping.

“Umm,” “Eddie fumbles, and Steve can see the pulse heavy in this neck when he swallows; “just to remind me?”

Steve…Steve always knew whoever his soulmate was, he would love them. It’s just how he’s built. But like, soulmate or not, in this moment?

Steve thinks he’ll walk out of this with his heart on a fucking platter for this man, words on his arm or not.

He moves on instinct, and pulls Eddie into a tight hug, the bracing type to steady him as he whispers close to his ear, maybe too intimate by anyone else’s standards, but honestly?

Everyone else can go fuck thensleves.

“Play until they’re maybe…two minutes out,” Steve bullet-points the plan as clear as he can, wills himself not to be distracted by how Eddie seems to shake with the force of his own pulse. “Then get your ass back in here. We lock down and start the tape.”

He dares to squeeze Eddie close, so tight, just once, before moving his hands to Eddie’s shoulders and searching his eyes for questions—and yeah, also maybe just looking at those eyes.

“Roger that,” Eddie exhales so soft, and swallows hard, grabs for one of Steve’s hands on his shoulder still and squeezes it tight kinda out of nowhere, then they moving.

Steve takes another deep breath to steady himself and, after checking every nook and crack and cranny, and starts getting the tape and nails and boards set up to quick-fire seal the door once Eddie’s safe inside.

He’s freaking out, he’s not gonna sugarcoat or downplay it: but the way his heart’s pounding is kinda split for cause because…even though he knows every note his soulmate plays from the goddamn roof is meant to coax the apocalypse to turn their way—fuck, but Eddie’s good with that fucking guitar.

Steve doesn’t have to be into the genre to appreciate that it’s hot and yeah, okay—there’s no more he can do until Eddie’s inside so maybe he…takes a peek.

Oh yeah. Fucking hot.

He makes himself turn, check the sky: the bats are taking the bait.

They’re close e-fucking-nough.

“Eddie!” he yells it but it’s not enough over the amps so he guesses where a break will come and whistles between his fingers, startling Eddie enough to nearly drop his guitar.

“Inside! Now!” he snaps his fingers as Eddie scrambles down and into the trailer, setting his instrument aside as Steve flips the tape to play, more muted but still ear-splitting enough to take over before he starts taping the door once, twice, cross-cross, a third time—then he grabs for the nails and the panels they’d ripped from anywhere they served a purpose that wasn’t fucking structural, and starts hammering them in, decides another layer of duct tape can’t hurt, then, well, there’s more wood so, again, can’t be too careful—

He’s not expecting the hand reaching out to stop him.

“This the heavier version, then?”

Steve turns toward the rough, shaky words, means to tell Eddie to just wait, let him finish this, they don’t have time, but—

The arm Eddie’s grabbed…his sleeve has runched up. To show the words near his elbow. In…

The words come in your soulmate’s handwriting, right, so Eddie would…would recognize that, even if he forgot saying…

“I,” Steve thinks his mouth moves more than it makes actual noise, and this time his heart pounding isn’t split for its reason in any possible way, no, it’s all tangled up: terror and want and nerves and resolve all mixed together. He tries to read anything from Eddie’s face, from the way he stares at Steve with those wide, wide eyes.

“Yeah?” Steve kinda chokes around it a little—maybe he’s hoping something telling, something readable will shift in Eddie’s expression: no dice. Just staring, and breathing a little heavy, and the chittering of the bats getting ever-closer outside.

Steve breathes out, nails the last panel in and straightens up, looks Eddie straight in those big gorgeous eyes that he desperately wants the chance to drown in later, when this is over.

He really hopes being honest right now doesn’t cost him a chance at later.

“Yeah.”

And in what feels like the last fucking second left before Steve’s heart fucking rips through his skin, Eddie’s face flickers and gives…everything away.

He fucking glows.

“Good,” and Eddie’s breathless with something other than the fear of dying, despite the circumstances, despite the incoming flood of creatures out for their blood; he’s not wholly absent of nerves as he rolls up his own sleeve, but he’s vibrating almost, more than he’s shaking, and it comes through in the words that spill forth in a rush:

“Because this one’s mine.”

And there it is, thrust into Steve’s eyeline, in Steve’s very familiar scrawl:

stick to the plan

He…he remembers saying that. And he remembers Eddie paling so fast Steve would have been scared if they weren’t awaiting a fight for their lives but…

Maybe that hadn’t been it at all.

“Seriously?”

It comes out of Steve breathier than he wants, or expects because…he guesses he never really processed, in all the years and in all the yearning, the planning, the wanting, the…the all of it.

He didn’t really process the soulmate he’d find, finding him back.

“Couldn’t let you stop talking there,” Eddie says, a little small, almost shy; “whether you’d want me or not, I couldn’t—”

And Steve, who had wondered just how bad the nerves were for Eddie to have forgotten the pretty straight forward plan they’d both been working on pretty single-mindedly since they’d split from Dustin and the girls, but now, now he—

The bats will be here in a fucking second.

But fuck it, Steve leans in.

And fuck but Eddie meets him halfway without a second’s hesitation.

Steve maybe hears the bats start to hit the trailer; might be his heartbeat in his ears. He knows he hears Eddie moan and tease Steve’s lips, hears that moan go deeper when Steve’s mouth opens and their tongues find each other and, well.

There’s nothing left for them to do, really. They’ve played their role—and Steve hadn’t battened down the hatches on this place for nothing, after all.

This is a hell of a lot better way to wait out their end of things, by a fucking long shot, regardless—and Jesus.

Steve couldn’t ever have expected Eddie to taste this sweet.

♥️🦇🦇♥️

✨also on ao3

For @stuftzombie (to whom I apologise 1) for completely misreading your prompt and writing this first, and then going back and reading it RIGHT—so like, please tell me if you want a second CORRECT fill now that I’m back online to post one, I can absolutely write the original prompt no problem—I feel both very stupid and also TERRIBLE for somehow making THIS THE PROMPT, and then 2) I also apologise PROFUSELY for the EGREGIOUS delay—I had a folder of prompts that I saved twice, but didn’t realise was a separate file 🫠) who requested SOULMATE AU at my HOBBIT-STYLE BIRTHDAY MONTH PROMPT FEST

✨permanent tag list: OPEN (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @ajeff855 @allmyfavoritethingsinoneblog @anthrobrat @askitwithflours @awkwardgravity1 @bookworm0690 @bumblebeecuttlefishes @captain--low @depressed-freak13 @disrespectedgoatman @dragoon-ze-great @dreamercec @dreamwatch @dreamy-jeans137 @estrellami-1 @eternal-sunflowers @friendlyneighborhoodgaycousin @goodolefashionedloverboi @grtwdsmwhr @gunsknivesandplaid @hiei-harringtonmunson @hbyrde36 @imhereforthelolzdontyellatme @kimsnooks @live-laugh-love-dietrich @madigoround @mensch-anthropos-human @nerdyglassescheeseychick @notaqueenakhaleesi @ollyxar @pearynice @perseus-notjackson @pretend-theres-a-name-here

divider credit here and here

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

Chapter 3: But I Don't Want to Carry On Like Everything Is Fine

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!Reader, Reader POV

Summary: With a birthday printed on your wrist that happened over a hundred years ago, you always thought that you were cursed to never meet your soulmate. But when you finally meet the man that's supposed to be the other half of your soul, you wonder if the stars were wrong, and wonder how this man was meant for you. Reader is Hughie's sister, is not a supe, and is a Literature Professor that gets dragged into the middle of things. This fic takes place in an AU set loosely after Season 3 and does deviate from the plot of The Boys

Tropes: Soulmate AU, Little bit of Grumpy and Sunshine, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Protective Ben/ Soldier Boy, Jealous Ben/Soldier Boy

Warnings: I'm gonna label this one 18+ because it's Soldier Boy and we all know he's a warning. Homophobic comments towards Hughie (It's Soldier Boy y'all), Self deprecating thoughts, ANGST, SADNESS, HEART RIPPING OUT OF CHEST (figuratively because it's what it felt like to write this), Fear? Mentions of past graphic death, Mentions of torture (SB in Russia), Cursing, Mentions of past abuse (verbal abuse and it's SB doing it to someone because… we ALL know), Mentions of drinking, Mentions of Sex, Mentions of Death, Loneliness, Longing, Basically the reader just wants to be loved, Reader wears glasses?, Soldier Boy might be a little OOC.

Word Count: 6.9K

Song Inspiration For Chapter: Love In The Dark By Adele (Title for chapter taken from this song)

Playlist For Series!✨

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

A/N: I know this chapter is a long time coming, but thank you so much to everyone who has loved this series so far, and for encouraging me to come back to it. I hope y'all are strapped in for a ride, because this is when all the angst starts to unfold… But also… I might have changed up the Soulmate AU even more in a crazy more heartbreaking direction so, there's that too

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Guide:

Reader's thoughts are in italics and in first person.

Ben's thoughts in italics, bold, and blue!

Previously:

"I've been looking everywhere for you sweetheart." The man rumbles, the words vibrating against your fingertips where they rest against his muscular chest. He smiles at you and somewhere deep down you feel something break open that you thought was locked away long ago.

And as you stand there looking up at the man you thought you'd never see again, you feel a flicker of something that could grow into a blaze.

You stand there in the silence that follows the words of your soulmate, the rough vibration of his voice still trembling through your fingertips where they lay against his chest, as you stare up into his hypnotic green eyes. The sunlight that streams in from the windows at you back traces the hardened edges of his handsome face turning his dark hair a honeyed brown. A smile pulls at the end of his lips, crinkling his eyes, and bringing a softness to the rugged features that make your heart beat quicken.

He was the most beautiful man you’d ever seen and yet nothing what you’d expected. You briefly wonder if you were what he expected, but judging from the women you'd seen him with in his memories you weren't, given that you looked nothing like them.

The air around the both of you warms as electricity pops and crackles along your skin skittering against the flesh and bringing goosebumps in its wake. A wave of heat travels from where Ben's hand is gently cupping your chin in his calloused fingertips, that makes you feel like you're melting from the inside out.

Nothing else exists in the world except the two of you. There's no need to breathe, no need to see, and no need to speak, because all you know is your soulmate. You can feel the beating of his heart in your own chest, feel the thrum of electricity in his body along your nerve endings, and each breath he takes you can feel vibrate in your lungs.

You'd spent years feeling like a freak, lost, and out of place, but standing here with Ben so close that you can feel his breath on your face, makes you feel whole for the first time in your life.

He's still too far away.

A voice whispers in your ear and you long to close the distance between the two of you, to hold him tight and never let him go.

The date on your wrist sears hotter than it did the first day you met him burning through the foundation once again that you'd smeared across it to hide it  and the golden cord that wove through the air securing his heart to yours seconds ago grows so hot that it turns a blinding white. And just as you think you'll have to shut your eyes from the brilliant light, the cord squeezes your chest to tight it takes your breath away.

You inhale sharply as a flood of emotions comes washing over you that aren't your own, memories that you'd only seen in your dreams flash through your mind as if you lived them, and Ben's eyes widen as he feels the same thing. His heart beats in tandem with yours, the space between you growing to almost nothing as the cord yanks you so close that you can feel his breath on your lips and his hands fall to your hips to steady you against him, sending goosebumps prickling over your body with his touch.

You'd read about what it was like to meet your soulmate before and people had tried to tell you, but for everyone it was different and no one ever described as anything like this. Especially not happening a second time after they'd crossed paths.

This shouldn't be happening, we've already met.

But you know you're not imagining this, you know that your soul is singing to Ben's, calling out to his and both of them are twisting between the two of you, weaving you together, binding you as one.

The spark in the pit of your stomach you felt the moment Ben's eyes locked with yours has begun to flare again until it burns into a wild-fire, but it's not love you feel, not compassion, not relief, or love, it's fear.

It sobers you.

Its cold finger drags down your spine and seizes in your chest, wiping away whatever else you're feeling for the handsome man standing only millimeters from you.

The Ben's memories you re-lived in your dreams come roaring back like a lion over a kill, each one more horrific than the last.

You see your soulmate standing triumphantly over bodies burned beyond recognition, see him beating someone into submission his fists splattered with red, watch as he laughs at the torment of his younger teammates and then opens his mouth to say something so repulsive it makes your skin crawl, and you see the proud smirk when he knows he's won, when he knows that he can't be beaten and no one can stop him.

He had no remorse in any of those moments, no compassion, no regret, there was only the pride and arrogance that comes with his belief that he had bested whomever attempted to challenge him.

Nothing about him is gentle, caring, or kind and nothing about him is anything like you.

You who'd never been in a fight your entire life, you who tried your hardest to make sure that no one ever felt what it was like to be alone as you had for so many years, you who always put others first, and you who tried to always find something kind to say about someone else.

Everything about your soulmate and who he is terrifies you, chills you to your core and wipes away the sensations that skittered along your skin and buried themselves in your heart moments ago.

He can't be mine. Not someone like him. Please no, anyone but him.

Your soulmate's head tilts to the side and his eyebrows furrow with confusion, mouth twitching into a frown, and you realize that he can feel your fear, maybe even hear it in the quick pulse of your heart or maybe he could smell it.

You weren't sure how his powers worked, all you knew was that you'd seen what he'd done with them, you’d seen the kind of person he was, and you wanted no part of that even if it meant being alone.

You'd spent your entire life waiting for this moment and now you wish it never came.

The cord between you snaps, the sound like breaking glass, but the man's emotions still remain in your head. You feel his confusion, his apprehension, and underneath it all you feel something else, something vulnerable that flicks away in an instant.

You step back from him, allowing his hands fall from your waist, prepared to run, needing to put as much distance between the two of you, but his fingers closes hard on your wrist just over his birthdate, hard enough to bruise.

I have to get of here.

"Where are you going?" He asks, his voice gruff, the sound of water over rocks, smoothing the sharp edges, answering your thought with a question.

"Please let me go." You say, unable to catch your breath and tugging at where his hand tightens around your wrist.

The feeling of his skin pressed to yours is overwhelming, begging you to curve into him, to sink into the warmth of your soulmate and never resurface for air.

But you can't. The fear is there, rising in the back of your throat, clamping down hard and stopping the rush of oxygen to your brain.

You weren't like Butcher, you didn’t hate supes, but you also weren't unrealistic or clueless about them. You didn't believe that all of them were bad, because with the bad came the good.

Your brother's soulmate Annie was proof of that, a supe that wasn't evil or callous or on a power trip to make others submit to her will. She cared for other people, used her powers to help others, but not all supes were like her.

Your brother had told you to stay away from supes like your soulmate, warned you about Homelander before he vanished, and warned you that not all supes were as they appeared. Although, Hughie had tried hard to keep his life separate from yours, Butcher believed you had a right to know that the supes who promised safety and freedom would be the first to take it away from you.

The stories Butcher had told you about Homelander kept you awake at night fearing for your brother and Annie’s safety, and your own. You knew that the new leader of the Seven, Stormfront, was just as bad, if not worse.

As much as you believed in the strength of your brother's soulmate, there was another part of you that knew she might not be a match for Stormfront, at least not on her own.

You yank your hand again trying to break his grip, but it doesn't move from Ben's grasp.

Why is she trying to leave?

Ben's voice in your head makes you hesitate, eyes widening as you look up into his face. You knew that Ben didn't say that out loud and yet you'd heard it. 

Holy shit, how can I hear his thoughts? Can he hear mine?

You weren't a supe and you didn't understand why you could hear his thoughts and feel his emotions, or why you hadn't been able to feel or hear them in the year since the two of you met.

What the fuck is going on? Ben's voice says louder in your head and you don't understand what the hell was going on. No one in history had ever been able to hear their soulmate's thoughts or their emotions, you knew that for a fact.

"Let me go!" You say louder.

All other sounds of whispered conversations and tinkling glasses have stopped as everyone in the room turns to stare at the two of you.

Your emotions were overwhelming, the part of you screaming to run away fighting with the urge to get closer to Ben.

His confusion floods into you as well as a slew of other emotions from him that you can’t put a name to. He doesn't understand why you're trying to get away from him and why he can feel your emotions either.

"But-" Ben begins to say.

You're my soulmate. His thought finishes in your head.

"Let her go." Hughie says appearing on your left.

The confused look in Ben's eyes shifts to annoyance, the green hardening within a second. "Fuck off. This isn't your problem." He snarls gaze flicking to your brother who looks closer to anger than you'd seen him in years.

Ben's anger and annoyance comes in a wave of heat, scorching up your arms and into your chest, clawing against your ribcage.

What the hell is happening?

"Oi let her go mate." Butcher's voice joins Hughie's and you can feel the presence of the other man hovering just over your shoulder.

Truthfully you liked Butcher. You thought he was funny and that he cared more about other people more than he was willing to let on. Not to mention after he lost his Soulmate, Becca, Butcher didn't have much to do, so you’d invite him over for movie nights with Annie and Hughie so you didn't feel like the awkward fourth wheel. Butcher was as much your friend as he was Hughie's.

I didn't fucking ask to butt in you British cunt. Ben's thought burns through your body with a wave of his anger and you can feel the heat of his skin raise.

Another shiver of fear courses down your spine at the thought of Ben losing control and burning you alive just as he had done to his teammates.

Ben's eyes drop back to yours when you whimper in pain, trying to free your wrist from his grasp, and this time Ben releases you.

The warmth you felt from touching his skin is gone, leaving only a dull throb in your wrist as you clutch it to your chest, eyes wide with fear and horror.

Ben's eyes drag down your body to your wrist and you can feel a flicker of something that might be guilt, but you're not sure if he can feel things like that. All you know is that you have to get away from him.

Why is she afraid of me?

Ben's thoughts are back, vibrating through your skull and bringing a wave of emotion with it that's not yours. You back away from him, but Ben takes a step forward to fill the space you left behind reaching for you again.

"Don't touch me." You whisper, throat thick. You couldn't tell what were his emotions and what were yours colliding in your head, all you knew was that you didn't want him anywhere near you.

Stay away from me! You think taking another step back. Ben tilts his head to the side in confusion.

He takes another step towards you still not comprehending what is happening, frustration and confusion burning through the air between the two of you.

You'd seen the short temper your soulmate had, saw what happened to people on the wrong side of it, and you cringe away from him in fear. You didn't want to be on the receiving end of his fist or whatever the hell he had locked away in his chest.

Please don’t hurt me.

The thought comes before you can stop it and you watch something flash in Ben’s eyes that looks surprisingly like hurt.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Ben says, eyebrows furrowing together. “I’m your soulmate, I’d never hurt you.”

It confirms what you already know, that Ben can hear your thoughts just as you can hear his.

You back up into Butcher's chest and he drops his hands down on your shoulders to make you feel better.

Get your fucking hands off of her. She's mine!

Ben's voice roars in your head. The wave of jealousy and rage that you feel rip through your body at the feeling of Butcher's touch scorches against your insides.

"You should go." Hughie says calmly, but you can hear an edge to his voice.

"I'm not going fucking anywhere you overgrown glory hole!" Ben snaps, eyes flashing in the light of the sun behind you, the soft green long gone, but falling on you once more.

Why is she acting like she's not my soulmate? Like she doesn't want me?

Ben's voice asks in your head, the words snagging in something deep down that you thought you locked away years ago, the empty place inside that you longed for someone to fill, the empty place you knew that this man was supposed to belong.

No. No. No. Why is this happening to me?

"Hey, you don’t get to fucking speak to him like that in our house!" Annie shouts back at Ben, her eyes narrowed at the man who was at least two heads taller than she was.

It was all too much. You couldn't be here, not with all these people watching you. You move out of Butcher's grip and around Ben as close as you dare, trying to get to the front door and away from him. You could feel everyone's eyes on you and hear their silent judgement.

It reminded you too much of your childhood, the one you spent wishing that the whispers and odd looks would stop, the one when people would cross to the other side of the road like you had something contagious, the one where you felt so alone that you couldn't standing it and when you wished that someone, anyone, would fill the hole you felt inside for far too long. The same hole that you couldn't feel when Ben was touching you.

"Wait-" Ben begins to say, voice gruff, while trying again to grab you, but you dodge his hand and run full speed at the front door of the apartment.

Come back.

There's something behind those words that grates against your heart, but you don't turn around.

Hughie and Annie shout your name, but you're already gone. You can’t be here, not now, not with him standing there, not when he's everything you'd thought you'd never have and yet, everything that you fear.

Your footsteps pound against the cracked pavement, the world around you a soundless blur with every pump of your arms. Rain swats against your skin as you run, each slap of your bare feet against cracked pavement mirroring the thunder that shakes the buildings around you.

You'd lost your shoes the minute you broke into a run outside Hughie and Annie's apartment, and you were too afraid to go back for them.

Water trickles down your spine, bringing the chill of the rain with it, but you can’t feel it, the only thing you feel is the flood of emotions you'd had since the moment you ran into your soulmate again, the one who left you on the street one year ago like you meant nothing to him. 

Funny, when that happened you thought that was the worst of it, but it wasn't.

What did I do to deserve this?

Flashes of your soulmate's memory echo the lightning above, the horrors you witnessed in the sweet abyss of sleep that haunted your mind. Bloody fists, blackened bodies, harsh laughter, and clips of dialogue play through your mind on a sickening loop.

You ran as if you thought you could leave it all behind, as if you could leave him behind, but he was everywhere. He was in the faces of the people in the crowds, in the sound of the thunder, in the thrum of your blood through your veins, in each beat of your heart, and in each breath you took.

The look he had on his face when you fled was there, bringing a wave of guilt for leaving him behind the way that he left you one year ago.

But he left me before he knew me. I know him. I've seen what he's done. I-

The thought brings the memory of the hurt that flashed through Ben's eyes at the apartment back into your head.

In all the memories you'd seen of him, you'd never seen him look hurt, but it was there somewhere, slipping through whatever warped telepathy the two of you had, the telepathy you didn't understand.

How could someone you waited for your whole life fill you with such dread? How could the man who was the other half of your soul, be anything like the man you met?

In the past you'd tried to imagine who it would be, what your soulmate would look like, how he'd treat you, and what kind of man he'd be. You'd seen a faceless man holding sunflowers out to you, a man holding you while you cried, a man sitting with you curled on the couch while you read through one of your favorite books with your head leaning on his shoulder, a man taking you to bed while your fingers clasped his above your head and the soft sound of his voice telling you how much he loved you, a man who touched you reverently, as if you were something to be worshipped, a man who made you feel safe and who would listen when you talked to him, a man who remembered the little things, a man who took care of you, and a man who sat with you while you graded papers and sighed to yourself at the end of a day that seemed endless.

Now it all seemed like a big lie, because your soulmate could never be that man. You'd seen exactly who and what he was.

The idea that you were cursed seemed to fit now, because there had to be something or someone above laughing at your expense, making you suffer all the years you were alone dreaming of a man who could be those things for you only to give you the one man who could be none of them.

Annie and Hughie were perfect in every way. All the little things that made each of them unique molded together to create something beautiful. They loved each other in a way that made your chest hurt to look at them.

You'd wanted that so badly for so long.

And now the stars laughed at you because they'd given you him.

You didn't think it would be possible for you to ever love someone like him. Someone who took from others and gave none in return, someone who found joy in the submission of others, and someone who hurt and killed with no remorse.

Monsters did that, men who thought the world owed them something or rather that the world should submit to them, men who took and took and never once cared what it did to the people around them, and men who never saw anyone else as an equal.

In the past you'd thought that your soulmate of all people would see you as something more than just a possession, but rather something that strengthened him, made him stronger with your love and care, made him a better man, and a man who saw you as someone, not something.

People clear out of your way, parting to watch what they must believe is a woman driven mad, running shoeless, down the streets of NYC in the middle of a torrential downpour.

And maybe you were crazy to run from someone who looked like your soulmate did.

There was no denying that he was gorgeous. He looked like he stepped right out of a book, the dashing dark-hared brooding hero with sharp features and green eyes you wished to lose yourself in. Your soulmate looked like every lead male character you'd imagined and fallen in love with in every book you ever read. The novels you read when everything in the real world was disappointing and bleak, the ones that opened their pages and welcomed you home, promised an escape from the mediocre and enveloped you in the extraordinary.

He looked like everything you ever wanted. Something taken from your unconscious and made real.

Why me?

The fear was back, the cold trickle that became a roar blocking out the little voice inside your head that scolded you and told you to turn around and go back to him, that you needed him, the little voice that told you he was yours, that he was made for you, just as you were made for him. The voice that promised after years of being alone and filled with a cold, empty feeling, all you had to do was turn around and run back to the sun.

But you can't go back, because you're not sure if your soulmate is even human anymore.

In the past your bathtub had been a place of solace where you could have a nice glass of wine and lose yourself in a good book, but today the warm water did little to sooth the anxiety prickling on the back of your neck.

There was a Rosemary Mint candle lit on the small counter next to the sink sending a flickering yellow light over the worn subway tiles in your bathroom. One of two candles Annie had gifted you for Christmas in a handmade basket full of things to pamper yourself and a candle that was supposedly good for "stress relief" but you were prepared to call bullshit on that given the state of your nerves.

The plush white bathrobe hanging on the back of your bathroom door, the jar of soothing lavender bath salts nestled into the elbow of your tub, and the face masks scattered on the bathroom counter also came from the same basket.

All of which served as another reminder of how perfect she was for your thoughtful and caring brother.

The thought brings a wave of sadness over you and you lean your head into your knees.

None of this was helping.

You couldn't remember coming home, didn't remember running up the creaky stairs to your floor, didn’t remember passing by Mrs. Charleson's apartment with the happily painted yellow door, didn't remember unlocking the five locks on your apartment door, and certainly didn't remember slipping into the warm bath you found yourself in.

The only thing you could remember was meeting your soulmate, feeling the warmth of his caress over your skin, hearing the smooth rumble of his voice like distant thunder, and seeing how the memories you'd seen did not do justice to the handsome and rugged features he had.

A shiver of fear follows and your tighten your arms around your knees.

It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to be different.

You think to yourself as your eyes drift to the hand print on your wrist, the one that had already begun to turn an ugly blue and ironically was curved over the birthdate that glowed gold in the flickering light.

Why him?

A wave of guilt comes swiftly when you think of the way he looked at you when you thought that in front of him.

How could he hear my thoughts? How could I hear his thoughts and feel his emotions?

There were so many things about the soulmate bond the two of you had that made no sense. You knew for a fact that no one else could see their soulmates memories when they slept, but the ability to hear your soulmate's thoughts and feel his emotions? It was impossible. And unless someone had spiked your drink with compound V at the party, you still weren't a supe and had no idea what the hell was going on!

But you were thankful that you couldn't hear Ben's thoughts and emotions right now. You didn't know why that was and hoped it meant that it only happened when you were around him or hoped it meant that it would never happen again.

The memory of how you met Ben again sends a warm feeling from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. Another mystery… why it was like that to meet Ben the second time.

None of your friends ever told you that it was like that to run into your soulmate a second time.

Then again what other soulmate leaves you standing in the street alone?

The golden cord glows behind your eyelids, the cord that bound Ben's heart to yours for a few precious seconds, a moment that lasted forever. You'd never heard anyone talk about a golden cord before either. Annie said that when she met Hughie it felt like fireworks, but she never talked about feeling like she was bound to your brother or told you that it was anything like what you’d experienced with Ben.

What the hell is going on?

When you'd told Mrs. Charleson that you were dreaming Ben's memories she'd said that she'd heard a myth about it, that it meant the two of you were "meant to share more than one lifetime together," (whatever that meant), but she'd never mentioned anything about a cord that wove soulmates together. You would have gone to talk to her after the train wreck that happened at the party, but you knew that she was still at work.

Despite the fact that she had more than enough money to retire, your neighbor argued that people "who slowed down got old." She'd been running a successful apartment and house cleaning business for years, but about a year ago a man had hired her to clean his apartment and cook for him full time. He'd offered her so much money that your neighbor no longer needed to clean anyone else's home and was employed as his housekeeper.

You didn't know anything about him, didn't even know his name, but your neighbor said he was a kind young man who often reminded her of her son and was richer than a piece of french silk pie. You supposed he was a wall-street guy or the founder of some tech company, but you couldn’t believe the descriptions of his apartment she told you or the pictures you'd shown you.

It sounded and looked like a palace so far in the air it might as well be a castle in the sky, but you wanted to see it in person.

You did like your apartment, but it was too small even just for you. The thought of having a place where you could have a real desk, sunlight, consistent water pressure, a breathtaking view, and no super who only responded to twenty dollar bills and asked you for pictures of your feet daily sounded heavenly.

Not to mention it would be nice not to live somewhere with walls so thin you could hear your neighbors having obnoxiously loud sex at all hours of the night like bats. You had no idea how they ever got anything done with so little sleep.

And yeah, maybe Mrs. Charleson and you had made fun of the guy's decorating choices, but you figured that maybe he just needed someone to help him pick out furniture that was a little more comfortable to make his apartment seem less like a museum and more like a home. Mrs. Charleson had said he was single anyway, which meant that guy probably hadn't met his soulmate and when he did, they would help him out.

The front door of your apartment opens and fear momentarily spikes at the thought of it being your soulmate, that he'd somehow figured out where you lived, and he'd find you naked and vulnerable in the bathtub.

But then you hear your brother shout your name from your living room and a wave of relief crashes over you.

"I'm in the tub." You yell back.

Honestly, you didn't feel like talking to anyone, not after the day you had. You wanted to forget it happened, to go to bed and go to work tomorrow as if everything were normal and not as if your life was falling apart. It always felt like it was falling apart, but today was exceptionally heart breaking.

"Can you come out?" Hughie asks. You can hear him lean his head against the door of your small bathroom and you imagine his frown.

"I don't feel like talking right now." You reply pushing your face further into your knees.

"I brought tacos."

You hesitate for a second. Your brother and you had always been close. Sure there were those awkward sibling moments and a little bit of sibling rivalry and times when Hughie annoyed you to no end, but he was your best friend. It was him who encouraged you to become an English teacher despite the constant disapproval from your parents, him who loaned you enough money to get out from under their roof and start your own life, and him who always knew just the way to cheer you up… hence the tacos.

"And a blind date from Inky's Inspirations." He continues.

Damnit.

Inky's Inspirations was your favorite used book store. You had spent many a weekend curled up in one of the holey reading chairs with a worn paperback in your hand, letting the rest of the world fall away while you were lost in a book that whisked you away on ink and paper with gentle prose. The store had started doing "blind dates," wrapping up books in brown paper with descriptors like "Will melt your panties" or "Made me realize I have a bondage kink" or "Supernatural creature hunter vibes" or "In case you're curious about what the inside of the Loch Ness monster looked like."

That last one had been a supernatural romance that you still weren't sure if you liked it or not. It had been interesting...

But you were under the impression that no one could have too many books. The books scattered all over your apartment and stacked up so high they hit the ceiling were proof of that.

You sigh to yourself cursing your thoughtful brother. "Give me a second."

When you come out of your bathroom wearing your favorite soft t-shirt and sweatpants, your brother envelops you in a warm hug, and unfortunately undoes the little relaxation you felt when you took a bath and makes you begin to cry.

Worse was that a little part of you wished that it wasn't your brother but your soulmate who was here holding you, or rather the version of the soulmate you'd invented in your head, not the man you’d seen earlier.

It made all of this worse, that you were still so alone and sometimes you couldn’t understand how you could feel so alone with so many people in your life who cared about you. But you wanted him, wanted the other half of your soul to hold you close against him, to feel the warmth of his body curving around yours as he told you that everything was going to be okay.

It hurt more than you knew it would, especially now that you knew he existed.

Sobs shake through your body as you cling to your brother and rub your nose into the front of his shirt as everything from today washes over you all over again. Meeting your soulmate again after a year, having all those feeling and emotions roll through you, seeing flashes of his memories again, and running away from him as fast as you could.

You felt lost and yet there was a voice whispering in your ear that told you that the only place that you could be found was back with the man who held the other half of your soul.

"Shh. It's alright." Hughie soothes, rubbing his hand up and down your back. "It's okay."

It was the same thing that he used to tell you when you were younger and nothing made sense, when it felt like you were a freak because of the date printed on your wrist.  The same days when you'd ask yourself the ultimate question: would it be okay?

But now you knew the truth… it wouldn't be.

Because you'd hoped and prayed to meet your soulmate every day of your life, and now that you had, you wished that it never happened, because the man who grabbed you so hard it bruised your skin couldn't be the man you imagined falling in love with when you were a little girl.

"Are you okay?" Hughie asks you.

"No." You murmur pulling back to clean your tear smudged glasses.

Hughie was still wearing the light blue button down shirt from the party, and you feel a wave of guilt crash over you thinking that you ruined his and Annie's housewarming party.

Your brother presses his lips together. "I'm sorry-" He begins to say, but you interrupt.

"I'm the one who should be saying that."

"What? Why?"

"Well I ruined your party and-"

"Are you kidding? No you didn't! That asshole did-" Hughie frowns. "I don't know what he was thinking grabbing you like that."

You swallow the lump in the back of your throat remembering the grip Ben had on your arm.

"Did he hurt you?" Hughie picks up your hand to examine your wrist, frowning at the handprint. "What a dick!"

Your brother didn’t usually get angry, he was more of a suffer in silence kind of person who kept all their emotions a little more close to their chest, but he looks livid. "I swear the next time I see him I'm going to give him a piece of my mind. He shouldn’t have fucking grabbed you like that-"

The thought of your gentle brother yelling at Ben makes a lump of worry catch in the back of your throat. You didn't want Ben to hurt your brother, he was only person in your entire family that made you feel like you belonged.

"Hughie calm down, it's okay."

It wasn't and you both knew it.

"No it's not. He could have broken your arm!" He snaps.

"He didn't." You murmur.

But he could have.

Those words are like taking a bullet to the chest. You’d seen exactly what your soulmate was capable of and exactly how he acted when he didn’t get his way.

What did I do to deserve this?

"That doesn't matter! He didn't have a right to treat you like that. Like you're-"

"His." The word comes out before you can stop it. "But I kind of am." You shudder at the confession.

Even if you didn't want Ben in your life, it didn't change anything. He was still your soulmate. Every part of him was molded and shaped for you just as every part of yourself was molded and shaped for him.

Ben was yours, but you didn't want to be his.

Hughie shakes his head. "He might be your soulmate but you don't belong to him. You're not his property-"

"I know that but-" Your voice breaks under the weight of everything crashing back down over you. "How can he be my soulmate?"

Hughie whispers your name, but you keep talking. It was coming out of you, everything that you had pushed down, all the emotions you'd had as a child, because you didn't want to keep going like everything was fine, it wasn't.

It never had been.

"Why is he my soulmate? How are we anything alike? He's-" A memory of Ben ripping someone in half comes across your mind and it makes you feel nauseous.

"I mean I-" The tears were coming fast again now, hot against your cheeks. "I waited all these years, thought that he'd never exist, thought that I was going fucking crazy staring at this damn date on my wrist and after years of feeling like a freak I find out that the man I've been waiting for is him? How is any of this fair?"

"It's going to be-"

"Stop saying that!" You shout, hands clenched at your sides. "It's not Hughie! It's not going to be okay and I'm so sick of hearing you say it. Not everyone can be happy all the time and have a perfect soulmate. Some of us are fucking stuck with a barbarian who doesn't give a shit about anyone else and kills people for sport!"

Hughie recoils with your words and you feel guilty.

You didn’t mean to hurt his feelings and you knew that your brother was here to help you, but you were just so frustrated and confused over everything that had happened today. You had no idea what was going on and what any of this meant. It all made you feel helpless and you hated feeling like that.

"He's-" You squeeze your eyes shut as if it'll make the thoughts stop, but it doesn't. "He's nothing like me! He's-" The image of a body laying at Ben's feet comes flashing through your head with him standing triumphantly over it. "He's a monster."

You hadn't said it out loud until right now only thought it. The word seems harsh, but you didn't know what else to call a person who killed and hurt other people with no remorse. In all the memories that you’d relived of your soulmate that was the ingredient missing.

Remorse.

Regret.

Guilt.

Shame.

All were things that would have made you reconsider going back to Ben if he'd felt those things after killing or hurting someone, but you didn't feel a shred of any when you watched him tear people apart with his bare hands.

You wonder if it had something to do with being tortured in the lab all those years, if being put through that changed him, but you’d seen memories of him acting just as terrible years before that happened.

"Someone like him isn't capable of feeling love! You can't do all the things he has with no remorse and still be capable of that." By now you were babbling, your voice barely recognizable from the sobs and shaky breaths you kept taking to stabilize yourself, but the truth was you were on the verge of a panic attack. Your eyes shift to your brother's concerned expression. "I'm sorry Hughie I-"

Hughie hugs you again, holding you so tight against him that it hurts. “You don’t have to be sorry. I know you’re frustrated. And I don't understand why he's your soulmate either. You have no idea what I’ve seen him do.“

“I don't know what to do.” You whisper into his shirt with a sniffle, still trying to calm the rapid breathing and beat of your heart, but nothing was working.

Because what the hell should you do?

You'd lived so long believing that you’d never meet your soulmate and even though the thought of being around him terrified you, there was another part of you that was begging you to go back to him.

The fantasy version of Ben manifests again, the one you'd imagined when you were a little girl dreaming of the day you'd get to meet the man who would complete you. Now those fantasies mocked you, every year you spent celebrating the birthday of your soulmate alone in the darkness of your apartment, every minute you spent trying to shrug off the taunts of the people in your hometown and your own parents when they saw the date on your wrist, and every second you spent hoping that it would happen to you while a little voice in your head told you it wasn't meant to be, that someone above cursed you to be alone forever.

All the hope you'd felt was a lie.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this and now that I’ve seen what he’s done I… I don't think I could ever love someone like him."

"No one is asking you to." Your brother says.

"I know that, but- He's still my soulmate."

I want to love him. A little voice deep inside said, it was the same one that was begging you to give Ben a chance, but you ignored it. You had seen the kind of man he was and you wanted no part of him in your life.

You take in a shaky breath and pull back from Hughie to examine the handprint shaped bruise on your wrist right over the golden birthdate that glows against your skin. "I'd rather be alone than be with him.”

The words hurt to admit to yourself, especially after all the years you’d spent wishing that you wouldn’t be alone and watching everyone else get the happy ending you so desperately wanted.

But none of that mattered now. Soulmate or not, everything about Ben scared you, and it didn't matter that the universe said he was yours, you knew in your heart that he couldn't be and that you'd never be able to love someone like him.

And miles away, on the other side of the bustling city that never sleeps, your soulmate sat on the end of his large bed in his empty apartment and looked down at his own wrist, tracing an ugly blue bruise that looked surprisingly like a handprint over your golden birthdate, and the first bruise he'd had in over eighty years.

A/N: Welp, I told y'all it was sad and oh my stars it broke my heart to do this to Ben. 😭 I'd like to say that the next chapter I have planned is less sad... but oh man I think it's worse 😅

As always thank you so much for reading! Reblogs, comments, and likes are not required, but are always welcome and appreciated! I really love hearing what y'all think. ❤️ If you'd liked to be added to the taglist for this series please let me know :)

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